What Does Philanthropy Really Mean? Lord Raj Loomba on Giving Beyond Money

Key takeaways:

• Lord Raj Loomba argues that philanthropy is broader than financial giving: time, emotional support, care and opportunity can all be forms of giving.

• The Loomba Foundation has spent more than two decades combining education, livelihoods, advocacy and research to address the economic and social consequences of widowhood.

• Its education programmes initially supported 100 children in each of India’s 29 states, while later programmes focused on helping widows build independent livelihoods.

• International Widows’ Day, recognised by the UN, demonstrates how a personal experience can become a platform for wider social change.

Philanthropy begins before the cheque.

What comes to mind when we hear the word philanthropy? For many, it is a donation: a foundation grant, a charitable contribution or a cheque written to support a cause.

Lord Raj Loomba offers a much wider definition. “Philanthropy doesn’t mean that you have to give money or, you know, write checks or transfer cash,” he told EdelGive Foundation CEO Ms. Naghma Mulla on Give It A Go. “It also means how you care for others.”

It is a simple idea, but one with significant implications for how we think about giving. If philanthropy is only measured by financial capacity, it can appear to belong primarily to wealthy individuals and institutions. If it is understood as a practice of care and responsibility, it becomes something that can exist at many levels of society.

Loomba’s own philanthropy emerged from personal experience rather than a pre-existing theory of giving. His father died when he was a child, leaving his mother, Ms. Pushpa Wati Loomba, widowed at 37 with seven children. He remembers seeing how quickly her social circumstances changed after her husband’s death, even as she remained determined to educate her children.

That experience stayed with him. Years later, after building a business in Britain, he and his wife, Lady Veena Loomba, established the Loomba Foundation in 1997. What began as a personal response to his mother’s experience became a sustained philanthropic institution working on widowhood through education, livelihoods, advocacy and research.

From relief to agency

The Foundation’s early work focused on children. Its education programme sought to prevent widowhood from triggering another generation of deprivation. The Foundation initially set out to support at least 100 children in each of India’s 29 states, providing direct financial assistance through bank accounts and supporting children for at least five years. The target was achieved within seven years. The approach later moved towards economic empowerment for widows themselves. Training, sewing machines and livelihood support were intended to give women an independent source of income.  That shift reflects an important evolution in development philanthropy: from responding to immediate need towards increasing agency. A family may need financial assistance when income suddenly disappears, but long-term resilience depends on whether the woman can access work, assets, skills, social protection and decision-making power.

The wider context makes this especially important. UN Women reports that more than 258 million women globally are widows. Nearly one in ten lives in extreme poverty, while many face discrimination in inheritance, land ownership, pensions, employment and access to financial resources. The challenge, therefore, is not only helping women cope with loss. It is ensuring that widowhood does not become a permanent sentence of economic and social exclusion.

Giving people freedom is also philanthropy

For Lord Loomba, this understanding of philanthropy extends beyond the Foundation’s programmes. During the conversation, he makes an unexpected reference to Mahatma Gandhi.

“I believe that Gandhi was a philanthropist,” he says. “He got freedom for us and he gave us freedom to choose. He gave us freedom to work. That is philanthropy.”

At its most meaningful, philanthropy can expand another person’s choices. That framing is particularly relevant to social impact organisations and funders. The question is not simply whether an intervention delivers a service, but whether it changes the choices available to people afterwards. Can a woman earn independently? Can her child remain in school? These are questions of agency as much as assistance.

The value of staying with a cause

Lord Loomba’s own philanthropy also illustrates the importance of staying focused. Widowhood is not the most visible or fashionable development issue, yet he has continued to work on it for decades. The Foundation estimates that its programmes have empowered tens of thousands of women and supported more than 10,000 children in India, while its advocacy has helped place widowhood on the international policy agenda.

International Widows’ Day is perhaps the clearest example. Launched by the Foundation in 2005 and unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2010, 23 June has become a global platform for recognising the rights and experiences of widows.

But Loomba’s message is ultimately not about building a large philanthropic institution. It is about changing the way we understand giving. “You don’t have to support her with money,” he says. “You can support her emotionally. Give some time to them. So that they can talk to somebody.”

For a sector accustomed to discussing grants, capital, scale and measurable outcomes, that is a useful reminder. Money remains essential to solving structural problems, but philanthropy also depends on attention — deciding whose problems deserve to be seen, whose voices should be heard and whose dignity should not be negotiable.

Loomba’s definition brings the idea back to its simplest form: giving is not only about what we have to spare. It is also about what we choose to do with what we have.