Patrick Luong is running a breakout session at the IFW Conference taking place at the Bristol Hotel on 23rd May 2023.
Buy your IFW Conference ticket with the special IFW member discount here.
Non-member tickets are available here.
Book your spot at the social & networking evening on 22nd May.
Patrick Luong was an award-winning Chartered and Certified Financial Planner with more than ten years’ experience before turning to the charity sector.
He now advances charitable and philanthropic goals by managing mission-led relationships with YoungMinds’ supporters. In both his professional and personal life, Patrick enjoys conversations about passion, purpose and what’s important to others and connecting people and ideas.
Outside work, Patrick is likely to be running, singing or volunteering. He is a charity trustee, run director for parkrun and a guide runner and has volunteered hundreds of times to help older people and community groups around London.
Patrick will explore the challenges and rewards of philanthropy with delegates at the IFW Conference.
Your key learning points will be:
- How talking about philanthropic giving can help you get to know your clients on a human level
- Understanding the motivations of clients who may want to give, but haven’t allowed themselves to
- A little-known tip about Gift Aid carry back, which may help with tax and cash-flow planning and conversations about philanthropy
I had a chance to chat with Patrick.
What are you looking forward to most about the IFW Conference?
I’m looking forward to meeting people, sharing ideas and learning as individuals and a community. I hope delegates will leave feeling more optimistic, more connected and better equipped to promote financial wellbeing in their clients’ and own lives. I’ve heard good things about the social event, too!
What can delegates expect from your breakout discussion?
I’d like to think delegates will come away with new ways to think about clients’ lives and priorities, financial wellbeing and philanthropy.
There’ll be stories and experiences drawn from financial planning, philanthropy, charity and community; and I hope that making connections between these fields will give delegates new perspectives, tools and insights for planning and conversations.
What are your passions, both in and out of work?
Right now my passions are good food, my gospel choir, gaming, quizzing, running and my portfolio of volunteering. And I’m really into cinnamon buns! Recently, I’ve been working on important projects around anti-racism and getting hands-on with a fundraising gala.
Inside and outside of work, I’m passionate about building authentic relationships and finding out about people’s passions, values and unique qualities.
What prompted you to turn to the charity sector after more than ten years as a chartered and certified Financial Planner?
I volunteered extensively from my early teens until leaving university both in the UK and overseas. These gave me some very special experiences and happy memories.
That took a back seat when I started my financial planning career in London but when I re-discovered volunteering I got back into it in a big way, so much so that I was invited to Parliament, had press mentions here and in New Zealand and was approached about making a documentary. It was all a bit surreal and even beat my love for a good spreadsheet and Lifetime Allowance calculation!
The main thing was turning one of the financial questions on myself and thinking about what I want to be known for. I was in a great place in financial planning and volunteering loads but I couldn’t ignore that yearning to do more.
I was very deliberate in staying in a role built around relationships and getting to know what really matters to people.
How do you go about advancing your clients’ charitable and philanthropic goals?
I draw parallels with financial planning and good relationship management built around the client’s goals, needs and experience. Firstly, knowing why clients are inspired or motivated to support a cause, what they would like to achieve, how they like to be informed and involved, and what information they need to make good decisions.
I use all that to make supporters feel connected and valued, provide updates that interest and inspire them, some “wow” moments and experiences, provide multiple ways to be involved.
Everyone is different. I love to achieve a win-win-win situation of advancing supporters’ philanthropic goals, a charity’s mission and benefiting society, too. And some are motivated by a tax incentive to ensure their giving is even more effective so my old planning experience comes in handy.
What does the word ‘philanthropy’ mean to you?
For me philanthropy is about significant gifts or actions intended to have a longer-term or strategic impact in relation to specific social challenges.
It’s a broad definition because a significant action or impact will be different to different people, charities and local, national or global society. And there are different types of philanthropy and feelings about it.
I’ve worked with supporters who started from modest donations or by sponsoring a JustGiving page, but building a trusted relationship has given them the confidence to increase their giving, open doors and even take steps into activism. Some do come with clear philanthropic goals and big-cheque ambitions from the start, too.
What’s your understanding of financial wellbeing and why it matters?
I’d say it’s about having a healthy relationship with money and connecting money with your values and what’s important in life.
Financial wellbeing could mean being able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, have fun and not worry about running out. Then you may explore how money can relate to other things important to you, such as being able to spend more time with family or in your happy place, how you earn money, giving to others or pursuing purpose, passions and pleasure. .
Who or what is your favourite wellbeing guru, podcast or book?
I enjoy the “How to Fail” podcast with Elizabeth Day. I set myself really high standards and don’t handle failure easily, so it’s a good topic for me and comforting to know that such successful people have failed, too, often in big ways and are willing to be vulnerable in sharing failures, often with humour. It’s also interesting to hear from diverse guests and leaves you feeling connected to that guest and part of a community of listeners and a movement to normalise failure as part of the process of growth and progress.
What are you doing to advance your own financial wellbeing?
I try to promote good financial wellbeing by looking at daily, monthly and annual habits.
I’m generally frugal and flexible with my spending to enable some luxuries, socials and mistakes. I consciously consider how financial wellbeing aligns with and supports other facets of wellbeing.
There’s certainly a financial element to my ikigai (reason for being) and having good financial wellbeing enables me to explore and promote my mental, physical, social and community pillars of wellbeing, too.
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