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Philanthropy Academy M1L3 Making sure I have an impact

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Philanthropy Academy M1L3 Making sure I have an impact
What is actually happening with the money that you are
donating? Are you having the impact you want? What does
the word impact really mean? Welcome to this class on
making sure I have an impact. As a philanthropist, I'm
sure that you give with the best intentions.
You maybe wish to end poverty, provide access to education
or protect the planet, but have you ever wondered what
happens with your donations? And can you really tell that
you are having an impact? My name is Tom Hall
and I am the Global head of UBS Philanthropy Services.
I've worked in philanthropy for almost two decades in the
field, but also advising philanthropists to have more impact with
their giving. I've seen the great things that philanthropy can
achieve.
But also the damage that it can create when wrongly
implemented. Nothing drives me more than seeing how philanthropy can
drive impact at scale to solve some of the world's
most pressing issues. So today I'm going to share with
you my tips and best practices to help you have
a real impact. In this class, we aim to understand
what having an impact means, why we need to radically
shift how we do philanthropy,
and how you can maximize your philanthropic impact. So let's
get started. One thing that I hear over and over
again in the conversations I'm having with philanthropists is how
do I know I'm having an impact? I usually answer
the counter question. Ask them what is the evidence of
your results? How are you measuring it? If you don't
have the answer to that question, you could be wasting
your money or making problems even worse.
So what does having an impact really mean? Impact is
any effects arising from an intervention. This includes immediate short
term outcomes as well as broader longer term effects. These
can be positive or negative, planned or unforeseen. But when
we talk about having an impact in philanthropy, what we
should aim for is to positively change the lives of
as many people as possible
solving problems at scale. And ideally even changing the system
so that the problem no longer exists. Let me give
you an example from one of our UBS Optimus Foundation
grantees called Rising Academies, a growing network of schools in
West Africa where in school learning really lags behind and
youth literacy is shockingly low. So Rising Academies mission is
to unleash the full potential of every student equipping them
with the knowledge, skills and character to succeed and further
study, work, and day-to-day life. Their concept builds on three
pillars. One, a curriculum, which they developed with international education
experts
and adapted to the local settings they operate in. Two,
coaching, so that teachers receive intensive on the job training
and three, data, meaning they have field teams who collect
data on learning progress
and operational data to enable Rising Academies to continuously improve
their schools. And they do so very successfully. Independent evaluations
in Sierra Leone and Liberia have found that Rising Academies
students make two to three times more progress in reading
and numeracy every year compared to their peers in other
schools. What really amazes me about this case, though,
is that they don't only provide quality education in their
own schools. Rising Academies also uses their knowledge to operate
Private Public Partnerships and engage in licensing deals through which
they are able to reach even more students. It's been
inspiring to see them go from an emergency education provider
for children that were kept out of school by the
Ebola epidemic, to scale their solution to over 100,000 children
directly
and more than 25 million children indirectly with their Rising
on Air program.A ready-to-air radio show and
SMS content, which enables them to leverage their proven high
quality structured curriculum content for delivery via technologies widely available
around the globe. This example illustrates a crucial take away
for impactful philanthropy. Your philanthropy must focus on results and
not on activities.
Ultimately, with the resources you have available, you should aim
to minimize your activities and output and maximize your outcomes
and impact. Let me put this differently, it's not the
effort that matters, but meeting the objectives, ideally with the
least effort. It's like being an archer who wants to
hit
the target with his arrows. In the ideal case, he
would hit it in one go, optimizing the use of
his resources. But for you to do this, you have
to have a clear goal so that you can actually
measure your impact against
that goal. Now why is that important? And why should
you aim to maximize your impact? I believe you should
maximize your impact because traditional philanthropy, the kind where you
write a check to pay for services, simply doesn't work.
That doesn't mean we should all go home before 've
even started. But it does mean that philanthropy as we
know it
is dead. Now, the good news is that I believe
we're at the beginning of a new era of philanthropy,
philanthropy that is IMPACTFUL.
Philanthropy that is RADICAL in taking risks on promising solutions
with potential for massive scale. A philanthropy that's CATALYTIC by
actively focusing on expediting results and impact and philanthropy that
is above all collaborative by partnering with and for others,
sharing lessons and eliminating go-it-alone resource waste. Philanthropy
like this is needed now, more than ever, and in
many senses.
It's now or never, particularly when looking at some of
the big issues we're facing, like the 1 billion people
without access to basic healthcare or the 50% increase in
global CO2 emissions since 1990. So the next eight years
leading up to the ambitious 2030 agenda will require bold
action and audacious optimism, and I believe that our privilege
comes with great responsibility and that philanthropy
is the risk capital that supports brave people like you
who can stand up to challenge the status quo. So
now the question is how can you maximize your impact?
How do you make sure that your funding actually achieves
positive results? At the end of the day, it all
comes down to evidence. Unfortunately, many philanthropists are still flying
blind. Billions of dollars are being donated without strong evidence
about
which ways of giving are effective. So, I cannot stress
this enough, focus on evidence, from the first funding decision,
to monitoring throughout, to the final assessment. We have a
dedicated module on how to measure your impact, so I
won't go into the details of measuring and evaluating in
this class, but I will share a few examples and
tips you can apply to help you make the most
out of your giving. First,
have a clear vision and make a plan for taking
any actions. Define clearly what issue you are trying to
solve and make sure you understand the issues. The better
you understand the issue and the ecosystem around that issue,
the better you'll be able to add value. At this
stage, I suggest you conduct a landscape analysis to understand
the root causes of the issue, the symptoms, the solutions
that already exist.
But also understand who the current players are, what they
do and where they act. You also want to make
sure that you have a plan and a strategy. If
you want to learn more about planning your philanthropy, I
suggest you watch the videos in module 2. Secondly, aim
for scale and system change. There is nothing wrong with
treating symptoms and in some situations like an emergency,
that might be the only thing you are able to
do. But it's only by addressing the root causes and
aiming to change the systems that create these problems that
you can solve them for good. To do this, you
will need to engage with multiple stakeholders, ranging from government
agencies, private enterprises, and other civil society organizations. When done
well, these partnerships can lead to lasting changes.
Let me give you an example. Prior to the 1950s,
white lines were only painted in the middle of roads.
Industrial chemist Doctor John Dorr assumed that at night and
during bad weather, drivers hugged the central line, causing frequent
accidents. He believed that lines should instead be painted on
the outside of the roads. Dorr managed to convince the
local Highway Commissioner to let him test his hypothesis. The
test proved successful in reducing accidents dramatically.
Dorr then campaigned to get these lines adopted nationally. A
few years after this initial breakthrough, the shoulder line, the
line on the outside of the road, gained universal acceptance,
thus transforming road safety around the world. This example shows
nicely how you can drive systems change, which usually happens
in three distinct phases. It often starts by a research
and
innovation phase - at this stage.
you're looking to identify an issue by finding new and
more efficient ways to solve it. It's like a research
and development phase where you probably try some ideas that
will impact a few people. In a second step, the
piloting and evidence gathering phase, you want to test out
the idea and measure the effectiveness, meaning you want to
make the case. In this phase, collaboration is getting more
and more critical, especially as it will set the basis
for a later scale up. At this stage you will
directly impact still only a few people - those who
benefit
from your intervention. And the last step is scale and
replication. This is all about bringing the most successful interventions
to a maximum of beneficiaries. So at this stage you
will impact a very large number of people. And this
is exactly when system change can happen ... when intervention
is
so effective that it gets adopted and becomes normal and
part
of the new system. Just like the lines on the
sides of the road. At this stage the impact multiplies
hugely and becomes sustainable. So how do you find scalable
solutions? There are different approaches that you can take to
bring things to scale. You can, for example, replicate your
solution in a different context. You can find a way
so that government eventually ends up paying for your solution
through advocating for change in policy and social norms.
Or you can find a way to make your solution
commercially viable. Let's take a look at these approaches in
more detail, starting with scaling across context. If an intervention
works in one city, why not try it in another?
Or if your intervention works in one country, why not
try it in another country with similar challenges? Scaling across
context means that your impact per donation can increase with
each
iteration. Once a concept has proven itself in one location,
bringing the same intervention to another location can be faster,
easier and cheaper. Let me give you an example from
one of our programs that we supported through the UBS
Optimus Foundation called Vision for Nation. They pioneered an approach
to integrate local eye care services into the National Health
System in Rwanda. They trained thousands of nurses at local
healthcare clinics across the country to conduct eye examinations, supported
by
the Ministry of Health to build
the supply chain for affordable medication and eyeglasses and mobilized
Rwandans to use the financially self-sustaining service rolled out across
the nation's local villages. Their intervention has proven to be
so successful that UBS Optimus Foundation is now supporting them
to bring their model to Ghana. Another approach you can
take is engaging with governments so that they eventually adopt
your intervention for most development issues, governments and major players.
In fact
with issues like health and education, governments are THE primary
player. So it's vital to coordinate with governments and improve
how they operate. Now, HOW you can influence governments varies
depending on the intervention. It might involve working with the
Government Department to show the feasibility of an intervention, its
value, or simply how to do it. Wonderful example here
is Last Mile Health. At the invitation of the Liberian
government
Last Mile Health developed an innovative model to deliver primary
healthcare to Liberia's most remote communities. You have to imagine
that
over a quarter of the population lives at least 5
kilometers
from the nearest healthcare facility. So they developed a model
for supporting community health workers with training, supplies, supervision and
pay to reach these communities. They started very small, but
quickly expanded their solutions when the country was hit by
Ebola in 2014.
In areas where Last Mile Health was present, treatment rates
for malaria, diarrhea and upper respiratory infections in children more
than doubled, whereas in communities without their intervention, treatment rates
completely fell. Today, Last Mile Health focuses on working with
the Liberian government on policy reform and coordination, data systems,
performance management, quality assurance, training, finance and recruitment. Another way
you can influence governments is by campaigning for policy change.
A good example here is the work of Hope and
Homes for Children who closely collaborate with governments to reintegrate
children from orphanages into families, preventing family separation and putting
in place alternative family based care like foster care for
children who need it. Removing children from institutional care by
finding them permanent families makes a significant difference to those
individual children, but without an accompanying change in attitudes and
practices
there is a risk that for every child removed from
an orphanage, another child is bought in to replace them.
That's why Hope and Homes for Children is also
educating and encouraging social workers and the courts to use
other options. And lastly, you can scale your solution by
being an enabler for larger investments and more fundamental systemic
changes by attracting more capital towards the issue you were
trying to solve. Back in 2015
for the first time, more money was invested in renewables
than fossil fuels for electricity production. And now renewable power
prices are competitive with traditional sources of power, turning what
was once a novel approach to energy generation into a
big viable business. Nowadays, solar photovoltaic and wind energy plants
are more profitable than fossil and nuclear plants in a
fast growing number of regions around the world. Now of
course
that requires that investors feel confident in the investments and
get an acceptable return. To build this confidence, it's important
to establish a track record of well performing solutions across
different geographies. Advanced systems modeling and comparison. Public finance can
also step in at an early stage. But markets need
to start internalizing the costs and benefits through better legislation
and extended liability. As a philanthropist
you can invest in developing new policies that reflect those
goals and unlock large commercial investments. Of course, systems change
does not happen overnight, but as a philanthropist, you can
contribute along the way, either by starting a new idea,
but even more so by adding resources and advocating for
interventions that work. Most importantly, you don't need to try
and reinvent the wheel, and you don't need to walk
this journey alone. Collaborate with peer philanthropists to combine
your efforts. So the next time you ask yourself, do
I have an impact? Ask yourself, do I have an
impact at scale? In my view, this is when your
philanthropy contributes to systems change. Of course, I can understand
the challenge that you might face when you see someone
who needs your help right now. It's almost a philosophical
question. Do you want to feel good about helping a
few people now? Or do you want to aim to
help millions later? I guess you could do both by
putting in place a clear strategy
and carefully choosing the program to support. And this leads
us to the end of our class on making sure
I have an impact. Today, we've looked at what having
an impact means, why we need to radically shift how
we do philanthropy and how you can maximize your philanthropic
impact. And now it's up to you to make sure
you're having an impact with your philanthropy. Thank you for
watching this class and have a great day and I'll
see you soon in person or virtually.