Top trends in South African philanthropy

 

 

 

 

Gabrielle Ritchie: Director, The Change Room

12^th July 2016

What are the top trends in South African philanthropy? This is a question that is extremely difficult to answer – so if you have any thoughts or contributions on this very opaque area, please share!

1. Is there a trend amongst high- and ultra high networth individuals to establish institutionalised giving structures? Is there an increase in the number of private philanthropic foundations being established? There is almost no access to stats and data on this, and we don’t have access to tax return information such as is available in the US from which data and trends are determined.
2. Is there an increase in numbers of intra-community support structures such as stokvels and burial societies? Also, some argue strongly that these are indigenous philanthropies, while others argue that while they are key mechanisms for building community cohesion, there is less evidence that such structures are geared toward social change.
3. Are donor-advised funds a thing yet in South Africa? Or are we still limited to the first – and only? – donor-advised fund established by Citadel a few years ago?
4. Are social impact bonds a thing yet? Never mind a trend, is there a growing interest in such social development funding mechanisms? Impact investing – are there any trends in this regard? Are philanthropic foundations with investments actually making mission- and impact-focused investment decisions with their capital?
5. Are existing funders in South Africa becoming more involved in supporting social justice? Are there evident trends in this regard?
6. Is there any remarkably different philanthropy developing in South Africa?

The short answer to all of this is that the levels of research on such topics, while growing, remains limited – and access to information and data about who is investing what on which causes remains sketchy.

If you have answers, thoughts, information,data – share! Knowledge is key to growing philanthropic giving in South Africa, regardless of how you define #philanthropy.

For the latest resources on South African philanthropy – reports, insights, short films, references, links to further information – go to Resourcing Philanthropy at www.resourcingphilanthropy.org.za

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Board members – do you know your organisation, do you know your Board?

Gabrielle Ritchie, Director: The Change Room

30th June 2016

This one is for board members.  It is easy to say “Yes, thanks, I accept nomination to your Board”, but board positions come with a lot of responsibility that many of us may not know about.  Here is a quick quiz for you and your fellow board members – you should at least know the answers to these questions below.  In fact, all organisational staff and board members should know the answers – and there are many more that could be added.

Use these questions to hold a quick quiz with your board and with the organisational staff team:

1. what type of entity is your organisation?
2. what type of document of formation/ founding document does the organisation have? (what is it called)
3. what is the legal governing authority or registration body for your organisation?
4. what other state institutions/ government departments is your organisation accountable to?
5. what other registration documents does your organisation have or need to get?
6. when was the organisation founded?
7. who is the Chair of your board?
8. how many board directors/ members/ trustees do you have?
9. who are they, and what particular skills do they bring to the board?
10. what official registration of directors/ trustees is required, if any?
11. how long is a board member’s term of office in your organisation?  What are the rules on this in terms of the kind of entity?
12.  who was your most recent funder?
13. who are your organisational accountants/ auditors?
14. what is your key responsibility as board member?
15.  when last did the board sign off on a set of audited annual financials?
16. how many paid employees does your organisation have?
17. what is the name of your organisation’s flagship project or core programme?

For information on core governance practice, values and ethics go to www.governance.org.za for South Africa’s Independent Code of Governance for Nonprofit organisations.  For additional tips and information on governance more generally, go to www.nonprofitlawyer.co.za for great resources.

For past blog pieces on governance and whether your board is fit for philanthropy, go to https://philanthropediasa.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/507/

Financial sustainability on a shoestring: possible or not?

 Gabrielle Ritchie, Director: The Change Room

9^th June 2016

A couple of weeks ago I addressed the (long) short list of key factors for NPOs to develop  fundraising fitness.  The thing is … it looks like you have to spend money to make money (ain’t that Rule No. 1, then) – and you really don’t have any of that.

So how do you tackle your organisational sustainability on a shoestring?  Surely being financially constrained doesn’t mean a non-profit dead end?  The good news is, it definitely does not mean a dead end … necessarily.  The bad news (for some, perhaps) is that it requires solid, hard, knuckling-down kind of work.  And if you don’t yet have staff, or your complement is small, then that’s what the Board is for.  After all, we got into this because of our commitment to social change, right? That we would do what is required to achieve the organisation’s goals, yes?

Rule 1 on being fundraising-fit is:

There are no shortcuts in raising money. No quick fixes. No cutting corners.

Moving on from that, let’s look at what the options are for a no-budget fundraising endeavour:

1. Governance: your NPO board members will have come on board because they believe in the mission of the organisation and are prepared to put in the effort to achieve it.  You will have to accept/ expect that board members are on board to provide voluntary input, support, and expertise. Which requires time. Kind of a deal-breaker. Not negotiable.  The more cash-tight you are, the harder the board will have to work (so if you are recruiting new board members, make sure they know this up front!).
2. Planning: is non-negotiable.  The primary resources for this are time and skills. You will have to have had both to start your non-profit, so you should be able to do this without additional expenditure.
3. Financial management: there isn’t a no-budget option here, unless one of your board members is a finance expert. You will have to spend money here.  For annual audited financial statements, there isn’t any way around this, so you have to accommodate for this in your initial budgeting.
4. Fundraising skills: if you don’t yet have the staff, you must use the skills available through your board and/or other volunteers. These skills include
   • leadership;
   • project planning and management;
   • information management and data-mining;
   • communications;
   • networking and relationship-building;
   • writing (proposals/ reports etc);
   • financial management;
   • fundraising (donor prospecting, stewardship, relationship management, budgeting, proposal writing, donor reporting, donor acknowledgement, understanding the fundraising cycle, maintaining long-term donors, building an annual fund, legacy fundraising, campaign development and implementation and others).
   • if you don’t have access to such skills without having to insource skills at a cost, then  be realistic and manage what you can: focus on donor identification and relationship building, and proposal development.  Keep it simple. And plan your approach to raising the required resources.  Planning. Planning. This can be done without funding, but it has to be done properly and with commitment to the end goal of achieving the organisational change objectives.
5. Communications and marketing: If you don’t do anything else, make sure you build your profile.  This is much easier to do than it used to be, with far less money.  Developing a facebook page, and a twitter account would suffice to start – and they provide you with the freedom to publish your own content according to your own schedule and deadlines.  That said, there are some ground rules – and it is more effective with a bit of money invested into your channels.  But not having money does not need to prevent you from starting.  There are great online resources to guide and advise (see below).
6. Information management: one thing you must get right is to capture and maintain your stakeholder contact data, and – if they are donors – their record of support.  You don’t need fancy software for this.  Excel is a perfectly adequate system to start, and will serve you well.

The most important skill, which costs no additional money, is your capacity to speak passionately and expertly about your work and what you seek to achieve.  This will take you a long way to achieving your resourcing goals, while costing very little.

In short, with some good volunteers with an effective spread of skills (because a key component of people becoming board members, right, is the skills they bring to the organisational party), you should be able to get up and running without incurring huge costs and needing significant resources to get going.

Focus, attention to detail, commitment to the end goals, and dogged determination – plus a host of free resources online and offline – will definitely get you to where you want to go.  It might seem easier with a whole big fundraising budget – but it is not a non-profit dead end if you don’t have the money.

But remember: the goal is to raise funding to include budget for fundraising.  Remaining in a frugal mindset will ultimately cost you.  Read here on the cost of being too frugal, and of remaining in that paradigm.

FREE RESOURCES

www.nonprofitlawyer.co.za – for resources on governance and non-profit law: Excellent set of short videos and articles to guide you

www.nonprofit-network.org – a fantastic set of resources for non-profit social media and communications

www.askinyathelo.org.za – a whole site of tips, tools, guidance and resources covering the key skills areas for organisational sustainability

www.ngopulse.org/about – a great portal of information and resources in support of South Africa’s non-profit sector; almost a meeting place – with articles, issues, resources, jobs and opportunity listings and  more

 

 

Philanthropy Advisors and Service Providers: building the infrastructure for South African philanthropy

Gabrielle Ritchie, Director: The Change Room

12th May 2016

South African philanthropy is growing.  About that there is no doubt. In terms of growth, it is not only the encouragement of giving that is growing, but the whole field of philanthropy that is seeing an energetic exercising of its margins.  This is reflected in a range of ways in the South African non-profit funding and organisational context.

Indicators of growth include, amongst others (adapted from Resourcing Philanthropy – see below):

• A growth in the volume and scope of media coverage about philanthropy and related issues
• An increase in the number of financial institutions and wealth management companies offering philanthropy-specific advisory and support services
• Greater numbers of consulting firms, small and large, that provide philanthropy advice to their clients (including tax, legal and strategy advice)
• A notable growth in the development of public (particularly social media) profiles amongst private donor trusts and foundations in South Africa
• A growing interest in sound research on the size, scope, practice and nature of South African giving, not only amongst high- and ultra-high net worth individuals and foundations, but also across a range of different kinds of giving, sharing and intra-community support mechanisms
• The establishment of a Chair in African Philanthropy (at Wits Business School) http://mailimages.vibrantmedia.co.za/2015/wbs/chair_african_philanthropy/chair.pdf
• The availability of greater numbers of information sources on South African philanthropy, the latest and greatest (and I say that with full disclosure here that I am one of three co-authors of this spectacular resource!) being Resourcing Philanthropy at http://resourcingphilanthropy.org.za/  Check it out, really – films, interviews, thoughts, insights, reports, new perspectives, different lenses on grantmaking in social justice. Fantastic stuff.

Non-profit grantseekers are constantly looking for new ways to approach donors, to build relationships, to attract resources and to identify new audiences of potential donors.  Information about who is giving, how they are giving, what prompts their giving, and on what comms channels one is most likely to find these prospective donors.  Any new research on giving in South Africa, and related issues, provides insights that can be analysed and applied by local grantseekers.

These are then exciting times, and there is a groundswell of interest in and energy around the growth of local giving.  It is well-established globally that for local philanthropic giving to grow, a robust local industry infrastructure is required. See for example a report from the Bertelsmann Stiftung on this topic.  It is clear that for the South African philanthropy environment to continue growing, we need to step up our “infrastructure and support” game quite significantly.

It is absolutely critical for the growth of philanthropy and a support infrastructure in the field, for people to convene to discuss professional practice in the “advice and support” space.  It would be great, for example, to gain an understanding of the current state of the advisory field – what services are currently offered, and whether there are documented standards of professional service locally that are adhered to, such as codes of conduct, or codes of ethical practice.

For a year or so – back in 2013 – Inyathelo: The South African Institute of Advancement ran a Philanthropy Service Providers Network (okay, another disclosure – I was Inyathelo’s Programme Director at the time, and was responsible for the conceptualising and establishment of this network known as the PSPN).  This seems to have died down for reasons unclear. Perhaps those of us in the sector working as service providers and advisors in the philanthropy space will give some serious thought either to resurrecting this network (through Inyathelo or otherwise), or to forming a new forum for professional exchange and learning amongst such providers.

The field, as stated earlier, is growing and includes – amongst other kinds of advisors – the following:

• The wealth management sector (eg. Citadel, Nedbank, Stonehage, Investec and others)
• Grantmaking consultants
• Donor capacity-development organisations
• Payroll giving initiatives (eg. CAF Southern Africa)
• Social justice philanthropy advocacy initiatives (eg. Social Justice Initiative and The Other Foundation)
• Funders who have used/ had experience of such services
• Monitoring and Evaluation consultants and experts (eg. Impact Consulting)
• Other capacity development initiatives (eg. Technical Support and Development Platform)
• Other initiatives such as the Southern Africa Trust, the African Philanthropy Network, the Bertha Centre at University of Cape Town, and GIBS at University of Pretoria for training and discussions.

It is time to get together to discuss, share, learn, build, grow.  South Africa’s philanthropy, social justice and non-profit sector need this, and are relying on it.  It is, after all, these service providers who are already engaged in advising those with potential philanthropy wealth, and who have the best chance of influencing and helping to shape giving in terms of focus, practice, approach, direction and impact.

Because if we aren’t here for the learning, the sharing and the impact, then what is it we are doing again?

The Power Pitch: non-profits on a mission to attract funding

image from @deviantART

By Gabrielle Ritchie : Independent Advisor, Consultant and Service Provider to Grantseekers and Grantmakers

What do donors look for in a pitch or proposal?

I had the excellent fortune of being able to participate as an audience member in a Donor Dragon’s Den this morning at Inyathelo (the non-profit for which I was – until recently – director of programmes, where I established and ran amongst many other initiatives a programme to promote South African philanthropy).  I left Inyathelo a few months ago to pursue my own more focused interests, and it is now a real treat to experience as a client the excellence of an organisation with which one has been integrally involved.  What a great use of a few hours, with Eskom’s load-shedding accommodated into the mix and all!

So what is a Donor Dragons’ Den and how did this first Den work at Inyathelo? (I say “first” as I believe there are others to follow!)

Non-profits were invited to submit a one-page written case for support.  From all of the submissions, four organisations were selected to pitch to a panel of six funders, in front of an audience of approximately 100 people from various non-profits and other initiatives around Cape Town. Each pitch needed to be delivered within five minutes – and, along with a spoken pitch, could include powerpoint and other adjunct materials.  This Dragon’s Den was perhaps a little different to the usual DD format as it did not involve funding directly and there was no cash award for the best pitch.

So why did it work so well from my point of view?

It worked for a number of reasons – let me bullet point here:

• There was a power panel of donors – including corporate funders, private foundations, and community funders.
• Four non-profits were brave enough to stand up in front of an audience, not only comprising a donor panel but also including 100 colleagues and peers from the non-profit sector.
• All of us could listen, firstly to the pitches and then to the donor feedback – a fantastic learning opportunity!
• While there was no funding award for the top pitch, there was a great bag of benefits including tickets to Inyathelo’s upcoming September 2015 Advancement Academy, and a subscription to Inyathelo’s Advancement Academy
• There was genuine interest and enthusiasm in the room around how each pitch was presented, and in what the donor panel’s comment and feedback was on each pitch
• The donor panel engaged fully with each presentation, and their detailed feedback on each was thoughtful, careful, constructive and succint – providing insights for all participants to take to apply to their own next set of pitches and their organisational cases for support.

My key take-aways for non-profits, from the donor panel critique, were:

1. However your case for support is presented, ensure that you tell a compelling story.
2. Take the donor on a “key points” journey in the short time or space you have to present your case.
3. The “Donor Grid” is a really helpful frame when selecting what to include/exclude from your pitch or introduction – Story, Statement, Statistics, Solution. There you have it plain and simple.  Provide those in clear, punchy linked narrative, and you are already on a more likely path to success.
4. Donors see evidence of sustainability as critical – and they don’t only look at funding sustainability.  Donors find it really compelling when an organisation can present or refer to a visible named group of committed drivers/supporters who will BE there for the organisation, and who are deeply committed to its sustainability.
5. Income generation is a very important criterion in assessment of a case for support. Indicators are sought by donors with regard to viability of income generation. Evidence of active efforts to generate income, based on selling products or services, is deemed a key positive pointer (but, paradoxically, won’t necessarily attract donor funding! Bit of a tightrope there!).
6. If an organisation is in the brilliant position of getting to pitch directly to a donor, it is the quality of the spoken presentation (passion, integrity, punch) that will win the day – but this must be matched equally with whatever material you leave behind.  A personal pitch and a written piece must work together, and each must be equally powerful.
7. If you are able to present an in-person pitch, and you do use a powerpoint, ensure that your spoken word matches the powerpoint slides in such a way that pitch and powerpoint both complement and strengthen each other.  One can bring the other down.
8. It seems REALLY obvious – but you MUST make an ask! The Dragon’s Den panel indicated an appreciation for a specific ask, a specific budget amount for a specific piece of work.
9. In an in-person pitch, best you know who you are dealing with.  Funding decision-makers are people too – therefore some will appreciate a lot of detail while others are looking for big picture indicators and strategic approach.  Know who you are talking to.
10. If you have developed a leave-behind pamphlet or one-pager, great infographics work well.  But they need to make a good, stark, unmissable point.
11. Tell stories that make your organisational work come alive!
12. It is possible to involve organisational beneficiaries or clients in your pitch or your organisational storytelling.  In-person contributions, though often incredibly powerful, come with a caution from donor panelists around the power politics and possibility of exploiting the holders of those stories.  This is really good to think through and for one’s organisation to be very clear about.

So there you have it.  If you do ever get to pitch to a donor in person.

Most organisations, though, don’t manage to arrange face-time with funding decision-makers.  How, then, do the above points apply when submitting a written case or proposal?

Here is my shot at translating from the “Dragons’ Den” to a “Power Proposal”:

1. Have a good story – strong, well written, with named individuals even if those names are changed for privacy and protections.
2. Make a strong statement with your case – illustrating how your organisation provides sound solutions to abiding problems.
3. Statistics and the use of numbers will provide a punchy, effective, in-your-face illustration of the scale of a problem and the impact of the solution.  Use them – but use them well. As above, great infographics work really well – just as a bad one can really detract from your story.
4. Make a specific ASK. Mention an amount. Explain the amount. And show through narrative and budget how you will use the funding, what you hope to achieve with that budget, and how such a contribution or investment (yes, use those words!) would support the organisation in achieving specific, defined goals.
5. It turns out that donors increasingly want to see evidence of sincere efforts to develop income-generating products and services.  Such product development initiatives, and related income, serve to demonstrate effort, intent and integrity on the part of the grantseeker to work toward a real diversification of income streams to support the organisation’s work.  This in itself is a whole topic – one I might get to address down the line!

If you think your organisation’s written case for support or your spoken pitch needs work, take the above into account.  And look out for Inyathelo’s next Dragon’s Den.  It’s well worth a couple of hours!

How do we know when FREE is worth the effort, or just a waste of time?

Non-profits generally love FREE!!  And donors usually get really excited about low-cost/ no-cost opportunities for their grantees to access skills-exchanges and new knowledge.

But How do we know when FREE is worth the effort, or just a waste of time?

Here is one virtual online conference you can be sure will be worth the effort.  Organised and hosted by Resource Alliance, an organisation with a global reputation for its excellence in capacity development products and services for non-profits (particularly their conferences!), you can’t really go too wrong 🙂

This two-day event is being held on 13th and 14th May 2015 and all you need to do to be part of this fantastic learning event is register here. Over the two days, 16 sessions will be presented by leading experts in digital marketing, online fundraising and social media marketing, from within and outside the non-profit sector.

Full details on the programme are available here and include the following:-

• Six practical methodologies to enable you to get started – Dr Scilla Elworthy (UK)
• Charities don’t tweet, people do – Euan Semple (UK)
• Adapting to a changing world: the innovation imperative – Colin Habberton (South Africa)
• Seven ways to use mobile to build your supporter base – Nick Allen (USA)
• Integrating digital into your old fashioned fundraising stuff – Sean Triner (Australia)
• Crowdfunding for fundraisers – Ronald Kleverlaan (Netherlands)
• Five learnings from masters of social media you can use in your fundraising today – Touko Sipiläinen (Finland)

According to Resource Alliance, who host the regular Netherlands-based International Fundraising Conference,over 2 000 delegates from 120 countries participated in last year’s Fundraising Online, which once again aims to help charities of all sizes successfully navigate the shifting sands of technological change.   With a focus on “empowerment and bridging the gap between online and offline initiatives”, Resource Alliance explains that this online initiative makes it possible for delegates to “benefit from the expertise of renowned speakers in the comfort of their own workplace, wherever and whenever it suits”.

Gotta go now … off to register 🙂  I am not missing this one!

South African PhilanthroFacts 1

Not enough is known about South African philanthropy.

We don’t have access to the kind of information that would make possible a deeper analysis of knowledge, attitudes and practices of South Africans who do (and who don’t) give their own money towards social development. I am going to write a series of blogs, then, to deliver up an insight into what we do know. There is some information available – what I would call “surface information” – so let’s at least get that up on the table.

First, a quick list of categories of information that we know we are able to access:
1. we could get information from non-profits on the amounts or relative percentages of funding support received from individuals and from foundations and trusts in South Africa. This would require a bit of research (some of which is currently being undertaken by @Inyathelo http://www.inyathelo.org.za)
2. we can access generalisations on who gives and why they give
3. we have access to research on giving in South Africa, conducted for example by Nedbank Private Wealth and published in The Giving Report (of which there are two studies conducted to date). This is self-reported giving and comes therefore with its own challenges (how do people report their giving, how do we account for individuals wanting to be seen as more generous than they actually are etc)
4. we know what academic research has been done and can readily compile a comprehensive reading list of this research – mostly for Masters and PhD degrees
5. we can access the local media coverage of South African philanthropy, South African wealth, the richest men, the richest women, and an idea of those who give publicly and who are known to give
6. we have access to a great list of philanthropy role-models in South Africa – across the broadest range of the South African demographic in terms of age, geography, culture, religion, colour, gender, cause and so on – go to http://www.philanthropy.org.za
7. there are new initiatives afoot to promote different kinds of giving, and to develop a strong case for support for giving to social justice causes – see for example the Social Justice Initiative at http://www.sji.org.za
8. we could review the work of the Private Philanthropy Circle (www.philanthropy.org.za), the first forum of private South African philanthropy foundations, which has a number of foundations as members and represents only the tip of South Africa’s “foundationberg” (see what i did there?)
9. we know of other foundation networks, for example the network of community foundations in South Africa
10. which means we could also do research on the concept of a community foundation and its applicability in the South African context
11. we know and can analyse the tax environment for philanthropy in South Africa, and what does and does not support the growth of individual philanthropy
12. we have access to databases of funders in South Africa and can trawl and analyse for philanthropic foundations associated with South African individuals
13. we can access information on the growth of philanthropy based on the increasing numbers of banks and wealth management companies offering philanthropy-focused services, and on the increasing numbers of people becoming part of the field of philanthropy advisory services (myself included).

In South Africa we don’t have access to tax records, for example. This source of information is where researchers in the USA are able to draw such comprehensive analyses of giving patterns, top ten lists, and the kind of giving detail that researchers are able to write about and profile. That said, the list above shows that we do have access to vast amounts of information that, while perhaps carrying insufficient specific detail on who is giving and how much they are giving and what they are giving to, nevertheless does provide us with enough information to draw patterns and extrapolations and conclusions.

Forward, onward then – to developing a fuller picture of South African philanthropy and individual giving in our country. Watch this space for South African PhilanthroFacts 2.

Philanthropy: You don’t have to be rich

It’s usually those with money who say “Money isn’t everything”, right? Now you can even be a philanthropist without necessarily having oodles of spare cash. In a July 2014 article in the Guardian penned by Cheryl Chapman of City Philanthropy (London, UK), effective philanthropy today is “not about what you give, but the way that you give it”. Size should not matter, writes Chapman – “it’s what you do with your resources that can really count” (http://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2014/jul/11/why-you-dont-have-to-be-rich-to-be-a-philanthropist).

I completely agree.

Agreeing with the notion that “you don’t have to be rich to be a philanthropist” surfaces the obvious question, though, of “what is a philanthropist?” So allow me to share the working definition that I use:  a philanthropist is somebody who takes their own cash and spends it on supporting a cause that they believe in, a cause that they believe will improve their community, contribute to social development, and contribute to redressing social advantage/ disadvantage and crippling inequity.   There are many many kinds of giving, and many ways to give and many things to give of and to – but my working definition of philanthropy is that it is about giving financially (ie. money) and it is about supporting social development, and it is about giving in a way that itself is designed (in the giving process) to redress social inequity and injustice.  And you really don’t have to be rich, then, to be a philanthropist.

We should all, as engaged citizens, support social development.  We need to give what we can to causes and initiatives that we believe will make a quantifiable (or qualifiable) difference to the intended person, or groups of people, or issue.  We can give in small amounts, regularly.  We can give once-off when we have the money.  We can pool our resources and form a  giving circle, now becoming increasingly popular as a way of engaging in social development.  But it is about how the giving happens, what the intention is, what cause or initiative is supported, and what the long-term systemic impact is intended to be.  It is about active citizenship and standing up to be counted.  It is about being able to answer the question: “So what did YOU do to make things different?”.  Its the counter-balance to social and civil apathy and dependency.

Defining philanthropy as such is in no way intended to undermine or negate the enormous value of more immediate needs-based giving.  Such support is the very stuff of what makes us human, it is the essence of community, it is the thread that binds us.  People give to support people in crisis, giving food or blankets or money, for example.  We give to “the poor”.  We give because we want to “help those in need”.  We give time, we give energy, and we often give expertise and support.

I spent the last eight years working with Inyathelo, an organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa on communicating almost the same message.  In South Africa, we have been promoting the notion that anybody can be a philanthropist, and can give their own money to a social justice or social development cause geared at addressing imbalances or at correcting systemic wrongs.  I came on board at Inyathelo to establish the annual Inyathelo Philanthropy Awards, South Africa’s key point of recognition for our local philanthropy heroes.  I came on to establish the concept and the process and to make this philanthropy promotion agenda a national one.

The key message shared every year at these awards, and across the now +60 people who have been recognised through an Inyathelo Philanthropy Award, is that it doesn’t matter how much you give, it’s what you manage to leverage with your giving that counts.  It doesn’t matter how much you give, its what you achieve with what you are able to contribute. And it doesn’t matter how much you give, it matters rather that you give in a way that reflects a different social dynamic – one that doesn’t get played out across the haves/ have-nots divide, but happens differently, as co-creation, co-development, co-activism.

This last one is the tough nut to crack.  How do we give in ways that are about co-creation, co-development and co-activism?  If we can get that right, and share resources in a way that doesn’t recreate and entrench existing structures and dynamics of power and privilege, then we will be on the right platform to start creating a just society.

Giving is the new black?

So giving is the new black?  It’s a catchy line.  I saw it on pinterest, via the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, and I like it.  It’s kind of witty, and clever, and a bit of lighthearted fun.  But is it even vaguely true?  I’m not so sure.  Giving being the new black implies that it’s hip and happening and, basically, everyone is doing it.  So let’s check “Giving” out:

1. Traditionally, pretty much every community in the history of the world has given of their own (time, energy, resources) for the common good.  This might have been done in the form of waqf or tithes, or similar, through politico-religious structures, or might have been represented by the pulling together of community to build a fence, hunt a buck, plough a field, dig a well.  For the common good. And for community development.

2. Which begs the question: have we moved so far from traditional community and the ties that bind us together as community, and have we privatised resources and access to resources to such an extent that we now have to be persuaded to “give”? To contribute to the common good?

3. Well, simply, yes.  So be it.  So we have moved on.

4. And now we are all going to hover around the kid in the playground who has the sweets while he or she climbs to progressively higher ground to get away from the open and, likely, grabbing hands. Or else we are the kid with the sweets, who ends up not going out onto the playground at break time because we would rather sit quietly on our own, or with the other kids with sweets, and eat our sweets in peace. Or, when there are enough of us, we will find and block off our own area of the playground and pay (with a sweet) some sweet-less kids to guard our turf and keep the sweet-less out.

3. And so we make a choice (and apologies for my fatuous use of the playground analogy, but i am quite liking it – cos its all about value and power and how these are constructed). If we are the sweets-holder, we can remove ourselves and surround ourselves with barriers (of all kinds – colour, language, dress, geography, transport mode and other trappings) in the hope that the sweet-less can’t and don’t break through.  We can choose every now and again to drop a sweet or two over the barriers. We can get the sweet-less to do stuff for us, for a sweet or two. We can become more open and transparent about what sweets we have, what we are keeping, and what we are willing to share.  We can tell the sweet-less what they must do with the sweets we shared with them.

4. Or we can move out from behind our barriers, and engage directly with the sweet-less about the sweets that are being shared, and how we can best share them so that everyone benefits. Or …. or … we could hand over all our sweets in a structured way so that they are most widely shared with most people over the longest time.  Nah, that wont happen.

So here we are, the generally sweet-less trying to persuade those kids occupying the best part of the playground that they really should share some of their sweets with us.  Because sharing is caring?  Because it will be better for all of us, including the sweet-holders, if we all had sweets?  Yes, fewer for each of us, but each one has something.

Okay,  I have to stop now with the sweet thing.  Glycaemic index is peaking.  Let’s go back to the fundamentals of giving and why we are in a position where the disparity between the rich and the poor is so great, so wide, so apparently unbreachable.  And let’s give some thought to how we all want to “End Poverty Now”.  By asking those with lots of cash to share some of it.

The really suspect part here is that we are asking those people who have the cash – who made the cash by denying others sufficient income to constitute a living wage, who have accrued wealth by maintaining levels of socio-economic poverty – to share some of that accrued wealth to end the very poverty they were part of creating.

While we ponder that, though, and while we wonder how we are going to end poverty by persuading those living in wealth to share some of their accumulated wealth, lets wonder also how to end greed.  Lets think about how to end political greed, individual greed, corporate greed, community greed.

And then, in the meantime, let’s give anyway – give strategically, invest in social justice, contribute to effecting systemic change in ways that break down the systems of rampant accumulation.  Maybe giving is the new black.  And if it isn’t, perhaps it needs to be.