SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, Rodri Davis, and this is the first of our interview episodes after we're back after the summer. Um, for the first of a new is it a season? Is it a mini season? Who even knows? Um, but yeah, we've got a great conversation uh this week with Ollie French and Sally Vivian, uh, all about foundation spend down or spend out, depends how you want to frame it. Um so yeah, it was great. I sat down uh a week or two ago with Ollie and Sally and we talked all things spend down, and it was really, really interesting. So the the context for this is both Olly and Sally have been involved in a group uh convened of foundations or trusts in the UK that are all spending out or spending down in one way or another. Uh, and earlier this year they published the findings of some uh kind of insight and peer learning work that they'd done, and I'll put a link uh to a microsite where you can find more of that. Um but I read this at the time and I'd spoken to Ollie in particular about it, and we'd had some really interesting chats, so I thought it'd be great to get them both on the podcast. Um, so Ollie's uh currently a freelance consultant, Ollie's kind of worked in and around the foundation world for years, um, and Sally works in a couple of foundations that are involved in spending out, so she's a co-director of Gower Street, and she's also a grants advisor and a trustee to the Sir Ernest Castle Education Trust, and they're both in the group in question. Um, so yeah, we we talked about all sorts of things, and I think what was really interesting was I often, and I think a lot of other people do, talk about spend down or spend out in quite kind of abstract or absolute terms. It's just kind of often positioned as part of this debate about perpetuity. So, you know, for anyone who's somehow listening to this uh podcast and has never heard about foundation perpetuity before, the idea is that basically a foundation is a an endowed fund that's been set up with a specified charitable purpose of some sort, um, and then that money is invested, and the standard model is that from the investment returns you then make grants out of that. And the question is, you know, how long does that exist? Well, the default for a long time has been forever, so perpetuity. Um, but there have always been people who've sort of thought, hang on, there's a problem with that, and there's a whole long uh history of people having concern about the dead hand of the donor, so-called. Um, and as a result, some people have either decided to set up foundations that have limited lifespans, or have taken foundations that were once permanent and existed in perpetuity and shifted them towards having a fixed end date. Um, and as we talk about in the conversation, that feels like it's uh a debate that's happening more and more, and actually that there might be more and more foundations doing this kind of thing. Um, so what we talked about were all kinds of things. So we talked a bit about how the kind of the spend out group that they're both involved in had come about and what its aims were and where the work's at now and how it's being taken forward. Um we talked a bit about the wider context for this stuff. So that question of, you know, is this focus that we've got at the moment on spending down uh actually something genuinely new? Or is it just the latest iteration of a very long-standing debate about perpetuity? If there's anything different about it now, what is that? And and what's driving the particular focus at the moment? Is it sort of primarily supply side stuff, so concerns from within philanthropy itself, or is it more on the demand side driven by the fact that the sort of scale of urgency right now is dictating that we think about how to use assets more in the present? Um, we talked about whether perpetuity was, you know, an ideal that people had chosen, or whether actually it was just a kind of default that existed for historical reasons rather than an active choice, and whether part of the challenge was just to shift that default or norm so that instead of it being the assumption that you exist in perpetuity is a foundation from the outset, maybe the assumption is that you're limited life and that you can still exist over the long term or in perpetuity, but you have to make a more active choice to do that. Um, we also talked a bit about whether one of the challenges is, like a lot of things in philanthropy or just life at the moment, um, discussions of uh perpetuity and spend down, even though they're actually quite technical, do risk getting surprisingly polarized and people take sort of strong views on either side of that. Um, we then talked about some of the findings from within the group. Um, so what is it that tends to drive a decision to spend down? You know, why is it that that foundations do this? Um, you know, is it about the the organization's mission? Is it kind of wider principles uh that are driving it, or is it practicalities? Um we also talked about who makes those decisions. Um, so kind of on what basis do the people involved feel that they have the legitimacy to take a perpetual uh institution and decide to end it, and and what kinds of rationales do they tend to offer for that? You know, in particular, I was really interested in how often is there an appeal to some version of the founder's original wishes or values when people are trying to make that case. Um we also then talked about some of the practicalities of how you actually go about spending down. What are the the methods that you can use? Is it just making more and bigger grants, or are there other ways of doing this? And also how is it related to some of the debates about asset transfer as opposed to spending down? Should we see those as two separate things or actually are they kind of two sides of the same coin? Um, we also talked a bit about how debates around uh spending down are related to some other debates about the rate of foundation payout and whether there need to be kind of mandatory minimums of any kind for that, and also about the way in which foundations invest their assets and whether actually, if foundations put more effort into investing their assets in line with their missions or using them deliberately for social return as well as financial return, that would sort of change the parameters of the conversation around um spending down as well. Um, we also talked about uh how foundations think about the end as well and what they how they decide to kind of leave a mark in the world, whether they just sort of disappear in a puff and smoke, or whether part of the decision about spending down is how you learn something from it and how you share that with others and what the best ways of of doing that were. Um and then uh we also talked about whether you know it's necessary to recognise the other side of what is you know a quite complex uh debate, and whether actually there are ever valid arguments in favour of perpetuity, or at the very least in favour of longevity or foundations existing over a much longer period of time as well. So without further ado, let's get into the conversation when we cover all of that and more. Um, I will be back at the end for the usual bit of housekeeping, but for now, here is Ollie and Sally. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Ollie French and Sally Vivian. Hi there to both of you. Hi. Hi, well, yeah, really looking forward to this conversation. So we're going to be talking all about spend down or spend out, and maybe we can come into which of those is the right terminology to be using. Um, but just before I kind of kick into asking you um to introduce yourselves, I guess the starting point for this was a really interesting group that was pulled together um of kind of foundations and grant makers that are all interested in one way or another in this question of how you kind of spend down or spend out assets. Um, and that um put out a report that is freely available, and I'll put links in the show notes to places where people can get that, with some really interesting findings about kind of how they approached it and what they thought about it. So we're gonna talk all about that. Um, but maybe before we do that, if you could both tell us a bit about how you got involved in that group. So Ollie, maybe you could go first.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yeah, sure. Um so I uh it was an open call out um to start with. It was the ACF forums, you know, the the discussion forums on there. Um and yeah, one of our colleagues, Alex, um, who was from uh from a spendout trust, it was it was a really open kind of is anyone else doing this, shall we chat kind of thing? Um and he got he got a really good response, basically. And so I I originally joined kind of as a as a participant, basically, because it's because the agenda that they put together about you know dealing with endings, planning out strategies, grantee relationships, all of the kind of some of the internal dynamics as well, um, operations, staffing stuff. Uh it was similar to some of the things I was dealing with at the trust I worked for at the time, Joseline Kelly Chase. Um, and then after um after my contract ended there, because you know, spend out trusts closed and staff leave, um, I ran a kind of learning community for the group that had assembled. Um, my sort of pitch being, you know, we can we can hang out a couple of times a year and you know, talk in whispers about redundancy policies and board relationships and things like that, or we could do something a bit more, I don't say immersive, it sounds expert deaf, but uh something more kind of intentional and and structured to work through the whole the whole range of um spend out thinking, really. You know, I I like it when things rhyme, so I put it as kind of motivations, preparations, communications, operations, even commemorations at the end. Um so we piled all that stuff in together and then um then yeah, we've we've published sort of the results of um uh of what we've been up to.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

And and here we are. And yeah, and Sally, how did you come to be involved as well?

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Um yeah, so I um I work with two of the trusts that are members of the group, and we'd been involved in an ACF conference session a couple of years ago talking about spending out, and then when we saw this call that Alex had put out, we joined the first meeting. Um so I'm in the group with two hats on, as are my colleagues from the trusts. We were part of the slightly more involved learning community that Ollie facilitated. Um and I'm also pulling together a book, which is primarily going to be a collection of case studies from the group with some kind of uh analytical chapters around it, which is coming out next year. Um, because we are very we're very focused on uh helping each other out with practical matters, but also kind of sharing that into the wider world to see where else it can be useful.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, great. Um and there's loads loads to dig into um that you know we've talked about before, and also that people will be able to find um if they read the report, lots of really interesting kind of insights and findings. I guess taking one step back, there's a there's a reasonable level of assumed knowledge for this podcast. I generally assume that if people have bothered to click on it, they know a bit about philanthropy, and probably people listening to this will work in foundations and be kind of aware of all the debates around spending out and that kind of thing. But maybe it's just worth saying what what it actually is that we're talking about. When we're talking about spending out, I guess some people might think, hang on, isn't that what all foundations do? Aren't they always kind of giving away money? And I suppose the point is there's this distinction between the endowed bit, so the kind of the assets that the foundation owns, and they keep those and invest them. And then the traditionally, at least the model was you could do that pretty much forever and then spend out of the money that you were making in the form of grants. Um so what is it, what's the difference here? Are we what are we talking about foundations making an active decision to do?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

I think it's a yeah, there's no there's no universally agreed definition. Um but uh generally speaking, it's foundations that have decided to give away the entirety of their endowment and put an end date on their operations. Ollie, you might say it more eloquently.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

No, that was seemed seemed pretty pretty concise. I think we're mainly talking about um uh you know, kind of like what one pot funders, you know, whether there's an in an endowment or a uh a legacy of some kind. Though there was a there was a fundraising foundation in the group, actually, who who had kind of built up a stock of funds over time. So it can apply, but I think that yeah, we'll mainly be talking about we've got a big pot of money, we're usually using the income from that endowment and from those investments to make grants, but oh no, actually, we are like we don't have to do that, basically. It's not some sometimes for some members of the the the group, the I think the the epiphany was maybe sharper than others. For others, it had been on the it had been on the cards for a while, and they suddenly thought, oh you know, kind of actually let's just let's just go for it um rather than uh existing in in perpetuity.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Yeah. And and on that, I guess, you know, I'd love a bit of historical context on this uh podcast uh and just just generally in life. Um, but one of the things we we talked about um when we had a catch-up before this recording was the question of whether this moment in time and the focus on spending down at the moment is something genuinely new and whether there's a kind of new trend or phenomenon going on, or whether it actually reflects this much longer standing debate about whether allowing organisations and endowments to exist in perpetuity is okay. And there have always been these concerns about you know the dead hand of the donor and the fact that uh organizations can become unresponsive to the needs of the times that they're operating in. What's your sense, post of view, of whether this is, you know, at least in part, just a reflection of that sort of stuff, or whether actually there's something genuinely new, either in terms of scale or something qualitatively different this time around? Um, Sally, I don't know if you've got thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yeah, um I mean the short answer is no, I don't think it is new, nothing's entirely new, and there's lots of historically documented examples of spandouts, and it's been a theme throughout the history of philanthropy. Um however, we are in quite a specific moment, you know, we are facing a lot of existential crises, and certainly if we think about our group, there are at least uh two of us, which are you know, the decision to close is explicitly linked to climate change and the need to act now and put all your resources that you can into that situation now. Um on the more kind of power and positionality, there's certainly been influences around um uh sense of neocolonialism, the Black Lives Matter movement, um, even just spending more during COVID. So, you know, we're we're in a particular historic moment which is giving impetus to trust us and out. Um, but that's only part of the story. There's also a lot of other reasons trust is ending out, and there's probably well I take comfort from the fact that there are probably other times in history that have felt this difficult and the world's moved on from them, so yeah, it's it's not not new, but it is unique to the moment, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah, absolutely. And Ollie, I don't know if you've got thoughts on that as well. And particularly I'm I'm really interested in that question of how much of it is driven by external factors, so sort of awareness of you know the scale of the challenges that we face at the moment and the urgency of them, and how much of it is slightly more internally, sort of driven by individual organizations' sense of where they are in their life cycle or you know how things have changed for for them.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah, I think there's there's or you know, the the ones we've the ones we've uh we've we've worked with, um there's a real a real mixture in there. Like it's definitely um you know one thing that was it became clear really quickly, isn't it? It's not necessarily a political or radical act. Um certainly not. I think there are um a lot of practical considerations that have gone in with um for some of the different trusts. Like I said, it's the there's maybe a kind of stars-aligning thing, but maybe everything's just moving a little bit quicker where yeah, there were catalysts involved, um, some of them of a more existential nature and and people becoming much more aware of the kind of wealth inequality that foundations can represent and and perpetuate for for some. Um, but others, you know, we we also talked about kind of anniversaries, um, which are kind of a convenient taking stock moment for some trusts, which is also linked in one with one of the other early reflections was was spending out being a consequence of a strategic conversation, not it, not the starting point. So people thinking through, oh, look, you know what, actually, post-COVID maybe maybe now isn't the time. You know, one of the trusts talked about it's not really a great look to be sitting on all this money right now, which is is is how they put it. Um, but then that opens the door to a lot of other considerations as well about how to do this, you know, like this thing called philanthropy, whatever, like how to do it right, how to do it well, how to do it in the most kind of committed and generous way that they that they can. Um so yeah, coming across a real mix, um, different ingredients in in different mixtures, I would say, um, for the for the reasons that people have. Um and also the and you know, this to be too too meta about it, this conversation, one of th there might be people out there who have been like, you know, well, spend outs have always been around. There's just kind of a few people making a bit more noise about it now. It's hard to get a handle kind of data-wise on the on the stock and flow of who is considering it, who is who is not. Like I'm intrigued by the sort of there are kind of spend out trees falling in the woods out there that just kind of happen, but maybe they just do it on the on the down low a little bit, and um there's not much comms about it. It just happens trusts have a natural life cycle, um, and people are people are perfectly happy about that. I think there's also, and maybe we'll talk about it in some of the other questions later on, kind of a generational thing. I do wonder if there's something about a particular age or a particular kind of vintage of trust for whom this might be quite appropriate. Like I heard a few times, you know, um particularly around succession stuff, where it's like, you know, so-and-so is the last original member of staff, or that so-and-so is the last person left who knew the founder and had the kind of relationship with them on an individual level, um, and now being a, you know, one generation later or one and a half generations later, now being a kind of actually what what's what's this thing for? Why did we set it up? It what might have been a fairly kind of modest legacy gift 50 years ago has maybe kind of sprawled and and ballooned into something that really wasn't wasn't expected at the time, particularly if there was, as people will know, heavy investment in in property. Uh in the anyway, just thinking, what's what's what's this thing for? What should we do with it? Let's have a let's have a proper think. Um yeah, and and mixed in with all the stuff that Sally spoke about, kind of like meeting, meeting the moment, kind of rising to the challenge, thinking, well, like we can't do our best work with you know, on two and a half, three percent here. We we we need to start um start investing more heavily.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, absolutely. Loads to pick up on in that. I guess just something you said there reminded me actually when we were talking about that question of to what extent this is genuinely new, or whether it's sort of there's a a lot of historical precedent. It's an obvious point, but it always strikes me that one of the challenges is that those previous limited life foundations that existed, people just don't really know that they did exist, or that, you know, unless they've left a very indelible mark on the historical record, you've often got to go looking for that. Whereas, you know, the the Carnegie institutions and Rockefeller and Ford and those, they're still around today, so they're kind of part of everybody's awareness. Whereas some of the early 20th century limited life foundations in the US that did amazing work, they haven't been around for 80 or 100 years, so people don't know about them.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Well, there was one other thing on that as I was thinking about it. It's it's quite a it's a slightly basic tech tech point, but uh you know, one of the aims of the group was that was to kind of bring together some quite disparate case studies and practice. So one of the first things we worked on was you know grants analysis, like data stuff, which is a lot easier now, thanks to things like 360 giving than it than it used to be. So, like Sally, I don't know if you want to come in here, but we're like, okay, well, these two trusts are both in the group, and here we go, we crunch the numbers, and here's your list of grantees in common. So maybe let's think about um it's not not just about responsible exit, but also about kind of the sense of possibility that working together on some of this stuff in the same fields can can provide. Because again, it if now is if now is the moment for um more intensive investment with things like an iron climate, there are going to be a lot of funders working in the same space, and and you know, you've got to take care there and think quite carefully about your place in the in the ecosystem, but it is now a lot easier to do that um um than it than it used to be. I don't know if you had anything to add there, Sally.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Um yeah, no, I mean, following on from what both of you have said, actually, I think there's kind of two um, for me anyway, two motivating reasons to talk about this outside of the group and to have conversations like this. Um, and one is around that kind of taking that ecosystem view. Um I think something that we've found around the table in the group, even though we're all very different shapes and sizes and outlooks and all the rest of it, um, is a couple of things that just hadn't occurred to us. So one is to really have that focus on the ecosystem you're operating in, look at what your role could or should be as a grant maker and how it relates to others. And take decisions about your own future with that in mind, rather than just looking at your own histories and structures and mission, et cetera. And then the second one is, or maybe it should have been the first, but basically just realizing that within those considerations, spending out is an option. And I think, like you said, Rodri, that in history we forget the quiet ones that did good work and closed, and we remember the names that persist. And I think you know, that's led to a perceived norm that trust should go on in perpetuity, when in actual fact there's very little to say that has to be the case. So I think something that's been so valuable being part of this group is one, just to realise it doesn't have to be the case, and loads of other people are working that out and working through the practicalities of how to shift mode. Um, and then two is that we're not alone, we're in this big ecosystem, and that's a good thing. It's encouraging, it gives us opportunities to work together, but it also um yeah, just makes us uh gives us the opportunity to assess what our role is and set our strategy according to that and internal considerations.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah, and I think that that point about needing to take a wider view of the ecosystem when thinking about this is so important because it's like so many things in philanthropy, I like the archetype that we have is actually it's about kind of bold individuals or individual institutions kind of you know forging their own path and making decisions about what they want to do and and what their role in it is. Whereas actually, if you're making a decision to spend down as a as a foundation, obviously one of the relevant questions is okay, well, who else is going to be funding in that area already is or could? So you actually those calculations about the cost of you no longer existing are very different in that context. Whereas otherwise, I think going to your other point about the norm, I think that norm is there for all sorts of historical reasons, but also it's very easy early in the process of considering whether to spend down to stop on the basis of saying, well, obviously, if we we weren't around, that would be terrible because we wouldn't be able to fund X, Y, and Z. And if you haven't taken into consideration any of that wider ecosystem, I think that becomes a very easy or very obvious barrier to kind of taking that thought process any further. Um, in terms of how these actual decisions do tend to get made, I guess to some extent what we're talking about here is an idealised version of how we we think it should be, which is more kind of collaborative and people thinking together. What did you find both sort of within the group and and in kind of you know what the group was able to say about not necessarily why the decision's made, so the motivating factors, but kind of how it actually happens in practice. So who tends to be involved in that decision and what sort of process do they go through? Um, particularly if you're talking about shifting from perpetuity and the organization being like that to making it a limited life foundation.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

I think there's one I'd like to flag in particular because it's so simple, um, which is Pold and Parkham Foundation, who are part of the group, had it on their agenda that every five years in the AGM they would consider, I can't I don't know the wording, but you know, whether to spend out or what the lifespan of the organisation should be. And it just it just meant literally the question was there and it came up with regularity so that then when the stars aligned for different reasons that it felt the right time, the board had the the you know the permission to do it, or at least the the um trigger to have that conversation. And as Ollie said before, in others, you know, there's a whole range of reasons. Some in the group were set up as life limited foundations, one was a fundraising foundation, um, and its capacity to fundraise was was coming to an end, so it led to the question. With others, it was um big uh centenary in one case, you know, big anniversaries or changing of generations on the board. Um what else, Ollie? There's been quite an array of it.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Yeah, a mix. I think there's there's a few where it's you could kind of um yeah, there's a bit of a breadcrumb trail there, where if you looked at, you know, or that that old quote about um it happening kind of slowly and then and then quickly. So it had been maybe in the ether for a little while as a as a consideration, but then when people really sat down and thought, actually, if we want to do this work well, it's gonna get expensive, it's gonna get expensive, then it's gonna heat into the endowment, and then and then then they came to it in uh in that way. Um I think from the from the board members and the people I've spoken to, like I think it's just a a um an indication of charitable governance models in particular. Like it they are like it's quite a top-down thing uh in in in my experience so far. Like it is the kind of decision that only really boards have have the power um have the power to make. Um I've not been I've not been in the room for any of the kind of well whether that was a real tangle. Um I didn't I actually didn't get a sense of that and I asked everyone about it. I was like, was it was it contract basically? I was like, did you all fall out about it? Like was it was it a controversial thing? Did you have people on both sides? And you know, I hope they weren't just kind of glossing over it, but I didn't actually get the sense from from like, you know, senses of kind of it was difficult, but not not fraught and not kind of not completely characterised at a board level by like factionalism or or anything like that. People, again, the people in the group, I think once one on on the on the road to making it and having made it, people would have really stood by their decisions. Actually, they've been really confident that this is what what represents their uh their best offer um and that they are that they're gonna go for it. But yeah, I don't know if it um relates uh in any way to some of the other questions we'll we'll talk about, but I haven't got much of a sense of you know kind of bottom-up grantee movements to get rid of this thing. Like we'll we'll get into this and I'm I'm sure, but I've not seen not seen much of that. Obviously, people grantees and charities um will want the the ingredients of that, you know, kind of it maths, isn't it? Like longer term bigger grants are more expensive than shorter term project grants, and they they do have some some implications on the on the balance sheet. But yeah, mainly kind of boards thinking like what's what's this what's this thing that we are managing for? Where should we where should we steer this ship?

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Um and and just think you you sort of said a couple of times that actually you know there's a reasonable amount of diversity in terms of the models that the foundations in the group or grantmakers had, but thinking about the kind of the most obvious version of a perpetual foundation, which I guess is one in which an individual or some group of individuals at some point in time established this thing and it has a fund and it's existed for a long period of time. Do you think, well, I guess two parts to this question? One, do you think it is easier or more difficult in the situation where you still have someone who is a member of that family or has some link to the founder involved? Is it actually kind of easier to make the decision to spend down because they have a certain amount of implied legitimacy to make that decision? Or is it easier in the circumstance where that link has been entirely severed and you're now talking about kind of an entirely institutional body? Um, and I guess the second part to that question is in either case, when they do make the decision, how often do you see them making some kind of reference to the original founder and their wishes or their values in order to kind of explain or justify it? Um, Sally, I don't know if you've got thoughts on that one.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, I think we've kind of um not been able to work out whether there's one kind of consistent thread in that. But I if if there is one, I think it is um making the decision in relation to the founder and their wishes. So it it has on several occasions been a new generation of the founder's family coming onto the board which has had that legitimacy to raise the question. In other cases, it has been when the founder has passed away, but the board or staff, sometimes it's senior staff, particularly in smaller trusts, um, have felt able to raise the question because they feel it aligns with the founder's wishes, the way they would have wanted to do things. So um more often than not, there's some there's something about uh generational shift, um but with link links back, which isn't that surprising really, because I mean people who make enough money to leave a trust are often quite entrepreneurial, um dynamic people. You know, they're good, they've been really active in the world and they've they've driven change. They're not often people who well, they're more often that than people who might just want to kind of do something very, very steady and and long term. So it's not that it often does make sense to link back to how they might have wanted to do things.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

And I think that that can be the case for um values as much particular interests. So there might be a couple who are like, oh, they they were really interested in um sight loss, for example. I like that was their thing. Or um they were really interested in like Sally's the values they brought to the trust were about impact or hard work and humility and things like that. And so so the the the board as it is now um are thinking through what the best how to be the best vehicle for a particular set of values, um, as well as a a niche interest. I don't know if they were really into horses. I mean, you know, there is it's it's those different different things, which again was another interesting bit of the group and the kind of the uniting the tribes possibility where you you do have the people who are thinking deeply about the the economic extraction that can lie behind the um investments that foundations rely on, and you've got the kind of mission-driven, sort of like get things done crowd that can throw that kind of flow, sorry, from say a uh uh a business fortune, that that kind of thing. So it's yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Yeah. And and I guess sort of the broader that the purposes of the foundation are, and they I mean, quite a lot of them are relatively broad within certain uh kind of criteria, the easier it is to m perform that sort of thought experiment of, well, if the founder was around today, what would they be interested in or what would they want to focus on that isn't necessarily exactly the same, you know, in terms of specific focus areas as it was at the time, because the context has obviously changed enormously. And I think, yeah, often you can make quite a reasonable argument about that sort of thing. Um, I just wanted to move on a little bit and kind of touch on a few of the nuts and bolts. So let's assume you know we've kind of covered why organizations might want to do this and sort of how they might go around making that decision. Once they have made a decision to spend down or to spend out, what are some of the actual kind of methods? You know, how do they go about doing that? You know, how do they choose an end date, for instance? You know, what what do they do in terms of making sure that they're spending more money? Is it literally just give away bigger grants, or are there kind of other things that they could be doing as well?

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Again, it's it's quite it is quite a mix. Um, so there's a definite kind of few of us within the group, probably probably up to half, I would say, who have opted to give bigger multi-year grants than they have done in the past. Often those are unrestricted or loosely restricted, and it is really not to go off on a tangent, but it's really interesting how grant-making practice seems to evolve more along um kind of open and trusting lines once you've made the decision to spend out. Um so that's the case with a lot um of trust. With some, it is it's just about increasing volume, keeping the model going but cranking it out faster. Um with others, I mean, I don't know if we wanted to get to talking to talking about redistribution rather than um just giving out more grants at this point, but at others it's more about redistribution of um chunks of the endowment of assets. Um yeah, so some continue business as usual but speed it up. Lots go to kind of bigger, more trust-based relationships, often sometimes leading to more kind of field building and networking amongst grantees as well, with an eye towards a bigger impact and possibly more sustainable um models to leave behind. And that yeah, and then there's redistribution. Am I missing any significant ones, Ollie?

SPEAKER_02 34:57

No, I don't think so. I think this is it's this bigger question we chewed over in the group a lot, where it's kind of what what's what is really different about spend down and what is actually just what everyone is doing all the time, particularly when you bring numbers into it, where you know, like lots of the spend downs that we worked with anyway, they're like in the grand scheme of UK philanthropy are on, you know, they they're quite modest endowments. So that their grants still kind of on a financial basis can't that not that it's not a matter of competition, but you can't really compare them to a big grant from a huge perpetuity funder, a lot of what they're doing is just is part and parcel of the normal practice of grant making. So, yeah, some of them are um making bigger grants by their own standards, um, but maybe not by others. Uh, and the same for kind of uh I'm gonna lose my train a bit here, but the uh the kind of grants that their grantees are used to receiving. They sometimes, you know, a big grant to a spendout is still a small grant to the recipient, depending on which field they're working with, and um uh and and vice versa. But yeah, um we yeah, we had fun with lots lots of different graphs. Generally, you know, the spending is going up because that's um that's to that's to be expected. But yeah, some on some on bigger grants, some on um some more widely distributed, and some in a kind of, and you can see this with some historical historical examples as well, have a kind of intermediate phase where they are working on um kind of disentanglement and almost kind of parachute payment stuff with with previous grantees, and that takes up a chunk of the strategy, and then that creates room for something a bit different or something more targeted or something on a on a slightly different issue area. So um yeah, yeah, the kind of past, present, and future relationship um sections of the of the strategy can look quite different.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Yeah, that's true. There's quite there's quite a focus on doing right by existing partners, isn't there? Whether that is um because you're closing off that part of your grant making, well, often it is that. If you're taking forward that part of your grant making as central to your strategy, then those existing partners often get taken forward with it. But it's um it is interesting as a as a grant maker from a grant maker's perspective, you lot those which do switch to larger, longer grants are changing the type of grant maker they are, and often you know, in the in a field with far larger grant makers than they've used to being in. So lots of aspects of your practice have to recalibrate. Um, and then working out the actual ending, the actual final grants and how you get down to nothing, especially if you've still got some endowment making some, you know, if you cash out gradually over time, you actually get the weird thing of getting a bit more money in that you didn't expect, and you've been telling everybody for years you're closing, and now you've got a little bit more money.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

So it's um we get into a lot of those kind of quite nerdy grant-making admin questions in the group, which is Yeah, and I think and another thing that people had uh a kind of um uh question they'd faced is trying to stick with, you know, stick with the the values and the attentions, intentions behind the spend out in the first place, which is they were like, did is this grant is this grant modeling what we really want to be doing with what remains of our limited resources, or is it the kind of uh like line of least resistance, you know, let's just give everyone the same and feel okay about it? That that's where people had had some of their um some of the bigger questions about their practice, I think, because you know, if you're spending out for on a kind of mission-based strategic intervention, that requires a different kind of grant making from we're spending out because we see unprecedented need in our sector. And that will result in you know, just like differ different graphs, yeah, sure, but like different different kinds of distribution of funds between the the kind of targeted and the alongside and the relational and the you know what, like we fund in this sector, this sector is really struggling. So basically let's just open up, let's open up the books rather than you know, rather than accepting X percent of um of applications, let's accept Y percent instead. That that will lead to a different sort of approach, and it has done for some people, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Yeah, and I would I would guess, I mean, right speculative, but the the nature of the decision to spend out would have a bearing in that I can see that those those organizations that are deciding to spend out because they see some you know increased level of urgency of the current moment or because it's you know an internally driven thing around a a certain kind of anniversary of some sort, you're more likely to think actually what we're doing at the moment's broadly right, let's just do more of that and you know give more to existing trustees. I suppose if it's driven by some more fundamental discomfort with the very model of foundation philanthropy, that might necessitate a slightly more radical shift towards something else. So I wonder whether you kind of see slightly different behaviour in in those cases. Um and I guess an interesting thing, and maybe we'll come back round to this as well. I uh we haven't, I suppose, touched too much on the perception of all of this and the point of view of grantees, both kind of existing and and those that aren't there. And in terms of how charities as a whole view this conversation about spend out, again, I guess if their sense is when an organization decides to spend out, that just means that its existing grantees get more money, that's quite different from there maybe an opportunity for organizations that aren't currently receiving money to tap into kind of new sources of it. So it probably in terms of that wider perception has a bearing. Um the thing I wanted to ask about, actually, and I think you you sort of alluded to it before, Sally, and then um, but I do I think it'd be useful to come back around to is whether within this conversation, you know, we're talking about kind of grant making as the primary method for um for doing this and kind of increasing spending, whether actually transferring assets in sort of larger bulk to another organization, um, so that they're still endowed assets, but the the organization that's spending down doesn't have them anymore. Is that a part of this conversation or is it a sort of separate conversation that is that is linked and we kind of just need to acknowledge that it's something slightly different?

SPEAKER_00 41:36

I would say it's separate and linked, you know, um that's there's big grey areas in between, and I think lots of us which do work for spend outs have considered redistribution of assets at some point on this journey. Um I'm saying it's separate really just because pragmatically, in our group, the vast majority are spending out through grant making. Um so that's kind of that's that's the focus. But I think intellectually um they're very intermingled and and interesting.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yeah, and I think is uh the way I thought of this is is the difference between spending and stewarding um in in in terms of the funds, and and they they flow from slightly different questions. So, you know, what the the spending conversation maybe flows from thinking like, you know, one of them says we're that we like if I'm if I'm a board member, say that that we're the you know, we're the right people, basically, and we are well, well and best placed to be making these decisions, and we are we are completely and and maybe even uniquely entitled to make to make them. Um, and that's your kind of accelerated spend out, spend our model. The the stewarding conversation is it's a different set of questions and assumptions about kind of is is this the right way to hold and distribute money instead of like for for public goods, I guess. Like are we the right people to hold the keys? Is this what is this what people want? Are we open to the right? Yeah, I say I say I use right loosely, obviously. What what kind of views and perspectives are we uh are we open to? Um and do we, you know, we we again as a this sort of fictitious board, we we currently have have the tools to like to make channels through which these funds can flow, but but what happens if we spread these tools more widely as well as just kind of um making weird hand gestures on an audio recording here? But you know, like how how are how are funds how are funds flowing here? Are we are we the the source of them? Are we a spring? Are we a a dam? Are we a leak? Yeah, you know, I'll I'll get rid of that and I'll do that. Yeah. Um but yeah, who's who's in charge? Like what why is the money over here and not over there? Like what what's the yeah, what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 43:53

I think that's it. And I think that question of agency is what's common to both approaches, actually, whether you're grant making Or redistributing, you're kind of acknowledging that the agency shouldn't sit with us anymore. And if you're grant making, it needs to sit with those frontline charities, NGOs that are doing the work on this whatever the mission is, whatever the trust is facing. Whereas if you're redistributing and you're giving parts of your endowment elsewhere, then you feel I I I would assume that you know the logic is that the model of philanthropy should continue, but the agency for managing that should sit with other people now.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Again, I think it's really important to make that that link between these two conversations, um, uh, but also to make it clear that they are slightly different in in nature and have kind of different implications. Um, I guess the the other one actually makes me think there was another um conversation within philanthropy that I think is worth linking because I'm not sure it is always kind of clear in people's minds that they this they are it is related to spending down. But to me, the question of how foundations invest their endowed assets is really relevant. Because again, if if the starting point for this is you've got your traditional model, you've got a big mound of endowed assets, and then you know, a small amount of that every year is available to be paid out in grants. Obviously, if you've got fundamental problems with that whole notion of endowed uh assets being used for philanthropy, in part that might be because of a sense that you know they're they're somehow wasted or not being used or not being kind of fully utilized. And it's easier to feel like that if all that's happening is that they're being kind of invested in a fully for-profit or commercial way. I'd be really interested in your thoughts on kind of how does it change some of those kind of um calculations or perceptions if we're shifting towards actually foundations are thinking about how they use their investments as well to try and you know further their mission or drive social impact. Does that kind of then in some cases, you know, lessen the case for spending down?

SPEAKER_00 46:05

I think that's very like as with all of this, it's about who, you know, which tree are you in the ecosystem, where do you fit? So um it depends on your your size and your goals for your impact. So several of the trusts in the group are really relatively small and their endowments are relatively small. So the priority was actually okay, spend out, cash out. Um for others, they have definitely considered how they're invested very deeply in lots of cases, and some have changed that investment portfolio along with accelerated spending towards spend out. Um so again, I think it's a bit like with the question of redistribution versus spend out, um, they are very interlinked and they do there is a correlation between the two. Um but that decision between whether you become a holy spend out trust or whether you become one which just starts to utilize your investments in a different way that comes down to your individual circumstances. And yeah, the urgency, as well as kind of what you know, how big and useful or otherwise is your endowment, but also the external drivers that we've talked about, the urgency of what you're addressing, etc.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

It's the yeah, it's a very to zoom out to a very broad question. It's like everyone is thinking, yeah, how how are we putting all of the resources that we have to the best possible use? Um, and it yeah, sometimes that that that might involve or it should involve the investments strategy, but people might might just conclude and have just concluded, but actually it is better spent on on grants and and then a sort of slightly tangential point here is you know, people are thinking about that that question of how to put their resources to the best possible use, but also with the infrastructure and capacity that they currently have. And I'm I don't want to uh uh lapse into sort of an HR conversation, but you know, especially in the UK, lots of trusts, you know, that they don't employ many staff. We we're not we when we're in the in in this conversation here, we're not talking about like giant team convenings and away days and things. We're usually talking about conversations with quite like not many people involved that might only only really meet a few times a year, uh, and they might have you know one to two members of staff. So it partly depends on like a you know, uh a trust that had a whole team working on grant relationships and investment management will come up with a different answer to that question. And and they will um, you know, they'll they might uncover more stones than uh a small board with a limited staff team who may be you know going deep down the rabbit hole of uh of divestment conversations is is maybe just not really something that they have the the infrastructure and capacity in place to do. So I think there is there is an element of of that in there as uh as well, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

But I think also Ollie, you kind of almost touch on something that there's probably a reason that the the peer support group is mainly staff, you know, and that's because as we've we've touched on, if you become a spendout, your job does change, your your practice generally changes. Um, you know, in the most simplified version, it just gets your workload gets a lot more. Um and then it changes over, it doesn't seem to tail off towards the end, is what we're finding. It seems to uh become more complicated. Um so yeah, I'm losing my train slightly, but that there is that um that that question around capacity and resourcing and the fact that that that does change, become more complex, and often increase with the decision to spend out and the delivery of that strategy, which is another reason that we think it's important to talk about it and bring people together and just just to be aware.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

Um and you mentioned there actually that reminds me of something else that I wanted to ask you about. I guess we've talked about the the the start point of of this process, you know, the decision to to shift from perpetuity to to spend down and and then sort of how that might happen. I guess the whole point is that there's an end point as well. What did you learn here from the group in terms of thinking about that that ending? I guess as you said there, Sally, there are just sort of practical challenges with it in that the workload probably gets more rather than less as you get towards that. But then also, did people have in mind kind of ways in you know idealized endings? You know, is it kind of it you basically is probably not a point where you just sort of stop writing checks and down tools? There's got to be some more strategic thought given to you know how you want to leave the organizations that you were working with and the cause areas that you support in a better place than they were when you found them, and also I guess whether there's learning and insight to be garnered from the process you've gone through and what you want to do with that. So, what did you hear from the group on that?

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah, and I think that's really um that is a really central question, and it's becoming more and more of a focus of our discussions. I mean, we do talk about final reports, redundancy policies, whether to have a party or not. You know, we talk about all that actual ending stuff, but increasingly we do think about what we then leave behind and what we do during the spend out to ensure that's a you know more of a positive than a negative. Um, and Ollie mentioned earlier, you know, through his work and support of the group, we've discovered how many grantees we all have in common. And we've talked about taking that ecosystem view and realizing that actually, okay, if three or four trees are falling at the same time and they've all been supporting this part of the woodland, what comes next? So we can start taking actions now as best we can to um bring other funders into the space to build supportive networks. Um but the reality is once a trust does close, the staff do lose their jobs. Um and it's it's it's hard to keep that conversation going much longer. So luckily in the group, we do have two or three people who are still members, even though their trusts have closed, and we have uh representatives of spend outs that closed kind of 10-15 years ago, and their input is invaluable because to the extent that they uh have the capacity, they've been able to follow up and and have that view. So I don't have a I don't think I have a clear answer to your question other than that.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

No, no, it's really really interesting because I guess it in a way it it's the bit of this that gets talked about less probably outside of the circles of people who are actually involved in doing it, but it that you know that is kind of the the point at which it all becomes very real, is when you have to decide well what's actually gonna how we actually gonna stop doing this and what's gonna happen afterwards. So I think it's really interesting to to think through. Um I don't know if you had anything to add to that, Ollie, on that that question.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Yeah, we we had a few conversations about approaches to like learning impact and evaluation and people's different motivations for doing that. And it was it was a really interesting tent, but you know, we we love it, we love a tension, we love a contradiction, you know, it's like that that mixture of humility and ambition in in spend outs where it's like, you know what, like we don't have like we're we're a drop in the ocean compared to the big system out there. This is not about us, this is not this this is about the sector, and this is about the grantees. So that there was always a uh an unwillingness to kind of center themselves. And and if they they if they're looking at a declining balance sheet and they're thinking, oh, should we spend this money on a grant, or should we, you know, hire a comms agency and and commission a shiny report all about how great we were, people tended to kind of recoil from that as a bit self-indulgent. Um like, but like a big but or or and if you're being friendly about it, like they're they're really trying to get something done and they want to know if it's like you know, quote, quote unquote, working or or getting better. But I think with that, again, the other the irony of the the short-term spend out for a long-term view, um, was that people were generally quite comfortable with you know the seeds of change model, you know, kind of supporting infrastructure, um, supporting organizations to get themselves on a long-term footing and being reasonably comfortable with you know how that might end up in future and and not being too interested in sort of the surveillance aspect um of how did it go? But yeah, there would there's a bigger question there about um, and it and it's come up in some of the conversations since I published the work, where it's like, what are we comparing ourselves against when we try and prove that this thing has worked? You know, if we've put ourselves out there, we've put all of our money on the table, um, does that mean we now feel obliged to um to look at our kind of monitoring and impact processes in a way that we actually haven't done before? And and that some grantees might actually find that quite jarring. You know, we talked about improving grant making practice as part of spending out and people not wanting to slip back into thinking, oh no, this is about us, has it has it worked? But it's also a reflection of the higher stakes that people think that they're or people feel that they're working with as well. It's like, you know, this is our shot, or like, you know, this is the biggest grant we'll ever make, or this is our our this is our real legacy to the to the sector. So people will always seek, um, even just on an emotional level, some form of comfort that it's that it's going well and that they've done the right thing, uh, especially in a in a context where there isn't as much room for kind of course correction as there might be on a perpetuity model. But I will add there that there is still plenty. If you're looking at kind of a maybe eight to 12 year time frame, that there's a lot of time to learn and change baked into that. Like that that that's longer than your average strategy period. It's certainly longer than most of the grants that you are that you are making. So I yeah, well, one of the things I would always um always emphasize with people is that there really is, you know, there's there's room for sense making, learning, adaptation, all that kind of thing, even in what feels like, you know, it might feel like you're going like the clappers, but to the outside world, you you're still just kind of you're still here for a good while. And that came out in some of the stuff about comms as well, where it's like, we're spending out in 10 years, and then oh, okay, right, I don't I don't need to pay much attention to this just yet. Like it's actually my next grant that I want to talk about, not what might happen to you guys, uh, you know, when my kids are at uni.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Yeah, and I guess it's easy to get a bit sort of solipsistic about these things, and you know, having made that decision to feel as though you know everything has changed, and then as you say from the outside, it kind of kind of hasn't until the point at which you're talking about things actually changing. Um I just I'm aware we're coming up on the hour that we had, and there's just a couple of things I wanted to ask if that's okay. One one was um we I think we mentioned it in passing earlier, but I thought it was just worth coming back to briefly, which is this question of whether there's there's anything in the idea that we're seeing a kind of generational shift in philanthropy and whether that's going to have an impact on this question. Because we hear all kinds of assertions about, you know, oh, you know, the great wealth transfer, next-gen philanthropists, they all do philanthropy differently and view it differently. Do you have a sense, you know, either kind of anecdotally or from uh evidence that you've seen that that next-gen philanthropists do actually think a bit differently in terms of the time horizons for philanthropy? And and is your sense that will, you know, that the impact of that will be mostly seen in them taking a time-limited approach when they set up new organizations, or whether we'll see more emphasis on decisions to shift from perpetuity to to spend down as a result of this shift?

SPEAKER_00 58:02

I think anecdotally, for sure. You know, there's things like the Good Ancestor Movement in the wealth advisory field, the community foundations are taking more and more kind of through funders rather than endowment funders. Um there are several in the group and in other spend out trusts where it's it's um there is next gen philanthropists who've decided to spend out. So it's hard to know because once you're looking for something and you're in that world, you see more of it, don't you? But there is anecdotally, there does seem to be a lot. Um whether they are more on the side of setting up time-limited organizations or just doing philanthropy through different streams, I wouldn't want to say. I think probably a a bit of both, maybe a bit more of the latter, but yeah, I I I think it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

And again, I only anecdotal as well. I've seen a little bit of research um in the US. I know the Johnson Center does does quite a lot on it, and you know, I've seen the odd article, it's like more trusts pivoting to spend debt, but I'm not really sure what the numbers and the data are behind that. I I am interested in the you know, people see or the announcement of a trust to the world when they're set up, like is after the point at which a lot of the decisions about the wealth stewardship have have been made. So it I'm interested in whether the you know perpetual trust is still sort of the the like the off-the-shelf model for you know the someone's rich uncle or an ally and and it and if you talk somebody of the next generation through that, okay, well, this you know, it'd be good to set up a uh to a hose as a rich guy and walk into coops or something and be like, I've got 20 million quid, what shall I do with it? And what which steps are people being walked through when it comes to here's some change or this is what I want to do with my money? Is it they, okay, here's your here's your simple, basic, off-the-shelf, tax efficient, perpetuity model trust, yeah, get yourself aboard, you know, invite a couple of mates and your uncle, like, or um yeah, where how are people being, I don't mean diverted from those conversations in an antagonistic way, but but whether the perpetual trust has the sort of default model, and kind of we we talked about sort of sleepwalking into that in in the group where um uh there there are there are different ways of of spending money. Like you don't even, you know, it once you charitify money, you you can't uncharitify it. I think it's like you know, you can't you can't untoast bread. Like what it's done, it's like once you put it in that vehicle, it's really quite difficult to get it to get it out of it. And you know, some of the work that we've done in the group is talking through some of those those sort of technicalities, even if it's like, okay, how do we uh how do we set up grants that that actually last long into the the future beyond our closure? And then in the past, what some trusts have had to do is set up kind of their own legacy institutions so they can still take you know monitoring information and and things like that. Um but yeah, and then you know, with with uh um in America in particular, you know, people talk about what what what's the vehicle of choice for your you know Zuckerbergs of the world or whatever. There's there's all kinds of of governance issues around how you how you set up what kind of pot you put your money in and and and therefore how it's possible to to get it out again. Um I wonder, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

Yeah. And I guess that brings us back to the just sort of one final question or try and sort of tie some things together, where we talked, you know, up front about some of the the wider context for this whole discussion. And it's it is one of those odd things in philanthropy, which is like essentially sounds like quite a kind of technical, technocratic, you know, niche interest conversation, um, yet actually touches on much broader issues. And as a result, I think because philanthropy is so kind of inherently values laden, gets people surprisingly heated, um, you know, actually talking about spending out or foundation investments can often get sort of surprisingly polemic in a way that's not necessarily helpful. And I think in this case, because it often gets framed as you know, spend out good, perpetuity bad, or the other way round. Um, and I I was wondering what your sense is of what the kind of idealized picture would look like in the future. Is it, as you were kind of alluding to there, I think, Ollie, one where we've just managed to shift the default so at the very least, people you know are given the full range of options and can make an informed decision rather than it just being here's a perpetual foundation? Or is it that you know, on balance, there should be far more perpetual foundations, or you know, some people might argue all foundations should be um uh kind of limited life in one form or another and there should be no perpetual ones. What's your sense of you know where where we should ideally settle on questions like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

Yeah, if you want if you want opinions, um I think that I think shifting the default is is a good start because I think a lot of us do kind of sleepwalk into this idea of perpetuity without critically engaging with it. And I think it can be a good trigger for critically engaging with lots of other things, as we've covered, you know, um grant-making practice, what type of organisation you're funding, how you're field building, all the rest of it. So I think it's a really positive thing to not have it as default and to understand the range of options on the table. Uh perpetuity is a bit of a problematic term to my mind because what what exists in perpetuity in nature, in the world, you know, not anything I can think of in reality. But in terms of very long-term models of grant making, there are still really strong arguments in favour of that in some places and for some organisations, you know, the the independence, the separation from electoral cycles and economic cycles. If you look at can't rehearse them now, but all the good that that those type of philanthropies have done in the world, often in combination with kind of more urgent-feeling um life-limited organisations or or funders, um they're still a really important part of the ecosystem, but it's it's more about asking yourselves the critical questions of yourselves and seeing you know where where you should fit, where you can play your most effective role.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:41

You know, you do a whole series on this, I'm sure. But um it's the you you said it tap taps into some other conversations. I I think the the conversation about it for me anyway, it's less about kind of spend out or not spend out or perpetuity, time over to whatever, but it's it taps into a bigger question about whether foundations are spending enough money full stop. I think. And there's there's that is I don't think it's perpetuity kind of versus spend out or anything like that, but I think there's a huge conversation in the middle about um yeah, kind of foundations just spending more full stop and what that what that might look like. And and that spun out into a few other conversations with with the group where there is like a few maybe a bit a bit kind of crestfallen almost where it's like we're doing our best work, like we've we've announced we're gonna try really hard, we're gonna flood as much money we can as we can into the sector, and then the narrative around it is very much about oh, like, oh no, you're closing. Um so I yeah, I I think people were um and like and and me as well, kind of a bit like ah, like a bit a bit peaked at the the precarity narrative being brought to the door of the spendo rather than the kind of very low payout um perpetuity trust, even if you know, in in some cases that can have very good good reason. Um, but in some cases.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

says I think I think not so not so much really you know um which is why you know I'm not gonna pivot the whole conversation to say ah it sounds like we're talking about spend hours but actually we're not I think what they they the the the best quality I saw on show from the group was that it had been a real eye opener for people and it had been kind of a a shortcut but a good one to these bigger questions about like well you know just thinking through what they're doing and why um and that once the once the um perpetuity question or or issue was sort of settled it opened the door to loads of other conversations about their role like what Sally's been saying their role in the ecosystem the most generous contribution over resources whether they were holding power kind of legitimately and responsibly it was a a real um door a door into um into that and uh my last last little note here I think you know perpetuity as uh uh as a sector is a very different from is different from perpetuity on an individual trust uh basis like you know you you've studied the history of philanthropy it's been around for a long time it will continue to be around uh as a sector in in perpetuity but whether individual uh trusts uh decide on always being there is a is a a different a different question I think yeah yeah absolutely I think all really good points and and I guess just the the final thing is just a very practical one I mean obviously the report's there there's a sort of micro site that people can look through as well and I'll put links to that in the show notes but if somebody's listening to this who's kind of involved in some way in a in a foundation and thinks oh actually this has you know expanded my horizons and opened my eyes what you know beyond looking at that are there any opportunities for them to kind of get more involved in this conversation?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

Yeah absolutely they can have a chat with us um we meet physically as a group uh every six months and there are new members at every meeting um so yeah do do get in touch to learn more.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

Brilliant well yeah I'd I heartily encourage people to do that and I'm sure there'll be at least one person listening out there for this kind of road to Damascus moment. So look forward to seeing what comes of it. And just remains to say thanks ever so much Sally and Ollie for coming on the podcast been really fascinating to dig into this topic and yeah wish you all the best with uh the efforts around the group in the future thank you everybody's been great okay great well my thanks again to Ollie and Sally for coming on the podcast. I really really enjoyed that conversation I thought it was really fascinating and I I learned plenty I have to say which I'm sure I'll be going and uh kind of repeating elsewhere with appropriate uh citation to make myself sound more intelligent uh in future um if you are interested in the stuff that we talked about as I say do check out the microsite that Ollie put together I'll put links to that in the show notes lots of really really interesting stuff in there if you're involved with a foundation that is thinking about spending down or currently doing that and you want to get involved in the the group uh the kind of support group around that um I'll put a link to where you can find the group within the ACF funders collaborative hub. I'll also put some links to other things that we've talked about on the podcast and articles that I've written and all sorts of stuff about spending down or about foundations more broadly that might be of interest. And in general if you're interested in stuff around philanthropy and civil society do check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters dot com. Lots of uh long form articles there, sort of shorter guides as well lots of news updates and of course all the back episodes of this podcast as well and you can also follow me on uh social media uh you can find me mostly on LinkedIn these days although increasingly I'm finding that a little bit depressing with the change of algorithm and the amount of uh AI generated slop that's on there so how sustainable that is we'll see I'm also on Blue Sky don't post an enormous amount on it but I am there and if you can uh engage with me and encourage me that it's uh more uh worthwhile my time to to do posting I'm maybe I'll do that in future um if you like the podcast uh do leave us a nice review wherever it is that you get your podcasts um I'm sure that kind of helps to boost us up the algorithms um and do it the old fashioned way as well if you know somebody that you think might be interested in this podcast a friend a relative a colleague or a sworn enemy um do tell them about it yeah word of mouth I think counts for a lot in this day and age um so other than that uh just remains to say thanks ever much so much for listening I will see you next time bye