Impactful Philanthropy

Impactful Philanthropy

Welcome to #TRVSTLOVES. We curate news, ideas, and inspiration from across the world that demonstrate how real action can accomplish a positive social impact. This month we’re looking at examples of philanthropy and the different ways in which people donate time, effort, and money.

Amicus.io secures $8.7m in series B funding

Amicus

Fintech company Amicus.io has secured $8.7m in series B funding via mission-driven investors in philanthropic and banking sectors. Based in North Carolina, Amicus.io provides a philanthropic platform for donor-advised funds (DAFs). They've recently launched their own DAF 2.0. which allows institutions to offer a “self-directed approach to philanthropic giving.” This will provide an integrated way for donations to be made to US non-profits and philanthropic companies, with plans to expand this venture into sharing the impact of donations received.

2020 Australian Philanthropy Awards

The 2020 Australian Philanthropy Awards saw Carol Schwartz, co-founder of Trawalla Foundation, being honored with the Leading Philanthropist title. We took a little look at the Trawalla Foundation to see what they're all about: it’s an organization with investment values around gender equality, creativity, sustainability, and social justice, and the foundation funds a number of worthy causes like Pathways to Politics Program for Women and The Goshen Project. In fact, this foundation is doing many wonderful things, so if you’re looking for some inspiration, it’s worth taking a look.

Impact America Fund receives $55m in funding

Impact America Fund has recently announced that it's closed $55m to invest in startups that target the world's overlooked. The amount raised is the largest ever by a black female GP, and founder Kesha Cash wants to “disrupt some of the underlying systemic issues that you and others may not be able to see but are perpetuating.” Providing underserved communities with opportunities is a really interesting and positive way to disrupt the status quo, so it’s great news that this initial funding has been received.

The paradox of platform neutrality

Have you ever thought about the types of causes you see on crowdfunding platforms such as GlobalGiving, and wondered how they are vetted before going live? It’s this sort of thinking that leads us into the discussion with the CEO of GlobalGiving (Alix Guerrier) and the Director of Evidence and Learning at GlobalGiving (Alison Carlman) and the paradox of platform neutrality. How can you remain neutral when running a platform like this? It's difficult because whenever you approve a particular cause to go live, are you effectively saying that, to some degree, you're supporting the cause? With a new strategy known as Ethos to address this, it’s well worth a listen, or you can find the transcript underneath.

The best charities to donate to in 2020

fish in blue sea

Finishing with something a bit different. Many of us donate to good causes on a regular basis, but here we’ve found a group of altruists, some of whom donate up to 75% of their income to various charities. Whilst this is probably fairly rare (and will depend massively on each person's financial situation), there are probably many that would be interested in donating smaller amounts but would want assurance that their donations were being spent effectively. That’s where organizations like Give What We Can, can help: they’ve done the research for us and have a really useful page that outlines the “best charities to donate to in 2020”.

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