Do One Better with Alberto Lidji in Philanthropy, Sustainability and Social Entrepreneurship

Ewan is a philanthropist with a head for numbers and we look at the interaction between philanthropy and risk. The question: Is the world of philanthropy too risk averse?

Ewan is the Chairman of the Management Committee of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Chairman of DeepTech Labs, and a Non-executive Director of BAE Systems. 

He argues that philanthropic capital should have the highest risk tolerance. It's important to encourage grantees to take risks, to let them know it’s ok to experiment and to give them permission to fail.

We look at a specific case study and encourage others to consider how they embrace risk in their philanthropy.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

The State of the World’s Girls 2022 Report has just been launched by Plan International and Mustafa Kudrati sheds light on its key findings.

The report is focused on girls’ and young women’s political participation, based on a survey of close to 29,000 girls and young women ages 15-24 from 29 countries. How girls perceive their ability to participate in the political process might surprise you.

Mustafa also introduces Plan International’s initiatives in Guatemala and Brazil; going beyond grant-making by supporting girl-led organisations on the ground, elevating local voices and co-designing.

We learn about Plan International’s “We are the Girls” campaign and also delve into the relevance of women’s economic empowerment in influencing girls' expected life outcomes. 

This episode is for anyone who is interested in tackling gender inequality and learning about the latest thinking in this field.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

MacKenzie Scott’s donation to VisionSpring is the largest single private donation helping to tackle the challenge of uncorrected blurry vision in the developing world.

We look at VisionSpring's work and learn about the low levels of access to corrective eye glasses in the developing world and low-income segments.

Ella Gudwin remarks: the market for eye glasses is broken. It’s a 700-year-old technology; it has failed to disperse to the low income segment.  

Uncorrected blurry vision isn’t simply a health issue; it’s also an economic issue. Much of VisionSpring’s advocacy has been focused on raising awareness and quantifying the economic cost to national governments derived from workers who are unable to perform to full capacity due to their inability to see clearly.  This is a problem that impacts farmers, commercial truck drivers, artisans and many others.

We learn the key stats underpinning the arguments for supporting this thematic area and hear of the alliance of diverse stakeholder organisations that have come together to advocate with one voice to ensure the United Nations and national governments across the globe address and tackle this problem.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

Action Against Hunger is active in 51 countries, they have 8,000 staff and assist around 26 million people annually; their turnover is around half a billion euros.

In the UK, they are part of the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee), which brings together 15 leading UK aid charities to raise funds quickly and efficiently at times of crisis overseas.

They are focused on prediction, prevention and treatment of severe malnutrition — especially within a Global South / developing world context.

Encouragingly, there is a treatment for acute malnutrition called “Ready to Use Therapeutic Food” (RUTF) — a treatment that has evolved considerably during the past 20 years — no longer requiring clinical settings nor refrigeration — and today can cure most severely malnourished children around the world. 

However, the challenging logistics of reaching remote geographic locations and engaging within armed conflict areas present serious problems.

These problems are exacerbated by the fact many national governments intentionally conceal problems of malnutrition within their populations in order to project a more favourable image to the external world; and by the overall funding gap that must be filled in order to transform the current reality and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We also learn of Action Against Hunger’s work in supporting and empowering local communities by providing them with the tools to conduct self-diagnosis. The “Mid-Upper Arm Circumference” band (MUAC), is one example of this — a simple colour-coded measuring tape that can be used by parents and caretakers (including those who aren’t able to read) to determine whether a child is malnourished and, if so, to what degree.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

We hear from the Gates Foundation’s Dr Asyia Kazmi on what the state of global education looks like, the work they’re doing in tackling literacy and numeracy challenges, and why achieving our education targets for Sustainable Development Goal 4 is a solvable problem.

If you are born in a high-income country, 9 out of 10 children can read by the age of 10. If you are born in a low-income country, 9 out of 10 children cannot. This is a shocking statistic and an equity issue.

Learn about the Gates Foundations’ work with global organisations, such as the World Bank and UNICEF, how they interact with national governments, what philanthropists should keep in mind when aiming to fund education and much more.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

Shaady Salehi joins us from San Francisco to discuss the work of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project and pretty much cover every angle around trust-based philanthropy.

We hear of trust-based philanthropy’s origins, how the pandemic and racial reckoning helped thrust trust-based philanthropy into the spotlight, and we look at the different interpretations and misinterpretations of what trust-based philanthropy is all about.

The journey has seen a move from transactional philanthropy to a more relational, partnership-oriented approach. Will this trend continue or will we revert back to the old ways?  This episode will answer many of your questions and prompt many new ones.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

In September 2022, Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng was awarded the inaugural Africa Education Medal, awarded by T4 Education to “an outstanding individual who has demonstrated impact, leadership, and advocacy in the field of education”.

Hear the truly remarkable personal and professional story of Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng -- overcoming great adversity in poverty and South Africa’s apartheid, and reaching the pinncale of academia and becoming Vice Chancellor of the top university in Africa.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

Nick Hanauer is one of the world’s most provocative thinkers about our society’s growing inequality, the dire consequences that increasing inequality creates for our democracies, and how to fix the system.

An engaging conversation on income inequality that is full of economic and political arguments on the merits of increasing wages and ensuring income inequality doesn’t lead to widespread social unrest.

Nick is a billionaire philanthropist who recognises the severity of the income inequality problem and philanthropy’s relatively small size in relation to the sums involved.

On this episode you’ll learn how Nick is tackling the issue of income inequality and how philanthropists can genuinely make a difference on this front. As a point of interest, Nick is also the podcast host of Pitchfork Economics, which is worth checking out.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

If you are keen on exploring the collaborative space within philanthropy and the broader sustainability agenda, this episode is for you. 

We explore collaborative networks, new voices from next generation philanthropists, identifying local leaders, building trust and the importance of listening.

Synergos was founded in 1986 by Peggy Dulany and has staff and representatives in Africa, Asia, the Arab World, Europe, Latin America, and the United States.

In 2001, Peggy Dulany co-founded Synergos’ Global Philanthropists Circle with her father, David Rockefeller, to support philanthropic families.

Synergos identifies and incubates collaborations that shift power and resources to proximate leaders, enabling the solutions to our greatest human challenges to reach scale.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.

Charitable status within the independent / private school sector in Britain is one of the most emotionally-charged and contentious topics. Some private schools operate as registered charities while others do not.

Alberto Lidji moderates a robust and civilised debate with Julie Robinson, CEO of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), and Francis Green, Professor of Work and Education Economics at the Institute of Education, University College London's (UCL) Faculty of Education and Society.

Julie Robinson and Francis Green hold opposing views and yet manage to identify some common ground and fruitful area for future education policy exploration.

This episode will inform you about one of the most debated topics in education reform in Britain today. It may strengthen your existing views, or tempt you to view counter arguments more favourably, or even make you appreciate this topic is not as clear cut as you may have thought.

Thank you for downloading this episode of The Do One Better Podcast. Visit our website at Lidji.org for information on nearly 200 interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Please leave us a rating and a review to help others find this show.