Why Chris Mathias gives to Impetus
Chris Mathias is co-founder of CMG Partners and Arbor Ventures,
which are both private investment management companies. He was one
of the founding trustees of Impetus, and has been a donor since its
inception. He is a successful entrepreneur, born and raised in
India and now living in the UK. He is an active philanthropist, and
looks for charitable investments that are sustainable beyond the
lifetime of the funding commitment, building lasting capacity,
developing skills and focusing on the very poor.
How did you get involved
in Impetus?
When I first worked for Harpur Holdings, it was backed by ECI, and
[Impetus co-founder] Stephen Dawson was the boss at ECI. Ten years
later, in 2001, Stephen rang me up and told me he was thinking of
starting an organisation that applied investment principles to
charities.
What was it that appealed to you?
I believe it's just as important to apply investment principles to
not-for profit investments as it is to profit-making investments.
In both, you are investing a resource with the aim of achieving an
end. The principles that you use to try to translate that
investment of resource into the end goal are exactly the same
whether the end goal is making more money or, for example, reducing
the incidences of eating disorders. What I had learnt in my
previous philanthropy experience was that those principles were not
routinely employed, in fact, they were not employed at all, in the
not-for-profit area. Stephen's new venture was addressing many
of these issues.
What was it that made you become a
donor?
That's an incredibly short answer or an incredibly long one. The
short one is that's how I was brought up. I was born into very
fortunate circumstances. That was nothing to do with me, and
everything to do with the luck that went before me. There are two
very Indian concepts which, funnily enough, every Indian
irrespective of religion believes in. There's a concept of dharma,
of duty. Dharma is not negotiable. That concept is similar to "that
to whom much is given, much is expected". If you're very lucky and
you're born lucky, then your dharma is quite high. The other
concept is karma. Karma is the good deeds you do - sort of 'what
goes around comes around'. They come back to improve your next life
or your next month. I was born lucky and I have a lot of duty...
and then there's karma, that is, if I don't do it, who will? If we
are damaging this world in which we live, it is not negotiable, we
must fix that. We must all do everything we can to make it
better.
You were one of the original donors to Impetus. What has
the experience been like, and what's been the most satisfying
part?
I've been a donor every year since Impetus started. Impetus is
the best investor of funds in the not-for-profit
sector, by a mile. Of that, there is absolutely no
question.
The best thing has been seeing the concept of venture philanthropy grow! That was the whole purpose. Venture philanthropy is now a term that you can use and half, three quarters of the people you talk to know something about it. It's hard to imagine in 2000/2001, if you said venture philanthropy, no one had a clue what you meant. No clue! Now it's more or less commonplace, or getting there.
That's what I wanted to see happen - that this became a means of giving... or a means of investing that was much more disciplined than was ever the case. It will never ever replace the majority of giving, but hopefully it will become a significant part of the minority. It will infect the way in which donors and recipients treat money that comes in. There's still a long way to go, but it's the start of a movement. The satisfying thing is that it feels like the movement has started.
Find out how you can give to Impetus and help us turn around more lives.
The planning and strategic support from Impetus has already proved to be instrumental in helping us to identify key areas of focus for the future.
Harriet Lamb
Executive Director, Fairtrade Foundation
