John abbey

John Abbey or John Auckland Abbey, is the Managing Director of Abbey Solutions, an international consultancy specializing in supporting NGOs, third sector organizations and philanthropists in Europe, Asia, and Africa. John has a pragmatic approach to development issues based on his own first hand experience of living with some of the poorest communities in Africa while having a keen understanding and interest in political economy and global finance.

John Abbey Background

Educated in England at Orleans Park University of London (International Relations – Development studies) University of Kent (MA International Relations, European Studies) Dissertation: The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the role of NATO

Career

1980s photographer 1990s worked for a number of UK based NGOs 1999 Established Abbey Solutions

Major achievements

Organized and led the Walk of Life, a 2,500 mile trek from London to Khartoum in 1984.

A pragmatists he does not agree that capitalism should be demonized and philanthropists praised. Capitalism is not perfect, but it is as perfect a system as we have ever known on the plant. Why? because generally people like it.”

As he says “philanthropy cannot exist without profit; that profit relies on the global banks making money, lending money, and distributing money” He believes that the banks far from being demonized should be encouraged to work in partnership with major foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation etc and other philanthropic organizations and individuals not only on traditional venture philanthropy projects or traditional investment strategies, but to begin generating more bang for their buck, by taking on board what the banks already do and doing it themselves. In short John wants Foundations to use a percentage of their capital spent on investment instruments such as bonds, securitization and equity funds in the developing world. He is a keen follower of Alexander S. Friedman who has been championing this notion.

John also believes instead of wealthy individuals going out and setting up their own Foundation, it could be more productive for these people to form partnerships with existing successful Foundations that desperately need more funds. A view he advocates for many of the worlds charities as well. Sometimes a new foundation is just what is needed, but in most cases it’s making what already exists in the market far more effective that would really help. As john says: “it is not really a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, but more a case of too many kitchens all cooking the same dish.”

Education, Education, Education. Tony Blair the former British Prime Minister once famously stated was the number one priority for the new Labour government. This has been reflected in the giving priorities of most, if not all the major Foundations across the globe for the last 10 years. John suggests education, training, entrepreneurial programmes are all extremely laudable and have their place, but if we are to help the poorest people on the planet, then there needs to be a far greater emphasis on basic needs, unfashionable as they seem to be. John states: “ I can find a dozen major foundations supporting education, but very few will spend 500 euro to build a brick home for a family living in a mud hut without power, sanitation or security. How can we expect their children to attend school when they live in utter squalor”

John on Development

Foundations to invest a small percentage of their capital in financial products to increase their net giving ability

Wealthy individuals to think hard before setting up their own foundation, but rather work with existing agencies

Banks to provide greater social sector financing working with Foundations to market these products to institutional clients

Governments to give substantial tax breaks to social impact investments