13: Phyllis Kurlander Costanza, Head UBS Philanthropy and CEO UBS Optimus Foundation - Shaping The Future Of Philanthropy As A Gateway To Sustainable And Impact Investing
2019-06-03
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Phyllis Kurlander Costanza leads UBS Philanthropy and is the CEO of UBS' in-house foundation, UBS Optimus Foundation, UBS Optimus Foundation, which helps their clients execute on their philanthropy on highly impactful programs designed to improve the lives of humans, particularly children.
In 2018 alone, they raised the equivalent of £51.4m from passionate philanthropists, dedicated to their 176 programs in over 20 countries with impactful change for 2.8m vulnerable children globally - a 700k increase from 2017.
In 2018 alone, they raised the equivalent of £51.4m from passionate philanthropists, dedicated to their 176 programs in over 20 countries with impactful change for 2.8m vulnerable children globally - a 700k increase from 2017.
At UBS Optimus Foundation, their vision is to scale the impact outcomes of philanthropy. Phyllis said, “Our vision is to bring more money and better money to solve some of the critical social challenges and doing it at scale and in a sustainable way”.
She added: “... If you think about all financial institutions, look at UBS about with approximately $2.5 trillion dollars in assets under management, if clients dedicated only a 0.5%, that would be more than $12 billion each year, and that would make a real dent in solving some of these really important issues. So, that is our vision.”
Phyllis is also looking for ways to alleviate the harmful effects of voluntarism. So please reach out to her if you have any good ideas or projects that are solving this challenge.
She added: “... If you think about all financial institutions, look at UBS about with approximately $2.5 trillion dollars in assets under management, if clients dedicated only a 0.5%, that would be more than $12 billion each year, and that would make a real dent in solving some of these really important issues. So, that is our vision.”
Phyllis is also looking for ways to alleviate the harmful effects of voluntarism. So please reach out to her if you have any good ideas or projects that are solving this challenge.
Highlights:
- What is charitable giving, strategic philanthropy and social finance
- History of UBS Optimus Foundation
- Services provided by Optimus Foundation including taking clients in the field on experiences and donor-advised funds
- Making philanthropic giving sustainable
- Creating the Development Impact Bonds for education
- Shaping the future of philanthropy through their community platform and knowledge sharing
- Why volunteer visits to orphanages can do incredible harm. What can we do to stop it?
- How incentivising outcomes and not activities will encourage new money from private sector
- Ultra High Net Worth clients that are committing to giving it all away are incredibly inspiring
- How philanthropy impact is measured with due diligence, ongoing monitoring and randomised control trials
- Phyllis career from working for New York state governor Mario Cuomo and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation
Time Stamp:
[02:35] What is philanthropy and impact investing?
[05:30] History of UBS Optimus Foundation
[12:00] Working with education, healthcare and children protection
[15:00] My daughter’s trip to Sri Lanka
[19:00] Social finance and Development Impact Bond
[22:30] Scaling outcomes to incentivise SDGs
[26:00] Working with governments and bilateral donors for large outcome funds in the hundreds of millions
[28:00] Giving pledge by ultra high net worth clients
[32:00] Sharing of best practise and shaping the community of philanthropists
[36:00] Raising the issue of the harmful effects of volunteerism and asking how to find a solution
[37:00] Phyllis’ career from scooping ice cream to UBS
[38:20] What makes a good impact leader
[38:20] What makes a good impact leader
[40:00] Call to action: Get your #TogetherBand, a UBS partnership with Bottletop to raised SDG awareness
Useful links:
Phyllis Kurlander Costanza - https://www.linkedin.com/in/phyllis-kurlander-costanza-31b3645b/
UBS Optimus Foundation - https://www.ubs.com/microsites/optimus-foundation/en.html
Childrens Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) - Education Development Impact Fund - https://ciff.org/grant-portfolio/education-development-impact-bond/
Instiglio - https://www.instiglio.org/en/
Educate Girls - https://www.educategirls.ngo/
Extra link re Education Bonds (promised on episode by JP): The Inter-American Development Bank - EYE Programme :
https://www.iadb.org/en/idb-finance/investors/eye-bond-program
Mark Haefele, Global Chief Investment Officer at UBS - https://twitter.com/ubs_cio
UBS Sustainable and Impact Investing
https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealth-management/chief-investment-office/our-research/sustainable-investing/2017/sustainable-impact-investing.html
Bottletop #Togetherband - https://togetherband.org/
Annual Review 2018 UBS Optimus Foundation -
https://www.ubs.com/microsites/optimus-foundation/en/resources.html
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - https://givingpledge.org/
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - https://givingpledge.org/
The Giving Pledge - https://givingpledge.org/
The Asian banker - Wealth & Society 2018, London - http://www.wealthandsociety.com/wealth-society-2018/
The Asian banker - Wealth & Society 2018, London - http://www.wealthandsociety.com/wealth-society-2018/
Global Philanthropy Report
https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealth-management/uhnw/philanthropy/shaping-philanthropy.html
Connect with JP Dallmann on Linkedin, Twitter, or Instagram.
How to incorporate SDGs into your business - Fast Forward 2030
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Impact Leaders is produced by Podcast Publishing
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