Irish businesswoman Livian Mallon is one of those behind a major new report on international philanthropy. She talked to Mark Hennessy, Political Reporter, in MexicoCity
Always searching for new trends, world-ranking business leaders, including Microsoft's Bill Gates, will gather next week in Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum where they will hear a report on plans to shake up the often-hidden world of international philanthropy.
An Irish businesswoman, Liavan Mallon - who just 12 years ago was knocking on doors in Dublin selling Christmas hampers - has led the work on the major report.
One of the three co-founders of Celtic Hampers, Mallon (38) has, since 2000, been a member of one of the world's most elite, if little-known, clubs - the 100-strong Global Leaders of Tomorrow, selected by the forum.
"I was a little intimidated to be asked. But it was a great honour to have been appointed so maybe intimidated is the wrong word. It has allowed me to network with people that I would never have otherwise met and to experience issues that I would never have experienced otherwise. It is a huge thing.
"You're nominated for this by somebody and you don't get told who nominated you. How much time have I spent on it? More than I would have anticipated when I first started out, but it isn't a full-time occupation." In addition, she was part of this week's Irish Trade Mission to Mexico.
The 70-page report, which has drawn deeply from international experts, will propose new rules to ensure that the billions donated annually by philanthropists around the world are put to the best use. One of its main objectives is to pull all the information out there together so that donors can start asking the right questions and, similarly, non-governmental organisations can develop best practices. "Clearly, a big NGO will need a different set of rules to a small NGO, who, in turn, will require a totally different system to the one needed by an individual philanthropist who wants to create social change in New York," she said.
Currently charities and NGOs often operate less than transparently, despite demanding that standard of others. "You can't often go and check their balance sheet, like you would do with a public company," she says.
Since Celtic Hampers was sold for an undisclosed sum in 1998 to Great Universal Stores, which runs the Family Album mail order company, Mallon has branched out into property development and Internet software.
However, the work on the philanthropic report has not been a distraction: "I am definitely not a do-gooder. Everybody has a natural desire to contribute and to do things that are meaningful. "This is a very hot topic because there is a huge discussion right now on how you measure philanthropy," says Mallon, who met with a number of philanthropic organisations during her Mexican visit.
One agency, Compartonos, set up with just $70,000, caught her eye: "It gives out micro-credit loans, often as low as $200, to individual traders to try to stimulate the economy. It is now a profitable company. It has been incredibly effective, enabling people who don't have bank accounts, who don't have bank loans, who don't have credit cards to become self-sufficient," she says.
Despite her philanthropic interests, Mallon remains a hard-headed businesswoman, and proud of the success she made of Celtic Hampers with her partners, Tony Hickey and Edward Redmond.
"We started with about €6,000. At the time it was really difficult to get loans. Effectively, we started with nothing. We printed sheets of A4 paper describing our range of hampers and started knocking on doors.
"We knocked on 6,000 doors. We had 5,940 refusals in year one. It wasn't a good year. But the 60 grew into 600 and it kept doubling after that. We had three agents. More and more people wanted to join us.
"Because people were paying us in advance, before delivery, we were able to finance the company's growth. Eventually, we got a £10,000 \ loan. That was the only debt we took on." Along the way, Celtic Hampers bought out its main competitor, Harvest Hampers, though both subsequently operated independently: "We delivered about 450,000 packages a year in the end. We had about 200,000 customers," she said.
After graduating in 1985 with a computer degree, the Dubliner joined the Irish Productivity Centre, which was being encouraged by the then Minister of State for Womens' Affairs, Nuala Fennell to help women to start up businesses.
"I never saw myself as a techie. I suppose that I was always interested in business. I came across a lot of women who were doing it and I said, 'This is a lot of fun'," she says.
After the sale of Celtic Hampers, Mallon began to buy retail and residential property in Prague in the belief that European Union membership would increase property prices.
In addition, she is one of the principles in collectoronline.com, which offers customers a place to sell wares of all kinds on high-traffic websites, including ebay.com. "If you are an antique dealer and you want to sell online, we help to customise your storefront. If you were on the Internet on your own, you would be lost," she says.
The technology has also been sold to AOL. "They want to encourage users to sell online. And they use our platform to do it. It is very complex. If it were easy, AOL would do it themselves. They wouldn't licence the technology from us."
Despite Ireland's recent success, Mallon, who now divides her time between Dublin and the US, believes more must be done to encourage a spirit of entrepreneurship.
"We don't look upon business people in the way that we should. It isn't something that the Government or the financial sector can do on their own. It is financial, but it is also cultural. We have to change the attitudes.
"In the US, successful businesspeople are regarded as being a success in their own right. In Ireland, writers are heroes, people working for social good are heroes. Politicians are heroes, or at least some of them are for a time anyway. Maybe I am pushing the last one. But businesspeople are not seen as heroes. That clearly affects attitudes."