Women Philanthropists Are Different.

By Karen and Erica

For the first time ever, large numbers of women control their own assets, and can make their own decisions about how to deploy those assets. That may lead to shifts in the methods by which gifts are made, and to the organizations that receive them.

Before now, women’s decisions were not well known. While women have always been philanthropic, when they were giving their husband’s money away, they took little credit, as detailed in a recent New York Times analysis.

Wealthy women giving their money and time away is nothing new (see: Brooke Astor, Nan Kempner, Liz Thompson and Agnes Gund). But for many decades, those who were married did so in their husbands’ names, or more quietly, without wide recognition. A study published in 1985 that followed 70 female volunteers in “high society” for several years found that the unpaid work the women did was often unrecognized or belittled.

And it could be hard to say how decisions were made—in parallel or by negotiation.

Sometimes decisions will be made jointly but also separately, like Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who created MoMA, while her husband, who “hated modern art”, preferred to invest in the Cloisters, the Met’s medieval collection. This makes it difficult to analyse women’s philanthropy.

But now, women are taking greater control, and some interesting differences are emerging. For that reason, perhaps, and perhaps because of a few billion-dollar breakups, there has been a renewed focus on how women give.

There’s no single force fueling the uptick in women-focused philanthropy. But it’s likely been helped by the rise of high-profile female philanthropists, like Ms. French Gates, who have made the case that investments in women yield greater returns, as well as the steady increase in the amount of wealth that American women hold. In 2020, women controlled a third of total household financial assets in the U.S., amounting to more than $10 trillion; by 2030, they’re expected to control much of the $30 trillion in baby boomer financial assets, according to McKinsey & Company. Women philanthropists are more likely than their male counterparts to donate to women and girls, according to a 2017 study.

It is unsurprising, perhaps, that women are more likely to give to organizations devoted to the advancement or support of women and girls. But that’s not all. There seem to be many differences in how women and men give, regardless of the beneficiary. In short—women and men do philanthropy differently— except, maybe entrepreneurial women and men!

Some of the differences were highlighted when MacKenzie Scott began to control her finances after her split from Jeff Bezos. Forbes broke it down:

Scott, an author, seems to have been inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poetry. She is sensitive to the widespread economic and social disruption caused by COVID-19. Her philanthropy delivers immediate relief to the underprivileged (though she also funds capacity building). She spreads her donations across a large number of organizations, many of them relatively unknown. These organizations view social inequities as structural problems and not as technological ones. 

Bezos, in contrast, is a believer in technology. He funds big projects undertaken by visible actors with high access to philanthropic capital. Bezos’ philanthropy also has an instrumental dimension because it coheres with Amazon’s recent climate initiatives.

The donations by Scott and Bezos raise important questions about the responsibilities of the wealthy in an increasingly unequal society. They reveal that how we give reflects our priorities, beliefs, and the theory of change. But the scale of these donations also raises the issue of democratic deficit and how a few wealthy individuals are shaping how societies address critical challenges.

Why the differences? Obviously, these two people are individuals. One is motivated more by poetry and inequity, one more by technology and global danger. And they live in a very rarified atmosphere. Still, their different styles to some extent echo some hypotheses about gender differences in giving, even for people like us whose gifts are not in the billions. As this study suggests, while there are as many differences as there are personalities, there appear to be clear gender distinctions.

For one, where women are making the decisions, empathy seems a key motivating factor.

[O]ne study examined the role of empathy in motivating male and female donors. It found that empathy as a motivator works well for women, but not for men. A key motivation for men was connecting the cause to their individual self-interest. 

For another, women appear more interested in collaborative giving.

In recent years, new forms of giving, including giving circles, event-based crowdfunding, and online crowdfunding have emerged and have been particularly attractive to women and other donors. While little systematic study of gender has been applied to these forms of giving, qualitative research shows that women respond positively to collaborative giving and may see it as way “to be social ‘while doing good.’”

As financial advisors have observed, women invest differently. It is perhaps not surprising that the observed differences in how women and men invest, whether in financial or social assets, would be parallel.

One thing seems certain–-the more women control their own fates in the financial world, the more we can expect the focus of philanthropy to reflect the interests of women, and their giving style. While the argument that wealth should be taxed, so that wealthy donors do not exclusively decide the common good, until that happens we think that having women in decision-making positions is important.