SPEAKER_06 0:37

Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rodri Davis. And this week we have an uncharitable special, which doesn't mean that we're just going around being uncharitable. It's all about the documentary film Uncharitable, which came out towards the end of last year in the US, uh, directed by Stephen Gillenhaal, uh, and based on the work of Dan Pilotta, and particularly a TED Talk and a book um that he's written about his experiences and his kind of arguments about the need to overcome what he calls the overhead myth, which we'll talk more about in a moment. Um so I was lucky enough to get a random offer out of the blue, actually, as a result of uh this very podcast uh from Lara Mouth at um VTOL Foundation, who I have to say a big thank you to. Um and they offered me the opportunity to see the film, um, and that actually turned into an opportunity to do a little sort of private screening um at their offices, which I did. So I invited along some people, most of whom I were kind of already friends of mine from the the philanthropy world, to come and watch the film, um, just have a bit of a talk about it, see what we made of it. Um, and a few of them also um did a couple of sort of short mini interviews that you'll hear at the end of this podcast. So I wasn't quite sure how to structure the podcast because it's a bit of a departure from the normal uh running order. The the main event is still an interview, so I was very lucky to get an interview with the director, Stephen Gillenhal. So that's the kind of main body of things. But I thought before we go into that, I would just give a few framing thoughts and maybe just a little bit of analysis of the film, just so that you kind of know what it's about and you know what I thought of it and the sort of sense in the room when I watched it. Then we'll hear from Stephen. Um, you know, it's really interesting. I think you know he kind of touches on lots of points about the ideas in the film, but also the process of making it and what the plans are uh next in terms of taking um you know the ideas in the film forward. Um and then after that we'll have uh a few of those kind of short vox pop interviews with people who attended the screening. Um so we'll hear from Natasha Friend uh from Camden Giv uh Camden Giving, uh, from Angela Cale from NPC, uh Amy Brer, uh my colleague at Pears Foundation, uh, and from Ruo Wu and Alison Talbot at the law firm Winkworth Sherwood, all of whom came along to the event and very kindly gave up a bit of their time afterwards to give some thoughts. So before we get into the interview with with Stephen, I'm just going to, as I say, kind of give a few framing thoughts and kind of my initial take uh on the film, and I'll try not to go too long on this. So I guess the basic thing to say is my overarching point is I definitely would recommend that if you get a chance to see the film that you do so. Particularly, you know, if you work in the world of philanthropy or charity, you know, it's a real opportunity to see a proper, very well-made documentary film all about issues to do with philanthropy and charity, which is, you know, definitely unusual, and certainly that itself is uh not something to be sniffed at. Um, I found it, you know, really watchable as well. I think it's kind of really interesting and well made. There are definitely some points to make you know about it that I will come on to in a moment that people in the room when we watched it made and also ones that kind of uh occurred to me. But it's I should say it's not on general release at the moment, although as you'll hear when I talk to Stephen, there are kind of plans hopefully to make it more widely available. So, you know, over time I think it will become easier, and there are lots of sort of screening events being held by various non-profit organizations and philanthropy bodies um in various places around the world. So if you do get a chance, I would definitely say, you know, seek seek it out. As I say, kind of the response in the room when I held the screening that I held was was a bit mixed in a way. I think everybody kind of thought that the the film was worth seeing. Some really liked it and it really kind of resonated with them and they, you know, appreciated the message and thought it it kind of really had an impact. Others, I think, found the bits of it that they didn't like sort of more difficult to swallow and as a result kind of were more ambivalent about the film overall. I guess, you know, for me, the good stuff about the film first, let's cover that off, because there is a lot of good stuff about it. I actually ended up watching the film twice. Um I watched it once on the train because I wasn't sure when I was going to speak to Stephen and I wanted to prep for that. Uh so I watched it once on the train on my own on the laptop and you know, I found it really interesting. As I say, I think it's kind of really well put together. It kind of stacks up there against a lot of the documentaries that you'll find out there on streaming platforms, uh, you know, now and good use of various bits of kind of archive footage and that sort of thing, and some interesting stories um and kind of narratives woven throughout it. I guess some people who watched it in the room said maybe it was a little bit, you know, overlong, and particularly you know, if the ambition longer term is to get it out to uh a wider public audience, 90 minutes of of this might be a bit of a stretch. I don't know because I think the appetite for um documentaries these days, uh given that people kind of watch all kinds of things on streaming services and platforms, you know, potentially people would. And as I say, it's kind of quite a gripping narrative once you you get into it. And you know, actually managing to make what is essentially a pretty niche issue about philanthropy, you know, the idea that kind of focusing on overheads as a metric of success is not a good idea, uh, something that kind of resonates potentially with the average person in the street is is pretty remarkable. As we'll see in a moment, I think, you know, in order to do that, it's necessary to sort of focus quite a lot on individual stories, and that in itself uh brings some challenges. But I guess the other kind of overarching points about it that are really good is that the the central thematic points that it's making are really important. You might not necessarily agree entirely with the way in which they're framed or some of the conclusions that are drawn, but the idea that focusing on overheads um, you know, is not a good thing to do, um, and that actually, you know, uh supporting non-profits and charities through providing them with core costs and kind of allowing them to flourish. I don't know that there are that many people who would disagree with that, even as if, as I say, the kind of the specific framing within uncharitable they might take issue with. Some of the other points it makes about additional factors like the limitations on time frames in the non-profit world, so the expectation that you need to deliver immediate results and that actually that's kind of unfair when often in the commercial sphere, people are given a relatively you know long time uh in order to kind of demonstrate the value of something, and link to that the fact that this then leads to um uh an atmosphere in which taking risks is is difficult, and that that's problematic given that surely the point of philanthropy is that we should aim high. And if we're genuinely aiming to sort of uh have an impact on really significant challenges of the sort that are facing humanity at the moment, you know, the climate crisis, global inequality, poverty, uh world hunger, that kind of thing, then we, you know, we do need to not stop, you know, we need to stop fiddling around the edges and just addressing the symptoms of problems and kind of more fundamentally address their underlying causes. And that's certainly a point that was made in the film. I think it's it's one that's a slightly kind of left on the table. It's not something that's kind of delved into as much as it possibly could be, because it's not the centerpiece of the film, but there is some interesting stuff in there about that, and some stuff I really liked about the necessity for using our kind of collective imagination to envision possible futures and to work towards those, which I thought were, you know, I find that kind of stuff quite made me quite optimistic, uh, you know, I'm not necessarily by nature uh given to that sort of optimism. But just to come on to a few sort of critical points upon the film, and I should say up front here, I'm not just ragging on the movie, it it's just if you're sitting there thinking, right, what can I critically say about this, it's often easier to point out things that don't work or you know, questions that it raises, or omissions, or flaws. So, you know, take that in this, uh take this in that spirit. I guess one question is a practical one about who is the documentary or the film actually aimed at. I know the the ambition, and you'll hear when you when you hear uh Stephen talking, is that it's sort of to get out to the widest possible audience. But I think people in the room when we were watching it were sort of saying, well, it feels a little bit like it falls slightly between uh an audience of people within the non-profit and philanthropy world who probably already know all this stuff and and are minded to agree with the basic points and then are just going to focus on you know the things that they don't necessarily agree with specifically, and a kind of general mass audience of the public for whom it still seems maybe a little bit of a stretch to get them to engage with these issues. And does that mean that it it's sort of difficult to know exactly who this is aimed at? I guess the point some people made was well, there's still a pretty large bulk of people who are interested in philanthropy or non-profits or charities, but don't haven't necessarily got to the point where they they know all these points about the the challenges and around issues to do with overheads. So, you know, whether those are philanthropists or funders or charity trustees, actually them seeing this film might be hugely valuable. So I think you know that there is definitely an audience out there and potentially it could be a wider audience. And it and again, in practical terms, as I said before, there's that distribution question. At the moment, you do have to quite actively go and seek this film out because it's only being kind of shown where there are screenings being hosted by mostly kind of non-profit organizations, and that might all then change if this gets eventually some sort of public release on a streaming platform, and then you know, the theory of whether this appeals to the general public can be tested. I think another point that occurred to me when I was watching the film and other people picked up on it, and it's it's something I talked to Stephen quite a bit about, and he's got some interesting things to say, is about that balance between the kind of systemic issues that the film is trying to raise and the individual stories that it's trying to tell as a way of getting that across. And this struck me as interesting because it kind of felt as though whenever we're talking about philanthropy, there are systemic issues. But if you want to get a wider audience to engage with them, you have to go in at the level of the individual and tell those individual human stories. And as Stephen says, that's what all documentary filmmaking is really about. You know, you have to kind of bring people along by focusing in on those those human stories. I guess the question is just how do you make sure you maintain that balance so that the the sort of the human interest in the individual story doesn't end up overshadowing the systemic issue and sort of making it so that people lose sight in that. And I guess linked to that, another thing that maybe there was a little bit of unease about in terms of some people watching the film was the stories that are told in the film maybe reflect a slight lack of diversity in that it, you know, they it feels quite male, particularly and quite white. I mean, yes, there are other voices in there, so Dory McWurter, for instance, is featured, um, Darren Walker from the Ford Foundation, Rudy Espinoza and others, and that they're not white men, but they're also not the main characters, they're more sort of there as commentators. I mean, Dorian McWirter is in there telling her story, but crucially, none of those people are the ones who are featured as as sort of telling their story of having been shot down in the same way that Dan Palota um was. All of the people telling those stories are essentially white men, which again is not a problem. It might just so happen the handful of stories that they have are, you know, ones where the people involved are white men, but the f the focus on their individual narratives, it means that the the film ends up walking, I think, an even finer line where it's using those stories to kind of illustrate a wider systemic issue, or it's it's almost sort of falling into portraying these people as martyrs, and then that starts to feel a little bit uncomfortable at points. So I think you know that that is something the that when you're watching the film, I think mostly the balance is okay and and it kind of just about gets there, but there are definitely points where you know it could have it could have lapsed, I think, into just kind of telling a sort of victim complex uh story about what happened to these people. Um, I guess a couple of other things. The film is relatively US focused, um, and as a result it kind of is relatively US-centric. I don't think that matters too much in that the issues in their general in their general points are relatively universal. I mean, things about the challenges around philanthropic funding and core costs and overheads and that sort of thing. That definitely resonates in the UK, and I'm sure it resonates in a lot of other places. But there are sort of specifics to the way that the US nonprofit world works that maybe don't uh translate as well. There's also bits where maybe it's slightly culturally jarring. You know, there are I'm not sure a British audience is quite as minded to go with the really, really sort of upbeat, stirring parts of the narrative um as it as a US audience was. And I I would be genuinely interested to know whether an American audience is more tolerant of the bits where Dan Pilotto sits down and plays his guitar than the audience uh in the room that I was sitting in were, but who all found that fairly cringesome, I have to say. Another sort of you know, more serious point that was uh made by some people is that the the focus of the film is on a sort of handful of bigger non-profit organizations. What isn't really covered is how these issues relate to kind of grassroots organizations or indeed, you know, their recipients, or you know, kind of end beneficiaries. And that maybe feels like a bit of an admission as well. Another point that occurred to me was, you know, understandably given the story that is being told, there's a certain part of the film that is it contains kind of attacks on the media for perpetuating narrative uh narratives about non-profits and sort of shooting down these figures that were taking maybe sort of slightly unorthodox approaches to trying to drive growth and success, which relied on, you know, investing a lot in fundraising and marketing and that kind of thing. I think some of that is fair enough. I always slightly have an issue when people just go, you know, say, oh, it's the media, the media's all awful. And maybe that's because I'm married to a former journalist who runs a journalism department, but I always sort of question whether it's it's e it's quite easy sometimes to just go, oh, it's all the media's fault, and actually just being uh aware that the media does get a lot of things wrong, and it often does, you know, represent these things in ways that are unhelpful, but it's not always just you know as easy as it's the media's fault for misrepresenting these things. I think there's you know question about you know why it is that the media reflects on these narratives, because most media reporting tends to reflect narratives that are already there, and and the question then is sort of why are these narratives already there. I think a couple other things, I mean, one very, very specific historical thing that rankled with me, which I have to mention, although it this is quite niche, has to be said, there's one point this one point in which uh Dan Pilotta particularly spaces his argument about why it is that everything's broken in the non-profit sector and and the way in which we think about charities is dead wrong, where he argues that it essentially all goes back to Puritan thinking on charity and you know the idea that you were allowed to make money on the one hand, but then you had to sort of do good as a way of absolving the the sin of making money, and you you couldn't make money in the course of doing that good, so the two things had to be kept entirely um separate. A few things to say about that. I mean, my understanding is you know, from reading around on this, I think some scholars of you know history would argue that's a relatively narrow characterization of how the Puritans actually thought about these things. I think also the the assumption that that's the primary or sole basis for modern views about charity seems a bit tenuous. You know, even if it's true to some extent, that is a very that's one element of the film that's very US centric. You know, presumably the thinking in the UK about charities isn't shaped solely by Puritans, particularly because they all left to go to to the US, so so they didn't end up having quite so much of an influence on the way we think about charity over here. But that being said, we still have just as much of a you know a tradition of people questioning the legitimacy of spending on overheads within charity. So it must be coming from somewhere else, not just the Puritans. So I think you know that's that's something that's certainly worth bearing in mind. A couple of other quick things. I think one is that a few people in commentators, when writing about Pilotta's views, have sort of said actually his argument his fundamental argument about the you know it being mistaken to focus on overheads is is right in some senses, but the way in which it's presented potentially is a little bit misleading sometimes, and maybe maybe even unhelpful, because a lot of things get lumped together as overhead. And and that's true in terms of how you know donors who are doing this stuff wrong think about overhead, they you know they lump things together as well, uh, and that is part of the problem, but then in presenting that problem, Piloto himself sort of then argues that all of the things that are included in overheads, you know, should be seen as fine. And actually, if you are going to lump together things, you know, as kind of wildly diverse as staff salaries, um, you know, expenditure on office costs, but also investment in fundraising and marketing, you know, that in a way maybe is kind of uh obscuring the issue a little bit. So I guess the I mean the other point is that some people are pointing out actually, in in quite a lot of cases, spending on advertising and marketing is actually counted as program expenditure if it's directly mission related. So the idea that that all of this stuff is separate and somehow being kind of uh held up as overhead is not actually true in all instances, and so that's uh that's kind of important. Another point that I think is important, and this is something that Stephen Gillenhal talks about uh quite a bit and was really interesting that he did so, is that obviously the flip side to the whole problem with the overhead myth, you know, and I always this is why I've always thought about it, is why is it that donors and funders end up focusing on overheads? It's not just because they really, really love the idea of overheads as a metric, it's because they don't have anything else that can tell them, you know, can give them a sense that the money that they're they're putting towards issues is having uh an effect and can kind of give them that warm glow or that that sense of uh being sure that their money's being spent well that they need. And maybe that's because we haven't developed those measures of impact or the ways of telling stories that kind of fill that gap. And so people end up looking around for things that can that can kind of reassure them, and they are light on proxies such as how much you spend on overheads, you know, how much does this organisation spend on salaries, etc., that maybe aren't as helpful as all that. And actually, if we were able to tell better stories about what was achieved with the money, we might not have the same issues with uh people focusing on overhead. And then finally, I guess the the other point that's been made about the the film and about sort of Dan Pilotta's arguments more broadly, is that he his kind of solution to this problem around um the fact that you know charities are held or non-profits are held to kind of unreasonable standards when compared to to businesses or for-profit organizations, or kind of at a disadvantage because they're not treated in the same way, is to say actually, well, charities should just be more business-like, and you know, that we should treat the two in the same way. And I think that does belie a kind of underlying ideological point, which is there's a sort of belief in capitalism and markets as the primary or the most successful way of driving forward change that's definitely exhibited in what he says and his sort of underlying things in the film. And that, you know, there are plenty of people who would agree with his analysis of the problem, but definitely wouldn't agree with his diagnosis for the solution. And they would say, actually, no, that's the last thing that we need to do. What we need to do is, you know, change capitalism and change the way we think about you know how we value for profit and actually, you know, or or treat non-profits differently, but have measures of value that kind of acknowledge that they are different. So I think you know, that that is definitely something to be aware of as well. And then linked to that is the fact that because of that sort of dogmatic belief in the value of the state, there is definitely a slight underplaying of the role of the uh sorry, in the in the value of the market. There is an underplaying of the role of the state in all of this. So again, you know, there's a sort of sense within the film that if we can just get non-profits you know bigger by spending more on fundraising and marketing, that's how we're gonna solve all of these huge problems. Whereas, you know, in reality it's definitely gonna evolve governmental uh you know action as well, and that doesn't really come into the film, except implicitly, in the there's one of the things that struck me that is quite odd is when making a case about the need to sort of think big, um, you know, and to allow charities to grow and thrive in the way required to allow them to think big and to act big. The one of the examples that gets leaned on is the Apollo space programme and the role that NASA played in it. And and if that's the example of sort of dreaming big and acting big, I mean, surely that's a sort of paradigm example of the limitations of the market and the non profit sphere and the the necessity for government. government, but it it doesn't get presented as such. So I just, you know, that was a bit peculiar to me. Anyway, those are just some some thoughts about uh about the film. As I say, you know, hopefully that gives you a sense of kind of why it's interesting. Hopefully it makes you want to go out and see it. Because as I say, you know, that's my kind of fundamental point is that I would definitely recommend that you do that. Okay, well at this point, without further ado, let's hear from Stephen Gillenharl, the director of Uncharitable. I should say uh it was great to have a chance to sit down with Stephen. Um he clearly is a uh raconteur and somebody who is uh used to to sort of speaking uh because unlike a lot of the interviews that I've previously done I will say something at the beginning and then you won't hear from me for roughly 20 to 25 minutes because Stephen just sort of uh then did a very interesting uh monologue uh for that first part of the interview and I do wonder if that's actually partly because his experience of putting together documentaries is that's kind of what you do. You get people to just sort of speak and then you give them some little prompts but then allow them just to kind of uh extemporize on the basis that you're going to kind of use bits of that later. Anyway, that's that's what happened and then I come back in and ask them uh a couple more questions. But um it was a really really interesting conversation. So without further ado let's go into that and then I will be back uh after that to introduce a couple of the mini interviews from people who watch the film with me.

SPEAKER_07 23:30

Okay great well I'm here with Steven Gillenhaal.

SPEAKER_06 23:33

Hi there Stephen Hello how are you doing? I'm doing very well thank you it's great to have a chance to talk to you on the podcast. Obviously we're here to talk about the the film which came out towards the end of last year and sort of slowly making its way across the Atlantic to the UK and I was lucky enough to see it very recently um uncharitable. Really great just to kind of hear a bit from you about what it was that got you involved in this project in the first place because obviously the kind of the thinking that that underpins it's been around for a while. So it'd be really interesting to hear kind of what brought you to it and and what kind of got you enthused about the the idea.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Well I had zero interest or zero knowledge about the philanthropic sector at all or its problems or its controversies or anything. Zero. And I'm um not entirely delighted to say that while I did a little bit of um charity because I was in Hollywood and blah blah blah blah, I really was much more intent on raising a family and making movies. And for me I believed that that the movies I made were enough of a charitable act um some of them very violent nonetheless I felt they were a charitable act anyway. So I I had no motivation um or um good intention for getting involved with this documentary except that I knew Dan Pilata very very well and he'd been a friend for years and he and I knew he'd done something or other the thing I knew about him was we had met and we sort of um connected at various meetings and things like that. I didn't really understand even what the AIDS rides were. I mean sorry sort of about AIDS and all that I knew he dressed really well. He was a really good dresser and I always dressed like not so great. You know a film director if you dress in a coat and tie, there's something wrong with you. If you're in jeans and a t-shirt you're probably a creative so I was always dressed like not so great. And but I did want to dress a little better. My kids were growing older I need to look more adult so I would talk about where'd you get your shoes and what'd you do about this and that and so and also we were much we were very aligned about deeper issues as well. Not not it was a totally superficial relationship although I was impressed with his superficiality in terms of his style he had a really good style. So we had a lot of deep conversations and a lot of connections about a lot of things and ultimately and I'm not going to say why because some people may see this podcast who have not seen the movie so I don't want to give away the plot somewhat but he he then left LA and moved to Boston for reasons that become clear in the movie or relatively clear in the movie if you put two and two or three actually together um uh and we sort of lost track we would have he'd fly to LA every once in a while and we'd have lunch or something but not much. During that period of time I really moved well I didn't move from narrative filmmaking I'm primarily a narrative filmmaker director and producer and writer and blah blah blah um and so I was not in the I was not in the nonprofit sector except if a movie didn't do well there was a point though when I made a documentary that I got very involved with called in utero which I produced which was motivated by the fact that I was married again and I wanted to have another child. I did really well with my first two had a great time and um uh and we were having problems and so I said okay why don't we make a documentary because I'm a privileged white guy and can get away with things that are probably not even well it's I'm glad I wish everyone could do it. That's really what I feel. And they should and thank God just as a side you know the iPhone the technology now means that not just rich people can make movies. And we're really more and more beginning to see the impact of what the rest of humanity has a right to be saying. So uh while some people bemoan all that I'm cheering it on because in some ways I think I had an inclination towards doing sort of good in a way. So so I made this with a documentary in utero it was all about the science from conception to birth and and because that way I said well let's talk to all the experts because you can do that if you're a filmmaker. And and we then really had and it was became a very important documentary and it has had a real serious impact in the prenatal and perinatal world and in fact has gotten me involved in a lot of other things um around that psychology psychology and so on and so forth. Well there had been or it was right around the time an Inconvenient truth had come out or had come out a year or two earlier Dan had done this TED talk and we had lunch and he said do you think there's a documentary to be made about what happened to me on the AIDS rides which I sort of half knew not really all the details I knew I knew the last part of it that he had been completely devastated and destroyed by what had happened but I didn't really know any of the details I said well I don't know you know it's a great kind of home movie thing and I really care and I really he was really devastated by it and a lot of things which I also won't talk about because they're in the movie happened again. But then he told me about two other people who had been through exactly the same thing and what and what the what the dynamic was become very very successful, do very, very well and as so is often the case doing very well means thinking outside the box, doing things unconventionally. These none of the things that were done by either Dan or anyone else was unconventional in the for-profit world Hollywood or anything else but in the nonprofit world it was demonized which I didn't really understand until we sort of dug into it. And at that point I began to go ha there's something here thinking we'll throw together a little documentary I got an editor we'll shoot some stuff I'll shoot three or four interviews and you know and it'll be fun and Dan and I'll spend some time together and and all that seven years later the film was done and what happened in between actually which is important is that I now have a nine year old thanks to the first film in many ways I think um and I had also kind of I love film film saved my life cinema saved my life there's just no question about it just the wonderful lack of not not lack of ethics but the wonderful complication of human beings how crazy we are and wonderful we are is really captured certainly captured in captured in literature and poetry and other and music to a certain extent but movies for me captured the best and I was obsessed with movies for a certain point of my life and but as life went on my kids grew up they've done very well you know it sort of has been my joy to watch my you know watch my you know having no idea that these little kids were going to become more sophisticated around filmmaking and incredibly capable of doing what I had also done but even quantumly beyond that which is what a parent is supposed to do I really kind of lost interest in doing what you have to do to make a great movie which is sacrifice everything. Also I had a little kid and this time I wanted to just hang with him and just be with him and I had had plenty of success I didn't need any more um and I had and I just really did sort of lose interest in the process but making uncharitable although it was brutally hard brutally because it was all donations I got I got a taste a really good taste of what it's like to do charitable project and you know I didn't really ever conceive of it as a charitable project um I conceived as something for Dan I grew more and more interested in the drama of the characters it was another series of and I grew more and more clear that I was not so interested in the polemic of it or in even the the the message that Dan had that message was pretty clear. I was much more interested as it went along with the emotional toll that it takes to try and do good of the of how destructiveness works why it works why it is so successful to destroy destroy what is good why people do it and the emotional journey that you can go through in a movie and experience that and as that happened later and later in the process I came back to loving movies. I came back to going I am lucky enough I have been privileged enough really privileged to have gained an understanding of cinema enough to have the possibility of making a movie that could really impact in a major way and even as I was finishing the movie and I became really difficult. So the problem was I'm the director and I want this and there's only so much money and the donors were freaking out about this and that's too much money. How long is it taking why is it taking so long you don't know what you're doing. I don't know what I'm doing I've made 40 movies look at my IMDB list you may not know what that is but in Hollywood that's like everything you've done. You know but still just like with most donors they know better about how to solve a problem whether it's homelessness or whatever it is than the people who are actually doing it. Pisses me off pissed me off about this pissed me off more and more as I watched it happen to other people in any case as I began to really near the end understand what was going to happen with the movie but that I that I was committed to this movie as a director I would go to the producer and say I want this this this and this and I I want it. Now I'd been through this a lot in my life with producers and I'd been at war with them there was a problem with this I was the producer so I would go to me as a director carry on with the producer and the producer lost every time the director won and I got into more trouble with donors and everyone else and how long it was taking but I wanted to get the thing right so one of the things I owe to uncharitable is I am back in the movie business again. And I'm 74 years old and it's it's time for me to stop but I'm not stopping I'm back into it. Now what has happened to the movie I couldn't even hope for I mean I began to understand when we did discreet you make a movie you think I don't know it's I know me. I'm an idiot you know there's a great quote I just heard I gotta find the quote let me find the quote real quick because I just heard this quote and I really like it. The quote is I haven't failed I've just found 10,000 ways that it didn't work. Now that's what my experience was I made a 10,000 mistakes but those 1000 mistakes meant don't go down that road it also meant 1000 mistakes meant donors were furious everyone was angry at me but 10,01 or whatever however you want to calculate the math it began to become a movie now that I see works and you know when something works when you're with an audience and when you're not with an audience really and you go through the process you think you're an idiot. Oh by the way the quote was Thomas Edison so so I think what I'm seeing with the movie now so so here now we get the movie done we release it we're going through the process of releasing it's a complicated process someone said if you know how to release a movie six months ago you don't know how to release a movie now because everything's changing so fast. So what's happened with the movie is we're you know we're working our way through documents now are particularly difficult to get out in the world there have been a lot of articles in Hollywood you know newspapers about how impossible it is and nothing's getting really picked up and the streamers are only picking up things with celebrities and with murder and things like a charity is not high on their list but it's impacting audiences. And what I'm seeing what has happened since September 21st when it was first released and now has been it has allowed for a door to open because it does because of Dan really because of Dan's genius and because of my 1000 figuring out finally how the emotional arc worked there's a kind of alchemy I think I can say with confidence now in the movie that gets people who are in the sector to go, oh my God, finally someone is saying what we've been kind of knowing or we've known couldn't quite put it into words and now it's in a movie. And by the way the movie cost a decent amount of money another reason why people were upset. And the distribution has cost a decent amount of money not all that much compared to the movie I mean I've I've but still you know it's a decent amount of money and I've said to people that's because this sector deserves to have a first class documentary. That's what it deserves. So F you sort of and everyone who sort of complains about it. So so what has happened for me and for I think what's going on now which is what we're really going we went there's the movie we made the movie there was the marketing of the movie which we have sort of been in the process of and is sort of now moving forward you know there's an educational distribution we're in you know we're in some negotiation with streamers but we want to be very careful that it works properly. You know we're we're now going globally with this you know UK other places too we're still really focusing on the charitable sector and it's been very very well received there with an understanding that the charitable sector becomes the champions for the movie beyond all that. And it may take some serious time for that all to happen. But what has happened beyond all that which was not clear to me was what is the call to action? When you see the movie what is the call to action? And Dan had said all along the call to action is tell everyone to see the movie. That'll change thinking and I'm going yeah I get it but first of all it has the patina of being sort of self-interested go send my have my movie seen by everybody number one and number two it isn't enough it's like okay you've seen the movie you have everyone in the movies every world's seen the movie okay cool that'd be great you know um but what do you do next? And almost before the movie was done I think because it had re-engaged me because I was working with great people I mean great people also cost money. I had one of the best animation houses in the world doing the animation did it for next to nothing but it was still not cheap. Had a great editor Kinga um who is um uh uh amazing I had I just had great people around great composer Pinar Topak does Marvel movies I mean really really the top people working who then inspire me and drive me forward. So as I was getting near the end and I'm going, I think I have something great sound great mix great sound mix you know um across the boards just first class people. And so it really brought me back to um my energy and my energy began to move from okay now I can see now we we almost have enough money you know a shout out to like like um what was the name of the donor donor Cassie at um anonymous came up with money at a moment when I need I mean certain people just certain donors I mean not to put donors down a lot of them whatever some of them some of the people who also work for the donors for work for the foundations are just awesome. I mean some people just came through um with just I'm out of money I don't know what to do I'm I know the producer is pissed off at the director but the director wants this and we need another 25 grand or we need another 50 grand whatever and people came through at the last moment I mean literally 1.3 days when I had to stop anything and the money came through. So we got that piece done we got out in the world we marketed it began to see it's really impactful and it sort of begins to ride on its own we're also seeing that we're starting to impact some major thinkers and major power players in the sector and not just in the sector but what surrounds the charitable sector. And as that unfolded and that really began a really uh three or four weeks into the the the release of the seeing being in theaters with the movie being in QA's hearing really smart people talk you know and and more and more waiting for someone to attack it or me and not happening much something very different was happening. So beginning to understand okay there's a mainstream there's an audience there's an important job to get this out to the people who work in the sector but there's this other piece of very powerful they're powerful people they're rich people they're smart people sometimes they're combined sometimes they're not um but it has hit a chord which has now made me grow clearer and clearer about what is the movement. What's the worldwide global movement that goes from a movie that costs ultimately I think they got 1.5 million to make a lot for a documentary another 5000 to market because this was a hard movie to market and it'll be more still to thinking about raising 10, 20, 30 million dollars to change the sector. And that's nothing in comparison with you know what's as I start to understand it, you know, almost a trillion dollars sitting on the sidelines for whatever reasons. So how do we unleash it at a time when the planet is at real risk? And what became clearer and clearer to me and in a way I'm outside the box. So I can kind of be floating around out here to maybe see unless I listen really carefully because I love doing interviews. I love talking with people you know you get you learn everything. I'm the dumbest person in the room so tell me what to say you know so you kind of go so what I have learned is well there are three sectors that make up society. You can go much further than that but in terms of there's three sectors there's the for-profit sector worth trillions of dollars in UK and the United States whatever and then you talk worldwide you're talking about massive amounts of money there's governments also access with taxes and everything else a lot of money and there's the charitable philanthropic sector those are the three legs of a stool of the stool that make up I think the engine that is capable of bringing about the change that is needed. Somebody said to me the UN had done a study that that to solve the major problems is going to take seven trillion dollars but needs to be used correctly $7 trillion actually when you look at all the money you know and I've gone from can you get me $25 can you get me $5,000 give me $1,000 to going now let's talk about a trillion dollars which is the amazing thing that a movie can do. It's it's it's amazing I mean I I mean a movie saved my life so I I I understand on some deep psychological level that it does that for other people too I mean so so it's very exciting what's going on in terms of now we're at a place where oh go look at the movie now let's talk. So what has emerged for me are a the one most malleable sector most capable of change is the charitable sector. And the documentary is a tool to begin the conversation and there are lots of people around this who've been trying to figure it out for a long time and thank God Dan has been hammering At this for a long time, to really put together an object, an asset that can begin to shake the thing. He, in his book, which I finally read, I didn't read it until he said, I'll make the movie. Then I read his book. And then I learned, okay, oh, this is what this is about. All right. One of the quotes in his Kenneth Galbraith said, When a door is rotten enough, you can kick it open. And that's not to characterize the sector as rotten in any way whatsoever. But nature has done its job, which is what rotting a door is. And we're now at a point when there are a lot of people who've been surrounding the sector, disorganized, trying to figure it out, doing conferences and all of that, who are ready, I think, to go, let's knock this door down and let's really change the sector. So what has emerged for me, and I'm getting more and more confirmation of this, because again, I'm an idiot. And I need to find it from everyone else, certainly an idiot in this area. Less and less an idiot, actually. But um, and and so I've been checking this out. The problem with the charitable, so there are three sectors. So let's look up each of them and come up with first actions, first calls to action. Let's get ourselves $10 million and let's attack each of these things. The problem with the charitable sector at its core is no one can assess impact. No one has been able to assess inspect. There's no instrument that assesses it. You see, you got the charity watchdogs. By the way, charity watchdogs, in a why do we need a watchdog? We don't have a watchdog, you know. So you're going the one sector that needs you know killer dogs is the charitable sector. Anyway, so overhead is what they use, which is ridiculous, which is a which is a well, as the movie explains, is a it's almost like if you want to have a company succeed, certainly in the for-profit sector, you pay a lot of overhead to get the best people to do it. Somehow, for some reason, it's not what goes on in the charitable in the charitable sector, which is essentially a person-driven sector. It's not a product-driven sector, it's per the person helping each other. Anyway, so how do we come up with an instrument with an organ or organization, with whatever an instrument, I like that term, that assesses charities effectively. And I actually talked with a couple of people, you know, again, brilliant people. The thing about brilliant people is they make things real simple. You know, the Mark Twain quote, you don't, because you know you're from you're not from America, but Mark Twain's quote was our one of our great writers, I would have made the letter shorter, but I didn't have the time. And and it's like, so you need brilliant people. So anyway, so that to me is the core thing to focus on in the charitable sector now. We need we need a big chunk of money and a pilot program that starts to really look at, you know, how do you impact. And I think one of the keys to it is what Dan came up with was five issues, you know, competitive competition, competitive pay, compensation, um, marketing, you know, really effectively, first class, marketing serious serious money for marketing, the ability to take risks without having the attorneys general go after you, or this or the states go after you, whatever, or the federal government go out, IRS go after you, and UK, whatever it is, the time to take risks and achieve success, and big issue, money. How do you get capital? How do you get enough capital? So those are in some ways, I think, an important part of it. But we need some experts, people from, you know, Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, brilliant people. Come on, come in and help us a little bit, figure this thing out. So that's for the charitable sector. That's the first thing we really work on. And there's some pieces already in play that are happening around that now. The second one is the for-profit sector. And what I've learned is there's something, and I don't know how much you're into it, called impact investing. And and that, and I'm very much in contact with a lot of people now, some of the top people in impact investing, who have been very excited about uncharitable, um, but they're really focused on something else, which is to don't, you know, is to invest in problems, you know, do good, but make money doing them. Which they're pretty much in agreement can take care of a lot of what charity was supposed to do, but not all of it. So what Dan sort of talks about, I think is maybe six to seven percent of our problems, it's a weird way of putting it, need charity, need donation. They're not gonna make profits. Not not in the not in the short term or in the semi-long term. For instance, homelessness. You can't, you're not gonna make money on that, except if you get the homeless population fed properly, taken care of properly. As an example, I know in Los Angeles, a friend of mine runs the libraries. The downtown library has every night all the homeless kids going up to the library and leaning against the walls of the library. Why? Because it has Wi-Fi. Those are the kids that are going to change the climate. Those are the kids that are gonna solve some of the major problems because they're the ones that are motivated and capable of solving massive problems because they live them. So long-term, homelessness can pay off really well. And there's short-term things, you know, government that doesn't cost all those kinds of things, but it's it's a tougher one. So impact investing is not gonna cover that. It's gonna cover other things, climate change issues, and it's gonna cover a lot of things. So, impact investing and how that works, and helping that along, and maybe even making a movie about it, which I'm sort of playing with, sort of, although maybe I want to make a TV series. I think that it involves this is a piece of it. That's that's that. The third piece, government. We are now involved with a campaign, just starting a campaign, and it'll go be involved at this election cycle, but we got to get money for it, to create an office of philanthropy in the White House, which the president can do by executive order, which would oversee and reorganize and modernize this diffuse group of departments, which keep the sector really held down. Also, it would be true, and we're talking about some of the states already who have even more arduous um relationships with charities where you can't use anything for overhead to reorganize those as well. So those are the three things. And I'm actually working now, just finishing on you, kind of getting me in the first couple of weeks of okay, now we need to do a pitch deck, now we need to lay this out, now we need to raise $10 million. I mean, nothing to do with the movie, but having to do with the movement. We're organizing with people and trying to put this all together. That's what a movie can do. So that's where we are.

SPEAKER_06 50:46

Yeah, I mean, it really, really interesting to hear. And you've I think you've covered loads of the questions that I wanted to ask you. And it's really interesting to hear at the end, you know, about where things might be going next, and that you're thinking about questions like impact, because it it definitely struck me one of the things about the whole focus on overheads is the the other side of that story is the reason people end up focusing on it is because they don't have a better measure. So they just fall back on this crappy measure of of overheads. So it's really interesting to then go, okay, so what could be better and how do we make that work? So one thing I really wanted to just pick up on, because I I thought it was it was something that really kind of came through to me in in um watching the film, is that it's really interesting to hear that your starting point was more the sort of the human stories, and that was the thing that really kind of got you into it, rather than maybe the sort of more technical stuff about you know non-profit issues. And I I wondered in watching it whether that's sort of the balance that you have to strike all the time in trying to get these issues out to a wider audience is that you have to have the human story to make it something that you know anybody outside of a really small bit of the nonprofit sector would want to watch. But is is there also is it a challenge in doing that to kind of keep the balance to make sure you're sort of servicing the issue enough and not just sort of telling the individual stories? Because you you're kind of zooming between the micro and the macro. Is is how do you kind of make sure you're doing that when you're putting the thing together?

SPEAKER_00 52:11

I made 10,000 errors, endlessly making errors. I mean, endlessly, and utterly appropriately doubting myself through tons of it, and then reaching out to some very smart people who had some very good ideas. One of the things I've learned about movies is you have five smart people, they all give you different ideas to how to fix it. You're really screwed because it's a mess. But when there's a point when three or four different people start to point to the same problem, you've now narrowed down your 10,000 mistakes to maybe 4,000. So it begins to come together. It's I I mean, I don't know what it takes to be a filmmaker. And I think I think in some ways, maybe that my most interesting filmmaking is yet to come, which is a weird thing to say at 74. But I I I wonder a little bit now, because it's so much about knowing you don't know what you're doing. And and I don't even know what that means when I say it, except I know I don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time, but somehow not giving up, knowing that you just keep going, you just keep doing it. And then the other thing that's true, which is sort of counterintuitive to what I just said, is and there's a point when you you don't finish a movie, you abandon it. You just finally abandon it. But you have to abandon it at the right moment. And and it's such a collaborative process, which I love. I am not a genius, you know. And I think um, I think my kids know that pretty well, having been around me, and with their own work, I think. I mean, it's been really, really fun watching Maggie, who's now directing and really directing on a quantum level, I mean, um, and talking with her. I mean, I can't imagine how delightful that is. And and Jake, too. Although Jake isn't directing yet. I hope he does one day. Um, but I think I think to talk with, you know, even young filmmakers or even older people who want to be filmmakers or whatever it is, you just gotta know that feeling like an idiot is no reason to stop. You know, but listening to other people, it's really a hard, it's really hard. And it's taken me, you know, 50 years to get to wherever the hell I am right now. Except, you know, Dan was very important in this process. Pissed me off a lot. Arrogant, arrogant son of a bitch, went to horrible, blah, blah, blah, all these things. But smart as hell. And the key for me was, and he and I fought about the emotional versus the the issue, what needed to be said, and fought a lot, a lot. Um, and I I mean, I made certain certain decisions relatively early on. Where's the entertainment? Where's the entertainment in this? I felt the animation had to be lighthearted. You and company was brilliant, brilliant, um, in first of all, making very sophisticated but simple looking animation. So it's kind of lighthearted. The animation is lighthearted through the whole thing. And I think where maybe the only real thing I brought to the table in a way was the idea that as I got to know the sector, the people in it, and the people who relate to it, there is a feeling of hopelessness, of despair, of it's not gonna happen, it's not gonna work. In fact, a donor recently said to me, a very, very wealthy donor who has a lot of friends who are billionaires, he said, you know, wonderful guy who just said, you know, we don't believe it works. We just he said, we build a building, that's something. But solving these bigger problems, we don't believe it works. And I was talking with him now about getting involved with an an instrument that assesses this, because that's the key to all of this. But I felt what I had to capture, I was always nervous about the title uncharitable, but I think it's correct. I think this the people working in the sector are charitable people across the. I mean, they're a little bit messed up, I think. You know, give my life to helping other people. It's a little bit like, you know, have your own life too, you know, and and all those kinds of things is a little too much self-sacrificing sometimes, but basically good hearts. But what is done to the sector is uncharitable, and the world is uncharitable. As a consequence, I began as a late, I say it was two or three years into it, maybe more, no, it was more than that. Um, I began to go, I've got to get to despair. I've got to take this journey, like any narrative film, to despair, even more than most narrative films. I mean real despair, which is where the Puritans and the apocalyptic aspect of it and Bosch and all those images allowed me to go to what we know about most movies, which is the future is apocalyptic. The future is, you know, we're gonna be it's gonna be horrible. And I had, and because you can you can use movies for free if they're being used for a subject that is not what they're about, which is a relatively new law, and I have a great lawyer, we were able to use them all. And they're beautiful images. And you see them on the big screen, it's just awesome. And it I wanted to get to despair, really the despair to then lift us up. And then, of course, we have you know, shot to the moon, all those kind of things that lift us up to hope. And um, and in a way, once that came into play, that structure came into play, I think I was able to begin to that was the spine. And it took a while to get to that. Jason Cohn is a wonderful filmmaker, helped actually just recently. I was talking with him, wonderful filmmaker, who came in when I was going, ah, not working, you know. And and actually he's he talked about some ideas, and I went, ah, you know, it's fine, it's fine. And yeah, you know, he's just jealous I'm making this independent movie, blah, blah, blah. And then it was my my um actually my soon-to-be ex-wife, we're very, very close, very friendly, said, No, no, no, you're wrong. He's I think he's right. And she was right, and I was wrong. That was one of the 10,000 roads I went down. But he pulled back. It was very helpful. I mean, some of the filmmakers were very, very helpful in in guiding me, you know, toward a journey that only there has to be one person that's running the ship, but you need a lot of people um along the way. So I think that spine then allowed the rest of this to come into place. But that spine, like any, like a dinosaur's spine, sort of what I'm drawing here, is a lot of vertebra. And it's like, so it took a long time to get that. But man, I gotta say, when it starts to happen, all this stuff, and you're in despair yourself, and you're thinking, oh my god, and I don't have enough money, and people are saying I'm an idiot, and they're right, I'm an idiot, and so on and so forth. It's still fun as hell.

SPEAKER_06 59:07

Yeah. And I'm I'm guessing in that process of finding what that narrative arc is, that there's a lot of stuff that then, you know, you at one point you could have used that gets discarded or doesn't end up being the focus. I'd be really interested to know what there was that kind of got left on the cutting room floor in terms of angles or issues about nonprofits that you thought this is interesting, but it's just not right for this film, maybe for another film or for a TV show, as you were saying.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

There there has been an effort, a little bit. There's tons of material.

SPEAKER_06 59:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:38

Um, um, tons of it, particularly with the documentary. Um, and there's been an effort at times, and I've done some of it, and we'll probably do more, is to go back in and cut little pieces together that go out as sort of satellite pieces to this. And I think it'll happen more and more. We're actually looking at a version of uncharitable, a shorter version of uncharitable, and and um and to sort of bring it down into just sort of a biteable thing for people. And I've always felt more and more, particularly in this age, which is what I think is really a quantum age. And when you begin to look at it, we've left the Newtonian age, we're in a quantum age, which begins to be an umbrella that speaks to why social media is what it is, AI, all the things that are going on are the stuff of quantum mechanics, which is which is that it's not molecular at all. I mean, all the molecular structure, you take electronic telescopes and you go down to quarks and all these things, they're all just the shape of energy. It's all energy. And and as a consequence, it's you don't have to look at things as parts anymore. You see things as something else. So I think we'll come back to many, many parts that were not in the film. I mean, there may a lot of parts um that are fascinating. One was Raj Punjabi talked about a study being done, and I have to go back and get the footage so we didn't use it, which was how is great change brought about? How is impossible change brought about? The end of slavery, civil rights, um, well, even the you know, the the invention of electricity, Thomas Edison. Um, and then not just not just the invention of electricity, but it's being spread across the country. There's a great piece that Dan talked about. Um, and we had footage and we cut it all together and everything about actually about Thomas Edison. I'd sort of forgotten about it, in which he went, Can you imagine somebody coming to you and saying, look, there's this thing called electricity, and it really powers things as opposed to whale oil. Um, and we're gonna want to put wires all over the country with telephone with poles that will get the electricity to everybody. Can you imagine telling someone that and then looking at you and going, you are out of your mind? Well, I mean, even like Elon Musk, whatever anyone thinks of him, you know, the the Tesla is, you know, just I was at the museum the other day, uh and uh an auto museum in LA. LA has its own auto museum, of course. Um, and there's a whole section on Tesla, and it talks about has headlines on sort of the lights shine on headlines on the floor, and what a bunch of them were like in 2009, even 2011, the electric car is a fool's errand. All these things, and you're going, you know, it's it's so what brings about change? And he talks about so there's two of them actually. There's Thomas Edison's story, which is one wonderful video with doc with footage and everything we cut. Another is Raj Punjabi's study done on what does it cost to really bring about massive change, even safety belts, for instance, some of these things. So it's like, I forget what it is, but I'll throw out some numbers to kind of give a pick a sense of it. It's three trillion dollars spent and 40 years. And that brings about impossible change. And you go, okay, so the whole point is let's find the equation and then start to apply it to these things. Can we end homelessness across the globe? Yeah, it's gonna take X amount of money in this, and let's do it. And start in steps and figure it out, you know. I mean, you do look at some of these things. I mean, the computer, the whole, you know, the whole compute, what's happened in my lifetime with computers is just unbelievable.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

When you think about it.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:23

Yeah. And that kind of idea of, I mean, they talk about sort of moonshot philanthropy and you know, thinking of things on those sort of scale. There's some really interesting stuff going on there, I think. So yeah, it'd be really interesting to see if that's something you end up taking forward. Um, I'm aware I'm gonna end up taking up far too much of your time, Steve. So I just want to say thanks ever so much for finding the time to come on the podcast. It's really, really interesting to hear a bit more of a backdrop to kind of how uh Uncharitable came about and what your plans are for it uh coming up. Um, is there anything, just any sort of final thoughts on you know what your call to action is that you want people to do? I mean, obviously go out and see the film, and I'll kind of put links to places where people can find opportunities to do that. But what is it that you would want anybody listening who has seen the film or not yet seen the film to kind of think, you know, that's what I'm gonna go out and do next?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

I think I think probably the best thing to do is go to the website, sign up, um, so that you get information as this all moves forward. It will get more and more organized. You know, it's like people say, you know, oh my God, that those people, they're just so disorganized. They're so dysfunctional, you know. And it's really easy to criticize everybody. You know, it's like it's like and we screw up all the time, but go to the website. If you can work your way through the website, it needs a lot of work. We need like another 100 grand to really shape it for the next stage and move it into this call to action. You can license the film. Go to and I think it's uh Dan just wrote me a day and said, It's not clear on the website where where they can license the film. And he's probably right, got to go in and fix that. Um, I've been traveling doing Q ⁇ A's, I got to deal with that. So, but you can if you if you work your way into the website, A, you can get the film, license the film, and you can work that we work deals, we do whatever. You can we can set things up in theaters, we can set things up in private events with ROCO, this distribution company, great distribution company. It will ultimately be, you know, screening and you know, I mean, it'll be streaming at some point and on T Bot and all those things. And I think um the other thing is be on the website, get on, get involved with what is a not kick-ass communication yet, although we're now moving social media up a whole nother thing. We're dealing with that, um, so that you're informed about what to do. For instance, I don't know what would happen in the UK, but in the United States, we want people to start reaching out to those representatives running for office or they're in office and start to say, we want some organization done in the government, changing the laws. That's one thing. The other thing is corporations beginning to look at the beginning to look at, and we will get more and more informed about it, about impact investing. And then lastly, Looking at the charities in your local area. Just sit back in your Liverpool and go, okay, let me do a little bit of research, you know, and find out what's a charity. And then go hang with these people. I mean, at one point, just to quickly end it, I was gonna make a movie set in Skid Row, the homeless area in LA, for profit. I was gonna make a TV series. May still make it someday. So I went down to Skid Row and started interviewing homeless people. What I discovered was first of all, 40% of the homeless people in the United States are war veterans who were really in war and never got the services they needed. Secondly, everybody had lived almost to a person a more mythical and interesting life than anyone I knew who lived in Beverly Hills and were incredibly interesting and actually have a community, and there's a lot to learn there. There's a lot to get from what goes on there. So I think try and get you know, and not do a lot. And when you you know, you can go down 10,000 wrong roads or 10,000 times and you don't do anything, and then you just do it, and it's like and it's it's wonderful. I and you feel different, and you feel hopeful. That's the key, the key. I think that's the key from this is just be hopeful. We are gonna solve this.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:22

That's a great optimistic note on which to finish. So yeah, just thanks ever so much, Stephen. Uh, wish you all the best with you know uh all the plans for the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

Take care of Liverpool for me.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:31

I will do. I'll I'll look after for you. Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to Stephen uh for agreeing to come on the podcast and finding some time to do that. It was a real pleasure to have a chance to talk to him, you know, a really kind of different perspective from a lot of the ones that I've had on the podcast. Um, and really kind of interesting to hear some of the process behind the film, the thinking behind it, and where it's going in the future. So I hope you find that interesting too. Um, okay, at this point, we're just going to go into uh a couple of the sort of mini interviews that I put together, as I say, with people who came along to the screening that I held. Um just to give a few more thoughts and perspectives on the film, which hopefully will pick up on things that I said at the beginning and the things that you've heard from Stephen and uh give you a bit more flavour of things. So let's go into those.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:37

Okay, great. So I'm here with Natasha Friend from Camden Giving. Hi there, Natasha. Hello. Hi there. Um, and you were at the the screening that we had um earlier this week as we record this, watching Uncharitable.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:48

Um, just really interested to kind of get your impressions of what you made of the film, what you found interesting, what didn't work for you, what you thought was missing, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:56

Yeah, it was it was really interesting, and it's it's it made me think of lots of conversations I've had with very small charities um that I work with, and that there is clearly an issue where core costs are not being funded. Um the real audience that it probably needs to get to that film is local government, is what I thought in that there was an off an awful lot of the organizations that we fund are being fairly well funded for their core costs by trusts and foundations, but that's filling a gap where youth services are doing half programs that don't cover their costs. And so so I think that's that's where it needs to land. Um, my other thought was just sort of some nervousness around well, maybe nervousness is the wrong word. I I feel very uncomfortable with the slight implication that the film had that religious philanthropy had led to a sort of less intelligent philanthropy. And I say that as someone that doesn't come to this work with religious motivations myself, but sort of do very strongly believe in there should be lots of reasons people come to this work. And I think I have the joy of working with an awful lot of people whose religious identity is part of this work and who are also incredibly clever and um effective philanthropists. And I I found I thought I think for that reason I probably would be slightly reluctant to share the film onwards in the context that I'm working in, because I I I disliked that framing sort of uh save saviorism had led us, religious saviorism had led us to ineffective philanthropy.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:38

Yeah, yeah, and I think that that bit about, I mean, it's a very US specific point, really, about the kind of history of Puritanism and how that had informed philanthropy, which uh in itself, you know, I think is questionable. I certainly know there are historians who question that that you know telling of of how uh charity developed over there. But but equally it was one of those things where I thought, hang on a minute, that doesn't really resonate here in the UK, yet we still have a conversation about overheads, and so there must be something more to it than that. So yeah, that sort of struck me as slightly odd as well. And I wondered as well, I just wanted to ask, were there, you know, watching it, obviously, it's kind of I think one of the things everybody agreed on that was good is that there's a film that somebody has bothered to make about you know charity and philanthropy issues, and that's great because there isn't a lot of that going around. But I wondered if there was any sort of sense from you of in an ideal world, what would be the issue to do with charity and philanthropy that you'd like to see got across in a documentary?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:32

Oh, if I was to make a film about my opinions, uh I I very firmly believe that decisions around how money is spent, not just by trust and foundations, but by government as well, should be sitting in the hands of the people who it affects the most. I don't think that because it leads to better decisions, although I do think it does. I think that's because it's I think it's a human right to have to have control over the things in your in your life. Um and I think it's magical in communities when it does happen on scale. And I so I would make a document uh an hour and a half long documentary about participatory grant making. Um my husband would be surprised I haven't already started plans on on doing that. Um, but if yeah, if if anyone wants to wants to do that, then um I'd be very up for it. It would probably just be me that watched it.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:21

Participatory grant making the movie, you know, be hitting screens, I'm sure, in a few years' time. So no, I think that would be really fascinating. Um listen, great to just get a few thoughts from you. Thanks uh a lot for your time. Um certainly wish you all the best, and I may well try and get you on for a longer conversation one of these days on the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:37

Lovely, cool. Thanks, Rodri.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:47

Uh okay, I'm here with Amy Brer from Pears Foundation. Hi, Amy. Hello.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:52

Um, so yeah, uh you obviously sat down um with a group of us the other day to uh to watch Uncharitable. What was your take on the film?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:59

Uh I didn't love it. I it was very Androcentric. There were a lot of male voices, and to be honest, I was kind of amazed that at the end he didn't watch it back and think to himself, where are the other voices? Where are the women's voices? Where are the local communities? It was it was a lot of old-fashioned imagery of people in Africa having philanthropy done to them. And it certainly, if there's a if there's a Bechdell test for documentaries, it it simply didn't pass it. There was, I think one woman was interviewed, but it it was just such a male top-down take on philanthropy for someone who is clearly trying to present as a progressive in the field.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:41

And do you think that, you know, because obviously the core argument of the whole thing is this idea about the overhead myth. Um, and I got the sense here in the room that plenty of people sort of fundamentally agree with that and agree there's something important, but do you think some of that other stuff slightly gets in the way of it when you're watching the documentary of taking that point away?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:58

Yeah, I think he first of all he has a very narrow view of charities and what success looks like. And secondly, he it was very mixed in with the self-defense and self-justification and times when he and other people felt they had been wronged by the overheads debate. And actually, there were a couple of case studies in the film where there was it wasn't just the overheads, there were wider questions about their practices philanthropically. The Coney film, for example, it you know, it wasn't just the overheads that that caused controversy, and to sort of link that in and be using the film to settle scores doesn't help make your point about overheads.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:38

Yeah, and if you were going to see kind of a you know a different version of this film or not, you know, somebody else putting the effort into making another film about an issue in philanthropy, what would you like to see that's different?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:49

Um, first of all, more diversity of voices. But I I think I would like to see more about instead of this kind of American tech founders form of philanthropy, that you know, you have to be some innovator founder, I would have liked to see more people at the coal face really talking about the the grassroots charity work they do or the reason that their charity exists, the people it serves, the causes they serve, the beneficiaries, and why they need overheads to do that. And I realise that's not as glamorous and you probably wouldn't make a film of it, which is why we have this film. But I I just think it was a very narrow take on the issue.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:27

Yeah, I guess that's the interesting challenge, isn't it? And in terms of what actually makes for a film versus what the issues that we really need to be focusing on. But anyway, really grateful for your thoughts. Thanks, Amy.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:38

Pleasure.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:48

Okay, great. So I'm here with Angela Cale from MPC.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:51

Hi there, Angela.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:52

Hi there, Rodri.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:53

Um, and yeah, you were also at the screening of uh Uncharitable last week. Um, came to watch that. Um yeah, just really interested to get your thoughts, what you made of it, what you kind of found interesting, what worked for you, what didn't work.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:05

Thank you, and thank you for the invite to the screening. I thought it was an interesting film for those of us in the sector. We've talked about this a lot, but actually on some things we haven't got that much movement. Um, and I was particularly thinking about the point he made about salaries. So he came at this very much from a sort of CEO level uh uh point. Um, why would anyone who's got an MBA from Stanford work in the charity sector? Which I think is one angle of it. But actually, there's a much broader point that's um a real issue in the UK charity sector that I don't think we talk about very much, which is salaries are really low. They're not keeping up with inflation, you know, there were more job vacancies last year than there were candidates. People can't work in the charity sector, and that's got implications for lots of things that we want to do about DEI. And I think that is in some way capped by either the public's attitude towards salaries or funders' attitudes towards salaries. So I think that is a conversation that's worth having. I'm not entirely sure that chief execs is where I start, but I think that the sort of in effect cap on chief exec salaries of you will end up in the Daily Mail does lead to a cap on salaries in the rest of the organization. So that was one point that I was thinking about um a lot. And then the other point that really struck home for me was the point that he was making about infrastructure. So again, he was talking about this in terms of advertising, fundraising, marketing. But in fact, I think the point that we're really seeing the charity sector struggle at the moment, or the way I see it, is infrastructure in terms of digital infrastructure. So lots of people saying they don't have any of the money that they need to build a website. And you know, you look at some charities' websites and they are just dreadful. Never mind some of the apps. So uh at NPC, we've been doing some work in young people's mental health. And obviously, you all know that because of the huge waiting list there, there is more and more people turning towards apps. And most of these are done by the private sector because the charity sector can't build them. They don't have the infrastructure, no one's paying for it. And even if you are lucky enough to get one grant from someone to do a digital app, you'll never get renewal, so you can't keep it up to date. So those are the two main things that I was thinking about when I sort of saw the film.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:29

Really are really interested in here, and I guess the other thing I'd be I'd be really interested in is kind of, you know, I've been talking to other people about this. It uh, you know, fundamentally the fact that somebody has bothered to make a you know big budget kind of good-looking documentary about issues like this is really encouraging. What if you had the opportunity to kind of push for another issue or a different kind of issue about philanthropy or charity to be at the forefront of that rather than maybe the one about overheads, what would you think would be something that you would kind of you know like to see a similar approach taken to?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:58

Do you know? I actually think the overheads is a really important issue. Like when people talk to me, I think I think that's something that comes up. But I think fundamentally I think there's something about the skepticism that we have around charities that is not great on a long-term basis. I'm often struck when I introduce my job to people, they say, so everyone basically does philanthropy because of a tax dodge. And I'm like, no, it's like it's not a very good tax dodge. Um for no other reason. Like, and I think long term that's not going to be helpful to the sector. So I can't I can't see anyone making a film about rich people, not all tax dodgers. Mind you, I couldn't really see anyone making a film about overhead. So, you know, I exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:49

Yeah, so who knows? Yeah, yeah. Maybe maybe a 10-part documentary series on the streaming service instead. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:55

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:56

Great. All right, thanks, Angela. Really good to hear from you.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:59

Great, thank you.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:09

Okay, great. Well, I'm here with uh Ruo Wu and uh Alison Tolbert from Winkworth Sherwood. Hi there to both of you. Hi, Roger. Um yeah, and thanks very much for finding a quick bit of time to come on. Obviously, you were both at the screening that we held last week of Uncharitable. Um, just really interested to get people's thoughts and their kind of takeaways and what they found interesting about the film, what worked for them, what maybe didn't work so much, um, and kind of what they'd like to see maybe in you know any potential future films that take this sort of thing forward. So, what did you guys make of it?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:39

So, I personally really loved the film and I thought it conveyed quite an important message, especially to the lay community, about the importance of core funding, funding the running costs of charities. Having sort of worked and volunteered in the charity sector for 20 years, especially with my volunteer hat on and having worked on a grant giving charity, I know this point can often be quite contentious and misunderstood. And I've had people, you know, discussions with people who specifically look to exclude charities that have spent quite a lot on administrative costs and core costs, but perhaps not looking at the bigger picture of why it's it's integral to have the infrastructure in place for the charity to deliver its charitable purposes. So I definitely think for the lay audience it does convey quite an important message without perhaps it does get overlooked.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:28

Yeah, no, it's great. And then Alison, what did you make of it?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:31

Yeah, I'd I thought the same actually. I th I thought it'd be huge for I I would love the thought of it being on a mainstream streaming platform and just getting people talking about engaging with the charity sector and making more substantial donations and really sort of prompting that idea of people being able to own and think about what their donations are being used for. And I think there's a huge value in the film just for that purpose, to really raise the profile of giving. I was really struck by the fact that it was an American film aimed at an American audience and within that regulatory environment. And it would be fascinating to see an English version looking at because I think there are some similarities in the issues that philanthropists have encountered in the UK, um, but I think they would be slightly different, and I think our culture of giving um goes back four or five hundred years, but it is quite different from the culture in the US. So although there are similarities, I I think that you could you could start nitpicking over the differences and and why this didn't necessarily apply directly in the the UK.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:43

Yeah, that's really interesting. And I guess I guess it makes that point that it's almost as a starting point for a conversation. It's a really useful tool, but it doesn't necessarily finish that conversation. And in terms of you know, thinking about the I think one of the things that I got from everyone that I've spoken to was, you know, even if some people had slightly you know mixed feelings about some bits of the film, the fact that somebody had made a film and sort of bothered to make a film about these issues and one with such high production values was a great thing. I guess what I'd be really interested in is are there any other aspects or kind of charity issues that you would really like to see a similar approach taken to? What's the film that you ideally would like to see made about a kind of an issue that bothers you in the charity or philanthropy world?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:22

I th I think that's a great question. For me, it would be a whole series because I I think there are plenty of topics. And I I think just talking um about the charity sector and the work that it does, I I mean it'd be great to see a series focusing on on different sectors and and just showcasing the brilliant work that so many of our charities do. Because I I think people see snippets of it, but I don't think they really I mean you you might see a short blast of media interest if there is a um natural disaster, but you don't really get the full picture of the fantastic work that goes off on across the sector in all areas um of our lives. And so it would be great to see a short showcasing, and and then I think there's other issues you could drill down into as well, the the benefits of of being a trustee of a charity and really encouraging uh you could see a film that's encouraging people, but being realistic about the time commitment and the duties and responsibilities that go with it, and and I'm sure there's others. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:27

What about you, Roan?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:28

Um, yeah, so I think I mentioned this to you um on the day of the screening. Um, I know you're involved in the Wealth Shared project in Liverpool, where you have 12 strangers gathered together to make a donation of £100,000. So it'd be really interesting for almost this film to be overlaid or superimposed on a real case study to see you know snippets of that discussion of 12 strangers coming together to see what concerns them. Because I would love to see a film that sort of addresses and tackles common misconceptions in charity, whether it's high chief executive pay, conflict of interest, or any any issues, especially from the lay perspective, what you know, what have people heard, especially from the media, that they think, oh, you know, I better think twice before giving to this charity or for this particular area. So I think anything that sort of addresses bottlenecks or misconceptions, I'd be I'd love to see in a film of some sort.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:18

Great, yeah. I mean, both very good ideas. And, you know, let's let's hope that off the back of Uncharitable there'll be more interest in kind of making some films about this kind of thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:25

Just for me to say thanks ever too much to both of you for finding a bit of time to come on the podcast. Uh great to talk and hopefully see you both again in the future.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:41

Okay, great. Well, there we go. That's uh obviously made for a relatively long episode because I've put together all of those different bits, but hopefully if you've managed to make your way through all of that, you found it interesting. I just want to say uh big thanks again to, well, first of all to Laura Mouth and VTOL Foundation for helping to set up the screening in the first place that made all this possible and indeed put me in touch with uh Stephen Gillenhal. Uh thanks to Stephen for coming on the podcast. Uh, thanks to uh Natasha Friend, Angela Cale, Amy Breyer, Ro Wu, and Alison Talbert all for giving up a bit of time to give me some of their thoughts. Um if you uh were interested in this, I'll put links in the show notes to places where you can find uh more about the film and some other things that I've written and other people have written that are relevant. If you're interested more broadly in issues around philanthropy and civil society, do check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters.com. Uh, you can follow me on all kinds of social media, I'm sure you'll be able to find me. Um if you've got ideas for people I could speak to on the podcast or topics that we could cover in future, do drop me a line. You can find my contact details on the website. And I should say, you know, that's how this episode came about. So it genuinely does work if you suggest these things. I quite often will follow up on them. Um other than that, just remains to say like, subscribe, tell all your friends about it, leave us a nice review wherever you get your podcasts, and I will see you next time. Bye.