Fundraisers spend countless hours trying to suss out what will motivate a wealthy donor to become a long-term giver of big gifts. They might talk to a rich donor about how good it will feel to donate a large sum or how that donation will transform the charity’s work. But a new book suggests what motivates rich philanthropists is often far more complex.
Making big gifts has a profound effect on rich donors’ psychological well-being and changes how they view themselves, according to Meaningful Philanthropy: The Person Behind the Giving, written by Jen Shang and Adrian Sargeant. The book builds on the findings of a study Shang and Sargeant, founders of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, a British research group, conducted in 2022.
For the study, the two researchers interviewed 48 wealthy philanthropists from around the world about their charitable giving and involvement with the organizations and causes they support. Shang recently spoke to the Chronicle about the book.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What made you decide to turn your 2022 study into a book that delves into the psychological side of giving?
Part of it was that fundraisers can’t see all the stepping-stones on a philanthropist’s roadmap. When we first released the findings, we didn’t know if people would want to access this kind of detailed information, but then people started to ask questions and we realized they wanted more information. I presented the findings to over a thousand people and got a lot of questions from the audience and in individual conversations with philanthropists and fundraisers. A lot of the questions they asked had to be addressed.
Why is it so important that fundraisers understand how making a big gift contributes to a philanthropist’s psychological well-being?
For the majority of the people I interviewed, the reason they started their philanthropy is not the same reason they sustained their philanthropy. It’s not the reason why they’re still doing philanthropy and why they find philanthropy meaningful.
People change once they’ve chosen to engage with a problem and with a community they’re trying to help. They grow with the community and learn about what they are doing for others, and they experience different aspects of themselves and the community that they could not possibly have experienced until they started to walk the walk. So, focusing on why people give is such a limited and constrained way of thinking about philanthropy. It doesn’t give enough space to the importance of exploring this much deeper journey that people could potentially be exposed to.
What stood out to you as especially illuminating from the philanthropists you interviewed?
How much of themselves they’re willing to give. When I asked them what were the most important resources they think they give to charity, almost nobody said money. Everybody defined resources much more broadly. They talked about giving money, but they also talked about giving themselves and their time, their connections, their networks. Even for the people who only started their philanthropic journey recently, it was never the sense where money is the only thing that they give.
Another thing that really stood out is the role of the unknown. Because many of the people that we interviewed are entrepreneurs, when they do philanthropy, they innovate in a way that whatever they build has never existed in the community. They have a really high tolerance for the unknown, and while I anticipated that, what I hadn’t anticipated is how much they love to explore the unknown and are not afraid of it.
When fundraisers talk to philanthropists about projects and impact, the last thing they want to tell the donor is that they’re not sure what the impact of a big gift is going to be. It’s a bit of an unknown, and they don’t talk about that in the first meeting, maybe not even in the first three years. But for these people, they genuinely love to hear about what you don’t know and what you need. It’s just such a meaning-creating process for them. That exploration in and of itself is interesting to them.
How can fundraisers work with philanthropists who are not energized by unknowns?
People’s expectations about giving might change during their lifetime. They might be giving to a range of organizations in order to gain experience before they dive in and make something their own. That’s why it’s really important to look at the individual and ask, ‘What is the meaning of philanthropy for them at this point?’ while keeping an open mind that this is just a portion of their journey.
