High-income parents are enrol-ling their children in philanthropy workshops designed to teach them how to use their wealth to do good.
Rich parents regard the workshops as a lesson in using money responsibly and encouraging their children to consider how to help others.
One father, a financier, arranged for his 11-year-old son and daughter, 13, to have their own seminar in his office to help them develop an interest in giving and decide on the causes to benefit from their own annual philanthropy budget.
The courses have been introduced in the UK by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), a charity advising donors on ways to give money.
The schemes come against a backdrop of growing discontent over wealth in the city’s capital, London.
The general secretary of the Trade Union Congress for England, Brendan Barber, used his New Year message to warn that the “soaraway super-rich” are becoming cut off from the rest of society, breeding “simmering resentment” among the low-paid.
NPC now runs a range of programmes for young philanthropists, ranging from three-hour intensive private workshops for individual families to seminars for 40-strong audiences at private banks.
Courses on “assets and responsibilities” run last year with NPC by Coutts Bank were reportedly hugely oversubscribed.
Peter Walter, the financier who commissioned a workshop for his children, wanted to give them “a little bit more structure and education” about charitable giving.
Walter, 44 (name changed to protect his children’s identity), found the youngsters’ initial instincts were typical of their age: “All they really cared about was battered dogs and saving the whale. Having had the session with NPC they were more interested in things that relate to children, gang violence, things that happen in east London, say, that are visible and concrete for them.” — Â