The synonyms for Philanthropy are giving, charity, alms, donation, benefaction, patronage, generosity, humanitarianism, beneficence amongst others. Philanthropy in essence is the active effort and contribution to promoting human welfare and social causes that encompass humanity, social issues, and our environment.

Philanthropy is a very personal endeavor, its impact and rewards tend to be greater when your giving is relevant to your life, your life experiences, and your life journey.

To achieve a meaningful and impactful philanthropic initiative, there are some guiding lights that we must bear in mind. These are considered below:

Setting your objectives

Making out time to articulate your giving or philanthropic objectives is essential, as this brings clarity for the entire journey. You should also think about your own personal beliefs and passions and shape your giving around those passions and beliefs.
It is also important to think about past experiences with your giving, what you enjoy doing, what you have found frustrating, what has held you back from giving more and what you have learned most.

Giving can take different forms, we can give our time, knowledge, resources, money, assets amongst others. Goals for giving can be targeted at:

• supporting a specific cause that reflects your personal beliefs, experience, and passions, such as helping disabled children to live a more fulfilled life or providing clean water or sanitation.
• spending your time productively by passing on your family values to the younger generation; and
• helping ‘disadvantaged youth’ in your own community etc.

Once you have set out your objectives, you need to translate these objectives into something practical and achievable that reflects your resources (what you are ready to commit to or part with/give). once there is clarity, there will be a multitude of different ways to achieve your set objective.

Developing a Strategy

Developing a strategy for your giving helps when you want to build a sustainable giving initiative that strives and endures despite death, physical incapacitation, or other challenges. The questions to work through in articulating a strategy are:

• What is the focus of my giving?
• How much time, resources and assets do I want to commit?
• How engaged do I want to be as a sponsor or donor?
• What types of organizations or initiatives do I want to support, and what kind of funding/resources can I offer?

While you may already know specifically where you want to direct your giving and donations, the reality is that many people find it difficult to prioritize the range of pressing social and environmental needs that surrounds and resonates with them, whereby questions like; should I support children’s hospices/orphanages, save a dilapidating primary healthcare center or local school, or provide scholarships for rural indigents? There is no right or wrong answer, and many people choose to spread their giving across multiple issues. But if you can define a clear focus for your giving, it will allow you to have a planned and strategic giving that aims to tackle specific issues close to your heart.

However, before activating your strategic plans, it is important to first assess the needs of your focus area; that is, understanding the key problems that need to be addressed and where funding or resource gaps exist. There are many areas of focus when it comes to activating a strategic plan, amongst which are:

Giving within your local community
Donors choose to give locally for different reasons; their desire to improve their local area, personal experience (e.g., supporting their local schools and hospitals), a belief that supporting small local organizations can have a great impact, etc. Giving locally is one of the easiest ways to really see what difference your money or time is making, and this can be incredibly rewarding.

Giving nationally or outside of your local community
In this context, we mean giving outside of your immediate local community or environment because over time we may have drifted from our local community to other places.
Giving within this context is mostly seen by donors as a way of reaching areas of greatest need and achieving maximum impact with their resources. The Donors who set their focus on giving externally understand the importance of giving to help develop educational or health services or any given strategy in a larger and expansive sphere.

Getting involved in Venture Philanthropy
Venture philanthropy entails giving out funding or assets that support a social initiative but with an investment approach. Venture philanthropy adopts some principles of venture capital such as detailed evaluation or hands-on support to organizations that provide public benefits such as charities and social enterprises.

Venture philanthropists work in partnership with a wide range of organizations that have a clear social objective, charities, social enterprises, or socially driven commercial businesses. Venture philanthropists focus on social initiatives or organizations that have rapid growth, significant development of new products or services. An example of venture philanthropy we like to share within our local context is funding a market space or kiosk for indigent women to start their trade and after a specified duration, such women return the funds with a symbolic return that allows other women to benefit from the same initiative and in effect leads to a continuous cycle of uplifting indigent women from poverty.

In the subsequent edition, we will share insights on choosing vehicles or structures to use in our giving or philanthropic journey, that is, charities or social benefit organizations as well as why it is important to assess and measure your giving and philanthropic initiatives against its impact.

At Fiduciary Services Limited, we are expert philanthropy advisors, we assist to identify suitable structures/vehicles that support your giving objective as well as projects and organizations which resonate and meet the focus areas of a donor. We help givers to be more strategic and more impactful in their philanthropy journey. We are experienced in long-listing projects based on clients’ interests, and short-listing candidates for support based on detailed due diligence. You can choose what level of involvement to have in this process; you may want to identify projects or initiatives yourself and ask us to conduct due diligence. Send us an email at contact@fiduciaryservicesltd.com to begin your philanthropic journey!