This research set out to find out if African public charity grant making institutions have been able, over the years, to match their local fundraising with their stated objectives of developing local philanthropy, ending dependence on foreign donors, and thus creating opportunities for ordinary Africans to participate in their own development

Christiana Atibil

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Transplanted Philanthropy: Why African Community Foundations Cannot Bloom Where They Have Been PlantedChristiana Atibil, The Center on Philanthropy at IUWhen, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, grant making institutions (especially of the community foundation variety) sprang up in many sub-Saharan African countries, one of the most important reasons given for their establishment was to enhance and promote indigenous philanthropy.  As can be surmised from the mission statements and objectives of many of these emergent philanthropic institutions, this was an opportunity to harness local resources for the development of particular communities, and the continent in general. The establishment of grant making institutions in Africa was supposed to reverse the dependency syndrome that had characterized (and plagued) the relationship between African states and their foreign donors throughout Africa’s postcolonial history. In contrast to the tendency of the public sector in most African countries to depend on bilateral and multilateral “partners” for development initiatives (if not its very survival) the hope was that the nascent private philanthropic sector (epitomized by community foundations) was going to be autonomous; the expectation was that community foundations would generate the bulk of the resources needed for development from resources located within the African continent as well as from Africans in the Diaspora.More than a decade after the launching of these institutions, little to no research has gone into finding out whether or not (and to what extent) the philanthropic institutions in question have succeeded in mobilizing the bulk of their funds from local sources.  Why would this knowledge be important? It is fair to say that the capacity and scope of the role of philanthropic institutions in African development, as well as their long term relevance and survival, will depend on their ability to mobilize the bulk of their resources from within the continent (from individuals, communities, corporate entities and the public sector). This is also important because their ability to raise funds from within their communities is likely to be influenced by how they are perceived by their constituents: whether as mere channels for pass-through money from foreign foundations and government agencies or as catalysts of community revitalization through self-reliant resource mobilization. This research set out to find out if African public charity grant making institutions have been able, over the years,  to match their local fundraising with their stated objectives of developing local philanthropy, ending dependence on foreign donors, and thus creating opportunities for ordinary Africans to participate in their own development. Documentary evidence including the annual reports of selected public charity grant making institutions in West, East and Southern Africa and other relevant information found on their websites were analyzed. The findings indicate that , more than a decade down the road, despite repeated talk about the critical importance of growing local philanthropy to reduce dependency on foreign donors, all of the foundations examined have continued to rely on foreign sources (mostly Western foundations and foreign government development agencies) for the bulk of their funds.  In addition to discussing some of the reasons foundation officials have cited for their inability to raise funds locally, this paper points out the merits and limitations of the main device African public charity grant making institutions are employing to ensure their long term sustainability --- endowments. Based on the sociological and anthropological literature on African indigenous ways of giving and receiving and the values that support these practices, this paper suggests more fundamental reasons for the inability of African public charity grant making institutions to involve their populations in the kind of relationship that is required to elicit the latter’s support in a substantial way.  These reasons go beyond the often cited limitations in African society that supposedly complicate local fundraising to focus instead on limitations on the part of the philanthropic institutions themselves. The overriding reason advanced is the fact that the foundation organizational form, having been imported from the West, has failed so far to adapt to the socio-cultural and socio-economic environment prevailing in most African communities. The paper concludes by suggesting how African public charity grant making institutions can adapt effectively to their local environment by focusing on how to create the right relationships with communities and by positioning themselves as a critical link in the African gift cycle: gift-giving/generosity  gratitude - reciprocity, then back to gift-giving/generosity. In other words, African community foundations could boost local fund raising by adapting to their organizational environment – incorporating some of the values surrounding indigenous African gift-giving into their fund mobilization mechanisms.

Transplanted Philanthropy: Why African Community Foundations Cannot Bloom Where They Have Been Planted

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