The big questions facing philanthropy's role in a healthy society and the measures needed to assess its impact on social progress were debated by a panel including NPC, and UK, US and Canadian organisations at the research conference led by Charitable Giving and Philanthropy’s (CGAP) research conference on May 9 and 10 in London.
CGAP is the UK's first research Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy and it aims to develop knowledge and engage with donors, charities and practitioners. CGAP's research activities are carried out by five universities and NCVO - Strathclyde is one of the key academic institutions. Based at SBS, the Strathclyde research focuses on the history and emergence of entrepreneurial philanthropy, taking an international perspective, and exploring its challenges and appeal for new generations of philanthropists.
Speakers from CGAP included Matthew Bond, Beth Breeze, Charles Harvey, Jenny Harrow, Tobias Jung, Mairi MacLean, Tom McKenzie, John Mohan, Cathy Pharoah and Eleanor Shaw.
SBS's Professor Eleanor Shaw, Hunter Centre, contributed to two presentations: the first discussed the role of Community Foundations in supporting philanthropy and drew upon her team's research, arguing that amongst the philanthropy ecosystem, Community Foundations play an important role in connection philanthropists with local communities. In the second she presented an overview of the findings. Both Sir Tom Hunter (Founder, Hunter Foundation) and Rakesh Mittal (Founder, Bharti Foundation) described their personal perspectives on philanthropy.
The CGAP website can be found here and a blog about Tom Hunter's speech – 'He who has the pesos has the say-sos: can philanthropy be democratic?' can be found here.