THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

Philanthropy isn’t just for deep pockets and high profile individuals. There are ways for us all to make a long-term difference. JILLIAN BOLGER meets three women who share their thoughts on giving wisely.

Jillian Bolger meets three Irish women on the philanthropy frontline

HELEN KELLY

Board director, Barnardos

Managing director and country manager of Barclays Bank Ireland, Helen has been involved with Barnardos since 2014, on the board and also as a member of their audit and risk committee, where she shares her banking skills.

Once I understood Barnardos’ commitment to vulnerable children, it was very hard not to be motivated by that cause. I spend at least five to six hours a month doing something for them, between preparing for meetings, working on projects, meeting service users and attending events.

My day job is Barclays, but this has become another important arm to me, not least because Barnardos’ staff are all so dedicated and caring. I love my career and my job, but the real benefit of philanthropy is in keeping me grounded. You can read about the children on the website and in our annual report, but when you meet them and their parents, you do come away feeling very lucky. When you’re involved for five or six years, you get to know them really well, so you can help with the strategy as well, and that’s a really important piece of my participation.

Barnardos helped nearly 18,000 children and parents last year by family support programmes, early year services, breakfast clubs, teen support clubs and more. We offer high-impact services to the really disadvantaged and the people that need us most.

We’re all about real impacts, so we might work with a child for a number of years.

Barnardos is funded two-thirds by the State, and a third through the voluntary sector. Last year, from a voluntary perspective, we raised about €7 million; €2m was roughly from corporate trusts, foundations and donors, which we call philanthropy.

The challenge isn’t just to help; it’s to encourage others to help too. Companies might have different areas of philanthropic interest that they really want to invest in, so we try to match their aspirations to our work. The challenge is to try and raise our profile all the time, but once you get people interested and out to see the projects, it’s very hard for them not to get involved.

We run events aimed at trying to get business people connected because there’s a misconception that our helpers don’t have a day job. But actually, a lot of us do; pretty much all of my senior team in Barclays are involved with a charity of some description. You can easily do it alongside your day job, and companies are really supportive because you actually learn from it as well. barnardos.ie

The representative body for the philanthropic sector in Ireland, Philanthropy Ireland represents, and works with, members to promote the concept of philanthropy, its policy development, and to advocate best practice.

Our members are made up of individuals, corporates, trusts and foundations, actively providing strategic support to causes and projects in Ireland and overseas. Our members disburse over €200m annually, delivering support to over 2,000 projects and groups in communities across Ireland and abroad.

The scope includes projects working with minority groups and local communities, and empowerment through education, community, health, children’s rights, equality, older people, arts and culture; there is also active engagement with the latest social enterprises.

Philanthropy is not the same as reactive giving. As a nation, we are extremely generous, but philanthropy is more than making one-off gifts during times of disasters or responding to a charity today. At its core, philanthropy is about strategic support, for maximum impact. It asks the question, what do you want to see changed as a result of your giving?

While female donors are interested in supporting a wide spectrum of causes, they do seem to be particularly drawn to funding initiatives that empower females: gender is an influencing factor in their giving. They tend to be more pragmatic than idealistic or pioneering donors, but still have high expectations in terms of outcomes and results. Much of their giving is based around a relationship of trust with the non-profit organisation they are giving to. Women also tend to be more collaborative in their giving.

Today, a model that is particularly popular with female donors is the giving circle, which is formed when a group of individual donors come together and pool their donations (time, treasure, or talent) for greater impact. This can be a group of friends, colleagues or members of a community. They can then invite projects to pitch to them for funding and decide as a group which ones they are going to collectively support.

It’s a very social way to increase the impact of your giving, learn more about philanthropy and about the needs of your community. A women’s giving circle is a great way to empower female philanthropists in your community. You may choose to distribute your gift via an existing fund such as The Ireland Funds, or The Community Foundation for Ireland.

Ireland tends to struggle with the concept of philanthropy, where we very much associate the word with the super-wealthy American philanthropists that we see in the media. We can all be philanthropists and contribute strategically to our favourite causes and charities. One great way to contribute is by considering the three Ts of philanthropy: time, treasure and talent. philanthropy.ie

“Philanthropy is more than making one-off gifts. It’s about strategic support, for maximum impact.”

KATE BOND

Director of advancement at Trinity College Dublin

In 2019, Trinity College Dublin launched the public phase of Inspiring Generations, the university’s first ever major philanthropic campaign designed to raise €400 million and inspire 150,000 volunteering hours.

My work and the work of my team is all about building relationships with people for their benefit, and for the benefit of Trinity. Some of the relationships with our donors have gone on for decades. We’ve been extraordinarily fortunate in terms of the €272 million we’ve raised so far. We’ve had some magnificent donations, including a very generous gift of over €70 million from The Atlantic Philanthropies for our work in research on ageing. Typically, the campaign is made up of thousands and thousands of donations from all sorts of people for all sorts of things.

We’re only counting philanthropic income, so that’s generally either from an individual, a business or a philanthropic foundation. About half of the philanthropy that’s been secured is from alumni, and half is from people who are not alumni. That’s a feature of many good universities, where people want to support the work because of the excellence of the research, or they believe in the vision of the institution to achieve something they’re interested in. And many of our donors give just because they see Trinity as being able to do something for Ireland.

One key part of Trinity is our Trinity Access Programme. It’s all about raising aspirations, developing systemic and deep relationships with primary and secondary schools in areas where there has not been a tradition of people going on to higher education. The programme develops relationships very early on with people, introducing them to Trinity and creating a pathway through to education. Once Access students come here, they receive wonderful support. They do a foundation year, and it doesn’t matter what their Leaving Cert results are – they just have to show particular interest in a certain subject. Over 3,000 students have come into Trinity this way. We are ground-breaking with this, and Oxford University has now adopted our Access model.

It’s been very interesting to see that the majority of our philanthropy in this current year is from women donors. It’s super, and we have some amazing women who have just been so visionary. Some may decide to give a financial gift, but they may well be involved in other ways, so they might be on an advisory board, a project, maybe mentoring a student or alumnus, or maybe their business is offering an internship. These are multi-layered relationships and everyone has their own reason for wanting to give and their preferred way to do it. tcd.ie

“Many of our donors give because they see Trinity as being able to do something

for Ireland.”