Our site places cookies on your device to give you the best experience. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Our Privacy Notice has more information on how to do this. I’m happy, please close this message

CAF: Charities Aid Foundation CAF: Charities Aid Foundation Skip to main content
Donate to a charity
Register
Log inClose CAF account drop-down menuLog in to your CAF account
CAF accountManage your:
CAF American Donor Fund
CAF Charity Account
CAF Charitable Trust
CAF Company Account
CAF Charity Dashboard
CAF Donate
CAF Give As You Earn

CAF BankManage your bank account
InvestmentsManage your CAF Investment Account
Search

Search

Search box
open menu close menu Menu Close
Donate to a charity
  • ◄ I'm an individual ►
  • ◄ I'm a company ►
  • ◄ I'm a charity ►
  • ◄ International giving ►
  • ◄ CAF Bank ►
  • ◄ About us ►
  • Careers
  • For charities
  • For individuals
  • For philanthropists
  • For companies
 
  • ◄ Giving to charity > ►
  • ◄ Private Client Philanthropy > ►
  • ◄ Know more about giving > ►
  • ◄ Help and support > ►
  • ◄ Donate now > ►
  • ◄ Leave a lasting legacy
  • ◄ Grantmaking through us
  • ◄ Services for professional advisers
 
  • ◄ Corporate giving > ►
  • ◄ Employee giving > ►
  • ◄ Employee engagement > ►
  • ◄ Corporate grantmaking
  • ◄ Corporate and workplace fundraising
  • ◄ Impact advisory
  • ◄ Resource centre > ►
 
  • ◄ Cost-of-living resources
  • ◄ Everyday banking > ►
  • ◄ Savings > ►
  • ◄ Loans and social investment > ►
  • ◄ Investments > ►
  • ◄ Fundraising > ►
  • ◄ Your donations > ►
  • Getting a grant
  • ◄ Strategic consultancy > ►
  • ◄ Legacies > ►
  • ◄ Trustees and charity governance
 
  • ◄ Philanthropy Week
  • ◄ Powering world giving
  • ◄ CAF Network
  • ◄ Memberships
  • ◄ Give anywhere safely
  • ◄ Give internationally
  • ◄ Emergency response
  • ◄ Our reach and impact
 
  • ◄ Everyday banking > ►
  • ◄ Loans > ►
  • ◄ Savings > ►
  • ◄ Help and support > ►
  • ◄ About CAF Bank > ►
  • ◄ Security centre > ►
 
  • ◄ Governance > ►
  • ◄ Research and Commentary > ►
  • ◄ Press office > ►
  • Sustainability
 
  • ◄ Connecting you to charities
  • ◄ Open a giving account
  • ◄ Donate overseas
  • ◄ Payroll giving
  • ◄ Leave a lasting legacy
  • ◄ Manage your giving through us
  • ◄ CAF Charitable Trust
  • ◄ Paying Tax in the UK and US?
  • ◄ Get expert consultancy
  • ◄ Meet the Team
  • ◄ Our tips, guides and information
  • ◄ Gift Aid
  • ◄ Tax efficient giving
  • ◄ Donating
  • ◄ CAF Charity Account
  • ◄ CAF Charitable Trust
  • ◄ Payroll giving
  • ◄ Expert consultancy
  • ◄ Grantmaking
  • ◄ Find a UK charity
  • ◄ CAF Give As You Earn
  • ◄ Grow your Payroll Giving scheme
  • ◄ Matching your employee donations
  • ◄ Get your Payroll Giving Quality Mark
  • ◄ Start engaging employees with charitable giving
  • ◄ Find out more about Payroll Giving
  • ◄ Payroll Giving resource hub
  • ◄ CAF Company Account
  • ◄ Set up a corporate foundation
  • ◄ Corporate giving insight
  • ◄ Corporate giving case studies
  • ◄ Meet the Team
  • ◄ Get in touch
  • ◄ Everyday charity banking
  • ◄ Online banking
  • ◄ CAF Bank Business card
  • ◄ Taking card payments
  • ◄ Bacs bureau service
  • ◄ Borrowing options
  • ◄ Secured loans with CAF Bank
  • ◄ Social investment with CAF Venturesome
  • ◄ Savings accounts
  • ◄ Instant access savings account
  • ◄ 60 Day Notice Account
  • ◄ 90 Day Notice Account
  • ◄ 12 Month Fixed Rate Saver
  • ◄ 1 Year Fixed Term Account
  • ◄ CAF Charity Deposit Platform
  • ◄ Investment products
  • ◄ Investment Knowledge Centre
  • ◄ Getting started
  • ◄ Fundraising tips and advice
  • ◄ CAF Donate
  • ◄ CAF Charity Dashboard
  • ◄ How to redeem CAF Charity Vouchers
  • ◄ CAF Donate Help
  • ◄ CAF Charity Dashboard
  • ◄ CAF Charity Dashboard Reporting
  • ◄ Sign up
  • ◄ CAF Charity Dashboard Help
  • ◄ Getting a grant
  • ◄ Getting a grant
  • ◄ Contact us
  • -->
  • ◄ Legacies and your charity
  • ◄ Contact us
  • ◄ Contact us
  • ◄ FAQs
  • ◄ Tools and guides
  • ◄ Current account
  • ◄ Online banking
  • ◄ CAF Bank Business card
  • ◄ Taking card payments
  • ◄ Bacs bureau service
  • ◄ Interface for Third Party Providers
  • ◄ Secured loans
  • ◄ Loans for social housing projects
  • ◄ Social purpose development finance
  • ◄ Charity finance guides
  • ◄ Charity finance case studies
  • ◄ Intermediaries - Working with us
  • ◄ Instant access savings account
  • ◄ CAF savings options
  • ◄ We're here to help
  • ◄ Security centre
  • ◄ Protecting your money
  • ◄ Making a complaint
  • ◄ About us
  • ◄ CAF Bank Board of directors
  • ◄ CAF Bank Executives
  • ◄ Meet the team
  • ◄ Legal information
  • ◄ Regulatory information
  • ◄ CAF Bank Pillar 3 disclosure (.pdf opens in new window)
  • ◄ CAF Bank Board Directors
  • ◄ CAF Bank Executives
  • ◄ Legal information
  • ◄ Regulatory information
  • ◄ CAF Bank Pillar 3 disclosure (.pdf opens in new window)
  • ◄ Complaints procedure
  • ◄ Our trustees
  • ◄ Our executive
  • ◄ Committees
  • ◄ Annual reports
  • ◄ Our Standards and Conduct Policy
  • ◄ Legal information
  • ◄ Regulatory information
  • ◄ Complaints procedure
  • ◄ Giving Tuesday
  • ◄ Champion for charities
  • ◄ Groundwork for growing giving
  • ◄ Place based giving
  • ◄ Future:Good
  • ◄ Research
  • ◄ Policy and Campaigns
  • ◄ Publications
  • ◄ Blogs
  • ◄ Press releases
  • ◄ Spokespeople
  • ◄ Giving Thought blog
  • ◄ CAF Venturesome blog
  • ◄ Public Affairs blog
  • ◄ Charities blog
  • ◄ Research blog
  • ◄ Development Fund
  • ◄ Contact us
  • ◄ SAR Volunteer Training Fund
  • ◄ Vacancies
  • ◄ Contact us
  • ◄ 2019 publications
  • ◄ 2018 publications
  • ◄ 2017 publications
  • ◄ 2016 publications
  • ◄ 2015 publications
  • ◄ 2014 publications
  • ◄ 2013 publications
  • ◄ 2012 publications
  • ◄ 2011 publications
  • ◄ 2010 publications
  • ◄ 2009 publications
  • ◄ 2008 publications
  • ◄ Archive
  • ◄ Contact us
  • ◄ How do we help protect you
  • ◄ How to keep yourself safe
  • ◄ Be aware - types of threat
  • ◄ How to spot a bank scam
  • ◄ Seen something suspicious
open login menuclose login menu

Log in

CAF accountManage your:
CAF American Donor Fund
CAF Charity Account
CAF Charitable Trust
CAF Company Account
CAF Charity Dashboard
CAF Donate
CAF Give As You Earn
CAF BankManage your bank account
InvestmentsManage your CAF Investment Account
Register
  1. Home
  2. >
  3. I'm an individual
  4. >
  5. Impact through philanthropy
  6. >
  7. Resource centre
  8. >
  9. Philanthropic leverage
Aurelia

Aurelia Kassatly

Senior Manager Private Clients
Charities Aid Foundation

T: +44 (0) 3000 123 299
E: plannedgiving@cafonline.org

TwitterLogo-150px-x-150px@caf
 LinkedIn logo  Aurelia Kassatly

Philanthropic leverage

Philanthropists want to feel connected to the impact they are making.

This is why our clients often tell us that they prefer donating to smaller charities or local organisations, because they feel they get a better sense of the difference they are making.

But donors can be bold and ambitious by supporting organisations that operate at a higher level.

In this piece, we want to introduce you to something called philanthropic leverage – a way of using philanthropic capital to influence how others (donors, governments or the private sector) give to good causes.

Take the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for instance. The organisation forges coalitions with large international organisations and governments which then in turn can mobilise many more billions of dollars than the Foundation can alone.

And there are plenty of other examples to consider.

Whether you are funding philanthropic programmes like Resilience, or supporting charities like Client Earth, who use environmental law to help protect the planet – there are ways to support work that improves things systematically and for the long term.

Making friends and influencing people

Philanthropic leverage can influence people and improve the way money is spent in the following three ways:

  1. It can help support individuals who would not normally give to charity and introduce them to a community of donors – much like Giving What We Can.
  2. It can support charities that work with governments to make programmes, or policies, more effective and evidence-based. Government budgets for any type of social issue far outweigh the resources of most philanthropists. Organisations like this include J-PAL, or the UK’s What Works Centres.
  3. It can help charities find solutions to the major issues of our time. For example: a medical charity researching cures for diseases.

To match, or not to match?

Donation matching, where large donors pledge to match smaller donations, is one of the most popular examples of philanthropic leverage.

But it may not be as effective.

A common assumption is that the greater the match value, the more money is raised. But research has shown that donation matching, and even the offer of bigger matching makes no difference to the total donated to a charity.

Additionally, the opportunity to match funds could move a donor away from a highly effective charity, or neglected cause area, and toward an organisation that is already very well-funded or ineffective.

Rather than just the amount of money a charity is able to raise, it may be helpful for donors to think about which organisations will make the best use of a donation, or achieve a better result.

Cons about this type of giving

Funding high-leverage opportunities comes with its share of risks.

Firstly, when donating to charities, you are reliant on their strategy and success in influencing others.

Secondly, policymaking and developing and delivering social programmes is a long process which involves multiple stakeholders with vested interests.  

Thirdly, risk is inherent in the case of funding research and development. For every successful experiment or trial there are likely hundreds or thousands that don’t lead to the right results.

So there are risks there - however, if an organisation has a track record of achieving results, the risk may be lower.

Tips to make leverage work

  • You should be comfortable with risk and uncertainty but also do some research to understand the likelihood of success
  • If you are passionate about a specific cause area – for example women’s rights – allocating a portion of your philanthropic capital to charities working to raise awareness or do advocacy work, could allow you to tackle an issue from multiple angles
  • Philanthropists are ultimately accountable to themselves for their charitable giving - unlike businesses which are accountable to their shareholders, or governments which are accountable to the public. Some scholars of philanthropy make the case that one of philanthropy’s key roles is to trial new ideas, before they are then scaled by governments. Opportunities for philanthropic leverage therefore get at the heart of what many think philanthropy is for
  • You can start off with smaller amounts of funding and pool your money together with other donors.

Remember that you hold the power. You can find out about the organisation or cause you want to leverage funding to, and use evidence of what works and what doesn’t to develop your giving.

Once you know what works, you can celebrate those wins and share inspiring impact stories with your network, to show others how to do the same.

Your efforts and the impact you make has the potential to influence a whole new community of donors who can support causes they care about.

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

What is impact investing

This webinar looks at key principles of impact investing and how to determine when impact investing or philanthropy could be most effective.

Watch the webinar

Giving thought podcast

This podcast with Phil Buchanan, founding CEO of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, explores effective giving and being positive about philanthropy.

Listen to the podcast

CAF resilience report

This report explores how funders can support small charities.

Look at the report
  • Individuals
  • Donate now
  • CAF Charity Account
  • CAF Charitable Trust
  • CAF Charitable Legacy Service
  • CAF American Donor Fund
  • Giving to charity
  • Your philanthropy
  • Resource centre
  • Companies
  • CAF Give As You Earn
  • CAF Company Account
  • Corporate responsibility
  • Engaging employees
  • Corporate community
    investment
  • Charities
  • Everyday banking
  • Borrowing
  • Social investment
  • Investments
  • Fundraising services
  • Expert Advice
  • CAF Bank
  • Current account
  • Loans
  • Help and support
  • About CAF Bank
  • Security
  • About us
  • Governance
  • International giving
  • Research and commentary
  • Careers
  • Press office
  • Sustainability
CAF home
CAF on facebook
CAF on twitter
CAF on youtube
CAF on linkedin
CAF on Instagram
  • Contact us
  • Help
  • Sitemap
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Cookie notice

Modern Slavery Statement


Charities Aid Foundation © | Registered Charity Number 268369
25 Kings Hill Avenue, Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent ME19 4TA
10 St. Bride Street, London EC4A 4AD
Telephone: 03000 123 000