GIVING CIRCLE
Trusting the collective wisdom of activists and leaders to democratise the redistribution of wealth
Giving Circles use collaboration and collective wisdom to share power and democratise decision-making in philanthropy.
Be The Earth's Giving Circle convenes six amazing women, all activists, experts and thought leaders, who decide together how to distribute philanthropic funds to individuals, projects, and communities.
As well as making collective decisions on funding, the group also co-creates the process. Before they decide where the money goes, first they devise their decision-making process and set the criteria they will use in making their choices.
Giving circles emerged as an innovation in philanthropy in the early 1990s and have expanded exponentially since the 2000s, particularly in the US.
Popularised by Washington Women’s Foundation’s founder Colleen S. Willoughby as ‘the way women give,’ this methodology emphasises collaboration, shared decision-making, and community-building to disrupt traditional patriarchal models of financial power and decision-making.
Our Giving Circle is designed to support both the recipients of funds and the decision-makers themselves. The programme provides a range of resources and builds a supportive community to benefit the women leaders who participate in it, and all content is co-created
The women invited to join our Giving Circle are already creating positive change in the world through their leadership and activism, and as part of the programme we provide stipends and a holistic support package to enhance their personal and professional wellbeing.
Collective Wisdom
Where does the money go?
The access to grassroots projects and networks provided by members of the Giving Circle allow funds to reach beyond the scope of traditional philanthropy. Small grants can have great ripple effects and provide impact that expands out into the wider community.
"As a social entrepreneur and co-founder in Brazil, I spent many years looking for funding and couldn’t find anything like this – a funder that really trusted me and my work. The bureaucracy of writing projects that “fit” the funder, reports and accountability, took me time, dedication and gave me lots of stress, especially when it comes to the Amazon, where it's absolutely impossible to find invoices and receipts."
Raquel Rosenberg
Aura Fellowship Circle 2020
"As a social entrepreneur and co-founder in Brazil, I spent many years looking for funding and couldn’t find anything like this – a funder that really trusted me and my work. The bureaucracy of writing projects that “fit” the funder, reports and accountability, took me time, dedication and gave me lots of stress, especially when it comes to the Amazon, where it's absolutely impossible to find invoices and receipts."
Raquel Rosenberg
Aura Fellowship Circle 2020
The Giving Circle Cycle
1.
Convene the Circle
2.
Build Community
3.
Co-create the Criteria for Decision-making
Fellows are invited to design how the decision making process will happen; what kinds of nominations they intend to make, and how they will go about choosing together which to fund and how much to give, as well as what indicators they can look at to understand the impact of their grantmaking.
4.
Decide and Disburse
Based on the criterias defined by the circle, fellows can nominate candidates to receive the funds, giving a short description, justification and amount suggested.
With all information in hand, and encouraged to work from intuition, collaboration and trust, the group chooses amounts and specific organisations or individuals that should receive the funds. BTE's staff is responsible for the process and operations regarding the donations, while the fellows are responsible for the relationship on the receiver's side.
5.
Reflect and Report
After granting, the group starts to observe attentively the stories surrounding each grant, making sure to share insights and findings with their peers i. At this point, we collect some data to inform our next steps as well as qualitative results, sharing stories and reflections to understand impact and to learn.
6.
Repeat the cycle
Our Giving Circle programme works on cycles that last one year, with each cohort participating in up to three cycles. At the end of the programme, each member of the circle nominates a person to take their place in the next cohort.
The process is iterative and we learn as we go, applying insights from each cycle to inform and refine the next.
For our first Giving Circle, we relied on trusted relationships in our network to assemble a group of nine women from UK, Brazil and South Africa, who are leading change in one or more of our fields of focus; food, farming, environmental protection, women, wellbeing and indigenous rights.
Following this pilot programme, each member of the circle will nominate the person who will replace them in the next round of the programme.
The fellows get together through facilitated online meetings that aim to promote connection, getting to know, trust and learn from each other. This is an ongoing process that unfolds through the entirety of the programme. Our Giving Circle will then meet online, once a month, for nine months.
Watch our Giving Circle Webinar
This webinar was co-created and delievered by our Fellows in 2023 and explores the Giving Circle methodology, the outcomes they achieved, as well as their experiences on the programme
Stories from Giving Circle
