The European Venture Philanthropy and Social Investment sector shows growth overall, stabilising budgets, new players entering the sector and evolving practices. WINGS was one of the respondents to the 2015/2016 EVPA survey on the European Venture Philanthropy (VP) and Social Investment (SI) sector. Would you like to know how and how much your peers are investing…
Giving circles in Asia are an important and timely development in Asian philanthropy, but they are dispersed and unconnected across a vast geographical region. A new project will set the stage for a network of circles to collaborate on solutions to the region’s complex social issues.
EVPA approached several of its members to talk about their failures, an exercise in transparency that led to a recent publication that marks a “maturing and increasingly courageous sector”. CEO Kurt Peleman shares why celebrating failures is so important. “We need to embrace failure as part of what we do.”
Dr. Lisa Hehenberger (EVPA) reflects on VP/SI exit strategies, highlighting a new report that aims to help. “Venture Philanthropy and Social Investment organizations look for a social return over or next to a financial return — making exits more complex than in the traditional field of investment.”
WINGS membership and development coordinator Laura Fernandez reports on the 2014 EVPA Annual Conference in Berlin. “Collaboration was a key theme throughout the conference, drawing on the history of the host city, which illustrates the power of collaboration to confront challenges when building communities around a common purpose.”
Lourdes Sanz-Moguel of CEMEFI reflects on WINGSForum 2014 and the importance of communicating the benefits of networking. “Understanding the network and its power is especially important for WINGS members that are membership associations, because it provides a set of insights they can pass down to their own membership, in order to continue the work and inspire new levels of commitment.”
The report builds on existing research on related topics, provides insightful and in-depth case studies from a selected group of pioneers in a variety of European countries, and extends the analysis to other European banks with relevant initiatives.
Leading side by side is less about forging a hierarchy than about learning, sharing and drawing on unique strengths from within the group to achieve common goals.
The latest in our web series, Road to Istanbul: A journey through networked philanthropy, considers the WINGS global network as a complex system of stars, and how we might use this metaphor to think about new collaborations.
WINGS full members receive 15% off registration for EVPA’s 9th Annual Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on 26 and 27 November. Join other venture philanthropy and social investment experts and practitioners from Europe and beyond to discuss this year’s principal theme ‘Responsible Leadership: Inspire and Act!’
Philanthropists, foundation managers and leadership experts from around the world will gather at the ninth European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) Annual Conference 26-27 November 2013 in Geneva to discuss how to increase their impact on society.
In a 2008 interview AVPN Chairman Doug Miller likened philanthropy to “a drug which produces feelings of both fulfillment and personal happiness: the more you do, the more you want to do.” We couldn’t agree more. In February, WINGS sat down with Miller to look at the sector through a business lens, and to preview this year’s inaugural AVPN Conference—what will be the network’s first conference in Asia.
Philanthropy in Focus 