In a rapidly changing and increasingly connected world, young people face greater complexity with the choices they make about their life decisions and their career paths. Emirates Foundation has recognized not only this new global challenge but also the need for philanthropy itself to ensure maximum efficiency and maximum impact.
Following a comprehensive review of its existing mandate in 2011 and a review of the third sector in the UAE, the Foundation concluded that change was required not only to ensure delivering sustainable social value but also to ensure that the organisation was effectively focused in its work.
The foundation discovered that while there were many other organisations looking into similar areas, there were few with a nationwide remit focused on youth. As a result, a decision was taken to refocus the efforts of the organisation on youth development in the UAE – a critical component of ensuring future sustainable socio-economic progress.
In May, 2012, Emirates Foundation at the re-launch event, the chair of the foundation, His Highness Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE minister of foreign affairs noted the importance of this new focus. He said:
"Our core priorities have been to support the Emirati youth, to care for people with special needs, to develop knowledge, to nurture talented and creative Emiratis and enable students who wish to pursue further education."
At the same time the foundation adopted a new business model and transitioned from a grant-making foundation to an operational one using venture philanthropy with a view to creating more sustainable, long-term and measureable social impact.
Venture philanthropy is about taking risk and having a willingness to try a new approach. It is about generating measurable results and about going beyond money to provide technical and human resources. It is also about shifting from short-term timeframes to long-term horizons, and it focuses on increased capacity building and collaboration in cross-sectorial partnerships. By adopting this approach the foundation is following a global trend whereby philanthropy is shifting from short-term giving into more long-term social investment that can generate sustainable social returns.
"Venture philanthropy recognizes there are no quick-fixes to creating tangible, developmental results," Emirates Foundation CEO Clare Woodcraft says. "Instead of giving money away it looks at investing in organisations or initiatives with the expectation of social returns. This increases the measurable impact and opens the way for foundations like ours to play an even greater role in a nation's social-economic progress."
This new business-based approach allows the foundation's partners (essentially the private sector) to get more involved – rather than simply providing funding, they can provide technical support and engage in the delivery of programmes. "It's about so much more than money – we want to work with our partners to go beyond funding," explains Woodcraft. "We're developing a new kind of collaborative relationship where our donors are highly engaged, we want them to be part of the process to help provide resources, knowledge and technical input to ensure the initiatives we deliver are sustainable and have maximum impact and also provide value to them." For the past couple of years, this approach has allowed the foundation to be closer to the issues it seeks to resolve and enhanced its ability to measure and refine its programmes more effectively by delivering them through its own team rather than third parties. Through a greater level of engagement and more transparent outcomes, the foundation has considerably increased the social return on its investment.
As the foundation's chair puts it:
"The changes to Emirates Foundation are not limited to the name and logo but mark a radical shift in reiterating our focus on social investment in young people. In its new mandate, the foundation will look to activate the role of Emirati youth through business-based initiatives that provide social returns."
Emirates Foundation's main objective is to engage, inspire and guide young people in the UAE Like other countries, the UAE faces challenges around national employment and under-employment but also around the disengagement of young Emiratis and the potential for delinquency that this fuels.
To this end it has identified three key areas of focus: leadership and empowerment - equipping young people with the mindset and skills for private sector employment; social inclusion – addressing issues that may alienate sections of the young community; and, community engagement – giving all citizens the opportunity to fully participate in society.
The foundation's transition journey culminated with its first annual philanthropy summit that took place in Abu Dhabi last November. Entitled Philanthropy in Transition, the event provided an opportunity to showcase both how Emirates Foundation and others have shifted from traditional models to more strategic ones and to share the lessons learned during these journeys. The summit also focused on the core business areas for the Foundation with 'challenge sessions' developed to help the foundation and its peers discuss current programs, their potential impact and how to improve the social value they create. For example, participants were introduced to the foundation's Takatof programme for social volunteering with a view to discussing some of the key challenges volunteering programs face worldwide. These include issues such as volunteer attraction and retention and also how to render volunteering programs financially viable.
The summit also discussed the SANID, the foundation's national emergency response volunteer programme. Discussions focused on how to effectively enhance preparedness for emergency situations and potentially transform such initiatives into sustainable social enterprises.
Foundations across the region readily engaged in discussions about the issue of youth talent, how to deploy it and particularly how to provide access to young people to jobs in the private sector. This forms the focus of two of the foundation's programmes, Kafa'at and Think Science. Participants agreed that a critical challenge for the GCC will be encouraging youth to seek opportunities in areas not related to the government. The foundation aims to construct a talent pipeline between youth and the local market helping both the private sector access local talent and vice versa. The foundation also works on financial literacy for youth through its Esrf Sah programme (meaning "spending right" in Arabic) which educates young people about planning and managing their financial affairs effectively to help them avoid excessive debts. With the foundation's Kayani programme, focuses on training young men and women who have limited opportunity in the labor market qualifying them to become assistant teachers for special needs children in public schools.
The foundation believes that such programmes are critical for helping young people to think more creatively and more innovatively which in turn can help drive local economic competitiveness. The UAE currently ranks 38th in the Global Innovation Index according to a report put together by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organisation. The UAE scored 50 out of 100 for its human capital and research efforts, the highest score in the region.
The foundation's chief sustainability officer Khuloud Al Nuwais notes that "engaging youth directly in community activities and institutions is critical to creating a stable, cohesive and progressive society". He adds that "through our initiatives we help young people in urban and rural areas to find their voice and participate in society, empowering themselves through personal achievement, social integration, ethical grounding and constructive citizenship."
The transition was a challenging journey but is now providing a much greater opportunity for the foundation to create sustainable social value. Traditional grant-making tends to require a strong administrative structure and capability whereas the model of venture philanthropy is about taking a hands-on entrepreneurial approach to delivering social change with a systemic approach. While capacity building within the team will remain critical, the foundation's new pro-active engagement with all key stakeholders will allow for continual learning and potentially much greater social impact.
Content on this page is produced and controlled by Emirates Foundation
