Philanthropic behaviour, the ensemble of generous actions promoting social good, plays a critical role in providing support and resources in times of crisis. Given the complexity of the ecosystems in which philanthropic organizations operate, being as funders of projects or as beneficiaries of funds supporting their actions, it is paramount that these organizations acquire the knowledge and tools enabling them to extrapolate information from data to guide their strategies.

The three-hour event Data-Driven Philanthropy, hosted by Edmond de Rothschild Foundations Chair in Behavioural Philanthropy, was divided into two parts: a seminar on data-driven philanthropy and a workshop on how to use large language models to support the philanthropic work.

The aim of the seminar was to demonstrate the potential of data science for philanthropy using the case study of Swiss Solidarity donors’ data, illustrating how patterns in donor contributions can prove crucial to inform charitable organizations’ approaches to their supporters. In addition, the objective of the hands-on workshop was to understand how tools such as ChatGPT, OpenAssistant, and many others, that are entering our everyday life can be efficiently used and for which purposes. Participants learnt more about key data-science skills, useful for both grant-making foundations and operations entities.