Trust-based philanthropy
The Mount Street Club Trust has been putting the principles of trust-based philanthropy into practice - and to the test - in an Irish context since 2019.
Trust-based philanthropy is founded on the principles of trust, collaboration and partnership. It redefines the relationship between funder and beneficiary, going beyond traditional grant-making to providing deeper support to recipients. Rather than being prescriptive and top-down, trust-based philanthropy promotes a relationship of equals between funder and recipient as co-creators. For the Mount Street Club Trust, this has translated in practice into an ethos of inquiry, empathy and appreciation.
At the heart of Hope & Ambition, the Trust’s funding and development initiative, is a mutual commitment to the value of shared learning. Trustees and recipients alike hope that this initiative might positively influence the culture and practice of philanthropy in Ireland to the benefit of society as a whole.
“Our relationship with the Mount Street Club Trust has been refreshing. It has changed our thinking and focus in terms of the potential funding partners that we approach and the relationships that we try to build with them.”
— Naoimh McNamee, CEO, Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation
Hope & Ambition
Hope & Ambition is the Mount Street Club Trust’s current funding and development initiative.
Hope & Ambition Phase Two is now running from 2024 to the end of 2027. An extended Phase One ran from 2019 to 2023.
Enlightened by the principles of trust-based philanthropy, Hope & Ambition empowers organisations to sustain innovative thinking and practice and evolve a critically-informed analysis in their work with marginalised and disadvantaged communities in the Greater Dublin Area.
Not just a funding programme, Hope & Ambition also provides development support to the participant organisations and their people, focusing in particular on organisational development, leadership, practice, wellbeing and cross-sectoral interaction.
The initiative is structured around two key elements: a grant to recipient organisations and their commitment to participate in the CEOs and Practitioners Clubs in a spirit of critical inquiry, collaboration and shared learning.
Current participants
The current participants in Hope & Ambition are:
Glencree Centre for Peace & Reconciliation (Intercultural and Refugee Programme)
Intercultural Language Service
Irish Refugee Council (Youth Work Programme)
Rua Red (Traveller Engagement Initiative).
Blossom Ireland participated until its closure in December 2022 and TraVision collaborated with Rua Red between 2020 and 2022. All of the organisations supported through Hope & Ambition work in innovative ways with communities who experience social exclusion and marginalisation, specifically Travellers, asylum seekers and refugees, migrants and new communities, and young people with intellectual disabilities.
Reinventing ‘The Club’
Hope & Ambition flows from the commitment and experience of making the Mount Street Club a reality in practice in the 1930s and has involved re-inventing the concept of ‘The Club’ for a new era.
The CEOs and Practitioners Clubs were designed to support and encourage reflection within designated time away from the day-to-day pressures of delivering vital services to marginalised and vulnerable communities.
Meeting a number of times a year, the Clubs bring the participant organisations together in facilitated sessions to share ideas and expertise (and sometimes frustrations!) and to support and inspire each other in new and unexpected ways. One to two practitioners from each organisation are invited to attend. By encouraging the participants to be creative - giving them space and funding for collaboration - Hope & Ambition is seeking to develop and share a better understanding of the challenges facing organisations working with people who are marginalised in Ireland.
The Supporters Club is a further extension of the Hope & Ambition network, encompassing a wider circle of people who have a connection with the Mount Street Club Trust or who are simply interested in supporting the work of the Trust and its recipient organisations.
“One of our own ambitions for Hope & Ambition is simply to support our recipients to do the work they know is needed, with a bit more time for reflection and creativity.”
— Sarah Perrem, Trustee, Mount Street Club Trust
Funding through trust
The grant provided to each participant organisation is given as freely as possible, with the only requirement for reporting being the completion of end-of-year reports which are reflective in spirit.
Through the process of selecting the participant organisations the Trustees felt confident that the money would be spent in the best service of that organisation’s activities, without any need to strictly monitor targets and outcomes. The intention was not to add to the burden of CEOs and practitioners already under intense pressure simply in doing the work.
The Trustees strongly believe that annual funding cycles can deplete resources of time and hamper strategic development, as well as sustaining a context of uncertainty which can be wearing in the long term. The first phase of Hope & Ambition was initially established as three-year funding cycle. This has been extended for Phase Two to four years (2024-2027).
Report: End-of-Year Narratives
Concluding the extended interim phase of Hope & Ambition form June 2022 to December 2023, the four participant organisations prepared end-of-year narratives reflecting on the work undertaken during that period. We published these narratives together with reflections from the Trustees and advisor Dr Liz Hayes who guides Hope & Ambition.
The four narratives invite us into a world where the challenges of inclusion work are sharply felt and provoke the need for further system-wide thinking and engagement. The extent of the work that has been delivered is impressive in such volatile work and funding environments and with relatively small resources in face of the vast scale of need.
Read together, the narratives and reflections offer a view of trust-based philanthropy as practiced by the Trust and experienced by the participant organisations, and set the scene for the new phase of Hope & Ambition, running from 2024 through to the end of 2027.
Report: Funding Insights
In 2023, the Trustees hosted a roundtable event on the subject of corporate funding partnerships. The event brought the Trustees together with the CEOs of the recipient organisations of Hope & Ambition and guests with expertise and interest in the field of corporate funding partnerships. The insights, outcomes and ideas that emerged from that event were captured in a report that can be read by clicking the button below.
What was clear is that there are rich opportunities for corporate funders open to collaboration - but that tensions can arise due to differing perspectives, expectations and motivations. The limitations of conventional structures were also highlighted, both in terms of short-term funding cycles and funding solely for project work.
The Trustees hope that this report will be of interest to corporate funders, charities and philanthropic trusts alike and look forward to further conversations in 2024.
Designing together
From June to December 2022, the phase one recipients engaged in a co-design process with the Mount Street Club Trust.
Over a series of workshops we explored how the second phase of Hope & Ambition could be shaped, building on the relationships that have been fostered over the last three years to arrive at a proposal for collaborative action and a new momentum of shared hope and ambition.
During the co-design phase, the Trustees took the decision to extend Hope & Ambition by a further year to the end of 2023 while exploring opportunities to attract funding partners to collaborate in a new iteration of the initiative.
The individual and shared ambitions that arose out of this process have been summarised in five summary profile pages that you can view by clicking here.
Hope & Ambition Phase 1
The first three-year phase of Hope & Ambition completed in June 2022. In order to capture what was achieved in that time we asked the five recipient organisations to write a section of their final reports for a wider audience, reflecting on the work that they delivered and the impact of the support that they received through the CEOs and Practitioners Clubs. These reports have now been published and can be found by clicking the button below.
Hope & Ambition is guided by organisational development expert Dr Liz Hayes of Corporate Community on behalf of the Mount Street Club Trust. Liz provides strategic advice, direction and mentoring, as well as facilitating the CEO and Practitioners Clubs.
“The Mount Street Club Trust has created a community of practice where purpose, values and trust bond us together and provide true hope and ambition going into the future.”
— Peter Sheekey, CEO, Intercultural Language Service