Private equity goes good
16th January 2007
The Times reports that group of private-equity firms across Europe have come together to start a charitable organisation with £5m in start-up funds. Their foundation intends to use the same business formula they have applied to their investments for their philanthropic activities in education and children’s charities.
The move follows a larger trend amongst other large philanthropic organisations to streamline operations and work collaboratively in order to maximise the impact they produce for their stakeholders. As more businesses enter the world of philanthropy, the competition they face amongst their counterparts increases and the ease with which they influence people’s perceptions about their organisation decreases.
As the New York Times points out, the Ford Foundation helped found the Grameen Bank whose chairman won the Nobel Prize last year for his contributions to the field of microfinance. Similarly, the Rockefeller Foundation developed a vaccine against yellow fever.