Eyes on the prize: The state of prize philanthropy in Canada
By Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf
May 25, 2010
Who doesn't love winning a prize? Think of a time you went to a carnival or event where prizes were abundant and all you had to do was outsmart or out-skill the challenge before you to get the coveted item being offered.
The same principle applies to the emerging phenomenon of Prize Philanthropy, with one major exception: the prize being offered — usually in the form of a huge monetary payout — is not there solely as its own reward. Rather, it's there to stimulate participants to invent or discover new tools, medicines, technology, and theories on how to better society at large.
The X-factor
Likely the most well-known of all the prizes out there right now is the X-Prize. Administered by the U.S.-based foundation of the same name, there are numerous X-prizes out there (each one worth $10 million USD) being offered for various projects which run the gamut from innovations in outer space exploration all the way to the inner-space of genomics.
The foundation describes itself as "an educational nonprofit organization whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity thereby inspiring the formation of new industries, jobs, and the revitalization of markets that are currently stuck." And it further bills its prizes as effective ways to "create hope and inspiration; the day a prize is launched the question changes from "Can it be done?" to "When will it happen?"
There is a Canadian X-Prize division as well, but it too is an arm of the parent US foundation. (In fact, Canada's Prize Philanthropy "sector" — if one could call it that — is still relatively young and unknown. According to a spokesperson at Imagine Canada, it's an area that the organization is only "slightly aware of" and that it hasn't "looked into at any depth.")
But while Prize Philanthropy of this nature and magnitude sounds exciting and lets people dream of solving many of the world's problems, it's not necessarily a tool every organization can or should contemplate. However, it is something many philanthropists are looking at with more seriousness than ever before.
The McKinsey Report
Last year, McKinsey and Company released its report on the status of Prize Philanthropy. Titled "And the winner is…" Capturing the Promise of Philanthropic Prizes, the report drew on research and interviews with numerous experts as well as academic literature to find out why exactly Prize Philanthropy — which has been around for more than a century — is now experiencing what they call a "renaissance."
The report's executive summary states that "our research found that prizes are a unique and powerful tool that should be in the basic toolkit of many of today's philanthropists." It asserts that the re-emergence of prizes is mostly due to a "new appreciation for the multiple ways in which they can produce change: not only by identifying new levels of excellence and by encouraging specific innovations, but also by changing wider perceptions, improving the performance of communities of problem-solvers, building the skills of individuals, and mobilizing new talent or capital. These change drivers give prize sponsors compelling opportunities to use the open, competitive, and media-friendly attributes of prizes to stimulate attention and drive innovation in a highly leveraged and result-focused way."
But it takes some deep pockets to set up and a will to open up one's mission to the world.
The Canadian angle
While Canada isn't exactly a hub of Prize Philanthropy right now, Malcolm Burrows, head of the Philanthropic Advisory Services for the Scotia Private Client Group, says there are many prizes out there being administered or funded by Canadian groups and individuals, though Prize Philanthropy in Canada is not a huge phenomenon just yet.
"Prizes have been around for a long time, but for the last five to 10 years, it's been centered around the X-Prize. Prizes of this nature are set up to be a catalyst for changing behaviour...to source resources and focus minds, essentially," he says. However, Burrows notes there is also a "long tradition" of Prize Philanthropy in Canada, though these fall into another category.
"They're recognitions of achievement. The classic ones are little known, but have international status. One example is the Fields Medal — J.C. Fields was a Canadian mathematician and endowed a prize in mathematics for young mathematicians — it's awarded through the International Mathematical Union but is still funded out of Canada," Burrows points out.
[As a point of interest, Burrows adds that the movies Good Will Hunting and A Beautiful Mind both referenced and/or were based on this Canadian incentive prize.]
Another Canadian-based, international prize is the Gairdner Award for biomedical science, which according to Burrows is considered as a kind of gateway award to the Nobel Prize of the same category.
Other prizes in Canada include the Griffin Poetry Prize, which is the world's biggest prize — $50,000 — for a first edition single collection of poetry written in English, according to the Griffin Trust website; and the $25,000 ScotiaBank Giller Prize, which recognizes "excellence" in Canadian fiction.
Asked whether he thought there was a significant difference between prizes such as the Giller, Griffin and those of the X-Prize order of magnitude, Burrows said he considered all of them on equal conceptual footing.
"...all of them are within the charitable context. Prizes are considered to be charitable activities." |
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"Because all of them are within the charitable context. Prizes are considered to be charitable activities," he says, cautioning that though the X-Prize has had some success and has "excited" a lot of people so far, it isn't the model that's being widely adopted for Prize Philanthropy.
Foundations and philanthropists are tending more towards "private" prizes with a particular focus or goal. "These can be very productive, because what the [philanthropist] has done is researched the right tipping point topic. Meaning it's something that may be a big-stretch, but still achievable as opposed to more vague, ill-defined prizes like the John Templeton Prize [for affirming life's spiritual dimension]," Burrows says.
[NOTE: The John Templeton Foundation suggested and funded the McKinsey report.]
Wherefore Prize Philanthropy in Canada?
Asked why Prize Philanthropy or methodology seems less present in Canada, Burrows said it's because the country lacks a critical population mass and many charities and foundations can't or won't reach beyond their own missions.
"This addresses the issue of the private-public divide. A private philanthropist would come along and focus on a tipping point roadblock and say 'If we could only break through this blockage...what's going to incent the most number of labs and researchers to do it?' But a large public foundation, like a hospital foundation, even with a very strong research base, has a primary mission to support their own. They can't throw a prize open as much as it needs to be in order for it to work" the same way the above-mentioned prizes work on an international scale, he says.
Burrows says that only in a "handful" of cases do prizes work as an effective tool for catalytic societal change and progress. "Only if the right goal has been focused on...something that has frustrated the field of inquiry but is still achievable within four to five years. It needs to be a broad base, probably beyond even a single country."
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Burrows counsels that something like an X-Prize needs to be thrown out to the world. "Canada alone would be too small a pool" for the kind of engagement necessary to achieve the goals set out by that type of prize.
"One of the key aspects to catalytic Prize Philanthropy is that it can't only focus on a narrow pool. This speaks to the Canadian charity environment — you're less likely to see Canadian public charities having prizes because we don't have big enough activity in any particular area of inquiry" simply due to demographics.
"At this point, I don't see a huge explosion in Prize Philanthropy in Canada. But if it's coming, it'll be from private philanthropists as opposed to public institutions."
Keep it simple and doable
The McKinsey report supports Burrows' assessments above, stating: "Designing and delivering successful prizes is hard work, but a number of promising practices have begun to emerge. First of all, prizes are best used when a philanthropist can match a clear goal with a relatively large number of potential solvers who are willing to absorb some risk, criteria that cover a range of common philanthropic challenges. Then, good prizes will start with a clearly-defined aspiration for societal benefit, which can be translated into specific prize objectives that are significant, motivational, actionable, results-focused, and time-bound."
For the time being, it would seem Prize Philanthropy will succeed or fail in this new renaissance phase based solely on how many private philanthropists are out there with deep enough pockets to motivate innovation and change.
Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf is president of WordLaunch professional writing services in Toronto. He can be reached at andy@wordlaunch.com.
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