The next generation of conservation

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Two next-gen philanthropists share their unique insights on grant-making and family collaboration, as they juggle fulltime careers with being donors. Here, they explain why transparency and trust lie at the heart of their shared giving journey.

Sisters Lauren Gupta and Becky Holmes have loved being in nature for as long as they can remember. 

Every summer as children they played with their cousins in their grandmother’s garden in the Lake District where they created an elaborate imaginary world teeming with giraffes, rhinos and elephants.

“It was really just a field full of sticks, but we’d go outside after breakfast and pretend we were feeding the animals in our nature reserve until our mum called us in for tea,” Lauren remembers. “We played that game until we were far too old.”

Other holidays were spent amid nature by the sea in North Berwick on the east coast of Scotland.

But even as children, the sisters recognised the potential threats encroaching on the natural world. “Not long ago I found a picture that I’d drawn of my grandmother’s garden when I was about seven or eight,” says Becky, who now works in conservation. 

“Underneath, in my childish scrawl, I’d written about poaching and the dangers animals face. I’m not even sure how I knew what poaching was at that age.”

Respecting the beauty of nature

More than 20 years later, this fantasy safari landscape has inspired the very real Helvellyn Foundation of which Becky and Lauren are trustees. Set up with their entrepreneur father Bill in 2020, the foundation is an independent grant-making organisation with a ‘vision to live in a world where nature is thriving and everyone cares for it’. 

“I think some people take nature for granted and don’t value it on a day-to-day basis, but it is beautiful and should be respected,” says Lauren, who works for a social enterprise charity bringing young people and businesses together. 

To help raise awareness of the beauty and value of nature, Helvellyn focuses on seven core areas: advocacy and policy change, business and the natural world, awareness and behaviour change, frontline community engagement, species at risk, landscape level conservation and data collection and analysis. 

Underpinning the foundation’s values is a profound awareness that it is often those in developing countries who suffer most through climate change¹ and biodiversity loss.

This can be particularly confronting in the typically white-centric² conservation movement.

In fact, this understanding of the need for greater diversity in philanthropy, as well as an appreciation of their privilege as inheritors, has been a key factor in how the sisters engage with their charity partners.

Two-way partnerships

Operating through what they describe as ‘relationship-based’ philanthropy, Becky and Lauren are keen to build open dialogues with the organisations they fund.

“We don’t want to have a barrier between us as the funders and the charities as the beneficiaries. One of the main things we do is to ask the charities what they need from us,” says Becky. As well as donating money, this support could involve writing references, hosting webinars or helping partners to apply for other sources of funding. 

Transparency, the sisters believe, is key when collaborating with charities. At the start of any potential relationship, the foundation reaches out with a clear offer of the amount it can provide as a grant, as well as outlining the non-financial support available. 

Helvellyn also publishes all its grants on its website and will keep partners updated if it makes any changes to its approach.

Empowering the experts

Unrestricted funding is also important. When making a grant, the foundation doesn’t believe in telling their partners what to do with that money. They let their beneficiaries – whom they view as the real experts – determine how to do most good with those funds.

Also key to Helvellyn’s philosophy is the idea that charities shouldn’t be consumed with overly onerous bureaucracy, which (if removed) can free up time to focus on the conservation work they were designed to do. 

Rather than having lengthy application processes, Helvellyn’s website has a ‘tell us about you’ form, which takes just a couple of minutes to complete. The sisters will also discover organisations that could be a good fit as partners through their own research and networks.

A different approach to philanthropy

At this stage, the foundation will also carry out its own due diligence by reviewing a potential partner’s most recent reporting and the leadership experience of key individuals. 

If an organisation passes this due diligence, the foundation sets up an introductory call, usually lasting around 45 minutes. 

Rather than requiring charities to complete time-consuming annual reports, the sisters hold quick catch-up calls with their partners.

This isn’t how philanthropy has traditionally been done.

A family tree

As the junior members of a family foundation, Lauren and Becky unsurprisingly receive a great deal of attention as next-generation philanthropists. And their age certainly brings different perspectives. “We have a real sense of urgency that something needs to be done,” says Lauren.

“The other point about being next-gen is that we’re the ones who are going to have to live with the consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss. It’s just a numbers game.”

But the narrative is more nuanced than the next generation educating their out-of-touch predecessors. “More than 50% of the people we turn to for advice with our philanthropy are from our parents’ generation, and they care immensely about these issues – at least as much as we do.” 

One of those people the sisters turn to is their father, Bill. As well as being a trustee of the foundation, he is an enthusiastic nature lover and has walked trails such as Kilimanjaro, Toubkal and Kinabalu. 

Indeed, it was his childhood retreats to the Lake District with his botany-loving mother that inspired the name ‘Helvellyn’ in reverence to one of the region’s highest peaks.

The entrepreneurial spirit

Having founded a global business services company more than 30 years ago, Bill’s experience is invaluable when it comes to business mentoring – another type of support that Helvellyn offers its beneficiaries.

The sisters recall working with a partner in crisis who asked if he could speak to their father following the departure of a key member of staff. “Dad gave very frank, straightforward advice and the partner made significant changes to how he ran the organisation,” says Lauren.

“Because dad has that cut-throat business sense, he doesn’t sugarcoat anything. At the time, the partner said it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to hear but has since gone back to dad and thanked him.” 

Running a three-person foundation can bring complicated dynamics. “Becky and I are really lucky because we’re so aligned in our views,” says Lauren. “If I’m having a conversation, I know that I pretty much speak for both of us, which isn’t the case in a lot of families.”

A diverse mix of skills

Nevertheless, the sisters bring different attributes to their philanthropy. Throughout her career – first as an educator and then gaining an MBA from Esade Business School – Lauren has specialised in data and impact, strategy and ethics. With a BA in Graphic & Communication Design, Becky has created Helvellyn’s website. 

As the Head of Conservation at Langland Conservation, Becky’s current role involves providing intelligence support to prevent poaching and the illegal wildlife trade in countries such as Africa.

“This allows me to understand more about the issues that our potential grantees are facing and also identify areas of conservation that potentially need funding but may be underrepresented,” she says. 

‘Any money going to charity is a good thing’

As their father has a flair for numbers, he brings a different approach to the foundation. To accommodate his business-driven mindset, the sisters make sure that they get the numbers right whenever they approach their father about a major decision on the foundation’s future.

“It’s taken us a while to get there, but I think it works,” says Becky. “There was a time a few years ago when we’d perhaps become overly passionate about these causes, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but conversations with dad have helped us take a more balanced view.”

Ultimately, the sisters are grateful that their father has given them his backing to pursue their passion for conservation. “We recognise that it’s his money he has invested. Whatever decisions we make as a foundation, any money going to charity is a good thing.”

Helping to retain people’s livelihoods

For Lauren and Becky, one of their most joyful experiences in philanthropy came from their work with The Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust, which had previously had to reduce staff due to temporary shortfalls in funding.  

Through an unrestricted grant from The Helvellyn Foundation, the charity was able to retain five of its existing employees while it waited for other planned grants to come in.

“These are people’s livelihoods,” says Lauren. “But a gap in funding of just one month can mean that a person might have to leave their job and the charity may need to recruit again shortly after. Being able to help prevent that is really impactful.”

Describing themselves as ‘wealth holders in waiting’, the sisters feel immense responsibility to be good stewards of that wealth, but that doesn’t mean increasing their personal fortunes any further. “Once you’ve figured out how much you need for the rest of your life, you don’t necessarily have to grow your wealth,” says Lauren.

Characteristically, her sister agrees. “Being able to give money to charity is an enormous privilege,” says Becky. “The majority of people can’t sit back and consider how they’re going to help the world, but we’re very lucky to have all our basic needs met.” 

‘If you care, just do it’

If the sisters had one piece of advice for those wishing to get involved in philanthropy, it would be that giving doesn’t need to take up all of your time, pointing out that both the sisters and their father maintain full-time careers outside of Helvellyn.

As Lauren says: “To start giving isn’t a difficult thing. You don’t have to have a foundation to give money to charity. If you care, just do it.

“Dad always told us that he doesn’t want what he did with his life to affect what we do with ours. We’re not doing any of this because we have to. We’re doing it because we want to.” 

Image credit: Lauren Gupta and Becky Holmes