We had a terrific Philanos Webinar on Tuesday, May 14 entitled “Philanos and Collective Giving: Women’s Leadership and Recent Trends” - thanks to all who joined us!
Philanos Co-Chair Sandy Cook mentioned that Philanos is the leading national women’s giving circle network and our focus is to catalyze – marshal, mobilize, and accelerate – the women’s collective giving movement through connecting, learning, and peer-to-peer sharing.
She provided a snapshot of who and what we represent:
- Philanos is a network of 90+ giving circles across the US and Australia that have collectively invested over $232 million in their local communities
- Through our giving circle network we have over 20,000 women philanthropists involved in Philanos, a force to be reckoned with!
- Philanos members live in 22 of the 25 largest metro areas, and
- Our network members have estimated household incomes, returns with charitable deductions, and average donations that are roughly twice the national averages.
In short, we have more to give so we give twice as much!
Sandy highlighted how what we do affects YOU, our affiliates.
- With ongoing opportunities to network with national affiliate members through meetings, private issue-focused groups, and our PowerUp! Conference.
- With learning from and sharing with other affiliates in monthly webinars and bi-monthly affinity groups including Comms Club, Tech Talk, Membership Roundtable and A Table For Chairs, solely for women leading a circle.
- By providing access to resources in our Affiliate Forum about all aspects of growing and maintaining giving circles, grantmaking practices and issue areas such as including next gen philanthropists.
- By encouraging organizations to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion because we know that inclusive organizations minimize bias and make decisions better able to tackle systemic inequities.
Philanos Co-Chair Maggie Glasgow then introduced our 2024-2025 Board of Directors and Governance Committee, and thanked our outgoing Board Members Ellan Bernstein and Deborah Majewski.
She mentioned that our Board of Directors is composed of women from diverse backgrounds, lived experiences, collective giving groups, and come from different parts of the country.
And, she noted that the faces of this team represent the very essence of our focus on new initiatives here at Philanos and that we have recently expanded our board to engage more women from across the country, welcoming more diverse faces, voices and experiences in our movement and at our growing philanthropic leadership table.
Incoming Philanos Co-Chair Clare O’Brien shared the excitement and success to date for our work funded by Fidelity Charitable Catalyst Fund - a three-year, $405,000 operating grant that has been awarded to Philanos. Clare mentioned that we are thrilled at the opportunities this will provide to us, our affiliates and members, and that our partner organizations have also received funding: Philanthropy Together, the Community Investment Network, and Grapevine.
She said that this phenomenal grant will strengthen Philanos and enable us to continue advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in collective giving, work collaboratively with BIPOC communities and engage more younger people in philanthropy. Clare mentioned that we are honored to partner with Fidelity Charitable to increase the flow of philanthropic dollars to underserved populations. This includes both BIPOC communities nationwide and a regional focus on the Mountain West and the South Central regions of the US. These 16 states receive only 1/3rd of the philanthropic dollars per capita compared to the coasts and we aspire to reduce this inequity by expanding collective giving in those regions - important work!
And, Ilyasah N Shabazz of Philanthropy Together, a global initiative to grow the collective giving movement, joined us to discuss trends in Philanthropy that directly relate to you as a Philanos Affiliate and giving circle member from “In Abundance: An Analysis of the Thriving Landscape of Collective Giving in the U.S.”, the newly-released national research report from the Johnson Center, Colmena-Consulting, and Philanthropy Together.
All of our speakers elaborated on how all of this benefits YOU - our affiliates and individual members. We look forward to all that we will continue to do, together. Watch the recorded version.
