SPEAKER_01 0:37

Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is a podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rodri Davis, and this week we are talking all about the Wealth Shared project. Now, Wealth Shared was a project that was set up in Liverpool last year in which twelve randomly selected citizens of a particular postcode, L8, were selected and given the opportunity to help decide how £100,000 worth of money that came from a particular donor, a man called David Clark, how it was given away. So we'll be talking to David first of all, and then we'll also be talking to Anne-Marie Gallise, who was one of the participants briefly at the end, to get her perspective. I should say up front, I was sort of tangentially a bit involved in Wealth Shared as well, in that I live in Liverpool and I talk a lot about philanthropy. So before he started the project and kind of while he was thinking about it, David got in touch with me out of the blue on LinkedIn, piqued my curiosity. So I met him for a coffee and then ended up sort of chatting to him quite a bit about you know how he was thinking about designing the project. And then when the project was actually happening, I was lucky enough to sit in on uh a few of the deliberation sessions and just kind of listen to what was was going on. So it's really fascinating to have been kind of you know a little bit involved all the way through. Um so I sat down with David uh not that long ago, um, and in a world first, it was actually the uh the first time we've recorded a podcast at my house uh in person. So um David and I sat down together just to have a chat about uh wealth shared. So we talked about what the project was, what his thinking behind it was, what had kind of made him first of all decide to give away this money, but also to go down the route of trying to recruit 12 random people to help him make that decision and kind of what it was that had driven that, whether it was mostly about the efficiency of how the money got given away, whether it was about sort of wider concerns about wealth inequality, or whether it was um about sort of experimenting with different approaches to making giving more democratic. And as you'll uh hear, you know, all of those things were sort of part of David's thinking. Um we talked a bit about how he designed the actual process uh in terms of bringing people together, how you make that work, what kind of parameters, if any, were set around what they were able to decide to give to. Um we talked quite a bit about what David had found interesting about the deliberation meetings and kind of what had struck him about the things that people discussed and the concerns they had and kind of how they went about making that decision. Um we also talked about kind of how he felt as the you know the donor in the situation, the one who brought the money to the table, whether he sort of found it you know h helpful and comfortable to be involved, or whether there had been moments in which he'd sort of found that slightly uh uncomfortable. Um and then we talked a bit about uh whether this project could be replicated elsewhere, you know, whether there were things that were sort of unique and particular to this group of people or to Liverpool as a city, or whether it was something that could be kind of replicated elsewhere, either using the same model or sort of adapting elements of it to use in different contexts. And then uh we'll hear a little bit from Anne-Marie as well at the end, just to kind of get her perspective on how she'd found it being involved in the project, what it was that had made her say yes to it in the first place, how she'd found the meetings and the kind of working with other people she hadn't met before to make this decision, uh, and you know, what, if anything, she felt she had learned from the process and kind of got out of it herself. Um so without further ado, let's go into both of those conversations. Uh, I will be back at the end of the podcast for the usual bit of housekeeping. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with David Clark. Hi, David. Hi. Um, so David, for everybody listening, I've done the intro, you'll I'm sure you'll be aware, is the the person behind uh the wealth shared project, which uh took place in Liverpool last year, um, and the findings of that are out relatively recently in a really interesting report. Um so I've chatted to David about this uh stuff quite a bit, sort of during the initial thinking behind the report and as it went uh behind the project and as it went on. Um so I thought it'd be really interesting to sit down and kind of talk a bit about what it was that brought the project about, how the process went, and kind of what you're thinking about it is now. Um so maybe the best place to start is is just to say a bit about kind of how the project came about, where the idea came from, what drove it from your point of view, and we can kind of pick up on it from there.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

So the idea behind Wealth Shared was to bring together a random group of strangers and give them an almost entirely free choice over what should happen to a pot of money. Um I I'm the originator of the money and the coordinator of the project, and it's money that I inherited some years ago and had been kind of wondering what to do with. I just decided I have more money than I need, and um I think there's too much inequality in the UK, uh, and I wanted to do something about it. And and I was thinking, you know, I've made this decision to to give some of this money away, and I was thinking, like, what's the best thing to do with it? But then I was thinking, why is it just me making this decision? Part of the kind of basis for deciding to give it away was I'm not really sure I believe in like having too much inherited wealth, and if I really if that's really my position, then I think the extension of that should always also be that I should give up the power to decide what to do with it, and that's kind of what led me in this direction.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah, it's really it's really interesting, and I kind of I mean it'd be interesting to kind of talk afterwards about the extent to which you think that is replicable replicable or is you know kind of unique to to you and your own sort of views on on your you know your the wealth that you had and and kind of how the the world works. I guess the other thing I I wanted to ask is, you know, you've sort of outlined the decision there as being primarily you know the choice to go down the route of not just deciding to give the money away yourself, but to to do this this whole project based around bringing together kind of randomly selected group of of people in a local area, um, is you know, partly about your kind of concerns about whether you should be in a position to be able to make the decision about how that money is spent. So is it sort of primarily the you know concern about the kind of democratic legitimacy of the idea that an individual would get to choose how to spend that money, or were there any other factors in terms of you know thinking about whether that's a more effective way of making sure that the money gets to the right places, or whether you were also interested in whether there would be some sort of value in the process itself, not just for the recipients but for the people involved in the decision-making?

SPEAKER_02 7:47

I think like almost all of those things were kind of in the mix. I sort of think of it as less as me coming from a place of me feeling kind of guilty about having this money and more just an expression of like how the I'd like the world to be, is to have kind of more people having a say over more of the wealth that there is, and I think part of it is that you know, I guess I do have a sort of faith in the wisdom and ingenuity of like random people, and I thought that if you kind of bring a group of people together, you could have quite just an interesting process, and I sort of had a hypothesis that it would lead to a rich and thoughtful discussion, and that really like played out in the process. And yeah, there is a kind of thing of I thought it seemed like a kind of cool idea just to see what see what would happen with it, and I like the idea that it might inspire other people to think about kind of wealth inequality and how we can kind of redistribute wealth in different ways. That yeah, there might be some sort of wider value to the project in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

And in terms of how this sort of f fits into some of that, you know, I know you're aware of kind of wider discussions and sort of initiatives out there that are about trying to sort of shift power and to make decision-making and philanthropy more democratic. There's obviously other models of things like participatory grant-making, but they tend to start from you know wanting to focus on a particular cause or to give to a particular group or community, and then involving the people who would have been the recipients of you know traditional philanthropy or charity in the decision-making. And maybe this is a bit different in that you're involving a sort of third group of people, which is just randomly selected citizens. So, what what was it that kind of tipped you towards thinking about it in those terms rather than maybe the kind of more straightforward participatory approach?

SPEAKER_02 9:45

I just l like the kind of radicalism of it, of just completely throwing it open. I think if you like I just I I I'm quite into sort of like democracy in general. Like I love watching kind of elections and um and also TV programmes that have a sort of democratic like um angle to them. And I just thought it would be cool to kind of see what happened to like just give people a completely, almost completely free choice and just see where it led them. And but it definitely has been you know, the coming up with a project it was inspired by the trends that are taking place in philanthropy, as you say, towards participatory grant-making, more kind of trust-based approaches. And then also trends that are happening in kind of democratic like innovation, the use of citizens' assemblies and like deliberative forms of democracy to make decisions.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

And and one of the things I thought was interesting, like a lot, you know, the background to a lot of discussion and about the role of philanthropy these days and pretty much forever, is you know, the question of how it relates to the responsibilities of taxation? And you know, critics would sort of say, well, yes, philanthropy is all well and good, but the problem is that there isn't enough redistribution through taxation, and and often we'll say, and philanthropy can't be a substitute for that because it has a fundamentally different nature, it's not democratic, it's sort of you know it's based on the voluntary choices of individuals. Did did you was any part of your thinking a sort of sense that actually this is almost a way of making philanthropy a bit more tax-like? And so maybe it's not a perfect substitute, but actually, if you are concerned that people don't, you know, there isn't enough taxation and redistribution in society, this kind of approach is a way that maybe you could make philanthropy something that could, you know, at least pragmatically fill a bit of that gap.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Absolutely, yeah. It's like a a practical example of how you can have more democratic control over the wealth that there is. And um, I think I'm hoping it kind of might be helpful in terms of just showing people this is what you know, this is an example of what it could look like if you know if there's more democratic control over the wealth, and and that might perhaps it might kind of build the case for higher wealth taxation, which I think we we do need um because of the state of wealth inequality in the UK. Um, but also it's I think this there is this opportunity, I think, in philanthropy to actually try out different kind of democratic models, and you know, and it's something you can kind of do on a rel on a small scale like this and see how it works, and then you can, you know, if a range of different projects like this take place, then you can kind of come up with some conclusions about um what approaches are optimal.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, uh and let's I mean it's really, really interesting stuff, and I want to come back to to some of this bigger picture stuff. But in terms of how the the process itself actually worked, um I mean let's do a bit of the the sort of total nitty-gritty. Kind of you want to to engage a random group of of citizens. Like what what did you actually do about doing that? What was the process you went through to make sure that you got a group that was, you know, I don't know whether it was just totally random or whether you're thinking about representation and how you decided, you know, where to draw the boundaries around, you know, uh locality or what sort of types of people you were involved in.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah, the story was I decided to do this project in the L8 postcode in Liverpool, just simply because that's where I live. Um and and because it yeah, I wanted to do the project in a relatively kind of lean way. It was basically a lot of the logistics of it, particularly early on, was just me doing it myself. So I wanted to make it kind of manageable. So 600 households in the postcode got um letters being like, Do you want to take part in this? Anybody over 16 living in this household can register online or by phone or text and register your interest. Uh about 40 people got back, which I think is quite standard for like citizens' assembly type processes like this. And 12 of those were selected also at random. So there was no attempt to kind of make it demographically representative, but it did end up producing what seemed like quite a balanced cohort of people, like in terms of age, occupation, like religion. They actually had a discussion about um religion like during the process. Uh and then they were invited to four sessions of deliberation, which took place over four consecutive weeks in June and July of 2023, two hours each, like you know, on consecutive Wednesday evenings with a facilitator. Um and it was there was a bit of structure to it, which was primarily aimed at like making sure that they they got to know got to know each other, understood what was being asked of them and the kind of the rules that existed, and then and that they kind of felt comfortable like in the space. Um but beyond that we kind of left it to it to up to them to a significant extent to just decide how to use the time.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

And and did you set any parameters for them around what they were able, you know, the types of things and the causes or organizations that they were able to think about supporting, or the numbers, you know, how many different donations could be made out of the overall pot, or you know, or to what extent did you just leave it entirely open?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

So the the the rules were that they could make a maximum of four donations and that the it was like one-off donations or or transfers, and it could have gone to individuals, organisations. So the yeah, they could have just selected some individual people they wanted to just g give a load of money to if they wanted to do that for any particular reason. Like anywhere in the world, local, national, int or or international, it could be any sort of cause area, you know, the environment, animals, human rights, uh or you know direct payments to individuals. Um they they weren't the uh yeah, they weren't able to give the money to themselves and they uh couldn't have any continuing involvement with the money or control over it beyond the conclusion of the project. The rules, it was partly just uh particularly the kind of thing of stipulating it was no more than four donations was partly just because again, like it was just me kind of doing it. So I what happened when they made the decision was that I simply just transferred the money to these organizations that they'd selected, and I just wanted to make that kind of manageable.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

And and one of the things I I mean, I really want to talk about the deliberation meetings because I I mean should make clear to people listening, I was lucky enough to sit in on those, and it was absolutely fascinating. There was a lot of really interesting stuff about group dynamics, but also just what happens when you get a group of normal people and sort of lead them into thinking about issues to do with philanthropy and how interesting those conversations are. But one of the things I wanted to ask first was um obviously, you know, you'd kind of initiated the project and it was was your money that was was there to be spent. Um but you know, you were also kind of allowed yourself to be part of those those group uh deliberation meetings and to kind of interact with the people um who were kind of involved in the group. Were you kind of comfortable doing that? Did you think it was just something that was necessary in order to give people confidence in knowing what the process was, or was it something that you were kind of you probably would have rather not been in in the room or kind of you know taken yourself out of the picture more?

SPEAKER_02 17:31

I should say like the the um deliberation was really co-created with I mean I got a lot of input from yourself, and um so from with Emily, um Emily McChrystal, who was the facilitator, and I really do want to like pay credit to her because it was it is an incredibly difficult like facilitation exercise to have these groups of people who don't know each other presented with this completely open-ended question and re a relatively limited time to um reach a conclusion and and to hold that amount of kind of uncertainty in the space, make sure that people feel sort of safe and comfortable, uh but also like you know, allow them to keep the discussion moving. That was like a really, really big challenge, and like you know, she did a fantastic job with that. I I did, you know, we I think we decided that it the project it kind of it sort of only makes sense in a way if I just explain my part in it and like motivation for doing it. So I did give a little intro just at the start to explain like why this would come about. But otherwise oh yeah, and the other thing was that I the what the participants were able to like request information or uh uh commission like research if they wanted more details about any organizations or just kind of anything basically. And and I did that for them again just because it was like you know, if if this was a project with giving away a much larger amount of money that was maybe be being done by some institutional funder, then you could maybe have a kind of really properly sort independent sort of secretariat, but it was just yeah, I sort of be being the way it was, I I kind of played that part in it. But mainly I was just sitting in the corner and watching it all play out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

And I was very like determined that I the participants did actually ask me sometimes, they were like, Well, what do you I I remember, I was gonna ask this because one of the the things certainly in that first session I remember quite clearly was once you'd sort of you know told them your your story but then made it clear that the point was that they got to decide. They still their immediate response was to say, What do you want us to give it to? And and there was almost a sense for a while they were trying to sort of second guess, is this what you want? And do you did you find that did you feel as though they got over that quite quickly and kind of got got the idea that you genuinely were quite happy with them making the decision and not having to sort of second guess what you might do if it was your if you making the decision?

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Yeah, yeah, I think it and I think I I sort of understand that they would want to be completely sure that I almost they wanted to be completely sure that I was sure about what I was doing, but I think once I was very sort of yeah clear that I d wanted it didn't want to influence them at all and that I want I was sort of trusting them with the decision. Um and yeah, I think they kind of picked up on that.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah. Um and some of the things I found really interesting. I mean I m I remember my abiding memory, the first meeting coming away from it, um, was just a sense of renewed faith in humanity without wanting to be too cheesy. It was like, oh, you bring a group of people together, and they, you know, genuinely everybody just you know that it wasn't just that everybody immediately went into groupthink, but everybody's very respectful of other people's views, and they kind of quite quickly found their way to navigate some of these sort of quite complicated issues. So it was really, you know, heartening to see that. But one of the themes that came up then, and I know came up again in in the other meetings that it'd be really interesting to talk about, was a sense in which the starting point, I think, for everybody was, you know, it's a hundred thousand pounds, this is a lot of money. You know, all the people involved in that room, it you know, they're I as far as aware, none of them were especially wealthy people, so it was a lot of money. They were aware that for the organizations that were potentially going to receive it, it would be a significant sum of money. But then as they talked through what they could do with the money and started to talk about some of the issues, there was a sudden switch to, oh, it's it's not a lot of money in the scale of you know, problems like education or kind of food poverty. Was that something that you kind of found interesting? And was it did it reflect your own thinking in terms of you know, when you were thinking about giving that money away, did you sort of find that you flipped between thinking, what's this a significant sum of money, or it you know, it's a drop in the ocean?

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Yeah, absolutely. You know, there was there was kind of a point in time where when I was thinking about giving away this money, of like contending with these questions for the first time. time of and I think you know that will probably have been true for the the twelve participants as well. It's just not something that they a lot of people kind of have any reason to think about is like what do you do with funds. And and it I think it can be quite like overwhelming exactly in the way that you say the the the just unlimited amount of like possibilities of what you can do and and all the sort of questions that arise from those possibilities of almost kind of moral, political, I don't know, questions spiritual questions about like um how to try and create whatever benefit it is that you want to happen. But then yeah but then also the the sort of harsh realities of you know that that being a only limited in the amount of like money that you have and and the um the constraints that come with trying to kind of do anything like with funds that you that there's the the sort of limitations of just trying to make anything kind of happen in the world like whether it's institutional limitations of activities needing to be delivered and resourced and well I guess that's it yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

And and you mentioned there about the sort of you know touched on the the fact that there was kind of a a political element to some of the discussions which again I found fascinating because I get I mean partly it's it's Liverpool so it's inevitable that there's going to be political element to discussions. But also it's a I thought it was a really interesting reminder of the fact that you know despite what some people say charity is kind of inherently political because whatever you're doing you're talking about kind of addressing problems in the world and it's almost impossible not to take you know account of that wider context. What did you make of some of those discussions that that they had you know I was quite struck by some of that discussion about you know focusing on things like education quite quickly people were caught in between that sense of they were very aware that there was a need there but they were quite concerned about using the money to to spend on things that maybe they felt represented a failing of public spending and they didn't want to sort of be covering gaps in state expenditure.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Did you what did you sort of make of that that um bit of the discussion yeah that so that it was they it came a couple a cut came up a couple of times this question of like you know they discussed the kind of failings of uh public services I think this was at this point this was because they were kind of thinking about things in their local area and just were looking at they discussed kind of their awareness of like state of the public realm yeah and then this question came up of like could we do something to kind of fill the gap of where the state or like public services are failing. And and and whether if you if you do fill the gap in philanthropy whether that yeah that kind of lets like politics or government off the hook. And I think that the the conclusion they drew was that if there's a need there's a need and you should just try and fill it. I guess maybe the thinking was maybe maybe there's a danger in kind of s being overly complicated about trying to kind of guess what would happen if you let things get worse even though you have the power to do something about it in the hope that that will some s politics will kind of rectify itself down the line that that's a bit of a kind of long shot I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

With this day yeah I think there was definitely a sort of it was really interesting discussion but in the end of it though I was struck there's a sort of pragmatism of well you know as you say it's kind of we can talk about all of that political stuff and what the government should or shouldn't be doing but we have the opportunity to do something with this money now and address needs. So that let's just focus on on that which I think is is interesting because it kind of goes to I think the response a lot of philanthropists end up having which is yes let's absolutely analyse you know the the nature and role of philanthropy and be critical about it but let's not stop that you know let's not let that stop us actually just doing something.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

They did have a brief discussion I mean it was possible that they could have given the money to a like political party or some kind of political more political cause and they did have a brief discussion about that which felt like almost they were discussing it in a joking way. It was just quite kind of quite interesting and I guess that's not all that encouraging I would say about the attitude they had towards like politics as a means of achieving change yeah it is it is true there was I think I guess that sort of slight default cynicism about whether that would be a good use of the money or not which is yeah maybe tells you you something about the you know but but there's it tells you something about their relationship with I yeah the sort polit the political system that we have kind of in the UK at a national level or the the kind of structure of I guess political parties. But what you it would definitely be wrong to draw from the experience is any kind of an apathy about like sort of their community or their the attitude towards society because they were like very very engaged in just how things are and how things should be in their in their area and and I think in kind of society in general. And I think they talked very much in kind of political terms it's just not in terms of the like political institutions that are kind of dominant at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yeah I guess it's a reminder that representative or electoral democracy is is one variety of democracy not the only one and not necessarily the one that appeals most to people so um yeah you're absolutely true. And one thing I wanted to ask was you mentioned before that there was an opportunity for them to kind of ask for further research or or information and they did do that at one point. What what was your sense of whether that actually informed their thinking like how useful was data to them? Did did it kind of did they base their decision on it or was it something they kind of took into account that but then actually wasn't a huge factor?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

So there was a yeah they were able to like ask as I mentioned I think that they were they were able to ask for information about kind of basically anything that would assist their discussion and we would we said we'd like do our best to um meet their requirements so they kind of asked for something one week and then we will like go away and do it and present it to them the next and there was a few occasions where they did that. They asked for quite early on they were thinking about whether to focus on like spending the money in the local area and they asked for some information about just the Liv Liverpool 8 postcode and like its kind of demographic makeup and where it sits kind of in a national context and then later on they asked for a list of I think not for profit organisations operating in L8 which we weren't quite able to deliver that to then that's hard. So this I mean it this revealed there's a kind of subplot there about just the availability of kind of data and there were some really useful resources which we used um like the 360 giving like um and the NPC oh yeah the data the sort of needs dashboards then isn't it yeah that's really brilliant and they they found that useful yeah. So was it did they use this information? They I think that they were thinking about whether to spend the money in the local area and they I think they had a sense they'd already decided I think that they wanted to like use the money to address poverty and deprivation and they were thinking about using it in the local area and we presented this information to them which part of it was like it confirmed that L8 is by many measures in the like indices of indices of multiple deprivation it's you know one of the most deprived areas in the country and they weren't necessarily aware of that and I think that that may have kind of strengthened their conclusion that it made spent sense to spend the money locally. wanted to focus on like poverty and deprivation then spending the money in an area which is a particularly deprived area but that they also kind of knew a lot about because they lived there that sort of made logical sense.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Yeah I wanted to ask about that because obviously the the I mean you know spoiler alert for the end of it or if anybody's read the report you know the the organizations that they ended up deciding to fund were local organizations based or you know operating within the LA um postcode. And I guess there's a an interesting I mean unpicking whether that is because you know a reflection of the fact that the the defining characteristic that brought these people together is that they're residents of that postcode and so that was a natural thing to do because that was their kind of common sense of of identity. Whether there were practical aspects to it in terms of you know it feels easier to have confidence or to feel as though you're going to be able to see the effect of your giving if it happens in your local area or whether it was sort of you know particular to the fact that as you say L8 is is an area of you know quite high levels of deprivation and pretty high levels of inequality and whether that might you know if you pull together a a group in a local area elsewhere in the UK or somewhere else you might end up with a a different focus and maybe they would think more nationally or internationally.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

I so we I had an evaluation session with them where I I like invited all the participants a few a couple of months later to meet up and like just reflect on it and and I asked them about that um and and I asked them if they were all from Formby which is a kind of affluent uh town like n near Liverpool would they have made the same decision to spend the money locally in Formby and they said no.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

So they so that that sort of suggests like driven in part by where like some sense of the awareness of the need rather than just the it you know it being where they lived.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Yeah yeah yeah I think you it is totally kind of natural and expected that if you bring together a group of random people they're gonna like look for some sense of like commonality between them in order to just establish the basis for their discussion and um moving forwards. And I think part part of the challenge of like facilitating a process like that is to get people to think really with an op as much of an open mind as possible and to think kind of like beyond themselves to consider the full extent of possibilities and to to see the world from the kind I don't know the highest kind of viewpoint. We did our best to accomplish that and I think and I think you yeah you can look at the decision in two ways. You can say well maybe again like in the evaluation session I thought I I challenged the group about this I was like do you was it just the path of like least resistance to uh go with these local organizations and they really really really pushed back on that they were like no we weren't we like really considered this very carefully and like this was not a kind of easy conclusion to come to and I think so you as I said before you can also look at the decision as actually being a pretty like rational one is that they they wanted to focus on addressing deprivation bearing in mind this happened kind of in the middle of this cost of living crisis which they just described just being so aware of the effects of that on the community and and also the kind of long term just deprivation in the area and they were able to act on that based on what they know and and you know given the relatively short amount of time they had available going off of knowledge of the local area that they felt sure of it just it made sense to them.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Yeah yeah I've seen practically just as you say it was a relatively short space of time so actually the kind of heuristic of well I understand you know what what this area looks like and what the needs are like rather than having to learn about some totally different context I guess pragmatically it makes a lot of sense. I wanted to to ask a bit about you know having decided on on the kind of cause areas when it came to the decision about the actual organizations what kind of discussion there was there? Because I remember being struck by some of the things that that emerged in terms of you know one thing I find really striking was that you had obviously kind of adopted a pretty heavily trust based approach to to kind of giving this group of people the the um the ability and the responsibility for kind of making this decision. But even so when it came to them thinking about handing the money on to other organisations the question of whether they should place restrictions on it came up and that you know whether they should stipulate that it was spent on very particular things and that was you know I I understand in the end that they decided not to and that it was given in a kind of unrestricted way. But did you find it sort of interesting that that even though you know they hadn't been given many restrictions they still started thinking about imposing restrictions when when the money was handed on yeah and it was a very interesting discussion which the the nature of the discussion would be very familiar to anybody who's like had anything to do with like grantmaking and I think there was like a couple of angles to it.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

One was whether it was simply just people having a vision of what they wanted the money to be used for and wanting that to be you know stipulated in how it was handed over. But another thing another angle was like that it was it would be sort of irresponsible to hand over this amount of money without um any sense of like holding the organisations to account that came up as an idea but it was there was a stronger feeling within the group that these organisations they you know they chosen these organizations because of their reputation in the local community because they had seen the benefit of the activities that these organisations are having and um they basically the people in these organisations would kind of know best what to do with the money and they could they should just operate on the basis of trust.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

And did they was there any discussion about you you said they're kind of um part of it was was a sense of responsibility making sure the money was was spent well was there any sense or you know discussion of even if the money was given with no strings attached whether they wanted some way of kind of measuring what was done with the money or were they happy that it would just happen in the sense of being able to kind of see it because they were organisations based in the local area?

SPEAKER_02 38:03

They were they were definitely interested in having an update from the organisations and that is actually something that you know I is will happen incidentally is like I'm still in touch with the group and we'll um let and the we'll let them know what's what's happened. But you know it's in they don't it's the nature of the project that once the money was handed over there is no continuing involvement with it either from the group or from me. I think yeah I guess it was partly just the nature of the process that there wasn't really unless they attached conditions at the point of handing the money over, there was no other way of Oh actually no they did they did they they did talk about giving the money to some third party to in who would then have responsibility for distributing it further and then making sure that it was used wisely. Again I think they dropped that again I think it was it was because the idea of trusting these organisations seemed more appealing there may also have been a thing about it just being quite complicated once you get kind of more people involved.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

And was there any contact before the final decision was made and the money was handed over between the potential recipient organisations and the group? Did they did they ask for or get a chance to kind of meet any representatives? Was that part of the process?

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah they so they talked about doing that in a kind of formal way and a more informal way they talked about like s they could solicit specific information from these organisations and they talked about that in a kind of solicit information in a more kind of open-ended way of like you know tell us what you would want this money for or solicit kind of more specific like discrete bits of information about their governance or whatever. And then there was discussion which actually is what more ended up happening is that they kind of got in touch with the organisations on an informal basis to just it was actually yeah to pick up bits of information and just kind of see what they thought about this the idea of this happening and then the organisations submitted they were obviously like very keen on getting this money so they then submitted they did sort of submissions to the group just off their own they just kind of saw that opportunity and then sent in like material for the group to look at they yeah they decided against a more kind of intensive process of like soliciting I don't know you might even call it kind of applications from the organizations just partly there was one thing was said was mentioned was that they didn't want to kind of take up a lot of time of these organisations if if it wasn't going to it might not kind of lead anywhere. Again there was I think a strong sense of like well we kind of can see the benefit of their having so let's just go off of that.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

And have you had um any kind of subsequent feedback from the organisations that received the donations in terms of their you know their perception if they had any of this particular sort of way of making decision the process and whether they you know they kind of found it interesting or it had any benefit or were they sort of slightly insulated from any of that?

SPEAKER_02 41:39

I I yeah I've so I've met some some of the representatives of the organisations and they I got some feedback that they really appreciated obviously they appreciated getting the money but also like uh the vote of confidence from their peers in the community. Yeah and I think it really is like testament to these their reputation that the uh local people would just select them out of kind of all these the multitude of possibilities as being like worth supporting. This isn't really based on anything the people I've spoken to have said but I I'm aware that like because of the kind of uniqueness of the project and the energy that's gone into it from these 12 people is that might feel like quite a big responsibility for these organisations to like make good on that and so I I think it's important that they understand that just because the money has kind of originated in this unusual way that that doesn't mean that they have to come up with some like extraordinary new way of like spending it's like that you know they've been chosen because of like what they're doing right just just do more of that.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Yeah yeah yeah that's a good point.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Although yeah also in a way it's like not it's it's not my place as to tell anybody what to do but like that's but I'm I guess that's maybe in in terms of like the design of the project overall that's just a sort of consideration.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Yeah. Yeah well that that brings us on to the the question of um you sort of mentioned the design there. I guess one of the the questions now that the the wealth shared project itself is over and you've done the the write up but you say there's kind of you know you're still in contact with the group and there's bits and pieces in terms of sort of bringing them together and getting feedback. But I guess the interesting question is kind of what else might it it lead to and sort of what are your your hopes or ambitions in terms of you know other people potentially learning from this or taking it forward. And I guess one thing I'd be really interested in is do you think it's something that only works in a very specific set of circumstances if there is an individual donor like you who kind of Think similarly and is willing to drive it? Or do you think it's something that could work in other contexts, like an institutional funder kind of adopting a similar approach?

SPEAKER_02 44:10

I think like the the project came about because like I am somebody who was had this money available to do this with and also had the means to spend some time like making it happen and and had it because you know it was like my money, uh all the money that I was kind of in charge of, it was like I was had a a lot of freedom about just just able kind of the ability to kind of conjure this up. And I'm aware that for a lot of people in the kind of world of philanthropy, there's there will be a lot more kind of considerations to manage of like, you know, if for example, if you're managing someone else's money, then you have to like also manage their expectations. But I nevertheless, I really, really hope that people can pick up aspects of this. Uh you know, there will be other people that are in my it's more similar position to me where there's kind of the the the the significant kind of leeway about what to do with funds. But also you know, if you're somebody listening to this who you you're kind of somewhere in the picture of where you can you have a kind of influence over like how funds are allocated, then um I really recommend this. And like I I really recommend the kind of really being radical about opening up the decision making to as kind of diverse a group of people as possible and like really being kind of radically democratic about it. And yeah, I think part of what I want to do with this project is to just um put it out there and like show that it's possible and try you know try and give some encouragement to people like who are kind of thinking in a similar direction.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

And and one thing I just wanted to ask um finally before I let you go, um I guess one one my suspicion is that like some of the reticence that individual donors might have about doing something similar would be a sense of, oh but if you know, if I put myself out of the picture and and don't you know have a choice over where the the money goes, you know, it feels as though it won't be as rewarding in the sense you know in which you know philanthropy to some extent you know is is um driven by a sense that the donor wants to get some reward for it. But I'd be really interested in kind of did you find it, you know, despite the fact that you were saying, look, I'm not gonna make a decision about this, did you still find that actually you know you found the process rewarding? And was that something you were kind of happy to kind of embrace?

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Yeah, yeah. I think I I feel good about it. Um I have kind of different roles in this of like having donated the money and all and done the project and and kind of witnessed it and and uh yeah, but I feel good about giving away this money and and and giving over the decision to these people. I I'm sort of I I'm fascinated by you know I I enjoy sort of I enjoyed watching it and I enjoy analyzing the process almost in the same way that I enjoy like watching Big Brother or like watching it in general election. Yeah. Um and I think one yeah one thing that surprised me was I thought that that the group these this group of people might treat it they might see me as a kind of this like eccentric person doing this like mad project and that they would they would go along with it but in a kind of sort of detached way, almost like kind of humour me. But they it wasn't it didn't feel like that at all. It felt they it felt like they really kind of were invested in the process, put a lot of themselves into it. They it was so clear that they kind of cared about their community and the you know, just wanting to kind of make some good happen. Um and and I think through that there was just a strong it just felt like quite a sort of I don't know, emotionally like rich experience to be part of. Um so that's I think that's the thing that surprised me is just yeah, the kind of dedication of these people to the process. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Yeah, and I have to say being involved on the fringes and you know, somewhat not jaded about philanthropy, but I've I spent a lot of time talking about and reading about and thinking about philanthropy. I find yeah, I found the whole thing absolutely fascinating and really sort of invigorating. So it was you know it was great to have a chance to be part of it. Um just remained to say thanks ever so much, David, for coming on the podcast. Really, really interesting to hear about the project. I'll put links in the show notes to places where people can find more detail and certainly the report, which I thoroughly recommend reading. And you know, as David says, if anyone um you know is listening to this and in a position to do something similar, you know, please do uh get in touch and I'm happy to kind of put you in contact with David so you can talk more about it, because it'd be great to see this replicated elsewhere. Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to David for that. Um and before we finish things up, as promised, we're also going to hear from Anne-Marie Gillise, who was one of the 12 participants in the Wellshared project. Um so let's hear from Anne-Marie now. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Anne-Marie, uh, who was one of the participants uh in the group that was brought together to make the decision for Wellshared. So hi there, Anne-Marie.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Hi, Roger. Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Oh no, great, great to have a chance to chat and kind of get your perspective on this whole thing. Um, I think one of the, I mean, probably the most interesting place to start and for people listening would just be to hear a bit about what your reaction was when you actually got this invitation out of the blue to take part in this project. You know, what you thought about it and what it was that made you say yes.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Um, initially, I have to be honest, and I thought it was a scam. I was like, what is this? It's not very often that um something like this drops through your letterbox. So I read it and applied, and I was selected. Um, so yeah, it was really interesting. Um yeah, but initially I thought it was a scam. I was like, what is this? No, this can't be real. And it was.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

But was there anything? Did you just sort of think it might be a scam? But I'll just have a have a see and kind of see what happens. Or was there anything about it that made you think, oh, maybe there is something, you know, maybe this is legitimate?

SPEAKER_00 51:06

I suppose on my part, it was a bit of intrigue. And I thought, wow, this is amazing. Um, and that it was going to be invested in the local area. And, you know, I'm proud to live in the area where I reside now. And I thought it is an area, you know, where there is lots of pockets of deprivation, but it's a really vibrant area as well, and up and common. And I thought, wow, this is this is amazing that somebody is gonna invest into the local community.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Yeah. And and how did you kind of, when you turned up and and you know, took part in the first of those decision meetings, how did you you find it? I mean, what did you kind of make of it? Was it what you expected? Was there anything that kind of surprised you about it?

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Oh, right. On the first day, I was so surprised to hear David's story actually, that this 100,000 was basically inheritance, that he was um going because he lives in the local area and is aware of this social deprivation and the charities, he uh wanted to donate that to help others. And I thought, how remarkable, how kind, how generous um that there's somebody that would do that. Um, and so hearing his uh story was quite touching and remarkable, and then as a group it was interesting to come together, and I think we all gelled, and we I think we reached a unanimous decision about kind of what agencies were going to receive the money. Um, so we worked well collectively, but yeah, it was remarkable, David's story, the background to it all. It was quite heartwarming, really, that somebody would do that. And you know, he he is a philanthropist, it's part of research as well, and hopefully it'll inform local uh decision making, you know, it'll make hopefully people think about involving local people and local decisions.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

Yeah. And do you feel like, you know, in terms of what you got out of it, obviously it's the opportunity to be involved to make sure that money got to good causes, but do you did you kind of come away from it thinking, hmm, I feel like you know, there's stuff that I learned myself out of that that I'll kind of take on into other areas of my life or work?

SPEAKER_00 53:46

Definitely. Um, you know, I think part of giving and it's understand. And, you know, when we heard we looked at research and charities, uh voluntary agencies in the local area, it was getting more in-depth knowledge about the social problems in our local area of L8. And it was quite humbling and it made you appreciate everything you have and put things into perspective. Um, and it does make you think about helping those who are in not such a good position in life. So, yeah, I think I have taken away um you know, maybe uh that element, um, just to think and consider that there is others that are, you know, not in such a lucky position. And if you are able to help do so.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

And did did you find, because obviously, if you bring together a group of people who don't necessarily know each other at all, even if they live in the same area, um, it's obviously a kind of challenge to get everybody to agree on on everything. Were there any points where the group had to sort of find a way to get around, you know, people not necessarily agreeing on anything? And did that did you find that worked in a relatively sort of positive way?

SPEAKER_00 55:03

I think the first thing um I suppose I didn't mention before, you know, David said this is the money, you don't have to necessarily invest it in the local area, it can go to kind of charities in the wider area, etc. But I think quickly we did want to um give the money to agencies in the local area, given it is quite a multicultural area and it has um pockets of social deprivation, so we reached that decision quite quickly. Um in terms of the was different, obviously, we came from different backgrounds, um there was people of you know different nationalities, uh, race, creeds, and I suppose we all had individual experiences in life, and because of that, we were maybe focused on either maybe some people were focused on helping children in need, others were older people, or there was um there was people who brought very personal stories to the table, which was quite profound, um, and obviously that was their focus, so we kind of had to negotiate how we could kind of give to the um the largest community if possible. So I think we focused on children, older people, um, and to try and capture you know as big a uh uh a proportion of the community as possible, really.

SPEAKER_01 56:46

And just just finally thinking about kind of what might might happen next, obviously, sort of you know, it's it's still to be seen where this this goes. But the the project that happened last year was quite specific to L8 and and to you know the that particular area in the group that was brought together. But do you think this kind of model something that could work elsewhere? Could you see it kind of happening in other parts of Liverpool or in other cities or different places around the UK, kind of the same thing, bringing together groups of randomly selected people and kind of giving them the opportunity to make these sorts of decisions?

SPEAKER_00 57:18

I think it was an amazing opportunity and an amazing experience. And I hope it will encourage others who were in that position to maybe think about uh it like David's a remarkable man to put his trust in us to take forward the decision making, and I suppose in doing so he was getting a truer reflection of the people in the community um who were not necessarily affected but are aware of the struggles in the community, and I think that's really important because I think sometimes in decision making you know the decision makers are so far removed from the people who are experiencing hardship. Um so that that was a huge benefit, I think, in the process. People from the local community that know the struggles, the local area. It'd be great if you know councils could, you know, look at this model, you know, and involve more local people in decision makings for funding, etc. Because areas differ, you know. Uh Liverpool itself, you know, there's huge variations in areas in terms of economic class, social deprivation. Um, so it's looking at that, these small areas with their individual challenges, shall we say?

SPEAKER_01 58:59

Yeah. Yeah, and it'll be really interesting to see if it it does get taken up and sort of here's hoping. Um just just remembering to say thanks ever so much, Anne-Marie, for your for your time. Really interesting to kind of hear your perspective as somebody who's involved in the group. Um, so yeah, and and all the best of the future.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Thanks very much, Roger, Roger, and thank you for letting me speak. And again, I just want to thank David for the opportunity to be involved. And he's really a remarkable chap. And yeah, it was a pleasure actually to meet him. And yeah, it was quite humbling and heartwarming.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to Anne-Marie for finding the time to come on the podcast, and again, thanks to David for finding this time to come over to my house and have a chat about Wealth Shared. Um, I'll put links in the show notes to places where you can find more information about the Wealth Shared project, including the uh project report, which is a really interesting write-up of what happened and some of the insights that were gained along the way. Um, I'll put the usual links in the show notes to other things that you might be interested in, stuff that I've written and that other people have have written. Um if you're interested more broadly in issues around philanthropy and civil society, do always check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters.com. All kinds of content uh on there, lots of articles, publications, um, news updates, back episodes of this podcast. So there's you know all kinds of stuff for you to get your teeth into there. Um if you want sort of shorter updates, do follow me on social media. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm not really on uh Twitter or X these m uh much these days. Uh so LinkedIn's probably the best place to find me for now. If you've got ideas for people that could come on the podcast you'd be interesting to talk to, or topics that we could cover, do drop me a line either via LinkedIn or find the email address for me on the Wife Philanthropy Matters website. Other than that, just like, subscribe, tell anybody else that you think might enjoy this podcast about it so that they can try it out too. Uh and I will see you next time. Bye.