Category: Philanthropy

Defining Humanitarian Aid

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“Humanitarian aid” is aid and action designed to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of emergencies. The characteristics that mark it out from other forms of foreign assistance and development aid are that:

  • it is intended to be governed by the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence
  • it is intended to be short-term in nature and provide for activities in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. In practice it is often difficult to say where ‘during and in the immediate aftermath of emergencies’ ends and other types of assistance begin, especially in situations of prolonged vulnerability.

Traditional responses to humanitarian crises, and the easiest to categorize as such, are those that fall under the aegis of ‘emergency response’:

  • material relief assistance and services (shelter, water, medicines etc.)
  • emergency food aid (short-term distribution and supplementary feeding programs)
  • relief coordination, protection and support services (coordination, logistics and communications).

Humanitarian aid can also include reconstruction and rehabilitation (repairing pre-existing infrastructure as opposed to longer-term activities designed to improve the level of infrastructure) and disaster prevention and preparedness (disaster risk reduction (DRR), early warning systems, contingency stocks and planning).

Source: Global Humanitarian Assistance

Giving Aid to Poor Countries

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When polled, the American public agreed with the assertion that “taking care of problems at home is more important than giving aid to foreign countries.”

But this does mean that Americans think that no aid should go overseas?

When respondents were asked what percentage of their tax dollars that go to help poor people at home and abroad … should go to help poor people in other countries, the response was 16%. (Down from a 22% response in a 1996 poll.)

Strikingly, this turns out to be a far higher percentage than is currently given.

The year this poll was taken, only about four per cent (4%) of the total spent went toward causes that in any way benefited the poor abroad. (Nowhere near the above 16 – 22%.)

Budget perceptions: Program on International Policy Attitudes “Americans on Foreign Aid and World Hunger: A Study of U.S. Public Attitudes,”.

Africa still needs aid

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Views by Bob Geldof, musician, member of the Africa Progress Panel chaired by Kofi Annan, and a businessman and campaigner against poverty: 

With the U.K. becoming the first G-8 country to spend 0.7 percent of its gross national income on overseas aid, the government’s recent budget was an exciting moment for the international development community.

But with extreme poverty falling all around Africa, and the continent’s mineral resources providing more revenue now than international aid, some observers are asking whether international aid is out of date.

Africa needs trade, not aid, they say. In truth, however, they still need both.

Africa has the world’s fastest growing population, expanding by more than 20 million every year, and must create jobs fast to keep its unemployment rate from rising. Some analysts highlight the Middle East, where failure to generate enough jobs for young, urbanized populations had catastrophic consequences for political and economic stability.

Trade – in its broadest sense – will create the jobs that Africa so badly needs. So Africa’s leaders must identify and nurture labor-intensive industries such as agriculture, manufacturing, and hospitality in order to create more jobs. This belief in trade is entirely consistent with a profound respect for aid. I have learned that one begets the other.

The 2005 Gleneagles G-8 summit, for example, brought debt cancellation and increasing levels of aid that helped to school tens of millions of children and triggered an intellectual stampede that is propelling at least some of Africa’s rapid economic growth. Today, Africa has some of the world’s fastest growing economies and foreign investors are tripping over themselves for a slice of African profit.

Almost two dozen of Africa’s 54 nations have now reached middle income status, and more undoubtedly will do so by 2025. As noted by the World Bank’s lead economist in its Nairobi office, if sub-Saharan Africa were a single country, the World Bank would already classify it as middle-income, with an average income of more than $1,500.

But Africa, like every other continent, needs its aid. Away from the investment analyses and high growth headlines, some 40 percent of Africa’s one billion population still live on $1.25 per day or less.

Trade, jobs, and opportunities remain critically important for Africa.

Hunger and world poverty

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About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds. Unfortunately, it is children who die most often.

Yet there is plenty of food in the world for everyone.

The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families.

There are effective programs to break this spiral. For adults, there are “food for work” programs where the adults are paid with food to build schools, dig wells, make roads, and so on. This both nourishes them and builds infrastructure to end the poverty. For children, there are “food for education” programs where the children are provided with food when they attend school.

Learn more

Utilizing intermediaries to simplify international giving

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Few income tax treaties allow U.S. individuals to make deductible donations to foreign charities.

U.S. charitable organizations engaging in international philanthropy are subject to a number of restrictions on making grants to foreign organizations, some of these restrictions aimed at combating terrorism and increased enforcement of sanctions. Other challenges arise from the fact that the rules governing recognition of charities and the circumstances under which donors to charitable organizations may claim tax deductions or other benefits for their contributions is governed almost exclusively by the law of each separate jurisdiction.

A private foundation is subject to punitive excise taxes on grants to foreign organizations unless it either (i) obtains an equivalency determination that the recipient is the equivalent of a U.S. charity or (ii) exercises expenditure responsibility with respect to the grant. Obtaining an equivalency determination or exercising expenditure responsibility can be both costly and time consuming.

Hence, many U.S. private foundations, as well as individuals, choose to make grants to intermediaries that qualify as public charities rather than to foreign organizations directly.  A public charity is qualified as such because it raises its money from the general public and in turn donates funds and support to other organizations.

Next generation donors with international focus

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There is a cohort of the younger generations, particularly Generations Y and X, who stand to inherit an unprecedented amount of wealth — somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 trillion. So, what do they plan to do with it and which types of entities stand to be the recipients of their largesse?

“These generations … have the potential to be the most significant philanthropists in history and we really don’t know that much about them,” said report co-author and sociologist Michael Moody, who  also serves as the Frey Foundation chair for Family Foundations and Philanthropy at the Johnson Center.

This cohort, according to the survey, wants to get its hands dirty, prioritizing direct relationships with the entities they donate over merely writing checks. This rejection of “checkbook philanthropy” is one of two findings Moody found most surprising. “They want to get their hands dirty, to serve in meaningful ways, not just sit on boards or party planning committees,” said Moody during an e-mail exchange Thursday. “They want to be taken seriously — not only in the future but now — as talented partners with organizations, who bring skills and expertise to the table.”

Moody was also surprised by the coming generation’s unwillingness to do away with past traditions. “They are certainly enthusiastic about innovation and willing to take risks and try non-traditional approaches to philanthropy,” said Moody, “But this doesn’t mean they want to discontinue all traditional forms of giving, that they give to radically different causes or for radically different reasons, or – most notably perhaps – that they care little for the family legacies they are inheriting.”

Asked why the report was initiated now, Moody said, “They hold the future of major philanthropy in their hands. As they start to engage more in that future, we need to know more about how they think about, learn, and practice philanthropy.”

They are more likely than their families to give to civil rights/advocacy and environment/animals causes, and international organizations, as the next generations are thought to be relatively more focused on global causes versus domestic.

[Washington Post]

 

Developing countries becoming developed countries

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Which countries are classified as developing nations?

Hans Rosling, a Swedish global health expert, suggests that people incorrectly divide the world into two –developed countries, such as the U.S., and developing countries, like Ethiopia – based on the number of children a woman has and how long the children live.

“In many people’s minds the world still looks like this – developed and developing,” Mr. Rosling says in a video designed to accompany Bill Gates’s annual talk, showing a cluster of countries separated in two distinct boxes.

“But it’s a myth because the world has improved immensely in the last 50 years.” He proceeds to demonstrate how, thanks to improvements in health care and other factors, child mortality has fallen rapidly in large swaths of the world since the 1960s.

Over time, more “developing countries” have moved into the box of “developed countries,” he shows.

 

Bill Gates on the Colbert Report

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Bill Gates appeared on the Colbert Report this past Wednesday night to talk about The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s recent successes in global health. Not least of all, due to the critical role of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, since 1990 the number of childhood deaths has been reduced by 5 million.

“It’s good news that you wouldn’t hear,” the founder of Microsoft said of the information he shared in his annual missive. “I share what I’ve been able to see in my travels to Africa and Asia.”

But after Gates shared his good news, Colbert in typical fashion commented that Gates is just not as “cool” as Steve Jobs was.

“People say ‘what a cool guy’ … Steve Jobs was. You’re out there saving the world, yet you don’t have the ‘cool factor,’” Colbert jabbed. “Did you ever want to be the cool guy?”

Gates didn’t seemed phased, responding, “He was brilliant. He had his own style. He had his own approach. Mine is, I guess…a little geekier than his was.”

Generation X and Y equals philanthropic power

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When it comes to philanthropy, Gen X and Gen Y/Millennial donors are keenly interested in personal values, measurable impact, and hands-on engagement, a new report from the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University and 21/64, a nonprofit consulting practice specializing in next-gen and multi-generational strategic philanthropy, finds.

Based on a national online survey of and interviews with young philanthropists, the report, Next Gen Donors: Respecting Legacy, Revolutionizing Philanthropy found that a relatively small group of Gen Xers (born between 1964 and 1980) and Gen Y/Millennials (born between 1981 and 2000) will inherit more than $40 trillion over the coming decades. And while they are not necessarily more charitably inclined than their parents or grandparents, the sheer volume of funds, foundations, and other types of giving by high-net-worth families is expanding to unprecedented levels, putting them in a position to wield more philanthropic power than any previous generation in American history.

The report also found that next-gen donors seem to be driven by values rather than “valuables”; that they see philanthropic “strategy” as the major distinguishing factor between themselves and previous generations and intend to change how philanthropic decisions and due diligence are conducted; that they want to develop close, hands-on relationships with the organizations or causes they support; and that, as engaged as they already are, they are still figuring out what kind of donors they want to be.

The report highlights the “practical wisdom” and insights of next-gen donors with respect to their hunger for engagement, new ways of learning, and making a difference sooner rather than later.

[Foundation Center]

Why invest in women?

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Why do so many non-profit ventures focus on girls and women as the primary agents of change?   

  • Firstly, women and girls represent roughly half of the world’s population.
  • Secondly, women are the most marginalized, the most dominated and exploited, and without outside influence often doomed by cultural mores to remain subordinated. Those with no voice are often overlooked, and rarely given voice or power.
  • Girls across the globe do not enjoy basic human rights: freedom from violence, to education, to inherit or own land, to decide when and whether to marry or bear children, or, the right to self-determination.
  • One in three women around the globe will be beaten, raped, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. The daily threat of violence is both a cause and a consequence of a world greatly out of balance.
  • Many argue that the most undervalued and untapped forces on the planet are adolescent girls living in poverty.
  • And girls are the mothers of the next generation, and the quality of these girls’ lives will literally determine the course of their children’s lives and our collective future.