In the past, philanthropy was dominated by private and wealthy individuals, but business enterprises are becoming more involved today too.

When we hear the word philanthropy, it is likely that what initially enters your mind is the whole host of celebrity philanthropists that have become better recognized for their charitable endeavours than those with which they built their fortunes in the first place. For a great deal of people, when they find themselves in a position with lots of cash from a prosperous career, it is a wonderful chance to turn to helping causes that are maybe closer to your heart than those which you dedicated your career to. Helping the environment is much more motivating than developing property, for example. This perhaps tells us something about what is actually satisfying in life, and that somebody would rather be recalled as the most generous person in the world, giving away substantial amounts of cash instead of earning substantial amounts of cash. We are even beginning to see this mindset infiltrate the business structures that are generally not built around giving cash away but exclusively the making of bigger earnings, with numerous companies like Vanguard Group, devoting a considerable part of their profits to charitable ventures.

The world today is a complicated place, with several forces at play creating and fixing and then producing again a substantial range of problems that appear to simply keep piling up around the world. Everyone might feel a deep desire to help to fix them, however not know how to help when caught up in the everyday drudgery of work and making money to live. Nevertheless, the two might be a bit more connected than you initially believed. In the past, philanthropy has been something mainly disconnected from the primary centres of wealth generation, however the philanthropy meaning has started to alter in the last few years. It is not simply private wealth in the sense of individual wealth that is being turned to charitable causes that have the real capacity to change the world for the better, but business wealth as well, with businesses like SJP contributing to assisting causes that could have a genuine influence on the world as we know it.

It was once the case that, unless you worked in a foundation job or had actually managed to accumulate a huge private wealth from your profession in a sector outside of charity, you may have struggled to truly bring charity work into your daily life. However, in the last few years, there has actually been a marked change in the manner ins which lots of businesses decide to run, acknowledging their part in matters traditionally set aside for charities. Businesses like Morgan Stanley will now think about ESG, or environmental and social governance, a fundamental part of their business plans, assisting organizations to contribute to a much better world too.