Why discussing the role and impact of foundation in challenging times?

Pier Mario Vello, member of the symposium’s champions committee and Secretary General of the Fondazione Cariplo.

 

You are going to present a case study that will ‘review the role and the impact of foundations today to understand their force in challenging times’. Why have you chosen this topic?

The quality of foundations’ activities is an issue that is closely linked to the economic crisis – but foundations’ activities are generally not measured because we are used to just giving money. It is important in normal times to know first of all where you are putting your money and secondly what is the efficacy of the money you give. But the economic crisis is putting a new stress on measuring results and efficacy and if possible measuring the impact of philanthropic activities. It is more important than ever to understand this impact of philanthropic activities in order to make better decisions about how to spend money.

Do you think impact can be measured?

Impact can be measured, but you have to understand what is impact and what is efficacy. Measuring output is one thing, but if you want to measure impact you need to carry out a double-blind test in order to measure what is the result of your activity in comparison with a normal situation. This is costly and time-consuming – and the results come only after the project has already run. So measurement of impact should be focused only on key projects if you want to gain strategic insights for future projects. In my personal view, it’s much more important to have a less expensive approach to measure the output and effectiveness of every project, however small.

It doesn’t mean that impact measurement shouldn’t be done, but it’s not where you should concentrate your effort. It’s not wise to try to measure impact in every project. Much more than in the past, we need key data in order to drive the project better.

 

In tough times like this, is it also important that foundations should be able to demonstrate their impact to the public so that they can show that they do have an important role in society that should be supported by the state, through tax benefits for example?

Yes, but you can achieve this through many means, for example good communication and transparency about what you’re doing and how you spend your money. If you have measured the impact of projects, you can also use this to demonstrate the value of your work, but this is just one of a collection of different actions to demonstrate to the public that you are doing well and performing well. It’s not wise to spend a lot of money getting difficult numbers in order to demonstrate the value of philanthropy. You end up just making researchers happy and wasting time and money. Even more than in the past, I think we have to be efficient in our internal operations.