Posted on 22nd April 2009
Dame Stephanie Shirley has been appointed as the Government’s Giving and Philanthropy Ambassador.
Dame Stephanie will work to support Ministers and the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) in championing giving and philanthropy.
Dame Stephanie set up the Shirley Foundation in 1996 to support autism charities and IT in the voluntary sector. The foundation is one of the top 50 grant-making trusts in the UK. This followed a 25-year entrepreneurial career in which she founded and was chief executive of FTSE 250 leading technology group Xansa.
“I pledge to inspire the idea that giving is a pleasurable act of desire and compassion to help, change or challenge any aspect of our great society by raising the bar on our capacity to be generous,” said Dame Stephanie.
She has featured regularly in Philanthropy UK’s publications and wrote in the March 2008 Newsletter “I’m proud to have given away enough to take me out of the [Sunday Times] Rich List.”
As ambassador Dame Stephanie will also inform the Giving and Philanthropy summit that was promised, along with the new ambassador position, in Real help for Communities: Volunteers, Charities and Enterprises, in February.
