The unconventional approaches Silicon Valley Bank adopted in the early years challenged banking culture. SVB transformed into one of the largest fifteen banks in the United States by serving exclusively tech companies in innovation centers across the nation.1 SVB was the startup, cheerleader, and connector to and for its clients in the tech sector.

Bob Medearis, Roger Smith, and Bill Biggerstaff founded Silicon Valley Bank in 1983. Smith ran the Bank as a startup business in the first decade. Subsequent CEO John Dean restructured the Bank and Ken Wilcox redirected the Bank with a central focus on exclusively serving the tech community. Greg Becker accelerated the Bank, connecting its past to the future. The bank’s assets grew at a fast pace during the pandemic. Becker tripled the size of the bank between 2019 and 2022.

While there have always been high levels of philanthropic giving in the Global South, the urgency and unexpectedness of COVID-19 transformed the parameters within which philanthropy operates. Reimagining Philanthropy in the Global South examines how newer models of philanthropy are tackling development challenges, including poverty, inequality, and access to health care and education, and questions how organisations are coping with structural changes in donor-driven philanthropy; how changes in traditional grant-making are impacting the imperatives of recipient organisations; and how indigenous philanthropy is making a difference. The chapters provide frank assessments of the priorities, challenges, and opportunities of emerging market philanthropy, and the lessons learned from the pandemic. The authors highlight the deeper issues at play, as well as offering ideas and positive examples of how diverse stakeholders are coming together to solve social challenges in creative and practical ways. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Roger Smith and his bankers from Wells Fargo’s Special Industries Group brought their experience in tech lending to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). According to Smith, Bank of America (BOA) was the first bank to take warrants for the right to purchase shares as part of the loan cost that they charged tech companies who were backed by Venture Capitalists (VCs) in Silicon Valley’s early days. After both Bank of America and Wells Fargo exited tech lending, SVB became the sought-after bank for lending to tech companies. SVB perfected its tech lending practice to startups that were VC-funded entities. This practice would later be called venture lending, venture loans, or venture debts in the United States and overseas.1

A myth started several years ago and still floats around concerning the origin of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The myth goes that the idea of the Bank popped up at a poker game where important men in the Valley got together during one of their outings to play their favorite game. Like a good poker game, the story was told with a straight face. And, as in any good poker game, someone is bluffing. A bluff is a hand that is not the best hand but possesses the power to induce at least one opponent with a better hand to fold first. The poker game origin of SVB is a good bluff perpetuated by SVB’s video clips posted on YouTube.1

This chapter explores philanthropic partnership best practices in the post-COVID-19 world and provides insights and practical tools to identify and effectively advocate for partnerships. Historically, the philanthropic sector in the Global South has been largely siloed, with only a few foundations working together and even fewer engaged in multi-sectoral collaborations. In the case of public-private partnerships, one often hears sentiments like ‘governments are bureaucratic and they will slow us down’ or ‘businesses don’t really care about social impact projects’. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed that such silos created many of the systemic issues philanthropic foundations now face. The COVID-19 crisis will have a profound impact on philanthropy through forging more active collaboration and ensuring more equitable responses. As multiple sector experts have pointed out, the scale and the urgency of the pandemic have prompted philanthropists to engage in more active collaboration, not only with businesses and government but also with each other. This chapter shares the key elements of a successful partnership from coordinated planning to clear identification of the problem that needs to be solved. It shares ideas around the collaborative definition of success, how to measure social-impact performance, and how to align interests, values, and goals. The chapter argues that there is a critical need for clear roles and responsibilities such that each stakeholder’s strengths can be leveraged, and it emphasises the importance of transparency and continuous communication.

This chapter show how throughout millennia, philanthropy has served as a catalyst for change and as a vehicle for community transformation. While COVID-19 has forced philanthropists worldwide to take immediate action and mobilise billions of dollars to save lives, African philanthropy and the culture of ‘giving’ are not new phenomena but are ingrained in the fabric of African societies. Before the arrival of colonialism, aid agencies and development partners, grassroots philanthropists and associations mobilised resources to address development issues. Within this context, the chapter focuses on the role of multi-sector partnerships in Africa and how they arose out of the crisis of the pandemic to drive the efficiency of vital collaborations between the African Union (AU), local governments, and the private sector. It shows how these partnerships helped the continent curb the pandemic and prevented the massive spread of infections. This chapter highlights the uniqueness and significance of these partnerships at the local and continental levels and identifies some of the core values underpinning them. The chapter also explores the importance and the impact of the AU’s strategic leadership and multi-sectoral partnerships in advancing the continent’s health and economic agenda while deconstructing some of the inherent challenges that were faced when trying to scale these alliances in Africa.

The Black Lives Matter movement and the pandemic propelled many financial institutions, including banks, to adopt Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles. Banks disclosed their metrics in various reports showing that they were somewhat implementing efforts to address ESG in their business, operations, and management.

This chapter describes the initiative launched by YTL Foundation at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to address remote learning during lockdown and school closure in Malaysia. It discusses the context of the Malaysian education system at the time and the challenges faced by teachers, parents, and students to ensure continuity in learning from home. Malaysia is a young nation and one that is seeking to establish itself as an example of a dynamic melting pot of Asian cultures that has grown out of its colonial past and embraced the global economy. As the wealth of the country has increased, there has been a growing awareness since the early 2010s that investment in a vibrant social sector is necessary to address the inequalities that often accompany rapid economic growth. This chapter showcases the solution developed for education that comprised providing smartphones, data, and learning resources that are delivered through partnerships to create a solution for low-income students. This solution was rolled out through partnership with the government, thereby demonstrating how such philanthropic interventions can be scaled up exponentially. The uniqueness of the solution in engaging parents is highlighted as an important feature. The chapter concludes by exploring some of the early measurable impact on the community and discusses the elements necessary for building resilience into the Malaysian education ecosystem in a future where hybrid education will be the norm.

This chapter examines current philanthropic trends in emerging economies, exploring the extent to which philanthropists in these settings are investing in resilience and how they are doing so. Three dimensions are considered: what philanthropists invest in, how they invest, and with whom they invest. The state of emerging economy philanthropy, both pre-COVID and in the wake of the pandemic, is discussed, and frameworks and considerations for understanding resilience in philanthropy are set forth. Resilience is understood as having sufficient stability within a system to protect communities – particularly the most vulnerable – and services from deep shocks. The COVID-19 pandemic has sent deep shockwaves through global and local economies, health-care and education systems, and into personal homes and lives. While the shock was universal, the impact and its long-term implications have been felt and will linger much longer for the most vulnerable countries, communities, and individuals. In emerging economies around the world, the pandemic has set back hard-fought progress in economic development and social equity. This system encompasses not only government, but also civil society, including philanthropy. The chapter presents case studies of philanthropic organisations in Brazil, India, and Saudi Arabia whose investments reflect dimensions of resilience, and makes the case for investing in resilience in emerging economies, discussing both challenges and opportunities for doing so.