An evolving philanthropic practice

Philanthropy, or “giving” as we typically refer to it in our messaging, isn’t a topic that many of us feel comfortable speaking about publicly as individuals, and companies are just as cautious to ensure what they do is genuine and not just perceived as a branding exercise.

While I have always spoken about my approach and philosophy around giving to close family, friends, our Payments Consulting Network team, and charity partners, it’s something I rarely spoke about outside of those circles. Then in May 2021, UTS asked me to speak about my giving journey and experiences with mentoring at an event to launch their new partnership with the Crescent Foundation (who would fund several humanitarian scholarships at UTS for students from refugee backgrounds, as well as run a mentoring program). It was only a 15 minute speech but it took me 5 hours to write and prepare, as this was a very personal topic and not one I had spoken about previously in a public forum. On the day, I was extremely nervous as I wasn’t sure how my story would be received. After the speech, it was very encouraging to have several people approach me to say they were inspired and would now go and action some of their ideas about how they could do more to give back to the community. It was at that point, I made the decision that I needed to say more publicly about my giving approach in order to try and inspire change in others.

At a company level at Payments Consulting Network (PCN), we’ve had similar concerns but have decided to step out of our comfort zone of just writing about our favourite payments topics, and also use our platform to promote the charities that we support. Hence, if you follow us on LinkedIn or subscribe to our newsletter, you may have noticed that over the last 12 months we’ve started doing the occasional charity post.

Few of you would know that we have had a Giving Program in place since PCN was first conceived in late 2012. While we don’t pretend to be providing a huge financial contribution relative to many other amazing corporations, social entrepreneurs, and philanthropists, we are still proud of the contribution that we make to the charities that we work with through funding, mentoring, pro bono, and marketing support. As a result, we updated our Vision Statement in 2021 to reflect this.

In line with joining Pledge 1% in late 2021, we are also now fully committed to the philosophy of this global movement that is creating a new normal where companies of all sizes integrate giving back into their culture and values.

Hence, we hope that you are happy to engage with our charity posts on LinkedIn as each one of those likes, shares, and comments helps these charities create awareness in front of a new audience, and hopefully some of the causes that we support will also resonate with you.

If you would like to find out more about how my approach to giving has changed over the years, please read this article by Kate Stone from Australian Philanthropic Services based on a recent conversation about my philanthropic journey into structured giving, trust-based charity funding, volunteering, and how I’m trying to leverage my networks for good – https://www.australianphilanthropicservices.com.au/mangala-martinus-an-evolving-philanthropic-practice/.

Author: Mangala Martinus, Managing Director, Sydney, Payments Consulting Network and Merchant Advisory

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For further information about our Giving Program refer here.

For further information about structured giving and Australian Philanthropic Services refer to this link.

For further information about Pledge 1% refer to their website.