The European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) held its fourth annual conference at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt on 23rd September. It was attended by around 350 people from over 30 countries, including the US, China and South Africa as well as countries from Western and Eastern Europe.

Many delegates were already involved in high-engagement models of philanthropy, while many others were curious to learn more about the growing field of venture philanthropy. EVPA has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2005, and today represents 105 members from 21 countries. 

As interest in venture philanthropy continues to grow, the questions being asked of all philanthropists are getting more difficult. The conference addressed the scale and complexity of the problems today’s philanthropists face, and challenged delegates to make a finite amount of money do more.

Several important themes emerged throughout the plenaries, break-outs and round-table discussions. First, fostering co-operation between ‘traditional’ and ‘venture’ philanthropists is an important aspect of EVPA’s role. Various discussions highlighted the need for critical thinking about philanthropy and about the distinctions between its different forms, though delegates largely concurred with European Foundation Centre Chief Executive Gerry Salole’s view that “the focus should be on more intelligent philanthropy”, rather than necessarily more venture philanthropy.

Second, open discussion and relationship building are vital to enabling learning and achieving success. Conversations throughout the day emphasised the importance of collaboration to mitigating risk and maximizing impact. This includes not only better relationships with peers and colleagues, but also with all stakeholders, especially beneficiaries.

Third, as Venturesome’s John Kingston said in the closing plenary, venture philanthropists must “keep the faith”. In the current economic climate venture philanthropists may need to help charities merely to survive rather than to grow or replicate. So venture philanthropists must be able to adapt and develop more intelligent ways to support charities – from exploring new social investment models to developing tools to measure and communicate social return on investment.

The conference also marked the handover of EVPA’s chairmanship from Doug Miller to fellow founding trustee Serge Raicher, who closed the conference by highlighting EVPA’s objectives for the next two years. He says the association will go through an organisational transition, moving its head office to Brussels and aiming to become self financing, and will begin to measure its own performance.

With its expanding and diverse membership, and the continued success of its conferences, EVPA has an important role to play in fostering further dialogue and debate about “intelligent philanthropy”.

• To learn more about venture philanthropy, see Philanthropy UK’s dedicated resource.