The Purpose of Giving

You might not remember Yegna, but you probably read the story about them. They were an Ethiopian Girl band who were funded by the UK government.

It sounds ridiculous. Why should the UK tax payer fund a girl band in Ethiopia? It became an example of aid wastage. Politically untenable.

There are endless examples of aid either from development agencies or charities, giving to causes or running projects which at first glance appear like a waste of money.

In truth, we don’t know the ins and outs of this. We don’t know whether it was a waste of money or was having significant impact on the gender equality in Ethiopia, which leads us to the real question. The nub of the matter.  

Why do we not know whether this was impactful or not?

Impact measurement is never easy. How do you measure the impact of something, particularly when it is intangible? But it is possible to measure somethings. For example, in the case of Yegna, its possible to measure their reach. Its possible to sample girls who were in their target demographic and measure changes in opinions, ambitions, education levels against a control group.

Difficult things to measure. Not 100% certain, but indicators of success or failure.

What we would deem a high risk investment.

But that is the purpose of giving. Impact.

And that is the purpose of GiveImpact.

See what projects have measurable impact. Fund the project. Record the results. Make giving transparent.

Give(Impact) a bit of data…

We look up a new pair of trousers online and suddenly we are bombarded with ads for trousers. Mention you are interested in a holiday to Greece and your phone starts to put in adverts of Greek hotels.

Its scary how much data is out there, how much of a trail we leave behind. Artificial intelligence is only making it worse! There is no escape!

So why should companies, charities, institutions know so much about you, but continue to be opaque themselves?

Getting information about supply chains is hard, getting information about where your money is going is even harder.

GiveImpact wants to change all that. The goal of the task is simple – transparency. We want to make the gift you give transparent so you can answer the questions you have like whether your gift really got the result you thought it would or hoped it would. Are you really making the world a better place.

It sounds simple, its not. But ultimately, we just want to make sure that we make the relationship between your money and where you spend your money more transparent so you can make better decisions.

Just like the charities do.

What does it mean to give?

For anyone who has recently been to the supermarket, had to replace a white good, repair their car or buy new clothes, the cost of living crisis is real. There is no getting away from it, things have got more expensive and life has got just that little bit more difficult.

So why would you give?

This is the classic question. And its not a simple one to answer.

Is there any moral duty to give? Not really. The money you earn is yours. You have to look after yourself, your families, prepare for your future.

Is there a financial benefit? Well no. Not unless you are an extremely wealthy person. There aren’t really tax benefits that are going to greatly affect the majority of us.

So why do it?

Well, the simple answer is that you care. You care about a cause, bettering the society you live in or supporting those who need it most to improve the world. Maybe you care about the environment or animals, children’s education or health, homelessness or access to the arts.

These are all great causes and they really do impact individuals and the societies in which they live.

By giving a little, you are making the world just that little bit better.

Or you should be. We want to make sure that whether you can give £1 or £1,000,000 you get the biggest impact per £1 spent.

We want to help you see the impact you are having on the world.

Look after your own.

“Charity begins at home” and “look after our own” are common refrains. We’ve seen it here. People don’t like what we are doing because they don’t believe in charity.

Fair enough.

But there is something more here, because we don’t entirely disagree. Charity does begin at home. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look after your own.

Who, reading this, would give to a charity instead of a member of their own family needing support?

But here is the thing. If you give money to support your neighbour, there is one thing you will see. The impact.

As you look over the garden fence, you will see the result of where your money went – or lack of result.

If that neighbour who asked for the money had an illness that they recovered from, wouldn’t you want to know? Or if they spent it instead on a swimming pool, wouldn’t you equally want to know?

The same is true of your charitable donations.

There is no obligation to give. There is no requirement or encouragement from us to give. BUT, if you are going to give, don’t you want to know that the money is being well spent?

Just ask them.

Just ask them.

Its obvious and so often overlooked.

We’ve worked in impact, in the UK, Asia and Africa for large and small institutions working to make the world a better place.

Running a project is hard. There are so many things to think about, so many things to go wrong. What does it mean for the money to be well spent? Does it mean that there is significant impact or does it mean that its spent according to the procurement rules?

We think it means impact. But more often than not, impact gets left out the picture.

You would be surprised how often the end beneficiaries, the men and women on the groundwho were supposed to benefit from the money just don’t see a change.

Don’t just believe us, Harvard Business Review says the same https://hbr.org/2024/09/a-better-way-to-measure-social-impact

If the large institutions often don’t really know if their money has made an impact, how can you?

That’s what we are now working to change.

Transparency in giving.

What are we doing?

We have all given money to charity at some point. Maybe a regular donation, maybe a on off gift of a few coins thrown into a collection tin at Christmas. But where does it go?

Yes, we know roughly. We know that we have donated to education in Africa, homelessness in London or medicine in Papua New Guinea. We get that fuzzy warm feeling that we’ve done something good, then we go on our way.

But where does it go?

What have we actually achieved by giving money? How many people have been impacted? Did out gift, money which have worked hard to earn, really reached those most in need? Could it have been put to better use?

These are the questions that have got us thinking. How can we start to ensure that the money we give goes to the right places and reaches the people who most need it?

It sounds easy but it’s a complex question.

But if we don’t know, how can we get better?

There are so many challenges in the world that need your money. The fact you have been willing to give is something amazing.

We just want to make sure that its going to the right place.

In the great US of A, they call it “bang for your buck”. And in a nutshell, that is the platform we are working on.

Thank you!