I wasn’t aware that the Giving Circle was an actual concept within the philanthropic sector until I tuned into Episode 33 of the Positive Impact Philanthropy Podcast. Sara Lomelin, Executive Director of Philanthropy Together joined Host Lori Kranzcer to discuss the impact of Giving Circles Latin American communities in the US. Sara talked about her experience as a Latin American woman in the US and the impact that Giving Circles had made to real people by ordinary individuals. That you didn’t need to be super wealthy to give charity. It was possible to do it small, do it regularly and still see an impact in the community and groups you care about.

I remember listening and thinking, I have seen this all my life but I didn’t know it had a name. It was my earliest conceptual knowledge of charity but just seemed like one of things you participate in, a form of community that you were initiated into and without a name or formal structure.

I’ve learned that a Giving Circle is a group of individuals who come together to give pool donations to specific causes through collective action. So any time a group decides to raise funds for a specific cause, it is technically a giving circle. They differ only in size, structure and form of giving which I hope to examine a little bit in this article.

These groups, which vary in their structure and goals, bring individuals together to learn about community issues and solutions and subsequently use their collective funds to make a difference usually to beneficiaries from a community or charity of choice.

The best thing about Giving Circles is the process of giving is entirely transparent, democratic and based on trust between funders and recipients of support.

Formal giving circles have transformed entire communities, neighbourhoods, villages and cities through long-term targeted peer-to-peer investment. Some times these cash injections are short-term but still impactful. A good example is the African-American Women’s Giving Circle hosted by the Washington Area Women’s Foundation. Launched in 2004, the African American Women’s Giving Circle (AAWGC) pools monetary contributions to support member-identified nonprofits serving the needs of African American women and girls. To date, AAWGC has invested more than $225,000 in 20 local non-profits. The circle decides who receives the funds and the charity handles all grant and risk management.

I have grown up witnessing my mother and extended family participate in local and international giving circles. During the droughts in Somalia in 2016, I remember many neighbourhood groups in London fundraising to save families in the villages/towns that they were from. New fears of a serious drought have re-emerged in recent months and I have no doubt that these event-based giving circles, which are both local and trans-national, will pop up in affected communities across the world.

Read the full article about giving circles by Faiza Ali at Medium.