The Network for Social Change

The Network for Social Change is a British self-help group for rich people who aspire to use their resources to make the world a better place. It was founded in 1985 and now has about 60 members so far, but is on the look-out for more. The membership requirements are, first, to have assets of over L250,000, either earned or inherited (excluding the main residence), and, second, to be willing to put a minimum of L2,000 a year into socially or environmentally beneficial causes, not necessarily through the Network for Social Change. The projects which the Network members fund collectively are all sought out by members themselves. Unsolicited applications are not considered.

'To be willing to put a minimum of L2,000 a year into socially or environmentally beneficial causes'

One member says: 'it is a deeply unfair society in which we live, and if you have money in a world where it is unequally distributed you are in a powerful position. However, the responsibility can become too much, and you can get really paralysed by the guilt.'

The twice annual conferences of the whole membership encourage a sharing at many levels and challenge directly the isolation of those with money.

One recently joined member commented: 'My husband and I got involved in Network about seven months after we got the money from the sale of our business, and it helped us to get things into perspective.' She also asks, 'Where else can you talk about your money and not worry about people looking at you sideways?'

Projects that they have funded range from an education centre set up by miners' wives in Yorkshire to a tree nursery in the Cape Verde Islands developing species suitable for drought-stricken Africa, to an Indian project producing artificial limbs that are suited to local cultural conditions.

The Network was inspired by the examples of two United States-based organisations, both of which channel funds from the rich to 'change agents', 'transformational' projects or community-based organisations. They are now giving away millions of dollars compared to the British organisation's L300-350,000, but then as Network Chair, Patrick Boase, comments, 'The scale of the problem is not so large over here!'

Patrick Boase, The Network for Social Change, PO Box 2030, London NW10 5AW.

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