SA philanthropy should be about transforming society Social change
August 9, 2009
By Colleen du Toit
Then we have "charity" which means giving to "the poor" - potentially the most value-laden. Most people would agree that charity is most often about short-term contributions, whereas philanthropy and its corporate cousin, social investment, imply more sustained and transformative actions.
These terms have, indeed, been debated extensively in South Africa - not least because some view the terms as part of the colonial lexicon that should be discarded in favour of more indigenously African terminology and practice.
Of course, if societies were truly egalitarian, with all people employed, educated, housed and not hungry, there would be no need for philanthropy. And there begin the "problems" with regard to encouraging philanthropy. Critics say that philanthropy can never be transformational, but serves only to perpetuate the status quo within societies that are founded on the greed and wealth of the few and consequent dispossession of the majority.
Is it ethical, therefore, to encourage philanthropy in the sense described by Mr Jack - that is "giving back" by wealthy individuals in the second half of their lives? Should we really be encouraging companies to contribute to community upliftment as part of the black economic empowerment compliance mechanism? Or indeed celebrating any of the many other forms of giving and mutual help that are practised in South Africa?
Our argument is that philanthropy and corporate social investment can be strategically deployed as one aspect of programmes towards positive social change. For example corporate South Africa spends more than R4 billion on social investment programmes. The government spends about R13bn on social grants. What is the potential for leveraging of these social contributions? Real philanthropy, in the sense of care for humanity, has a lot to do with the way we organise our societies, and with the perception and role of civil society within that.
What about the giving by wealthy individuals? Jack is correct when he says that much of this is "private", especially among black "newly wealthy" groups there is an evolving tradition of "ploughback" - this takes various forms, not always monetary. Research has shown that South Africa is a "nation of givers".
If we accept this then why is there not a more visible and long-lasting impact resulting from these various forms of generosity and social investment?
One complex set of reasons for this is that we are still a disconnected and highly iniquitous society, where the government, business and civil society work in isolation from one another. While there are of course some marvellous examples of multisectoral co-operation, much of this is a "knee-jerk" response - with the status of the partners very unevenly balanced. This occurs because one of the elements in what should be a "tripartite" alliance of equals is all too often undervalued and underresourced - that element is civil society.
If we are interested in seeing real change resulting from philanthropy then we need to move away from the perspective that regards organisations of civil society as the "charity sector". And, Mr Jack, we do not agree that social investors should not concern themselves with "return on investment" - why invest if not to achieve a result? However, this result is not necessarily a financial return. The potential return is a social outcome: stronger and more equitable communities?
But until business, government and private philanthropists stop regarding this sector as the poor cousin requiring "handouts" and chequebook charity they will never obtain the returns their investments deserve. We need to change our mindset from "charity" to social investment: this model implies relationships of equality, with agreed responsibilities and accountabilities on all sides.
Only then will philanthropists and social investors obtain the return that is their due - and here we come back to the points raised last week: to make this work we need a social compact between the government, business and society which has a moral centre founded on investing in change for South Africa's most marginalised.
Colleen du Toit leads CAF Southern Africa, an organisation which aims to increase and enhance the impact of investment in civil society
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