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A paper with concise texts and extensive footnotes is not amenable to an integrating condensation or preĢcis as an Executive Summary. Therefore, to assist readers with little time, this page offers a synopsis of key areas of substance and their sectional location allowing more directed access for those with specific interests.The pages which follow establish the scholarly foundation of new academic chair with practical intentions that a business school is meant to provide. The Chair is devoted to a topic – African Philanthropy, not philanthropy in Africa - which is seriously under-researched, poorly or prejudicially understood as 'traditional' and anti-modern as well as developmentally under-appreciated. These conditions are overlain with external vocabularies and meanings which are not adequately emanating from the continent's history and lived experience of deeply rooted pro-social behaviour of giving or 'gifting'. Hence, missing in today's discourse is a deep understanding of African Philanthropy in its own right with what it can tell us about better ways to tackle the continents many problems by building on its inherent potentials. Establishing such an 'operational' narrative is one purpose of the joint initiative between the Wits Business School and the Southern Africa trust; a story which must have relevance and traction in the lives of Africa's people.A theoretical framework in section two introduces a complexity view of social, cultural economic, political, linguistic and other processes leading to a contemporary African landscape where gifting is expressed through three institutionalised gifting practices: endogenous, exogenous and blended. An ontological approach explains this long pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial trajectory, concentrating on a period starting around the beginning of this millennium. Readers most interested in this era could start looking at Section five. When doing so, please note that section three draws attention in to the power of words. To be ontologically coherent, new narratives often require suitable nomenclatures, in this case a choice of 'gifting' rather than 'giving' or of 'philanthropy' – understood as a practice within gifting - which is a poorly translatable term and concept in an African languages and moral philosophy of ubuntu. From a communications point of view, the choice for a distinctive terminology will continually call for justification and explanation until recognition of its narrative value for comprehending Africa's story in its own right.Since the start of the millennium, practices of gifting by and on the continent are undergoing rapid changes inviting excitement at their innovation and concern about their effects in, for example, areas of public policy, rights, universal access to public services and democratic governance. Discussing these and similar issues can be found in section six which is followed by a detailed review of local resource mobilization from private sources for public benefit derived from within the continent and its Diaspora. Across the three institutional types, uncertain but indicative estimates of their monetary value are in the order of US$ 55 – 85 billion per annum. Including the non-monetary and non-material value of gifting could take this (much) higher. Counting foreign aid, both official and private, would add the monetary by almost the same amount again.1 A planned concentration on local resource mobilisation in African gifting will contribute to reducing dependency on an aid system not known for its reliability.The concluding section seven switches focus to various issues of embedding the Chair of African philanthropy at the Wits Business School. Many ideas and content are inspired by participants at a pan- African inaugural seminar held in March 2016. This event has helped to create a 10 year profile and value preposition for the Chair at WBS in terms, for example, of the latter's Vision 2022, with guiding principles of excellence, a research-intensive agenda, a deeper business reading of African countries, transformation and more. With a tentative implementation schedule, these and other contributions must translate into a viable business model, a task which lies ahead.
This report "Form and Function" reflects the research undertaken into the governance, financial management and grantmaking practice of twenty one South African philanthropic foundations during the course of 2015. This report was to assist existing foundations as well as emerging entities to benchmark their practice. Based on an extensive questionnaire, interviews were done with 21 foundations through their representatives including foundation staff as well as the founders.
Al Mulhem ("Inspirer" in English) provides a theoretical and philosophical as well as practical framework to practitioners, activists and CSOs eager to applying Social Justice and Right based principles in their work and training workshops.
The Rosetta Stone, created in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic era under the reign of King Ptolemy V, is an archaeological gem for history buffs, documenting a decree in three ancient scripts: demotic, hieroglyphics, and ancient Greek. It is credited as the key to understanding the language of the ancient empire. But it was also key to their economics: the Stone was a virtual tax agreement granting mega exemptions to priests, military and other elites, and in the process, shifting the tax burden to the poor and the slaves. Operationalising poverty required governance: it would fall to the priests and other philanthropists to provide carefully managed 'relief' when things became unbearable. The purpose, of course, was maintaining the system rather than changing it.
Since 2004 South Africa has had in place legislation that regulates the responsibilities of business to the transformation of society, and this regulation includes an element that relates to corporate philanthropy.To date, however, very little has been documented about the influence of this legislation on corporate philanthropy. A new research report by Halima Mahomed, A Tangled Web: The Perceived Influence of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Legislation on Corporate Social Investment in South Africa, aims to partially fill this gap. The research explores the perceived influence of the legislation on issues such as the extent, flexibility and approaches to giving; highlights the limitations that arise from the structure and framework of the legislation; and interrogates some of its unintended consequences.As discussions on the feasibility of regulatory mechanisms gain traction in other places, it is hoped that this research will help to raise key issues for consideration and exploration.
This paper will consider the interrelationship between illicit financial flows (IFFs) and philanthropy in the South African and African economies. The objective of this paper is to explore ways in which African philanthropy can support efforts to improve economic governance and reduce IFFs. Illicit flows have been estimated at over US$1.2 trillion globally in 2012, with particularly harmful effects in vulnerable economies and in African extractive economies in particular (Global Integrity Foundation, 2013; UNECA, 2014). The issue is multi-faceted and involves philanthropic organisations at several different levels: firstly as organisations themselves, secondly with regard to the organisations and individuals with which they work, and thirdly, at a broader scale, in terms of their influence, advocacy and campaign efforts aimed at structural change in the macro economy for the benefit and wellbeing of the poor and excluded. The third is important since the scale of funds that philanthropy can provide to ameliorate poverty, inequality, social exclusion and clean environments is currently considerably offset by the amount of resources directed away from the vulnerable due to IFFs and the consequences of the way the global economy is designed and regulated more generally. Ameliorating IFFs requires building cross-issue networks and platforms for advocacy and campaigning; moving to an African philanthropy narrative and funding base; improving internal transparency; while continuously acting to reduce opacity in the giving sector and beyond, in order to build economic justice.
In the Philanthropy & Development in Southern Africa series, three related research papers; on philanthropy and resource governance (Shauna Mottiar), on illicit flows and tax (Khadija Sharife), and on illicit flows and the potential and policy required to change economic structures (Sarah Bracking), all focus on the contemporary and enduring problem of economic injustice in Africa in the context of huge and increasing outflows of illegally transferred wealth. The three papers explore illicit financial flows as both cause and consequence of malign structures of political economy, and then ask what philanthropists can best do about the agenda of illicit flows and economic justice.
Philanthropic practice in the resource extraction sector is significantly under researched and forms the basis for this study. An obvious concern for social justice scholars and development scholars alike is that massive profits accumulated from resource extraction initiatives in Africa are seldom re-invested in the communities directly impacted or even more broadly in the development agendas of countries that house these resources. This paper considers the role of philanthropy in the resource governance debate. It begins by outlining the scope of resource governance and considering understandings of philanthropy. Drawing on preliminary evidence from three (random) examples of resource extraction in Africa, it argues that philanthropic practice has some way to go before reaching its optimal potential and that further research is required to gain more insight into this potential. The paper concludes with a discussion on philanthropy's role in resource governance and incorporates a series of recommendations.
Our first pilot country launch in Kenya of the Post-2015 Partnership Platform for Philanthropy brought together over 80 participants from the philanthropic sector, UN system, civil society, business and government to expand the dialogue toward a more systemic approach to development challenges, exchange and deepen understanding across sectors, glean priorities for data gathering and use, and to sow the seeds for deeper collaboration on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The workshop also provided an opportunity to discuss themes such as financial inclusion and youth employment, education, and women's rights and empowerment.
The aim of the World Giving Index is to provide insight into the scope and nature of giving around the world. In order to ensure that giving is understood in its various forms, the report looks at three aspects of giving behaviour. The questions that lie at the heart of the report are:-Have you done any of the following in the past month?-Donated money to a charity? -Volunteered your time to an organisation?-Helped a stranger, or someone you didn't know who needed help?Fieldwork is conducted by the market research firm, Gallup as part of its World Poll initiative that operates in more than 160 countries.This fifth edition of the World Giving Index presents giving data from across the globe over a five year period (2009-2013). The World Giving Index 2014 includes data from 135 countries across the globe that was collected throughout the calendar year of 2013. A full explanation of the methodology used is included in the appendices.
Over the last few years we have begun to see the emergence of more strategic philanthropy, the growth of formal vehicles for its practice, and the rise of new platforms that reflect African voices. There is also a growing interest to better understand African philanthropy and learn from the experience of African philanthropists so as to achieve greater impact. This research forms part of that effort by providing a pan-African view of a specific group of philanthropists from Africa. It focuses on Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, countries that are in the spotlight due to their respective positions within their regions, their economic status and their levels of giving by the wealthy. However, individuals from countries such as Uganda, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as from the African Diaspora also participated in the study
Framing the Discourse, Advancing the Work Philanthropy at the Nexus of Peace and Social Justice and Arts andCulture is based on Moukhtar Kocache's research and his experience in this field of work; and information gathered through interviews with artists, cultural producers and philanthropy practitioners; and in a convening held in August 2013 in Ontario, Canada.It presents an overview of the relationship between progressive social change work and the arts, explores the role of philanthropy in supporting this work and sets out recommendations for how philanthropy might further its engagement with work at this nexus. The objective of the report is to stimulate further reflection and exchange of lessons and opportunities for inculcating practices in philanthropy for supporting arts and culture work as a means to advance social justice and peace.The process of compiling this report has been a journey and, like all journeys, it has involved changes of perspective and, like some journeys, a revision of ideas. During its course, it has become clear to us that arts and culture are not just a matter of better tools for supporting change; they are often central to personal and social transformation. The arts often reach us -- and influence us - in ways that direct explanation cannot. The call to philanthropy that seeks to support progressive social change is to recognise this transformational power of arts and culture and to engage with it as a holistic strategy.This argument will be presented more extensively in a brief paper (to be published in August 2014) entitled, 'Making the Case for the Arts to Social Justice Funders'.
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