Les motivations des Next Gen à pratiquer la philanthropie familiale. Analyse exploratoire en Belgique

Abstract

In recent decades, we have seen the rise of family philanthropy in response to current social and societal challenges. We know that philanthropic family foundations are getting more organized and professionalized, but the subject remains little explored by academics, particularly in the Belgian context which is known for its discretion. Furthermore, if family philanthropy is passed down from generation to generation, there is no literature about the Belgian next generation of these wealthy entrepreneurial families, called the “Next Gen”. The objective of this research is to understand the motivations of the Belgian Next Gen to engage in their family philanthropy. The reason for our interest in this issue is that the authors who have studied this generation have identified major differences between these young people and their predecessors and predict potential changes in family philanthropy. We conducted this research to reveal what we believe is the source of these changes: the reasons that drive this generation for their family philanthropy. We also looked at the contextual elements that may have influenced their motivations and their impact. The authors who wrote about this generation show that the Next Gen wants to respect the philanthropic family legacy because it transmitted them strong values such as "give back to society", but they also reveal that their personal values prevail in their approach. On the other hand, the authors characterize this generation as the first to put the creation of social and societal change as priorities in their philanthropic choices. This tension between innovation and respect for family legacy may affect the future of philanthropy. As, today, only a few reports in the practitioner literature provide information on this subject, and this mainly on the American Next Gen, we decided to compare these data with those of the Belgian situation. To do so, firstly, this paper provides an overview of what is family philanthropy and its evolution. Then, it introduces the concept of the “Next Gen” and their characteristics before listing their motivations for engaging in family philanthropy according to the eight mechanisms of Bekkers & Wiepking (2011). Secondly, we conducted a qualitative study by interviewing ten Next Gen from five Belgian family businesses involved in the philanthropic structure of their family.