The Parliamentary Philanthropy event is an intimate gathering of prominent UK parliamentarians; Ministers, MPs, Life Peers and as well as powerful philanthropists and entrepreneurs who are propelling social change. Parliamentarians and philanthropists shape this event agenda by espousing the pressing causes in a collaborative, cross party spirit. The purpose of the Parliamentary Philanthropy event is to foster cooperation and a thought exchange to inform and fill policy gaps, as well as notify philanthropic programmes, thereby helping to build major clusters of support for the benefit of humanity.
The event is a restricted zone to promote an ideas exchange to engender cooperation. Participation is limited to parliamentary lawmakers and philanthropy principals being complimentary agents of change, thus designed to enable free flowing deliberations, stimulate networking and facilitate meaningful cooperation amongst its high-level participants with the aim of joining up and advancing policy and philanthropic thinking and action.
As an umbrella charity convenor we harness our diverse stakeholder network to echo the concerns of civil society and the people they serve. The events itself have a strict code of conduct to harmonise relations and to act appropriately:-
• No lobbying - parliamentarians dislike being pressured for specific self-serving personal or professional ends
• No solicitation – philanthropists and entrepreneurs dislike being harassed for funding or investment
• No politically motivated participants–parliamentarians; MPs and Peers across both Houses are invited
• No press interference – to enable uninhibited and free flowing peer to peer discussions
• Non-political – charitable issues to be explored in a collaborative, non-partisan spirit
These events are hosted at the dining room/s of the House of Lords.
Fortune Forum shall mobilise its high-level network of philanthropists, business, and NGO leaders to inform parliamentarian debate and connect philanthropists to policy initiatives through its Parliamentary Philanthropy initiative which convenes triennially.
Our partner non-profit Real Aid presents the APPG for Aid Match. It’s simple and unique focus is to expand existing aid matching policies; namely UK Aid Match, GAVI Matching Fund and Malaria Matching Fund. UK Aid Match doubles the income of frontline organisations, so that more aid gets delivered, more directly, through trusted channels. Combined, these initiatives have already delivered effective aid via over 100 blue chip NGOs in over 50 countries, positively impacting over 100 million lives, but when examined, the matching funds totaling £502m only represents a tiny 0.3% of Official Development Assistance (ODA) on average per annum (2011-2023). Imagine if a mere 3% of the ODA budget is used to match fund frontline organisations this could positively impact over a billion people around the globe. This is what this APPG is for – to significantly increase the percentage of UK Aid Match from the prevailing ODA budget, so without the need to increase government expenditure.
Getting better taxpayers’ value is a universal concern regardless of whether you prioritise domestic over foreign aid spending. But whatever the size of the aid budget we should surely all agree that aid is well spent and directed to poverty alleviation alongside serving our national interests of defence, diplomacy and development. About a third of the global $175bn aid budget funds multi-lateral and bi-lateral channels whereby much of the money goes through multiple bureaucratic layers before reaching people on the ground. Alas, only a couple of percent of global aid budgets gets delivered directly via effective NGOs. Building on our aid policy successes, we are calling for the expansion of the UK Aid Match programme which doubles direct NGO funding thereby bypassing superfluous bureaucratic funding channels to deliver more impact. So, regular charity donors who engage with participating charities will see their contributions doubled by Government, the tangible results their contribution is making, and the reduction of Government waste. NGOs can apply for large-scale funding, subject to the eligibility criteria, at ukaidmatch.org where applications can be made directly.
