370 billion Euro (427 billion USD). So much money, according to Giving USA, was donated to charity in the United States, one of the most mature markets in the world in terms of philanthropy, in 2018. According to Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen of Stanford PACS, Americans spend every third dollar donated to charity strategically. Strategically, meaning with measuring an actual impact on the society. To realize how huge amount of money that is, let’s say it is more or less the equivalent of half of 2019 annual budgets of all 4 Visegrad Group countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), app. 250 billion Euro.
We don’t have such a precise data on philanthropy in Europe. According to The European Research Network on Philanthropy, Europeans donated 87,5 billion Euro in 2017. In Central and Eastern Europe, the scale is certainly smaller than in the more mature markets in the world and we are sure there is less strategy in giving.
Imagine. What scale of social impact a private capital would have if the philanthropic decisions were strategic, i.e. preceded by an analysis of most pressing social needs, verification of NGOs that work in a given field, setting achievable goals and measuring results.
At Social Impact Alliance for Central & Eastern Europe we believe it is doable.