Charities’ billions yet to reach the poor

Comcraft group chairman Dr Manu Chandaria dress the media during the Launch of the 2015 annual learning assessment report in Nairobi. Most Kenyans are yet to feel the impact of charities, a meeting bringing together top philanthropists heard yesterday. (PHOTO: WILLIS AWANDU

Most Kenyans are yet to feel the impact of charities, a meeting bringing together top philanthropists heard yesterday.

The organisations have no coherent structures to achieve their goals of funding social enterprises and engaging in basic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects.

This is according to the African Philanthropy Forum (APF), which hosted a group of Kenyan philanthropists yesterday at a Nairobi Hotel.

Leading Kenyan businessman Manu Chandaria, who chairs Chandaria Foundation, gave the keynote speech where he lamented: “Kenya has no structured giving.

Despite the Government passing a legislation that ensures funds meant for foundations are exempted from tax, the law is still not clear on the structures that foundations should follow to ensure that their impact is felt on the ground.”

Currently, the Chandaria Foundation, arguably one of the most generous foundations, has given out an estimated Sh10.2 billion to child health and education alone. Chandaria runs big philanthropic projects ranging from education to health and business policy formulation to cultural issues.

Chandaria claimed the reason no impact was being felt is because the people who put up these foundations are more interested in their own legacies. “Foundations have become tools for powering legacies. Even when those who did well in life are to be remembered, still the impact of the foundation should be felt profoundly on the ground,” said Chandaria.

Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Foundation said it sets aside one per cent of KCB’s annual profits for philanthropy. In the last financial year, KCB pumped Sh166 million into the foundation.

Also to be blamed, according to the APF, are multinationals that reap huge profits from African markets and rarely engage in philanthropy.

“Multinationals should be pumping money into the continent since they make a lot of profits from Africa,” said APF Executive Director Ndindi Okonkwo Nwuneli.

However, the global philanthropies that have established themselves in Africa were asked to partner with local philanthropies that understand local needs better so as to penetrate society more pervasively.

In Kenya, Dr Chandaria is part of a large number of rich businesspeople in the world who dedicate a large part of their wealth to helping society since John D. Rockefeller formalised charitable giving in 1913 by setting up the Rockefeller Foundation. Rockefeller and Ford foundations have established themselves in the continent and are well represented in APF.

KCB Foundation Chairperson Catherine Kola said the foundation had partnered with the Government, especially at the county level, to create more impact. “We are working with government to reach farmers. This is strategic since the government takes farmers to be a huge voting bloc and so are eager to reach them,” Ms Kola said.

After donating a large part of their wealth to philanthropy, US billionaires Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, are campaigning to have hundreds of fellow billionaire Americans to give at least half of their wealth to charity.

In Africa, apart from foundations set up by serving and retired politicians, rich businesspeople have spent fortunes on helping society. The most prominent is Dr Mohamed “Mo” Ibrahim of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation with its Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. The other in Kenya, is Safaricom foundation.