December 2007
Season’s greetings from the Institute for Philanthropy, where we have chosen to mark this festive period by supporting the work of three excellent charities. The School of Social Entrepreneurs, the St. Giles Trust and Global Greengrants are all organisations that we have visited this year as part of two of our programmes, The Philanthropy Workshop and Next Generation Philanthropy. We were so impressed by them that we decided to donate to them the amount that we would have otherwise spent on sending Christmas cards to the Institute’s friends.
In keeping with our way of working, all of these organisations are fine examples of using strategy to address a particular issue. The School of Social Entrepreneurs (www.sse.org.uk), led by Alastair Wilson, provides training and opportunities for people to build new social enterprises. At the St. Giles Trust (www.stgilestrust.org.uk) – which this year won both the Charity Awards and the Third Sector Excellence Awards - former prisoners work with those still in the system and in disadvantaged communities to break the cycle of re-offending. And Global Greengrants, at a time when concerns over the environment are becoming ever more pressing, is supporting grassroots environmental groups all over the world; it believes them to be key to solving the problems of problems of poverty, powerlessness and environmental destruction. To that end, it has made more than 3,000 grants over the past 12 years in 120 different countries. If you would like to read more, please visit their website at www.greengrants.org.
Since a grant is only ever as good as its grantee, we are happy to be giving to these particularly effective charities: we hope that this message encourages you to so too. Equally importantly, we hope that you all have an enjoyable break, and that you are looking forward as much as we are to 2008.
With warmest regards,
Dr. Salvatore LaSpada
Chief Executive
December 2007