Foreign Aid & Civil Society

A Week of Philanthropy

By Dweep Chanana ⋅ May 22, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅ Post a comment

Time for some reflection. The past two weeks were spent organizing and attending a conference on philanthropy. Bringing together a select crowd, we discussed NGOs, family foundations, world disasters, and development.

I am now full of statistics. About US$270 billion donated in philanthropic funds in 2005 to charitable causes in the USA - 75% from individuals. Yet, the more interesting statistic was that worldwide, NGOs receive only 13% of their funding from philanthropy. Of all money channeled in microfinance funds last year, only about 10% came from private money. The rest was multilateral and government funding.

What does this mean for philanthropy? Perhaps that their aspirations of grandeur may just be that - aspirations. Still, I hesitate to criticize philanthropy. That would be to miss the point. Could the money spent on this event have been better spent? Yes. Would it have been better spent? No.

The people represented there were, mostly, well-intentioned and respectful of the responsibility on them - as rich individuals. Still, I was left with one question. What is the role of philanthropy - and more generally of civil society - in society?

To them, I can ascribe two roles - givers of hope, and social experimenters. Let me explain.

Philanthropy cannot change the social landscape - nor should it. And the NGOs it funds are not and should not be seen as anything more than special interests. But they play a vital role. Because where the private sector does not tread, and where governement cannot - someone must be present. To take away the license of philanthropy - on the grounds that it is wasteful - is to deny many the health services, education, and social security that give them hope. And if that be the case, maybe the 5-star dinner is a small price to pay.

Second, without ‘civil society’ - much as I dislike the term - we would have no Grameen Bank (even with its failings), no SEWA, and no Narmada Bachao Andolan. Unfortunately, we also have the Fair Labor Association, but then thats the ‘global civil society’ that only has power and resource politics to its credit. At the grassroots, much innovation is driven by people who form the real ‘civil society’.

It is easy to criticize, as I regularly do. It is easy to believe that philanthropy is nothing but the production and consumption of the ‘feel good’ factor. But criticism does not make a difference - unless coupled with solutions.

So, if we cannot control this civil society, how about assimilating it? How about treating it not as a competitor to government, but as a vehicle for social delivery? What if companies used them not as fringe stakeholders, but as innovators of ‘creative destruction‘?

Then, with the resources of government and the private sector NGOs would have the incentives and resources to become more transparent, more accountable.