Background

Our client is a Family Foundation based in Singapore dedicated to effective philanthropy. Headed up by its Founder, the organisation invests in two broad areas, childhood literacy and vision correction. Its mission is to seek to ensure that everyone in the world can achieve better eyesight, and be able to see more clearly by providing them with spectacles.

Its ‘Moonshot Philanthropy’ (MP) strategy aims to encourage other ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) to channel their capital, time, and expertise towards high-risk, early-stage ideas to achieve transformative global societal impact.

The aim of this project, run by Freshminds’ Research Consultancy, was to assist the Family Foundation in transitioning from advocacy to action. The Moonshot Philanthropy initiative is now evolving into an impactful campaign, encouraging other philanthropists to actively adopt and implement the ‘MP’ principles into their own daily philanthropy activities.

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Key Challenges

The Family Foundation requested Freshminds’ support in identifying and engaging with philanthropists who are best aligning with key Moonshot Philanthropy principles across South-East Asia, India, Africa, and the US. The objective was to uncover philanthropic endeavours that resonate with the transformative aspirations of ‘MP’, focusing on systemic changes, high engagement, andexponential value creation.

Nominated philanthropists and their case stories would be used in the Foundation’s internal workshops; and as a prompt for further research and deep dive into further analysis. This would provide the Foundation with material that would assist them to engage directly with like-minded donors and philanthropists.

What Freshminds did

The project was run using secondary research across the chosen geographies, the US, South-East Asia, India and Africa; and included a tailored scoring methodology. The team allocated to the 3-month project comprised a project contractor from the Freshminds network, and three in-house team members.

Freshminds developed a bespoke research methodology to uncover like-minded philanthropists from a long list of almost 800 individuals and organisations: 

1. We evaluated philanthropists’ aspirations and involvement for systems change programs that aim at far-reaching change, rather than temporarily improving current shortcomings of Government.       

2. We assessed ‘High Engagement’, ie, the close and personal involvement of the philanthropist as an angel investor in its program.

3. Finally, the ‘Aspiration for Exponential Value Creation’ of the philanthropist was analysed – the patience to invest for the long term, and for longer term social value, accepting high risks and shorter-term low returns.

Results

From a long list of 730 philanthropists based across the target geo-locations, Freshminds identified 57 organisations to be analysed in Phase 2. From there, the 10 best philanthropist cases were selected that aligned the most closely with the Moonshot Philanthropy philosophy.

Business case studies were then created covering key metrics, aspirations, and the impact created, together with an introduction to the philanthropist and its team. These philanthropy cases have acted as a platform to potentially enrol the selected philanthropists into new partnerships, and to define new areas of activities for the Moonshot Philanthropy project going forward, as well as to assist in creating necessary changes and impact initiatives.

Find out more

Freshminds Research Consultancy has a strong track record of working successfully with both UK domestic and international NGOs to address important issues. We have delivered key insights to assist in reviewing strategy, finding new partnerships, or to assess and fine tune business models, to achieve better impact across the world. Have a similar challenge? Get in touch.

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