On 2nd November 2022, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Philanthropy and Social Investment published a report on Unleashing the Potential of Philanthropy and Social Investment. The report highlights areas where the UK Government could promote higher levels of philanthropic giving and social investment.
UK giving for the public good is estimated at over £22.3bn per annum. The report highlights how achieving higher rates of giving would stimulate substantial extra resources for the civil society. The report offers a 10-point plan to encourage and support greater philanthropy and social investment in the UK.
The 10-point plan includes:
- Appoint a Philanthropy and Social Investment Champion as a senior post within the Civil Service.
- Build Civil Service knowledge of philanthropy, match funding and social investment blended finance.
- Keep regulations on values-based investment under review.
- Work with the Charity Commission and Financial Conduct Authority to develop guidance and targeted regulation for philanthropy and social investment.
- Support initiatives to further develop data on the economic and social contribution of philanthropy and social investment.
- Extend DCMS’s “Growing Place-Based Giving” Programme which was cut short by Covid-19.
- Develop match funds on priority themes such as climate change, Levelling-up and regenerating the arts and culture sector post-Covid.
- Review incentive for social investment learning lessons for Social Investment Tax Relief.
- Offer long-term commitment to Government guarantee scheme for social lending.
- Open dialogue with HM Treasury on providing support for structures for giving that use existing tax reliefs.
At The Charity Service, we welcome the report and its ambition for promoting philanthropy. As a provider of donor advised funds, we appreciated the report’s emphasis on the importance of tax efficient vehicles for enabling charitable giving. More generally, we welcome how the report highlights the important role philanthropy plays in society and that the UK government could do more to encourage giving.
We also offer a note of caution. The report suggests that government should seek to attract philanthropic resources for state-led initiatives. This assumes that philanthropists’ priorities will align with those of government, which may be a false assumption. Using philanthropic money for government projects may also dilute philanthropy’s greatest strengths. Philanthropy is often distinctive because it can take risks, innovate, challenge norms, re-imagine systems and promote diverse perspectives, and these features are not always apparent in government-led projects. In our view, the goal of unleashing philanthropy’s potential is more likely to be achieved if policies to promote philanthropy play to philanthropy’s strengths.
