Words by Smiley Team
Have you ever donated to charity, and wondered where your money will actually go? Perhaps you’ve struggled to know where your cash is most needed, or if you can trust it will be used well.
Epic Foundation was started seven years ago by Alexandre Mars to acknowledge this challenge. Alexandre, a businessman, sold five start-ups and was in the fortunate position of wanting to donate his wealth towards purpose-driven causes. But he also knew there was an issue with charitable giving – especially for those wanting to donate large sums of money.
Alexandre took a year out to research – travelling the world and speaking to everyone he knew – and many told him the same thing: we want to give our money away, but there’s a lack of trust. Where is it going? Others had issues with time, struggling to know what charities they should donate to because there are so many.
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For many, charitable giving takes the form of donating to the big brands people know about, or donating to friends running marathons. But the world’s problems are still getting worse.
Alexandre applied his entrepreneurial thinking to the third sector, and Epic was created.
The Foundation has two main strands to their work. The first is Impact Solutions. Think of them like a private equity fund for non-profits – they don’t take any fees, and are funded entirely by the CEO. They focus their funding work on children and youth organisations, and build a portfolio of high impact organisations all over the world.
There’s a selection process for their small portfolio of organisations every year. They review 1000s of NGOs, social enterprises, and charities, then take at least eight months to research and do their due diligence. They look at impact, leadership, and management, before whittling it down to the finalists. They’ll then visit these organisations, wherever they are in the world, before making their final selection. The last round resulted in just four organisations joining the portfolio, and the latest selection process is currently underway.
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Epic will monitor all organisations in the portfolio, so donors can trust the impact they have. They’ll work with them for a minimum of three years.
The second strand of Epic’s work is Giving Solutions, which is for businesses to help them find ways to put purpose at the core of what they do. Companies will approach Epic, and the foundation will come up with creative ways to add purpose to their work. In French football, for example, in League 1 and 2, they set up a scheme where every time a goal was scored, it triggered a donation to an organisation in the Epic Foundation.
They also created the ‘Epic Pledge for corporates and entrepreneurs – whereby they commit to giving a percentage of their success to social good. Hundreds have already signed on, including DICE founder Hutcheon, Stride.VC founder Fred Destin, and even The Smiley Company’s very own CEO, Nicolas Loufrani.
Find out more about the Epic Foundation and their portfolio of charities here.
