In the past, philanthropy was controlled by personal and rich individuals, but companies are becoming more involved today also.

When we hear the word philanthropy, it is likely that what initially enters your mind is the whole host of celebrity philanthropists that have actually become better recognized for their charitable endeavours than those with which they developed their fortunes in the first place. For a lot of individuals, when they find themselves in a position with great deals of money from a successful career, it is a wonderful opportunity to turn to assisting causes that are perhaps closer to your heart than those which you devoted your profession to. Helping the environment is a lot of more inspiring 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, handing out substantial amounts of money instead of earning huge quantities of money. We are even beginning to see this state of mind infiltrate the corporate structures that are normally not developed around giving money away however solely the making of larger revenues, with many businesses like Vanguard Group, dedicating a substantial part of their profits to charitable ventures.

The world today is a complicated place, with several forces at play creating and fixing and then creating again a huge variety of problems that appear to just keep accumulating worldwide. Everybody may feel a deep desire to help to solve them, but not know how to assist when caught up in the daily drudgery of work and generating income to live. However, the two might be a bit more linked than you first believed. In the past, philanthropy has been something mostly disconnected from the main centres of wealth generation, however the philanthropy meaning has started to change 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 potential to change the world for the better, however business wealth as well, with companies 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 operated in a foundation job or had managed to generate a massive private wealth from your career in a sector beyond charity, you might have struggled to really bring charity work into your everyday life. Nevertheless, in recent years, there has been a significant shift in the ways that numerous business enterprises choose to operate, acknowledging their role in matters generally set aside for charities. Companies like Morgan Stanley will now consider ESG, or environmental and social governance, a vital part of their business enterprise plans, helping companies to contribute to a much better world too.