What is a philanthropist?

The first rule of effective communication is ‘know your audience’. Only then can you communicate effectively with them. If marketers are to successfully communicate with philanthropists they need to know who they are talking to. So how to define ‘philanthropist’?

The literal definition of philanthropy is a ‘love of mankind’ – 'philo' meaning 'love of' and 'anthropos' meaning 'man'.

A more contemporary understanding of philanthropy is that it relates to highly engaged giving by very wealthy individuals, families and foundations to meet unmet social need. But in a world where technology can pull together millions of donors to give philanthropic-sized sums of money and people donate time and skills in lieu of money, ‘philanthropists’ are increasingly hard to define.

And one philanthropist is many philanthropists as he or she travels their journey, becoming more engaged, knowledgeable and ambitious along the way.

The thing we do know about philanthropists is they share a common interest in giving, they want to make a difference and are inspired to do so for myriad reasons (see Why the wealthy give and why they don’t).

The impulse to give is often an emotional and not necessarily rational decision. However, once donors have decided to give, they may become increasingly interested to know how their money is being spent and whether it is having an impact.

Other research paints a different picture. A newly-published study from the US, debunks two fundamental ideas about philanthropists – that their giving motivations are defined by their wealth and that they are focussed on evaluation and measures, above other considerations. 

The Money For Good report from Hope Consulting, underwritten by the Hewlett and Rockefeller Foundations and a number of other well-known organisations, was motivated by a wish to seek the ‘voice of the customer’ for charitable giving and impact investing.

It identifies six types of donors based on their motivations for giving and found motivations varied little by gender, age,  or income level, suggesting that fundraisers ought to tailor their appeals to fit a donor’s reasons for giving rather than demographics.

“It’s a different approach than thinking high-income people are very different, and we need to appeal to them in different ways,” says Hope Neighbor, a founding partner at Hope Consulting.

Dr Eleanor Shaw, of Strathclyde Business School, part of the Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP), says in her paper, “Giving and philanthropy are influenced by gender, occupation, income bracket and location as well as life experiences and values. Thought about like this, it is clear that people donate for various reasons, many not associated with or affected by how much money they have.”

Lee Jackson, third sector marketing expert of integrated creative agency The Team, makes another important point about defining philanthropists by how much they give. “The term ‘major donor’ is an organisational label that charities give to high value donors and is unlikely to mean much to the individual. The charities with successful high value programmes focus on the individual motivations of each potential philanthropist, rather than a generic approach to all.”

Craig Lefebvre of socialShifting, Sarasota, in Florida, an expert on use of design and marketing principles for social change, says, “High net wealth philanthropy, as distinct from philanthropy among the affluent, is not just about giving – it is as much about prestige, power and ego as doing good and happens in powerful social networks. Philanthropy is an aspirational pursuit and involves a lot of psychology. And it includes recognition and celebration,” he adds.

Perhaps research can help us understand more about the motivations for philanthropy and the Money for Good report has shed interesting new light. But isn’t it more helpful to think of philanthropists first and foremost as passionate, innovative and creative people with many interests – among them giving?

CAF’s head of marketing Sean Kelly supports the holistic view, “Donors respond much better when fundraisers and charities ‘get them’ as people. There needs to be much more of an appreciation of giving as a part of an holistic life by those trying to appeal to them.”

If marketers and fundraisers remember to see philanthropists as people rather than walking wallets, they won’t go far wrong.