Coutts Forum for Philanthropy, Oxford

What do people get out of giving, wondered participants at the Coutts Forum, held in Oxford, UK, in February? It should be fun, it should be passionate, it should be interesting and it should provide a sense of making a difference – these were some of the variety of answers participants gave.

Several presenters looked at ways of supporting charities other than simply by giving. Mark Campanale of Henderson Global Investors posed the question of whether it was possible to find investments that combine capital preservation and security with generation of social returns in line with mission, while John Kingston of Venturesome described how the organization provides soft loans and recoverable grants to small charities. In another approach, Pilotlight provides a brokering service, matching business people with charities that need their particular skills, since, according to Fiona Halton, many business people want to offer their skills to charities but don’t know where to start.

While all of these approaches attracted interest, objections remained. One participant, for instance, saw giving and lending as totally different things, while another felt that there was a fundamental difference in the kind of information available from charities and from financial markets. Venturesome could report on the capacity of the charity supported, they felt, but not on the impact on the lives of beneficiaries.