Active Philanthropy aims to be a "one-stop-shop" for all questions related to becoming involved in philanthropy, ranging from background readings, workshops and field trips that introduce a topic and connect donors with each other to administrative support and individual coaching on all issues related to developing a personal giving strategy. We offer a range of services geared to helping donors in an environment that still largely lacks the infrastructure and resources philanthropists can benefit from in the US, and, increasingly, also in the UK.  

 

Active Philanthropy was set up in Berlin in summer 2006. It builds on a long-standing project started by the Bertelsmann Foundation that offered two workshops for donors who wanted to become more strategic in their philanthropy: "The Philanthropy Workshop", an international donor education programme set up by the Rockefeller Foundation and co-sponsored and co-chaired by Bertelsmann from 2003 – 2005, and the three-day-long programme "Stifterprogramm Kompakt" that was run for a German-speaking audience. 

  

Active Philanthropy is fortunate to be generously supported by a small group of private individuals who are either still active as entrepreneurs or have an entrepreneurial family background, and are all highly active philanthropists in their own right.

 

A special honour for the Forum is the personal support by Bill Drayton, Founder and President of Ashoka, the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs, who provided early-stage seed-funding to help Active Philanthropy kick-off its activities. Bill is named one of America’s best leaders by the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.