14th August 2025
Growing up in a family where giving back is expected – a core part of who they are – left Adiva Kalms, our Deputy CEO, with a strong sense of social responsibility. These values, alongside Adiva’s leadership skills, have helped her carve out a successful career – one where she plays to her strengths and empowers others to bring about positive change.
Her knack for bringing people together and championing philanthropy is most definitely helping to shape the future of giving. She’s one to keep watching.
Adiva has been shortlisted for Citywealth Future Leaders Awards 2025 in the Inspirational Individual of the Year category, which recognise outstanding professionals under 40 in the private wealth industry.
What led you to this career in the philanthropy sector, which also incorporates the corporate world, finance, and wealth sectors?
Everything I’ve ever done has been values-driven. From my early grassroots campaigning – looking at how you can use political systems to affect change – to my social research for think tanks. During my MBA, I explored how to create good businesses, move to circular economies, improve corporate social responsibility, and strengthen the charity sector. It’s always been about how we can make things better for communities and for the world.
Why the move to Prism?
Anna is such an inspiring founder. This felt like a natural leadership move if I wanted to have more impact in the philanthropy sector. Working at Prism utilises all my past experiences, allows me to look into surrounding sectors, and see how we can disrupt traditional philanthropic giving models. It’s about creating new ways of giving – to help people give more, and more simply. The organisation’s entrepreneurial spirit, its sense of community, and its focus on solving problems (rather than getting bogged down by them) was a huge draw.
A theme throughout my career is managing projects and driving things forward. To do this, you need to think creatively and encourage others to do the same. Prism the Gift Fund is the perfect platform for this.
What have you been most proud of?
Overseeing Prism the Gift Fund’s 20th anniversary has been hugely rewarding. It’s been an opportunity to get our work in front of more people across a wide range of sectors. By sharing the stories of our Donors Advised Funds and Collective Funds, we’ve highlighted how we’ve supported them to give more, do more, and achieve greater impact – reminding everyone how philanthropy can be simple, straightforward, and tax-efficient, and how easy it can be to leave a lasting legacy.
Global giving has also been a big focus, and something I’ve been working on closely. It’s one of the big challenges in the sector. In response, we’ve built a partnership with The Myriad Alliance and launched our Dual Qualified Fund service. High Net Worth individuals and their wealth are on the move – so we need to ensure our models reflect their needs.
What other big challenges are you helping clients and the team overcome?
Every client’s philanthropic approach is different, so it varies. Some of the cases we’ve been working through recently involve very complex overseas entities that require a significant amount of oversight and compliance input. We want giving to feel straightforward for our clients and their intermediaries, so we think creatively about how to get money where it needs to be.
Other clients are working with complex assets – those complicated by company structures or shares locked in. We’ve worked with them to release some of the funds into a charitable vehicle, which brings tax benefits and can be used for good.
How do you stay motivated when things get tough?
I don’t dwell on things – I just keep moving.
You’ve got to keep the bigger picture in mind and keep striving forwards. I’m a natural problem-solver, so I love tough challenges; they play to my strengths. I try to keep everyone focused on what’s working, and on why we’re doing this.
What do you want others to take from your story and leadership?
You are not alone. It’s not up to you to do everything and solve all the problems. You need to build and lean on relationships and experts. The key is to get people around the table and build connections – find out what motivates them, whether they’re clients, intermediaries, or the team. Understand what drives their agenda, find common ground and anything is possible.
You need to give back – whether that’s in your job or through volunteering. My parents instilled that into me and all my siblings from a very early age. It’s your social responsibility to be a good member of society. As a mother, this legacy is something I want to pass on to my children.
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