A leading philanthropist gives his top reasons for giving
When Sir Tom Hunter made his initial £260m fortune from the sale of retail chain Sports Division in 1998 philanthropy was the last thing on his mind. He became interested after his advisers said it was a good way to avoid tax: “More appealing than moving to Monaco,” said Hunter.
He wants the Hunter Foundation to give away £1bn mainly in his native Scotland and Africa: “We can do anything, but we can’t do everything,” he said. Hunter recently told networking group Pi Capital of the rules which guide his philanthropic projects.
1. Treat philanthropy as a business and be organised in your giving. Hunter deliberately chose a businessman, Ewen Hunter (no relation), to take charge of his foundation: “I didn’t want someone from a charity to do the job.”
2. Invest in your team and learn from them. In charity, as in business, it is crucial to develop a dialogue with experienced people on the ground. If they don’t like you much, they don’t help you much.
3. Leverage your money. Hunter gets satisfaction from persuading others, including the state, to back his causes. He calls the process “catalytic funding”. He recently put £300,000 into six Scottish secondary schools, to which the state added £1.8m.
4. Use performance indicators and get projects to report on progress. Administering this process is time consuming, but Hunter sees no point in giving money and moving on.
5. Failure is a lesson learnt. Hunter doesn’t just want to learn from his own mistakes, he hopes to encourage society to move forward: “In Scotland suffering from being a dependency culture. Our coal, steel and shipping industries are long gone. Around 55% of our workforce is in the public sector. That can’t be right.”
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