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By Rob John
Founded in 2004, the One Foundation is a major innovation in Irish grant-making. Its co-founders, Declan Ryan and Deidre Mortell, bring experience from the private and charity sectors, respectively. Business entrepreneur and philanthropist, Declan Ryan, runs Irelandia Investments, which is a private company responsible for the Ryan family’s enterprises, interests ranging from Irish biotechnology, horse breeding in Kentucky to a vineyard in France. Declan’s father, Tony Ryan, founded the low cost airline Ryanair, in which the family still has a large stake. Declan is chair of Barnardo’s Ireland and no stranger to the Irish charity world. Ryan shows a very high level of philanthropic motivation, has a clear commitment to spend his wealth responsibly and wishes to engage in the charity sector in a way which levers in his entrepreneurial skills. Co-founder Mortell is an experienced charity fundraiser, having previously worked for Oxfam and Barnardo’s, and runs the foundation’s day to day affairs.
The foundation is expected to spend down its initial endowment over ten years, primarily funding social entrepreneurs and charities that support young people in Ireland. Irish Foundation disclosure laws do not make it easy to determine the size of its endowment or annual spend, but the One Foundation is likely to be worth in excess of €100 million. On a somewhat different tack, it also has an interest in development work in Vietnam. Its approach to funding charities is termed ‘active philanthropy’ – a venture philanthropy approach which adds skills, expertise and networks to grants used for capacity building.
Significantly, the One Foundation has developed a strategic partnership with New Profit Inc, a major venture philanthropy fund based in Boston, USA. New Profit’s is a classic high engagement approach – a small portfolio of charities going through major organisational expansion, offering long term, performance based grant funding coupled to strategy advice and joint problem solving. New Profit Inc has built up considerable operational experience and clearly can offer the One Foundation assistance in building its own philanthropic model. One Foundation is also teaming up with Ashoka for its work with Irish social entrepreneurs. One Foundation is a member of EVPA.
Dr Rob John is a Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. This article first appeared in Philanthropy in Europe, Issue No. 26.
