Young philanthropic leaders from Gulf families arrived in Athens in early February for an immersion most wouldn’t choose voluntarily: four days inside Greece’s humanitarian infrastructure, witnessing operations that have supported more than 305,000 displaced people since 2020.
The Pearl Initiative orchestrated the trip alongside the Shefa Fund and the International Organization for Migration. No conference rooms. No PowerPoint decks. Instead, participants visited Reception and Identification Services facilities, Safe Zones for unaccompanied children, and health centres where migration’s human cost plays out daily.
It’s governance training with a difference.
Rather than lectures on accountability frameworks, the next-generation heirs toured operational sites across Greece, observing coordination mechanisms and decision-making structures that underpin humanitarian delivery. The goal: embed governance principles into their future giving decisions before they inherit control of family philanthropic vehicles.
Dana Juffali and Haya Juffali, board members at the Shefa Fund, framed the approach as necessary evolution. “At the Shefa Fund, we believe philanthropy is not only about providing resources, but about cultivating compassion, responsibility, and a lifelong commitment to service,” they stated jointly. “The Next Gen Learning Trip reflects our focus on partnership, learning, and community-led impact by engaging young leaders directly with the organizations and communities they support. We are especially excited to be here in Greece, learning from and alongside inspiring local partners.”
The numbers justify the focus. According to the latest UN statistics, 305 million people required urgent aid in 2025 as conflict and climate-related disasters escalated. Greece has become a focal point for European migration flows, with IOM alone supporting 305,259 beneficiaries since 2020.
That scale demands more than traditional cheque-writing philanthropy.
Mohammed Abdiker, IOM’s Chief of Staff, argued that field exposure changes how donors think. “Responsible philanthropy starts with listening to communities and understanding their rights and priorities,” he said. “When leaders see operations first-hand and engage directly with the people affected, support becomes more accountable, more targeted and more effective in protecting dignity and delivering lasting results.”
The learning trip represents a broader shift in how Gulf philanthropy is being structured for the next generation. Where previous approaches often emphasised personal connections and reactive giving, newer programmes stress governance frameworks, accountability mechanisms, and strategic partnerships.
Participants worked closely with the Pearl Initiative’s Governance in Philanthropy Programme team throughout the four days. Guided discussions and facilitated workshops translated field observations into practical frameworks—tools designed to help them ask sharper questions, select partners more rigorously, and measure impact more systematically when they begin directing family foundations.
Ralph Choueiri, Pearl Initiative’s executive director, positioned the Athens trip as antidote to abstract philanthropy. “This learning trip was about grounding philanthropy in reality,” he explained. “Through our Governance in Philanthropy Programme, participants gained a deeper understanding of humanitarian operations and experienced first-hand how governance, accountability and strategic partnerships should be embedded into future decision-making to achieve sustainable, long-term outcomes.”
The programme didn’t just focus on operational visits. Peer exchange among participants reinforced collaboration as a core principle—moving Gulf philanthropy away from siloed family giving toward shared learning and coordinated action.
For Pearl Initiative, the trip forms part of efforts launched since its 2010 founding to promote transparency and accountability across Gulf business and philanthropic sectors. The organisation holds special consultative status from the UN Economic and Social Council, positioning it uniquely to bridge Gulf capital with international humanitarian operations.
The Athens agenda deliberately emphasised long-term thinking over reactive aid. Participants explored how clear governance structures strengthen outcomes across years rather than funding cycles, and how accountability frameworks build trust with communities rather than creating dependency.
Whether field exposure translates into measurably different giving patterns remains to be seen. The participants will eventually control philanthropic vehicles worth millions, potentially billions. How they deploy that capital—and whether governance principles observed in Athens shape those decisions—will become apparent over the next decade.
What’s already clear is the appetite among next-gen Gulf leaders for hands-on learning. Rather than inheriting giving strategies unchanged from previous generations, they’re seeking direct engagement with the challenges their philanthropy aims to address.
By week’s end, the group had visited multiple sites across Greece, witnessing migration realities that rarely penetrate Gulf boardrooms. The facilities they toured operate daily under resource constraints, coordination challenges, and political pressures that make accountability essential rather than optional.
The Pearl Initiative structured the trip to convert those observations into frameworks participants can apply when they return home. The organisation runs programmes spanning anti-corruption best practices, diversity in business leadership, and governance across family firms, MSMEs, and technology sectors—all aimed at raising corporate culture standards across the Gulf.
This Athens immersion added humanitarian operations to that curriculum. For participants, the exposure offered something philanthropic case studies cannot: the operational complexity of delivering aid at scale, the coordination required across agencies and governments, and the governance structures that separate effective programmes from well-intentioned failures.
Greece’s role in European migration has made it a testing ground for humanitarian response. The country manages ongoing arrivals while supporting long-term integration of displaced populations—a dual mandate that requires sustained funding, clear accountability, and strategic thinking from donors.
That’s precisely the skillset Pearl Initiative aims to develop in next-gen Gulf philanthropists. The Athens trip equipped them with direct knowledge of how humanitarian operations function, what governance mechanisms matter most, and where philanthropic capital can generate the greatest impact.
For IOM and organisations like it, engaging future Gulf donors early shapes how the next wave of philanthropic funding flows. Better-informed donors ask better questions, demand clearer accountability, and build longer-term partnerships—outcomes that benefit humanitarian operations and the communities they serve.
The question now is whether other Gulf philanthropic networks will adopt similar immersive approaches, or whether Pearl Initiative’s model remains the exception rather than the template.