The 8th annual Town & Country Philanthropy Summit concluded yesterday with a wonderful talk from Hugh Evans interviewed by Joe Scarborough. Click here for highlights from the panel.
Town & Country’s “Live Well, Give Well” charity auction is also live for an additional week and all proceeds benefit World Central Kitchen. The auction has a dedicated and branded online gallery on Charitybuzz.
Hugh on how he got involved in philanthropy: “For me, my journey started in Melbourne, Australia, I just grew up in middle class Melbourne, Australia and my parents didn’t have any background in this area. They both just worked full-time, and it was one day in my first year of high school, a lady from a charity came and spoke at our school about poverty in the developing world. I was an eager 13-year-old kid that I put out my hand and I said, ‘OK I’m gonna try to raise the most amount of money we can.’ I just started door knocking on every door in the neighborhood. I spoke to everyone I possibly could, and we raised more money than any school in Australia and so the charity sent me to the Philippines when I was 14 years old to see their work firsthand.”
Hugh on how Global Citizen got off the ground with help from U2 and Pearl Jam: “It wasn’t until 2006 when the G20 was coming through Melbourne, Australia and me and my mate Dan had this idea to run this small concert that coincided with the G20 summit in Melbourne… I got a phone call from Bono from U2. And he said in his thick Irish accent, ‘Hey boys I’m coming to Melbourne. I’m going to perform in the Make Poverty History concert, is that alright?’ And I thought it was a prank call at the time, I’m like ‘yeah of course you can.’ Then sure enough, he was serious, and he brought Pearl Jam with him and they created this ensemble, they called U Jam, for U2 and Pearl Jam. That night we managed to convince the Australian government to double foreign aid levels who raised $6.2 billion which was the largest foreign aid increase in Australia’s history. And so that was really how Global Citizen was born because the following day, I got a phone call from the United Nations in New York who said they want to help us take this movement all around the world. And at the time I was just finishing university and about to go off to study in the UK and it was through that initial phone call that everything birthed from there.”
Hugh on drawing inspiration from Nelson Mandela: “At Global Citizen, ever since we began, we were inspired by a speech that Nelson Mandela gave actually one of his final speeches, he gave at the launch of the Make poverty history campaign back in 2005, and he said that overcoming extreme poverty was not a gesture of charity but an act of justice. He said, ‘like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural it’s man-made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.’ We’ve always focused on that ideal that he said – he called it our generation’s greatest challenge ’cause there are so many needs on our planet right now. But Mandela defined this is the greatest need that the worst form of human suffering. He said, ‘this is truly, alongside slavery and apartheid, this generation’s great challenge.’ That’s why we decided to make it the heartbeat of our mission.”
Hugh on how Global Citizen differs from traditional charity: “We are hyper focused on moving our world leaders and billionaires, holding their feet to the fire, to make sure they deliver on the promises that made to the world’s poor. That’s the only way we’re going to unlock the multi-billion-dollar pledges is needed to address the root causes of extreme poverty… The only way we scale that is if the ultra-high network community and if governments do what they have already pledged do in the name of the United Nations sustainable development goals. So our job at Global Citizen is to build an unstoppable movement of citizens to put pressure on those world leaders, calling in to make the change that’s needed most.”
Hugh on the power of Global Citizens coming together: “I’ve seen so many world leaders who come to me and they’ve said: ‘When I received 100,000 emails in one day from Global Citizens around the world, I had to respond.’ I’ve seen so many world leaders say to me, ‘It was because Global Citizens put pressure on me in unison, that I had no choice but to take action.’ Even the other day, it was awesome – Selena Gomez, who is part of our Vax Live campaign, tweeted Boris Johnson after the G7, she said ‘Don’t congratulate yourself, Boris Johnson, you’ve only committed to give away 5 million doses by September and you have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.’ And all of a sudden, it took the wind out of those political sails where often politicians like to spin and say that they’ve done something they really haven’t done. And that’s really our job: we want to hold world leaders accountable. But it can only happen when citizens work in unison to create enormous change.”
About Town & Country
Town & Country has a long history of commitment to philanthropy. For nearly 175 years, the magazine has covered a world in which giving back is an essential part of living well. But that doesn’t mean we’re stuck in the past. Our annual philanthropy issue and summit consistently cover what it means to be on the cutting edge of modern day giving – and are known for gathering the greatest minds from politics, business, and the arts for high level discourse on how to change an ever-changing world. Town & Country might be the nation’s longest continuously published magazine, but with our philanthropy coverage, we’re putting our history to use in service of tomorrow.
