Myths of Philanthropy: Introduction, with Mandy van Deven & Chiara Cattaneo

Foreign, You're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast with Rodri Davis.

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Foreign,

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You're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, Rodri Davis, and this week is something a bit different. So this is the start of a mini series that we're going to be releasing over the coming week. This is an introductory episode, which I'll tell you a bit more about in a moment. And then there'll be three other episodes within the series, one of which is also out today, and then the others, as I say, which will follow early next week and then the following Thursday. So the series itself is around the idea of Myths of Philanthropy. And I worked together on this with Mandy Van Deven and Chiara Cataneo from Elemental, who first pulled together an essay series a little while back around this idea of Myths of Philanthropy and got contributors to write essays about it. And when they got in touch with me to moot the idea of doing a podcast series, I thought this sounded great. And so what we've done is take a few of the kind of core themes from those essays and pull them together and get some of the people who contributed the essays to come and sort of delve into them a bit more. So this episode, as I say, is an introduction. So shortly I will go into a conversation with Mandy and Kiara where we'll kind of say a bit more about the background for the essay series, the aims behind it, some of the ideas that kind of came through it, and what you can expect in the rest of the series. And then, as I say, there's three separate episodes, all kind of arranged around particular themes. So the first one that you can listen to is around the idea of Legacy. So that one there is with Lisa Cowan and Dimple Abachandani. The next one, which will be out early next week, is around the idea of presumed expertise, and particularly the idea that sort of wealth brings with it a sort of natural expertise. And that's with Elise Marcellin and Tesmerelmana Atsbeha. And then finally, at the back end of next week, we'll have the third episode in the series, and that's on the idea of individualism and scarcity and the way in which those ideas play into, you know, how we think about philanthropy and how we do philanthropy. And that one is with Zainab Mohammed and Devi Lipa o'. Malley. So each of the episodes can be listened to in their own right as kind of standalone episodes. But also, you know, over time, if you listen to the whole series, you'll hear how they link together and the sort of themes that run through each of them. So without further ado, let's go into the conversation with Mandy and Kiara where you can find out a bit more about the series. And then I'll be back at the end for the usual little bit of housekeeping.

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Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Mandy Van Dieven and Chiara Cataneo. Hi to both of you.

3:27

Hey, Rodri.

3:33

Hi, Rodri. Thanks for having us.

3:34

Yeah, no, great to have you on here. And this is, yeah, something a bit different. This is an exciting one. And people might be aware from the intro to the podcast, what they're listening to is something a bit different. For the Philanthropisms podcast. It's the start of a sort of mini series that we've worked together on, following on from an essay series that you guys curated about the myths of philanthropy. So we've got three episodes coming up which we'll be releasing over the course of a week. The first one will follow this introductory chat. And the idea is that we've talked to some of the people who were authors in that series about the essays they wrote and their ideas about particular myths that they tried to tackle. And we're just here, I think, giving people a bit of a framing about what to expect and kind of what the backdrop for that is. Maybe the best place to start is just to give you guys a chance to introduce yourselves. Chiara, I don't know if you want to say a bit about Elementl and the work that you'd both do there.

3:36

Yes, thank you, Rodri. So both me and Mandy are co lead of Elemental. Elemental is a funder learning and grant making initiative that cultivates the conditions to resource narrative power. What that means is that we work with funders to encourage a more cohesive and coordinated philanthropic ecosystem. And we do this through a number of different approaches which include one on one engagements with foundations to guide their strategies, facilitating convenings and learning exchanges among funders and building knowledge about how to resource narrative work work more effectively. And we also design and carry out funding experiments that move money to this work in new ways.

4:29

Yeah, and I should say, actually for people who aren't aware that we've previously had you as guests on the podcast talking about some of that work around narrative change, I'll make sure I put links in the show notes to places where people can find out a bit more and kind of dig in a bit more deeply. But in terms of this particular series, both the essay series and this podcast series, Mandy, maybe you could say a bit about why it was that you thought curating a series about the myths of philanthropy and that particular framing was something that was necessary.

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Yeah, I'm happy to share some of that backstory and, you know, want to thank you for having us back on the podcast, Rodri. We're always happy to explore the links between narrative work and philanthropy, and it's been really great to partner with you on these episodes and kind of dig into some of the provocations that are a part of the work that we're doing so to orient your listeners to how the Myths of Philanthropy series came to be. For the last 12 years or so, I have been working in the philanthropic sector globally. And a lot of the work I've been doing has really been centered on moving resources to approaches that are more effective for funding narrative infrastructure and narrative power building and doing that in more sort of innovative and creative ways. So within that role, I've had a lot of conversations with funders about the various types of work that they're funding and how they see the contributions that they can make to narrative change. And sometimes that work is seen as sort of more accurately telling stories, telling more compelling stories, you know, telling stories about the history and the present conditions of the societies that we live in. Sometimes that work is to amplify the voices and experiences of people who've been deliberately excluded from public conversation. And sometimes it's to enable us to look more deeply at the narratives and cultural mindsets that are influencing how we interpret and construct the world, which also then encourages us to behave in particular ways or punish us when we don't. Right. So most often in these conversations, when people in philanthropy are talking about narrative change, they're focusing on things that are happening outside of philanthropy, right? They're talking about the ways social media or legacy news outlets have been captured by corporations and self interested billionaires. They're talking about how bad political actors are intentionally driving people apart and enabling the global rise of authoritarianism. And then when the conversations are less heavy, they're talking about the positive impact of pop culture icons like Bad Bunny or TV shows like Heated Rivalry. But what they are not often talking about is the impacts of narrative on philanthropy and how narrative influences how we understand our role as funders or how the institutions that we're working with operate. So I always found that to be quite curious and I started to ask myself and others, well, what are the narratives that govern philanthropy? And how are these deeply held assumptions reflected in the norms and common practices in the sector? And what might be possible if those of us who are working in philanthropy gain a greater awareness of these things and start to more intentionally embrace the narratives we need in order to build the world that we long for? And so that question is really at the heart of elementals work, because everything that we do is in collaboration with others that are trying to show up in ways that go beyond critique and in ways that are actually implementing solutions to things in philanthropy that we know aren't working. So it was a relatively simple task to approach some of our partners and colleagues and ask them if they would be interested in contributing to a series that examines some of these common and narratives that shape philanthropy. And instead of rehashing familiar arguments, each contributor wrote about a specific narrative. So in the context of this series, that's scarcity, individualism, legacy, the presumed expertise of the wealthy. And these contributors broke down how that narrative shows up in some of the assumptions that are embedded in how philanthropy is designed. And then they also provided examples of how they're approaching their work with a different set of narrative lenses and gave examples of what that looks like in practice to make it more concrete. Right. And then on the flip side, they were also sharing the types of impact that we're able to achieve when we're mindful and and meticulous about making sure our work is grounded in narratives that reflect the world we want rather than the one we're wanting to release. Right.

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Yeah.

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Chiara, what would you add to that?

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Thanks, Mandy. I would add that the contributors represent a cross section of people who work within philanthropy, and that includes wealth holders, foundations, executives, grant makers, and resource mobilizers. And also I would like to add that the series was published in three countries by the center of Effective Philanthropy in the United States, the Association of Charitable Foundations in the UK and VITA in Italy. I would also say that part of what we wanted this series to do is to help people in the sector to make sense of this moment and to see the transformative opportunities that are here and to have also the courage to step into them. The contributors are inviting all of us to engage our imaginations and to embrace the opportunity to build a different infrastructure that is better aligned with the purpose that we want to achieve. And part of the work requires us to reconsider what is the perceived identity and role of philanthropy, which is the conversations that many in the sector are having. So, for example, a few months ago, we were asked by Philia to be the keynote speakers for the Communicating in Times of Screws Koudini, which was a meeting of the Communications Professionals in Philanthropy group. It was an occasion to connect, exchange ideas and to co design solutions. And among the meaningful reflections that were shared there, the theme of philanthropy's role and the perception by the third sector and by society at large kept surfacing in particular around philanthropy being inherently political. Because from the vision to the strategies down to the design of the funding and the grant making practices, everything derives from a very specific idea of society, even though it might not always be an explicit idea, an idea of social systems and relations and how change happens. So in this series of podcasts we will continue. This collective reflection and exploration of the ways in which philanthropy as a system is changing through time and time surfaced in the conversation as a very interesting lens of observation because it allows to surface the premises the system was built on, how it was set in place because it clearly is not a given or predetermined. And most importantly, through the conversations we are able to observe how change has happened through history and so how we can intentionally change the system now, even though does, you know, it can seem at time like late, with no, you know, with no aperture and is within a system that we often feel is very pervasive and overpowering also in the, in the imagination. So for our ability to imagine the otherwise. But these conversations really offer an example of how we can actually not just imagine, but also practice different models and ways to operate and be in relation with one another.

11:15

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the, I mean, I really enjoyed these conversations. It was great to be a part of them. And as you say, it's partly, you know, that ability to step back and apply a sort of bigger picture lens and think about things, you know, historically and where that has led us to and the alternatives that there might have been along the way, I think is very freeing. And also I think the, you know, I find the questions of the role of philanthropy and its nature and what we expect of it absolutely fascinating. But there's always a danger that they become quite abstract or theoretical. And I think these conversations, being grounded in people grappling with some of those deep questions, but then putting them into practice in their work, I think is really interesting. And hopefully everybody listening also will find that really interesting because it gives a sense of what can actually be done. If you are also grappling with some of these same questions, I guess, which leads us on to, you know, Mandy, you've already said a little bit about what some of the. The myths that we're addressing are, particularly

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in this series, maybe you could just

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kind of say a little bit more about each of those, just to give a sense of what people can expect over the series and also maybe introduce some of the contributors that we're going to be hearing from.

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Yeah, I think I'll start with saying that one of my favorite quotes is by an economic policy Advocate called Heather McGee, and she published this book a few years ago called the Sum of Us. What. What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. And in the introduction of that book, she said, everything we know comes from a story that we're told. And I think that that statement is so powerful because it's so simple. Right. It conveys this really simple truth that we, we often forget, which is that what we believe in and how we behave didn't come from nowhere. Right. And so if we have curiosity about the origins of these things and look at them more deeply than what we find, is that we actually have more power than we know to reshape the narratives that got us here and build a better future. And in some ways, I'm tempted to kind of turn this question back to you, Rodri, because I know that you've spent a good amount of time digging through the history of philanthropy and sort of excavating the ways that it became institutionalized, particularly over the last hundred years or so, through a lot of, let's say, formal standards and practices. And of course, that also means the stories that people were telling about themselves and what they felt was best for society. Which is to say, right, that many of the myths of philanthropy that we see today were imposed in this top down fashion by the people who created the sector. And those people tended to be colonialists and industrialists, folks that had a very specific profile and set of self serving biases that are now baked into the sector. And to be particular about it, that's white, male, affluent, Christian, and otherwise entitled. And honestly, it's a profile that's not terribly different from the people who are ushering in a new era of global fascism. So it's not surprising that power is a recurring theme in the series and that the conversations in the upcoming episodes are really looking at not only the ways that narrative power functions in philanthropy, but how we can employ our own agency, no matter what position we happen to be in, and overcome the learned helplessness that people commonly feel, even in simple ways, by asking ourselves, what am I able to do without having to ask for permission? Because the answer to that question points to places where we're able to exercise our own power and agency and to do that not just on our own, but to do that collectively with our colleagues. So, you know, the folks that we're working with inside of our institutions, but also the people that we're working with across the sector, because we know that change happens when we work together and that it's not going to happen if we're behaving as though we're an island instead of an archipelago. So these are some of the sort of themes that come up in the conversations and that are really present throughout the series as a whole.

15:43

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess. Yeah. In terms of. I think it's fascinating because, as you say, I mean, I'm interested in the sort of historical framing. And one of the things that always really strikes me about the value of taking a historical perspective on philanthropy is, I mean, yes, it gives you kind of tangible, concrete examples of where things have worked or where they haven't worked. And that can be interesting and useful. But I think at a deeper level, it gives that sense of the enormous role that contingency tends to play. So actually, when you look at the origins of the particular ideas and systems and structures that we have in place, when you unpick that and realize that actually they all kind of crystallized at a moment in time for very specific set of reasons, that helps you to kind of understand which of those factors you might want to accept and which you might want to reject and sort of what the knock on effects are in terms of how we practice philanthropy today. But I think it also plays an enormous part in broadening our horizons about where things could go in the future. Because I think often the domain of possibilities that we allow ourselves is quite limited because we think, oh, well, you know, the parameters are here and here. And, you know, these things might be possible, but things outside of that aren't possible. And then you look back at how things happened in history and you realize that. That actually all of these things were often on the table and we just happened to go in a particular direction often for, you know, because of a kind of combination of happenstance and luck or a very specific set of circumstances. So I think it's really, you know, it's a really valuable way to kind of bring that historical perspective into it and make it sort of something that actually is practically useful. And. Yeah, and I guess in terms of how we framed these episodes just so that people know what to expect. I mean, the first one that we've got coming up after this introduction is on the idea of legacy and very much kind of that historical grounding. So looking at where wealth has come from and where some of the structures that we use in philanthropy have come from. And as Chiara alluded to earlier, also the question of time scales I think is a big part of that conversation. So for that one we're joined by Lisa Cowan and Dimple Abachandani. Really, really interesting conversation. Following on from that, we've got one about the the idea of where expertise comes from within philanthropy and some of our assumptions about the relationship, particularly between wealth and expertise and whether we're kind of too readily assume that those who've accrued wealth in society also have the knowledge to identify where priorities should lie and how to address them. And that one's with Elise Marcelin and Tesmerelna at Bayer. And that's, yeah, really, really interesting conversation that goes into some absolutely fascinating questions. And then finally we've got one about the idea of individualism and how that's related to the idea of scarcity. And basically the idea that actually the models that we have within philanthropy are framed on the idea that resources are scarce and we need to compete for them at all times, both kind of non profits and those funding them. And also that we need to act individually and sort of think about things in terms of what we are achieving and the sort of specific impact that we can have. And that actually the alternatives to that are to think more collectively and to think in terms of abundance. And that one's with Zainab Mohammed and Devi Lipa o'. Malley. So, yeah, three really, really fascinating conversations. And it'd just be really interesting actually following on from what Mandy was saying there. Chiara, you were there with me in some of those conversations. What were some of the kind of things that you also picked up on in terms of ideas that particularly made you sit up or themes that you saw kind of throughout all three of them.

19:31

Yeah, so I really appreciated going back to the issue of time. And it was kind of a cross cutting theme because all of the contributors pointed to alternatives and structures that can be built through time. So to your point about, you know, what we were just saying now, the need for us to reconceptualize our presence in time as well. So not to feel that we are part of a system that cannot be changed, but to see ourselves as active and to the point that also Mandy was saying about being powerful, to really recognize where our position in place and time and actively decide what we can do about it. And how we want to be and to work within philanthropy or with philanthropy. So I think this was one powerful contribution that all the guests made in terms of inviting us all to reflect and to not give for granted that things have to be as they are now and just allowing ourselves to have a bigger, greater aspiration also for the meaning of our work and basically not necessarily fit into a system just because the system is as it is. And be bold also in imagining different infrastructures and not just, you know, the day by day operations in a different way, but really tackling what are the grounding, the narratives and the myth at the basis of what the way are the things are now.

23:01

Yeah, absolutely. And I think we should, you know, at this point, probably get on and let people listen to some of these conversations that we've sort of teased them with. But just, just before we do, finally, Mandy, I just wanted to ask you, what is it that you hope people can take from this series? You know, either if they go away and read some of the essays or listen to the conversation on the podcast, or ideally a bit of both, what do you hope that they'll be able to take from it and do off the back of that?

24:44

Yeah, I appreciate this question, because what I hear when you ask it is what is the purpose you're trying to serve? And to the point that we just named, it's such a critical one for us to have clear answers to. So to this point of the role of philanthropy, we sometimes talk about the sector as though it's a monolith. And while of course, there are particular systemic constraints that have some consistency across funding institutions, the reality is that the sector is enormous and there's a lot of diversity within it. Government funders have a different set of expectations and accountabilities than private and family foundations. Collaborative funds and other types of intermediaries have dual accountabilities to donors and to communities. And so when we're thinking about what it's going to take to transform this sector, the myths and norms show up differently depending on your positionality. And so we have to be careful in identifying the assumptions that we're making and ask, are these true? Right. Or if they are true, for whom are they true? Because it's not universal. You know, who decided that these are going to be the standards of practice? Practice? Whose purpose are they serving? Has that purpose met its expiration date? Right. Because if we want the work that we do to be meaningful, then we have to make sure that it's designed in a way that sets us up for success, not for failure. And one of the things that I often tell people that's actually mentioned in one of the upcoming episodes is that most philanthropic institutions are set up in a way that where they wouldn't fund themselves because they lack rigor and clarity of purpose. And that includes ones that have all manner of metrics that they're applying and sort of hoops that they're making people jump through in exchange for a pittance often. So, ultimately, what I want people to take away from this series is the encouragement to figure it out themselves, and to figure it out by starting with getting clear on the answers to what is the purpose I'm intending to serve, what is the role I'm well positioned to play, and what do I need to know about the conditions I'm operating within to execute the answers to those things with excellence? Because having a solid understanding of the narrative context, context that we're operating in and the way it shapes our environment gives us valuable information about the strategies that are more likely to succeed and where to channel our energy. But I'm also curious to hear what Chiara's hopes are.

25:07

Yeah, I hope this series can be a piece in a wider picture in the journey that so many in philanthropy and around philanthropy are engaged in now. I hope what the contributors and you, Rodrigo, have shared so generously can be of inspiration to create new meaning and new maps for change, that they can be, you know, pieces in the path that are significant and relevant to people wherever they are, in space and time within their organizations. And also, you know, that can be a piece of this puzzle to create a greater sense of belonging, of possibility and community. And I really see the series and this space, as well as an organizing space, so that it can be a space where stories are offered of how things are happening in a different way, in different places, and that it can be the germ of organizing around this community.

28:03

Absolutely. Yeah. And as you say, I think there are many, many people in philanthropy already talking about these issues and working on them, but not everyone for who, you know, who starts to grapple with them has the privilege of being part of those conversations. So I certainly hope that there are people out there who hear this and have a sense of realizing that others are already kind of thinking the same things, but also going beyond that and doing something that that kind of starts further conversations and hopefully kind of collaborations. Just remain to say thanks ever so much, Mandy and Chiara, both for coming on to talk about the series and also for helping to pull it together. It's been a real pleasure to work with both of you on it. Really enjoyed kind of being part of those conversations and really looking forward to sharing them with everyone else.

29:10

Thank you so much.

29:50

Rodri.

29:51

Okay, great. Well, my thanks to Mandy and Kiara

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for coming on the podcast to talk

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a bit more about this series on the Myths of Philanthropy and for getting in touch in the first place to suggest doing it. It was great to work with them on this. I'm really looking forward to you all hearing some of these conversations. As ever, I'll put some links in the show notes to places where you can find a bit more information, particularly where you can find the original Myths of Philanthropy series so that you can

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read all of those either before you

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listen to the conversations or kind of follow up afterwards. Also, you know, if you're interested in issues around philanthropy and civil society, as ever, check out the website@why philanthropymatters.com if you want to get in touch with me and suggest other ideas for series that we could do or standalone episodes or people that I could talk to on the podcast. You can find my contact details there as well. Also Find me on LinkedIn and other social media if you want to kind of follow more short term updates. And other than that, just like subscribe if you know people that you think might be interested in the podcast in either in this particular mini series or just more generally do put out a nice word for us or leave a nice review wherever it is. So you pick up your podcast and I will see you next time. Bye.

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Sam.

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