My Asian Venture Philanthropy Adventure

My background lies squarely in so-called, traditional philanthropy – especially major gifts – and in corporate partnerships, including sponsorship. Venture philanthropy was something that I was aware of but in which I claimed no expertise. When drawn into conversations with people who worked in the venture philanthropy field I found myself mystified by the jargon. Last week, however,  I attended the very first Asian Venture Philanthropy Network Conference in Singapore.  I now pronounce myself much more enthusiastic.

One thing that won my heart was the admission by one of the key note speakers that venture philanthropy has been around for aeons.  In fact it has. Depending on your own definition, original philanthropy was exactly that - venture philanthropy. Islamic philanthropists established schools, hospitals, hostels and soup kitchens as ventures to serve humanity. In the mid-13th century most of Egypt's agriculture and Cairo's buildings were funded by philanthropic endowments. Mediaeval Italy saw the first successful micro-finance schemes the Montes Pietatis. The first social housing was funded by the 15th century Fugger family. Fast forward to 18th-century Britain where successful Victorian industrialists and financiers funded urban housing projects and industrial villages.  London's University and Queen's colleges were funded by shares. Many British provincial universities grew out of a mixture of philanthropic subscriptions and capital endowments.

I was also gladdened by the admission of many attending that they were equally uncertain of the true definition of venture philanthropy. It is a slippery beast. In fact many speakers were comfortable with the concept of a continuum of philanthropy embracing traditional philanthropy at one end and the newer philanthropic financial instruments at the other. Several people talked of the importance of blended solutions. There was a refreshing lack of dogmatism.

Equally encouraging was a spectrum of views about the role of metrics in impact analysis.  Many made the important point that how and what you measure depends on what your intended outcomes are. Some agreed that, sometimes, stories of impact were as effective, if not more so, than statistics. There was agreement that both stories and stats have their role to play.

What was most exciting though was the palpable commitment of the 300 or so attending, drawn from all over Asia, to using wealth in creative and flexible ways to meet the many challenges of the region and of humanity in general. Those attending were a mixture of individual philanthropists, philanthropy intermediaries and nonprofits. All were comfortable in each other's company sharing ideas, successes and failures. All recognising that we are living extraordinary times that require extraordinary measures and imaginative and daring philanthropy. In Asia we are surrounded by great wealth and great poverty. To create a more equitable sustainable world requires commitment and risk taking by those that are fortunate by birth, education and success in business.

An encouraging aspect of the gathering was the number of young educated people of all nationalities committed to using their financial and /or intellectual capital to serve their fellow men.

One of the more persuasive cases of the effectiveness of philanthropic financial and intellectual capital being applied to achieve socially beneficial outcomes was the story of how social ventures Australia assembled a consortium of nonprofits to rescue the collapsed ABC childcare. (If you are not familiar with this you can read about it in NonProfit Quarterly)

In all there were only perhaps a dozen Australians amongst the 300 or so from the rest of Asia.  None of these were philanthropists per se. I would love to think by the time the next conference comes around that this number will have quadrupled and that there will be an Australian billionaire or two sharing the platform with the Indians, Chinese and Singaporeans that were there on this inaugural occasion.