Coutts Woman

Giving with Feeling

Anita Roddick made an impromptu guest appearance at Coutts & Co’s women’s lunch last month and prompted some serious discussion around what motivates women to give to charity.

What motivates women to give to charity?  This was the subject of Coutts & Co’s latest women’s lunch, held for more than 30 professional women last month. 

It was a subject so close to the heart of renowned philanthropist and businesswoman, Anita Roddick (founder of The Body Shop), that she made a guest appearance at the event, speaking about the importance of women getting involved in philanthropy.  “Commitment and passion will do anything,” she said.

So, why do women give to charity? The answer is… a number of things. 

With more than 150,000 registered charities in the UK, reporting a total income of £20.8bn in 2002, research conducted by Philanthropy UK (Why Rich People Give? publication) revealed five key motivations.  These were: belief in a cause, being a catalyst for change, self actualisation, duty and responsibility, and relationships.

Further investigation revealed patterns around women’s giving:

• Create – Women want to create new solutions to old problems
• Change – Women give to bring about social change
• Connect – Women like to see the human face their gifts affect
• Collaborate – Women prefer working with others as part of a larger effort
• Commit – Women often volunteer and give to the causes they care about over the long-haul
• Celebrate – Women like to celebrate their accomplishments and have fun with philanthropy. 

“Commitment and passion will do anything,” said Roddick

When Sarah Deaves, Coutts & Co chief executive, put these findings to her lunch guests, they agreed that either some or all of these summed up their motivation for charitable giving.

Personal experience, an issue touched on by Roddick, emerged strongly as a catalyst for women giving time and money to charity.  Knowing someone affected by an illness, or seeing a programme or charity appeal personally affected them enough to donate.

Lorraine O’Brien, chief executive of Charities Trust and founder of Time4Women, backed up this motivation.  Speaking at the lunch, she admitted that getting into the charity business was originally down to a personal reason.  However, it has driven her to work for many other good causes as a result.

Pamela Goldberg, chief executive of Breast Cancer Campaign (Campaign), also spoke about what motivated her to get involved in charity, and the importance of credibility in the sector. From humble beginnings ten years ago, when the charity turned over £200K with two staff, Goldberg has turned Campaign into a charity turning over £8m with 40 employees.

Size and brand awareness of a charity also affected the opinions of the lunch guests.  Currently in the UK, the larger charities continue to attract the majority of the sectors funding.  For this reason, women felt they were ‘too successful’, somewhat a victim of their own success.  Lunch guests were more concerned about the smaller charities without the branding and admitted concentrating their time, effort and money on them as a result.

Following the lunch, guests spoke to the charity representatives who also attended the lunch, with many donating money, others volunteering their time, and more talking about developing an email network where the female attendees could continue to swap ideas frequently.

Coutts & Co works on behalf of 400 charities engaged in a wide variety of activities, including scientific research, education and social projects.  For more information, click on www.coutts.com/philanthropy