Major donors 'under-represented group' in the City
Howard Lake | 7 July 2011 | News
Major donors are an “under-represented group, particularly in the City”, philanthropist Melanie Edge told delegates at the IoF National Convention this week.
“Apart from [to] religious organisations, they tend not to give as much as they could,” she said, referring to high-income earners who do not rely on inherited wealth. “There is no culture of giving there. You won’t get people who will give you millions, but they could give you thousands a year.”
She also said she thought that thank you letters were “overdone”. “Whenever you send anything to anyone you get a thank you letter,” she said. “There should be a box I can tick to say I don’t want a thank you letter.”
Fellow philanthropist and architect and town planner Terrence O’Rourke said he doesn’t like the term ‘philanthropy’. “It gets in the way,” he said. To most people it means very wealthy people giving away vast sums of money they don’t necessarily deserve in the first place. But really it means anyone, anywhere, giving anything – money or time.”
He also said that charities still often get their approach to major donors wrong. “The secret of doing things really well is to go to potential donors with specific projects and clear objectives you think people will be interested in. There is often a mismatch between what philanthropists want and organisations’ view of what philanthropists expect.
“There are very few organisations that need money who really understand the expectations of philanthropists,” he said.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.