Giving Circles – Not Just Well-Off White Women With White Wine…
So clearly I am a bit of a workaholic because on top of my full-time job at Solve, I have decided to embark on this journey to produce a weekly yourImpact newsletter and website. I am designing myImpact planner, and I would like to start a giving circle. The good news is they all complement each other, the other good news is the pandemic has robbed all of us from most of our social life, and I don’t have kids, so I have time to either watch Netflix or do all of this. Or multi-task and do both at the same time?
So what is a giving circle?
I was lucky enough to take a 5-week Zoom-based course called Launchpad with the amazing Sara Lomelin, Executive Director of Philanthropy Together, whose mission is to democratize and diversify philanthropy through the power of giving circles. According to Sara:
“A giving circle is a group of people with shared values that come together to create change. They pool their money together and decide as a circle where it should go. Their efforts, discussion and collective gift transforms into community power, proactive change, and civic action.”
I loved the course, and I was super impressed by how diverse the class was – over 60% people of color, 70% women, from 16 states and 4 countries, a high school student, a teacher, and so much more! So not just white women drinking white wine by any means, perhaps the stereotype of giving circles.
So to summarize what I think is a giving circle:
You bring a bunch of friends or strangers together. Collectively, you decide the vision, mission, and values of your giving circle. You each commit to donating a certain amount of money each month or year. You then research some worthy organizations you could donate your pooled funds too. Collectively, you then decide who the funds go to, and ideally you also help the organization(s) in other ways – skill-based volunteering, further fundraising, etc.
But why even bother with a giving circle?
The Selfish Argument: Giving feels good, it boosts your ego and your self-image, so why not share that with friends to make them feel good, or even if' it’s just to show off ;)?
The Scale Argument: You might not be able to give that much yourself but you can multiply that by 10-20-100 people, and it could become a decent sum. For example, Impact100 is a network of giving circles where 100 women each give $1,000 a year (or $3 / day, less than a Starbucks latte). That’s $100k a year for each chapter!
The Strategic Argument: You become more intentional about your giving and you rely on the collective research and knowledge of the circle. Maybe you have time to research all the great organizations to give to in great detail – great, how about you share that with your friends and encourage them to give too? That’s basically a giving circle in a sense. But let’s be real, you probably don’t have that much time. You give to things you know and care about: your alma mater, your place of worship, the shelter where you adopted your dog. Great, continue! But you also give to a bunch of random things because someone invited you to a gala one day, because someone approached you on the street with a Save the Children jacket, etc. So with a giving circle, you can be more structured, and get help from others. You will also learn something and hear different points of view, especially if your giving circle is more open i.e. not just your business school friends.
The Do More Argument: You and your friends probably should be giving more – are you giving at least 10% of your after-tax income every year in an intentional, researched way? Are all your friends too? Great, then you probably don’t need a giving circle, although it would be great if you can share your wisdom with others by joining one nonetheless. But the average American gives 2.1% of their disposable income to charity, and in fact as you get richer, the percentage tends to go down not up…
The Social Argument: For most of us, it’s a journey, one that I personally don’t want to do alone – I want the accountability and the peer support to give more and feel great about it. It’s also fun – if your giving circle is Latinos in Tech, you will be able to meet other – guess what? - great Latinos in Tech! And there are lots of other giving circles based on faith, issue area, geography, or you can start your own of course with the help of Launchpad!
The Democratizing Argument - Everyone should see themselves as a philanthropist even if you don’t have as much to give as Bill Gates. And in fact small donations from Giving Circles have collectively given out close to $1.3 billion over the past twenty years so the small donors have a lot to give!
Ok you have convinced me Alex, I want to join or start a giving circle – how do I start?
Well, first I will be documenting my (likely slow) journey into starting a giving circle as part of my newsletter, so do sign up if you have not already to see me going through this live, and contact me if you are interested in potentially joining mine when it starts!
Second, join Philanthropy Together's next Launchpad incubator! The interest form is live now through the end of September and the course will run over 5 weeks in October and early November. Philanthropy Together also has a number of resources and videos on their site and YouTube channel, and a directory of all existing giving circles for you to look through and join will be live soon.
