ARTICLE | 6 MARCH, 2013 04:20 PM | BY ATTRACTA MOONEY
1) Seek advice. If you were setting up a business, you’d probably take advice, so why should it be any different for a philanthropic venture, asks philanthropist John Stone. “If you don’t have a passion for a cause or even if you do, my advice is take advice from experts,” he says.
2) Choose your style. There are so many ways to get involved in direct-impact philanthropy that it can be overwhelming, reckons Josh Baron of Banyan Family Business Advisors. “One way to narrow the field is to develop an ‘investment thesis’ that is based on how you like to invest in general. For example, do you prefer to fund a number of start-up ventures and see which ones succeed? Or do you gain more satisfaction from a small number of big bets?”
3) Be clear about what you want. It’s important to think about what you want both socially and as a family, reckons NPC’s Rachel Findlay, whether that’s engaging the next generation or bringing the family together.
4) Start with the end. With each project, think about what it should achieve. As Katherina Rosqueta of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy says: “High-impact philanthropy starts with clarity regarding the end goal: What change do you want to see in the world?”
Read all 10 tips here.