Q&A: Why Crown Agents launched a philanthropy division

Crown Agents is a long-standing U.K. development contractor, set up as a commercial not-for-profit company. Three years ago, it took the unusual step of launching a philanthropy unit to raise donations, alongside its normal work on supply chains and strengthening health systems. This year, it has been working to increase engagement on the philanthropy side. Devex talked to Keith Kibirango, who joined Crown Agents earlier this year as director of philanthropy and private sector engagement, to find out why. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How did Crown Agents come to launch a philanthropy division? Three years ago, we felt we were missing a trick. We had a group of partners who were a natural fit for the work we were doing, and we felt we had something unique we could offer them. Our chief executive joined us from Save the Children and was used to having a philanthropic partnerships division. He felt that that model could also work here. Crown Agents is a slightly different type of organization. We have a commercial business model, but we’re a not-for-profit company, and we’re owned by the Crown Agents Foundation. So the work fitted with what we’re here to achieve. It’s an exciting area. For the last two years, we’ve been building the structures internally, and when I joined … I suggested moving more externally. We’ve actively reached out to corporates and philanthropists to tell them the story. The program has grown fast. It’s still small when you put it in the context of Oxfam and Cancer Research, but it’s a growing part of what we do. It’s not about changing our business model. We’re going to continue to focus on what we already do, and this is something additional. It’s also not about offering a challenge to traditional NGOs. We think there is plenty of space in this field for everyone. We’re about finding a way that encourages philanthropists to do more giving. Why do you think organizations have engaged with you? We feel that many philanthropists are looking for ways to give a bit differently. They want an impact-focused proposition. We say to our partners that we can work with them to design programs that meet their needs. We can create quite a targeted response. We can shape our response so that it focuses on the specific impact that the donor wants to have. We’ve found that potential partners really like that co-creation aspect … [and] our focus on benchmarking, measurement, and impact. Our existing delivery experience is also attractive to some people. They appreciate the learnings we already have from program delivery and supply chain work around the world. We’re already doing quite a lot of work in our other divisions that can be pitched as a philanthropic ask. That includes things like climate change and strengthening local health systems. We’re also able to meet an appetite to be involved in designing and delivering programs, not just funding them. They’re coming to us and sharing the business skills and experience they have which could be useful. What kinds of partners have been attracted to your program? We’re dealing with philanthropists emerging from the world of business. They see us as having commercial rigor and a slightly different mindset. We’ve found our approach is particularly attractive to banks for two reasons. One is that it tallies well with what they are already trying to do in the field of CSR [corporate social responsibility]. But they are also thinking that they want to introduce us to corporate clients with philanthropic arms. “We feel that many philanthropists are looking for ways to give a bit differently. They want an impact-focused proposition.” --— Keith Kibirango, director of philanthropy and private sector engagement, Crown Agents The program is growing fast because of the [COVID-19] pandemic. Philanthropists have realized that these are areas they need to move into — things like PPE [personal protective equipment], supply chains, and getting it the “last mile” in remote areas. In India, for example, when there were a high number of COVID cases, we had interest from companies in getting oxygen concentrators into the country. We helped those companies access the services they need, get the vaccines the final mile, and helped their philanthropy have impact within days. We expect this to be a conversation that takes several years, as we grow the operation and increase our scale. We’re starting to talk to not just banks but impact investors, private philanthropists, and governments. Do you think other companies may be looking at doing the same thing? There are definitely other companies in the sector who have also tried to work with these audiences. But they might have gone down the impact investment route. We found that we wanted to go a slightly different way.