Afternoon:
10°c
What the panel thought
Evening Standard13 Dec 2007
SO, SHOULD THE CITY GIVE MORE TO CHARITY?
YES
JOHN STUDZINSKI
Global Head of Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions for the Blackstone Group
THE American is a devout Catholic and committed philanthropist as well as a patron of the arts.
THE saying that I remember is "Everything you give stays with you." All the money I have given away to good causes has stayed with me and become part of me.
Philanthropy is about focusing on the individual not just about money. Unless you deal with charity on a human level there is no real benefit from investing your time. Corporates need to look at themselves and respect the dignity of their employees. Can their cleaning ladies read?
We should be using the word "invest" rather than "give" as that is a word the City understands.
I get lots of young rich people really nervous about how they should invest, how they know they are giving to the right charity.
I believe philanthropy is about finding your inner passion for a cause as that is what really has impact.
YES
ARPAD BUSSON
Founder and chairman of global asset management firm EIM Group
MADE his fortune in hedge funds. His ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) Foundation has supported more than 50 projects tackling poverty, HIV, abuse and illness.
I'M GLAD I live in this country as the Anglo-Saxon model gives more freedom compared with the Scandinavian and French systems.
The City has given us (ARK) more than £80 million that has been invested into charities. It is a question of education and tax and the government, not just the City by itself.
When you are giving, you really expect accountability and transparency. The ARK Foundation applies the same principles we apply to business to the charities in which we invest. In South Africa we are the largest provider of Aids treatment.
A core belief in the system is that the wealth has to be making a difference. Giving money to charity when you don't know who it helps is not good enough. The City will give more if they can see their wealth is making a difference.
YES
CAMILA BATMANGHELIDJH
Founder of the Kids Company charity in Peckham
SET up a charity to support neglected children suffering from severe behavioural, emotional and social problems in 1996, which has helped thousands of vulnerable young people.
AT KIDS Company we have hugely benefited from the generosity of the City. But genuine philanthropy is about partnership and mutual respect, not about your leftovers.
Charities should not be manipulated so their image fits with the image of a corporation or employees forced to donate their time when they don't want to.
We are also being bullied into an economic model of charity and not the psychological model. We deal with people whose lives can't be boiled down into forecasts that fit with annual reports.
Philanthropy is about equality and partnering. At times we have been humiliated and left grovelling.
The City needs to realise we are trying to sort out a social problem that will come back and bite the butts of the rich.
YES
LORD GRIFFITHS OF FFORESTFACH
Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs International
AS A director of the Bank of England he was appointed head of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit under Margaret Thatcher. Chairs Christian Responsibility in Public Affairs.
I DON'T think the City does enough.
Philanthropy has changed totally in the last 40 years. It used to be about a company writing a cheque. We're trying to create a culture of giving. If they (an individual employee) give £20,000 that is matched by Goldman.
There is a scheme where people take a day out and build a relationship with a charity or there is a mentoring programme.
We believe in wealth creation but also that wealth has to be given away.
Society is not a self-interested group of people making money, society is about caring for other people. In order to create a climate of giving, people need to face cancer, Aids, illiteracy. That is the challenge in the City today.
Highly ambitious young people working in a highly competitive field need to face the reality of suffering in this world.
YES
WILL SELF
Author and Evening Standard columnist
ONE of the leading left-of-centre voices in the capital, polemicist Self has written several novels.
IT IS unreasonable to expect people who get up every morning and spend their every waking moment making money, believing in their own powers of wizardry, to give money to the disadvantaged.
The culture of philanthropy is not a given. You can't help but think it is an aspect of our secular society. There was a time it was considered a Christian obligation.
We need to think how we can reintroduce the requirement. For everybody to consider themselves a moral being they need to give.
You're sitting in a city that is run by the City. The financial sector contributes 17 per cent to the GDP of this country - probably more in London.
The facts are stark. When it comes to giving the City is really, really tight-fisted.
Big corporates give less than one per cent of their pre-tax profits.
Reader views (1)
I think undoubtedly the City, indeed we all, should give more. 5 years ago I proposed a research project, in the context of alumni and education fundraising, to Harvard University to examine why we did not give much at all. It successfully passed their criteria, but failed to find the necessary support within one of their departments/faculty.
Perhaps its time has come? Excerpted from that proposal:
3. The UK is very different from the US because of the almost complete replacement of private by public funding in the 1960s. Reductions in public funding are now forcing universities to look elsewhere - commercial research, endowments, corporate, and individual philanthropy, and alumni giving.
4. U.S. and Harvard experience would be an ideal opportunity seek solutions relevant to the UK:
Why do people and companies give and what do they expect in return?
How can we capture the intellectual and other capital of individuals and companies?
How can universities accommodate ‘outsiders’ as stakeholders, incorporating them into the body of the University?
What models are available, or can be adapted, to bring these elements together?
5 Companies also contribute for reasons other than immediate tangible return...
6 We know that some 65% of the UK population is not philanthropic, although our own fund raising reveals that alumni retain emotional ties and a desire to assist, through experience opportunities, mentoring, expert input, or entrepreneurship workshops...
- Dominic Pinto, London United Kingdom, 13/12/2007 23:56
Report abuse
