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John McCaffrey is an expert on international philanthropy. He is an advisor to many high-profile donors in both the UK and here in the United States. He was responsible for the Gates Foundation’s gift of $230 million to Cambridge University – the largest charitable donation ever in the UK. Markus Matthews of g-Think posed a few questions to John McCaffrey on philanthropy and where it’s heading.

Are people today more or less generous?
More. The difficulty is that with so many causes chasing the same dollar, and so many unforeseen international catastrophes demanding immediate support relief, it’s sometimes difficult to see that the average citizen, not just the wealthy, take their philanthropy seriously. 9/11, the Tsunami and Katrina were all very tangible examples of how a moved public responded in unprecedented generosity to the pain and suffering of others. As awful as those events were, they raised the stakes for every other charity who suddenly realised that the average middle-class taxpayer was able to write a $1000 check to good causes without keeling over.

There is a wide disparity across countries when it comes to philanthropic donations. Individuals and private charities in the U.S. are famously generous, while across the Atlantic, British folks have a less-than-generous reputation. What’s the difference in the UK vis-à-vis the U.S. when it comes to philanthropic activity?
It’s true that it’s a tougher challenge in the UK to persuade people to give. In a country with a tradition of government support for education, the arts and the health service, people have been suspicious about parting with their hard-earned cash. That is changing, albeit slowly. The media now routinely carry stories about generous benefactors to hospitals, museums and universities, which is the way that giving becomes part of the mainstream culture. Cambridge University, for example, is in the middle of our first £1 billion (almost $2 billion) campaign. Ironically, some Scots such as Sir Tom Farmer and Sir Tom Hunter, are leading the way in making philanthropy a desirable activity and bringing some professional standards and accountability to the giving away of wealth wisely. But if you’re asking an Irishman if the English are mean, well … to answer that may not be the best thing!

What’s the long-term future for the venture philanthropy trend, whereby an element of return is expected for philanthropic pounds (and dollars)?
I remain to be convinced. What if Carnegie had taken the short-term “cut our losses, it’s not working” standpoint, which many venture philanthropists take? Having worked in big business and in the non-profit sector, it is a major misunderstanding to believe that charities – and charitable causes – can and should run like businesses. It’s comparing apples and oranges. Sometimes it takes a hundred-year view to achieve some of the ambitious goals which philanthropists desire. Many successful financiers I know take very short-term positions. That won’t work if they want to be serious about philanthropy. The Chinese view of time, or that of the Church, would be a better paradigm. Otherwise you get dilettante donors, and they end up doing damage all round them. In London, some individuals in the City founded something called New Philanthropy, which was exactly that. They have ended up fundraising to sustain their own expensive operation, which I’m sure wasn’t the original altruistic intention. We need more Carnegies, more Bill Gates’. I think Warren Buffett’s act of confidence in the work that the Gates Foundation continues to do was a fantastic act. Why re-invent the wheel? In Bill and Melinda’s case you have two extremely bright and committed people, who happen to be wealthy, prepared to take a long-term view about the eradication of the planet’s worst diseases. They do often use their funds to involve and leverage other appropriate collaborators, but their own money is the solid basis of the work, often the majority.

The launch of the RED campaign in the U.S. appears heavy on celebrity and light on substance.Does celebrity weight help or hinder the cause?
RED is hardly the first campaign to deploy celebrities and, after all, they’ve got to be useful for something. Think breast cancer and The Gap before RED. In RED’s case, it has not just the celebrity of Bono but also his political clout, which is not insubstantial. I admire what he tries to do, and not just because he is a fellow Irishman. He recognises that the world is primarily materialistic now, not spiritual and that consumerism is the new religion, like it or not. His rationale is a smart one. We all use credit cards in our daily lives, so why not take that most visible tool of Mammon and do some good with it, helping us all feel virtuous in the process. Will that work? I hope it will, although I do miss earning miles. Couldn’t there be an AIDS-plus mileage card, Bono? Next year’s big idea, I hope. If only the ad campaign had been as good as the original idea. I fear it has passed most people by, or vice-versa. Using celebrities to promote the cause in print is fine, but not if drowns out the core message. Then their value outweighs their involvement and that’s not fine. Hopefully the ad agency will catch up.