Reports from Alliance magazine

The Philanthropy UK Newsletter is grateful to Alliance magazine for its permission to reproduce the following summaries of its event reports. The full reports can be accessed at www.alliancemagazine.org.

By Caroline Hartnell

2-3 December 2008, London

The 3rd GuideStar International Assembly, held in London last December and entitled ‘From Local to Global: The importance of CSO information’, brought together 90 delegates from 19 countries. The theme of the Assembly was the importance of civil society organisation (CSO) information for effective policy-making and for social action at all levels – provision of which is the raison d’être of GuideStar.

By the end of 2009, the plan is to have national GuideStars in Hungary, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, South Africa, Israel, Japan and Canada, with India and a regional GuideStar for Africa also in the offing. The different countries will all use a multi-lingual, fully internationaliszed ‘common technology platform’ which will keep costs as low as possible for national GuideStars, and a ‘global reporting framework’ to facilitate communication and comparison across borders. The aims, says Bob Ottenhoff of GuideStar US, are to advance transparency, to encourage giving and to enable donors to make better decisions.

GuideStar will aggregate information from many sources, some required by law, some voluntarily reported. If data is supplied through a regulatory body, it was generally agreed, it is less likely to be demonstrably incorrect because of the potential for prosecution. As to that provided by CSOs themselves, while financial information is often audited, for narrative information the best approach is probably to encourage the public to help by flagging up that it’s misleading.

In terms of sustainability, both the US and the UK examples suggest the possibility of deriving income from the provision of data services for institutions. The UK’s GuideStar Data Services, for example, has provided data to the research team at the government’s Office of the Third Sector to help them with a survey of the third sector.

A discussion of GuideStar in Africa raised the added issue of making public information about CSOs in authoritarian societies. As to technology, mobile phones are likely to be key: while computer penetration is low, 30% of Africans now have mobiles and by 2012 this is expected to be around 60%.

Caroline Hartnell is Editor of Alliance magazine. caroline@alliancemagazine.org. 

By Sergio Pistoi

2 December 2008, Milan, Italy

Foundations and philanthropic organisations are, as EFC chief executive Gerry Salole puts it, “new kids on the R&D block”. The aim of the Forum is to provide a basis for philanthropic funding for research through the exchange of experience and best practice, co-operation, and promotion of a favourable environment for private philanthropy undertakings. The Forum brings together research-focused foundations, universities, and a number of private and public stakeholders in the EU. More than 130 delegates gathered in Milan in December for the second meeting of the Forum on the theme of Partnerships in Research.

Different approaches to partnership among foundations and other private and public stakeholders were presented in the opening plenary session. David Lynn, Head of Strategic Planning and Policy at the Wellcome Trust, suggested the need to evaluate carefully all the implications of new partnerships, including a possible exit strategy.

Two parallel sessions on the critical issues of governance and evaluating the impact of research were a follow-up to the first conference in Brussels in 1997; the other three sessions were more focused on partnership.  A scheme presented by Philip Nye from the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (UK) was particularly intriguing: under the scheme, the UK government will match philanthropic donations raised by universities with public funds. After a successful start-up phase, the UK is now planning to invest £200m in the matching scheme.

During its first year of activity, the Forum has tried to represent the vast and diverse world of philanthropic organisations involved in European research. However, it would benefit from a still more inclusive approach. Fundraising charities, for example, were still underrepresented in the session panels, while non-endowed foundations would probably have provided a different and interesting angle on many critical issues discussed.

Sergio Pistoi is a consultant for research development and policy at Telethon Italy. www.sergiopistoi.com.