New-found philanthropy should hold beyond virus

Kibra residents camp outside the chief’s office after a food distribution exercise was halted following chaotic scenes recently. Corporates and individuals are giving generously towards the Covid-19 Emergency Fund. [David Gichuru, Standard]

The State’s daily briefs on the coronavirus pandemic highlighting new cases, recoveries and deaths should also include the money raised by the Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund Board.

Such publicity on money raised will energise Kenyans to contribute more to the noble cause.

There should also be a website showing the amount raised and by whom. Even a contribution of one shilling should be publicised.

And we love publicity. The board can even announce each day’s top donors in the media. 

One would have thought that the shock and fear from covid-19 would lead to an outpouring of generosity among ordinary Kenyans.  It did not.

Faced with own mortality, most individuals would prefer to take care of themselves before the rest. And it’s not that we are not generous; we are just realistic.

When there is danger, we run away individually, we return to our basic instincts only to ask later what happened to the rest. We seem to have behaved that way after Covid-19 came ashore.

The marginal propensity to save is positive. Simply put, you only save what you earn. In the same way, you can only give what you have earned.

Even without Covid-19, many Kenyans rarely save as espoused by the exponential growth of mobile money lending platforms. Maybe that is why the government started by focusing on the employed with regular sources of income.

This group too does not save sufficiently and takes loans as well. We saved 10 per cent of our GDP in 2017.

In 2018, Singapore saved 46 per cent of its GDP, South Africa (15 per cent), Tanzania (31 per cent), China (46 per cent), Rwanda (12 per cent) and Uganda (18 per cent), according to the World Bank.

It is no wonder that the greatest philanthropists are affluent. The 2019 Forbes global billionaires’ list featured Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates, Michael Bloomberg, the Walton family and George Soros as the top philanthropists.

We could add earlier philanthropists like John D Rockefeller, Henry Ford and more recently Jack Ma from the East (read China), which is taking up philanthropy to the international level, possibly as a tool of diplomacy.

It is a paradox how we selectively imported an American political system complete with senators and governors without philanthropic orientation.

With a crisis like Covid-19, philanthropy should rise,  filling the gap governments are not able to.

It should go beyond public relations and include sustainable projects that can change the lives of ordinary citizens. Philanthropy is one way to immortalise yourself by giving back to the society from which you made your money.

We have seen local corporations and individuals donating to noble causes like Covid-19. 

They include Equity Holdings the Mastercard Foundation and the family of CEO James Mwangi who donated Sh1.1 billion, Co-operative Bank (Sh100 million), Safaricom (Sh200 million) as well as KCB and the National Treasury that gave Sh150 million each.

Individual donations are missing. If each Kenyan, including children, gave Sh100, we would raise Sh4.75 billion!

We expect other firms and individuals to follow suit. We all can help flatten the curve, save our already crowded health system and the economy.

Let us be cognizant of the fact that there is a lot of uncertainty on when Covid-19 will run its course. Under these circumstances, we are tempted to save every cent we can.

Research suggests that on average the wealthy give less compared with the less affluent.

We rarely have time for calculations, we just focus on raw data.

If one is worth Sh5 billion and donates 100 million, that translates to two per cent of their wealth.

If you give Sh5,000 and you are worth Sh50,000, your donation translates to 10 per cent. 

You are five times more generous. But whose donation will be publicised?

Curiously, philanthropy is rarely discussed subject beyond the religious part espoused by tithes and offertories. 

It used to be “forced” on us through harambees, which the Kibaki regime muted.

In schools of business, we spend a lot of time focusing on how to make money, not how to donate it. Few business schools offer a basic course in philanthropy.

Will covid-19 change that? Some could feel they are subsidising the government, while they have already paid taxes.

Once we realise that money does not at times matter, we could be tempted to donate to noble causes. Think of a ventilator and air that is freely available.

Some suggest that by touching the rich, Covid-19 will make them touch the rest of society. We are eagerly waiting to see if philanthropy will go up after Covid-19.

We hope that the philanthropy will not be a one-off thing.

We should make it sustainable and our way of life. There shall never be a shortage of causes to fund even when the economy is booming. Philanthropy, after all, smooths the rough edges of capitalism.

-The writer is an associate professor at the University of Nairobi