The benefits to you

THOSE WHO BENEFIT FROM OUR PHILANTHROPIC PROCESS

The first group of people who benefit are YOU

All of the information here at Pink Investments is free for you to use and share and we hope to encourage our readers to share their knowledge and questions and experiences with each other so that
we can develop a real community of women helping each other through the Pink Investments site.

In addition to that we have chosen to highlight two areas of work that we believe will empower women and will have a significant impact on our world:

1. Investing in adolescent girls to transform intergenerational poverty

www.camfed.org

2. Investing in women who can change the consciousness of our society and thus our world. 

The Womens Annex Foundation is doing groundbreaking work in Afghanistan and other developing countries. They are using technology to help educate and pay girls between the ages of 13 and 19. Check out their great work here..

www.womensannexfoundation.org

There are many charities and good causes that we would like to support and we hope to add to the list once we are fully up and running with our sponsorship programme and so able to generate some funds to support them. We have chosen these 2 areas to start with for a number of reasons:

1. Firstly they speak to our hearts

2. We wanted to empower women both in the developed and developing countries 

We believe that both of these are really effective ways to create social change.  They are sustainable and they create their own exponential growth. Also, they are addressing areas that women really care about.

It’s not always obvious to decide where to invest money and resources and that’s no different when it comes to supporting philanthropic work. We still want it to be ethical, transparent and effective, that is to say that we want it to reflect the values that we have at PI and that’s why we’ve chosen these 2 areas. We wanted to create real change and not just give and we believe our aims will be met . For us it includes Social Activism not just financial donations.

I was delighted to read a similar sentiment from JK Rowling recently. She believes th we have a moral responsibility when we’ve been given far more than we need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently.  pinkinvestments.org/index.php

Her philanthropic work is an interesting case study: she was someone who was labelled as a single parent living in Edinburgh on Social Benefits. Even when she was already a millionaire this was still the label that every reporter and journalist put on her and she decided to turn it on it’s head by becoming a Champion for women like her. Since those days her involvement in philanthropic work has grown and grown and is now very visible and she’s highly involved in the causes that she supports and champions. She doesn’t just give, she’s an activist in creating change and improvements for her fellow women.

Finally, we also were interested to read some of the more recent research that has been done on women and philanthropy. Here are some of the highlights that confirmed to us that the choices we had made would meet the needs of PI’s community of women

Research shows that whilst there are some similarities between men and women when it comes to doing philanthropic work there are also some very fundamental differences. These are some of the key ones that we felt were important to PI from work done by Special report Women and Philanthropy 

www.philanthropyuk.org/quarterly/special-report-women- and-philanthropy 

1. Women seek a deeper involvement and connection with the issues they are trying to change or improve.

2. Women are typically quite emotionally attached to the causes they engage in, with time and expertise being just as important as financial support

3. Women are more closely involved with those that benefit from their philanthropy than are the men in the same generation; they feel more comfortable with an emotional response. They also seem to be more motivated, believing that ‘some things are just wrong.

4. Women generally seek emotional engagement with recipients, whereas men typically do not want to deal at an emotional level with beneficiaries

5. While men may often be more structured and results-oriented, women can be more process-oriented, often selecting smaller projects, where they feel they can make more impact.

6. Men also are more likely to seek to “make their mark” on something, such as having their name on a building, while women seem less concerned with recognition.

7.Once a gift is made, men generally view it as still their own money, whereas women tend to view it as the charity’s money.

8. Philanthropist Dame Stephanie Shirley, remarks, “Givers, speaking especially for women, care about the issues and are ‘care-ful’ about them. A man typically might ask ‘what does society expect a man in my position to do?’ and ‘what recognition will I get out of it?’ Women seem less interested in these fripperies and perhaps focus more on ‘how can I make the most difference?’

9. Women also can be more thoughtful and consultative in their giving, and more willing to seek advice. For instance, Women generally tend to seek advice more than men on investment matters, and we have noticed that this trend also applies to philanthropy

10. Women want to engage with the problem and understand the issues; they seek a deeper level of engagement with the beneficiaries. Women are more active managers and they are more hands-on. They often ‘start small’ and learn. They do not want to reinvent the wheel.”