Professor Jenny Harrow

Professor Jenny Harrow has been appointed as the first co-director, along with Cathy Pharoah, of the newly established research centre on charitable giving and philanthropy. She specialises in the study of voluntary sector management and is based at Cass Business School, which is part of City University in London.

Philanthropy UK caught up with Jenny to ask about her new role.

Philanthropy UK: Why do we need a new research centre on charitable giving and philanthropy?

Jenny Harrow: The Centre is needed to produce high-quality research aimed at developing an evidence base to better understand charitable giving and philanthropy, and to influence policy and practice decisions. Until now, there has been no academic ‘home’ for the study of charitable giving, and philanthropic research hasn’t been considered a significant topic for study by university-based researchers.

The initiative began in 2005 when the Carnegie UK Trust proposed the idea of a ‘virtual centre’ to support more creative philanthropy in the UK. Other funders have since become involved, including the Scottish Executive and the Office of the Third Sector, and the Centre’s remit has now been extended to create a knowledge base about all aspects of charitable giving and philanthropy. 

P-UK: What is your vision for the research centre?

JH: Our vision is to heighten the profile of philanthropy as a field of study and to create a solid knowledge base about charitable giving and philanthropy.

Of course, some research does already exist but it has not been properly valued or brought together into a coherent body of knowledge. So we will begin by synthesising the various strands of knowledge that currently exist and we will bring together experts from around the UK and internationally, so that we can gather all available research knowledge to strengthen the evidence base.

The second part of the vision is to promote the idea that philanthropy is a field worthy of scholarship. Philanthropic activity makes an important contribution to the nation’s GDP and has a large social impact so it deserves closer attention from researchers. We want to encourage early career academics to consider specialising in this area.

P-UK: What is the most important question that the research centre will tackle?

JH: We hope that the new centre will come up with new questions as well as new answers! At the moment, the questions asked about charitable giving and philanthropy are very familiar and are largely motivated by charities’ needs to acquire resources. So the research that does exist tends to address questions about how to recruit new donors; the advantages and disadvantages of different vehicles for philanthropy; and how giving in the UK compares to giving in the US.

Examples of new types of questions that the Centre could explore include understanding how philanthropic giving is affected by economic downturns, whether certain types of giving are more ‘recession-proof’ and comparing giving in private and giving in public.

I also hope that our research programme can examine the multiple cultures of giving, and challenge perceptions that there are particular ways of ‘doing philanthropy’ to uncover the multiple expectations, value judgements and models of philanthropy that currently exist.

P-UK: How will philanthropists benefit from the centre’s outputs?

JH: They can expect the centre to put philanthropy into the spotlight. Increased academic interest in the topic should translate into a greater focus on giving within the public domain. They can also expect the new body of scholarship to highlight their achievements and make more people aware of the significant role that philanthropists have played as a backroom engine of social change.

As a better-informed picture emerges about the outcomes of philanthropy, that should enable philanthropists themselves to think about how they fit into the public policy landscape.

But philanthropists should also be aware that objective research includes questioning the viability and limits of accepted structures and models, and some donors might find this challenging! But overall we hope that our work will help philanthropists to gain a better understanding of what they are doing; we want to be helpful and challenging at the same time.

P-UK: How will charities benefit from the centre’s outputs?

JH: Charities tend to ask problem-driven questions, like “does telephone fundraising work?” and “how can we get more rich people to give?”. These are entirely reasonable questions for them to ask, but we hope charities will understand that there is a difference between research that supports fundraising and researching giving. Some of our findings may be challenging and will not necessarily produce conclusions that can be immediately implemented.

That said, we are having ongoing conversations with people in the fundraising sector. There will also be formal interactions between our centre and the new Third Sector Research Centre [see side bar] and we will hope to add value to each other’s work.

P-UK: How will you measure the success of the centre?

JH: There are many concrete ways to measure success. We’d expect to see a rise in the number of researchers choosing to focus on charitable giving and philanthropy and the creation of a network of researchers working in this field. We’d hope to have encouraged new research to be undertaken beyond the people involved in the new centre, not just at other universities but also within the sector because charities should do research as well as be the objects of research! Finally, I’d expect our outputs to have made significant contributions to the public policy debate, helping to find answers to long-standing debates and helping to frame important new questions.