In Conversation: Akruti Desai, Gates Foundation
Akruti Desai is a Senior Program Officer on the Philanthropic Partnerships team at the Gates Foundation. She draws on two decades of experience working in asset management, impact investing and philanthropy.
Nick: At PhilanthPro, one of our core beliefs is that people want to contribute to a better future through philanthropy – whatever form that may take in their lives. To do so, people often need support and systems that facilitate thoughtful giving. Gates Foundation has a highly strategic approach to building systems to support philanthropy, and so I’m particularly excited to hear from you, Akruti, in this edition of Get Money Moving!
As a member of the Philanthropic Partnerships team at the Gates Foundation, how do you unlock the power of philanthropy?
Akruti: Our team works to inspire and enable more informed and intentional generosity by all. Our partners are those people and organizations that focus on increasing funding flows. By producing data, advancing policy, and serving as critical intermediaries, they are building the infrastructure that supports generous philanthropic giving.
Nick: I love that you focus on generosity. How does the Foundation help move people from generosity to action?
Akruti:Some of our work focuses on the Giving Pledge community, a network of philanthropists who promise to give the majority of their wealth to charitable causes during their life or in their will. (Operationally, the Giving Pledge is a separate but affiliated initiative hosted at the Gates Foundation.) To create the conditions for action, we curate a series of regular learning opportunities and connect Pledgers with people, tools, and services that we think can help them along in their giving journey.
We also invest in data, because the entire sector benefits when donors and sector practitioners have the right knowledge and fact base to build their philanthropic strategies.
We funded the Women and Girls Index developed by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Even those of us who have been in the sector for a while were surprised to learn that less than 2% of charitable dollars in the US go to organizations focused on women and girls. More recently, we supported the Ms. Foundation’s Pocket Change report series on the funding flows of charitable dollars to women and girls of color and the impact of chronic philanthropic underinvestment in organizations led by women and nonbinary leaders of color.
Recognizing that small donations comprise the bulk of individual giving in the US, we support campaigns like GivingTuesday, and organizations that work to scale everyday giving and giving circles, like Philanthropy Together. These are a few examples of how we try to propel generosity into action, and to remove knowledge gaps and other obstacles.
Nick: We met at the Women Moving Millions Summit in New York, where you were meeting with partners to support philanthropy. What are some of the ways you’re your team creates opportunities for philanthropists to connect and collaborate?
Akruti: We support donor networks that create and strengthen communities within the philanthropic space, such as the Donors of Color Network, Women Donors Network and Maverick Collective. We also support collaborative funds, which are critical intermediary organizations that pool capital and leverage it for exponential impact. Often these collaboratives are trying to improve the systems that underpin the philanthropic field. Their collaborative structure optimizes collective expertise, relationships, and money to improve society beyond what any single donor could do alone.
We are excited to see collaborative funds growing and thriving, and we support this ecosystem through research in partnership with The Bridgespan Group, convenings, and seed funding where appropriate. Audacious Project, Lever for Change, HIVE Fund, and California Black Freedom Fund are some of our collaborative fund grantees.
The Foundation is also an active partner to philanthropists whose interests align with ours. We facilitate partnerships, co-fund, and make connections to accelerate progress on urgent issues. We even created Gates Philanthropy Partners, a separate public 501c3 to respond to the many unsolicited gifts from donors who want to give alongside the foundation to our grantee partners.
Nick: We’ve talked a lot about donors, but what about philanthropic advisors? When you think about positive systemic change in philanthropy, what can be done to leverage this influential group?
Akruti:We know that philanthropic advisors play a key role in the charitable giving of high net wealth donors, but the market is extremely fragmented. Many advisors are independent consultants, working without the benefit of community and peer learning.
We’ve seen the tremendous benefit of supporting collaboration among donors, and similarly, I believe that supporting collaboration between philanthropic advisors, and financial advisors who are philanthropy-minded, is a highly leveraged play.
One of our partners is P150, a collaborative of global philanthropy advisors. They leverage their collective expertise on all the salient aspects of giving such as values, vehicles, governance, grantmaking, and more. Their original goal was to bring together 150 philanthropy advisors to test the concept of an advisor network but they were pleasantly surprised to find demand evolving quickly early on.
The much written about Great Wealth Transfer is already here and we need to ensure that philanthropic professionals are fully equipped to support donors and are recognized as experts. New programs are meeting the increasing demand for credentialing in the space, such as the Impact Philanthropy Advisor certification offered by Daylight Advisors, and the pilot curriculum offered by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.
I’ve been focusing on our US strategy, but we employ the same approach out of our country offices in China, India, and the continent of Africa.
Nick: We share your belief in the transformative power of partnerships and community! We partner with the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy program at the American Financial Services College, and we just launched a new partnership with GiveTeam, as featured in Investment News.
Akruti, the Foundation has an impressive set of diversified strategies to support philanthropy. In all of this, what is the north star?
Akruti: Our team knows that giving isn’t easy, and donors face many obstacles even when generosity is their goal. Our north star is to address those obstacles and facilitate truly generous giving that saves and transforms lives.
Nicholas Palahnuk is Founder of PhilanthPro and can be reached at nicholas.palahnuk@philanthpro.com