Andrea Pactor is the interim director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. She’s been with the Institute since 2005, where she primarily studies how and why gender matters in philanthropy.
In recent years, studies from the Institute have focused on topics including Giving Tuesday and impact investing. From research in these areas, Andrea and her team have found that while both men and women give on Giving Tuesday, more women give, so they represent a larger portion of the amount given on that day. They also have determined that women are more likely to use impact investing to compliment their giving, while men are more likely to use impact investing in lieu of their philanthropy.
In this episode, Ellie and Andrea focus on a specific study focused on the intergenerational transmission of generosity. Said differently, how families pass values related to generosity on to the next generation. This conversation is timely as we are in the midst of a well-known and significant transfer of wealth between generations (some estimates put it at $59 trillion transferring between generations).
Key research findings:
- Research has found that parents influence children’s prosocial behavior, such as caring for others and helping.
- Research has shown that parents talk less about giving as their children go through adolescence.
- Adult children – both sons and daughters – whose parents give are more likely to give to charity.
- Parental giving is linked with an 8.7 percentage point increase in the children’s likelihood of giving.
- Whether parents give matters more for whether their daughters give than for whether their sons give. While the reason is unclear, it may be that daughters receive different messages related to giving or react to those messages differently.
- 20.5% of high-net-worth families have family traditions around giving
- 28.5% of high-net-worth families involve their younger relatives in their giving.
- The top three reasons cited why they do involve the children include:
- 1. Personally rewarding (77%);
- 2. Children are interested in participating (43%);
- 3. Have similar priorities and values (30%).
- The top three reasons cited for why they do not involve the children:
- 1. Did not try to involve them (62%);
- 2. Inconvenient (time, geography) (20%);
- 3. Not sure how to involve them (14.5%).
In this episode:
- Meet Andrea Pactor (1:00)
- Research summary (2:00)
- Why study the intergenerational transmission of generosity? (4:10)
- What does the intergenerational transmission of generosity mean? (5:37)
- Key findings of the intergenerational transmission of generosity study (8:20)
- Why do families involve their children in giving (14:00)
- What are the reasons families don’t include their next generations in giving? (20:40)
- What research is next? (23:38)
- How to find Andrea and the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (25:40)
- Final words (26:35)
- Bonus questions (27:35)
Resources from this episode:
Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
The WPI Study: Transmitting Generosity to Daughters and Sons
Notable and Quotable:
Gender matters in philanthropy, men and women are motivated differently and give differently and we need to pay attention to this. —Andrea Pactor
Philanthropy is a tie that can bind families together. —Andrea Pactor
Our philanthropy defines who we are, what we do, and what kind of meaning we have in our life. —Andrea Pactor
Guest Bio:
As interim director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, Andrea is responsible for program and curriculum development and implementation, marketing, social media, and operations. She has organized four national symposia on women and philanthropy for the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and five national conferences on the same topic in partnership with CASE. She co-developed the first-ever online course about women and philanthropy, Women and Philanthropy—The Time is Now, for The New York Times Knowledge Network and the online conference, SHEMAKESCHANGE, about the intersection of women, money, and philanthropy.
Andrea is co-author with Dr. Dwight Burlingame on a chapter on the history of donor education and with Dr. Debra Mesch on research and women’s philanthropy for From Donor to Philanthropist: The Value of Donor Education in Creating Confident, Joyful Donors (2013). She is also co-author of chapters on women and philanthropy, notably in Fundraising Principles and Practices, Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations, and Achieving Excellence in Fundraising.
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