In the age of 24-hour live news feeds from networks like CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, and near instantaneous updates on internet wire services like Reuters and the Associated Press, the American populace is constantly kept abreast of the latest events all over the world. News of a typhoon hitting Taiwan or the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa are just as likely to headline the evening news as the latest bulletin from the Presidential campaign trail, or the tracking of an approaching hurricane. Within hours or even minutes of an international tragedy, images are beamed into our homes and businesses: buildings smoldering, flooded streets, interminable food lines in refugee camps, and any number of faces of human suffering.
Family philanthropists have always been interested in using their wealth and influence to improve the conditions of their friends and neighbors, and the immediacy of these heart-rending images, putting faces and stories to the headlines, has been redefining what it means to give in your own backyard. This recognition of the global nature of twenty-first century society cannot help but influence their family's giving: between 1999 and 2002, funding to international programs increased by 1.1 billion—a 76% jump—according to the Foundation Center's International Grantmaking Update. Substantial grants by larger foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Ford and Carnegie Foundations contributed heavily to this trend. Health and education causes garnered the most support with 29% and 17% respectively: a trend reflected in Gates' support of global AIDS prevention and Ford's funding of its International Fellowship program. Large family foundations were not the only donors whose focus became wider over the same period, however, as community foundations experienced a 250% leap in funding for international causes, much of it directed by donors and advisors to donor-advised funds.
Recent historical events, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, reports of genocide in Sudan, and increased interest in causes promoting world peace have contributed to the rise in international grantmaking in the United States. In addition, as new American immigrants become more affluent they often seek to support causes in their native countries. Even Americans whose families have lived in North America for decades or even centuries sometimes want to re-establish ties with their nations of origin. Although donors' reasons for giving abroad are varied they often encounter the same set of challenges in establishing their giving agenda.
Legal complexities involved in international grantmaking, particularly in the post-9/11 climate, make it advantageous and often obligatory for family foundations and individual family donors to seek professional guidance in establishing their charitable agenda abroad. While some family philanthropists may feel that their resources are too small to launch an international giving initiative, there are plenty of resources available to help guide them through this process, ensuring that they retain charitable tax benefits and avoid legal pit-falls—and most importantly, that their funds are used in the manner in which they were intended. Intermediary groups offer a wide variety of financial, administrative, and grantmaking assistance, and include both donor networks and collaboratives, as well as specialized philanthropic advisors.
Examples of just a few of the available intermediary networks and resources include:
Established in 1992, CAFAmerica is a member of the Charities Aid Foundation International Network, and aids individuals, companies, family and community foundations in managing their giving and attaining their charitable goals around the world. For more information regarding how CAFAmerica's financial and charitable management services have helped family donors to realize their goals and make a lasting impact on causes worldwide, read a special article written for Family Giving News, "Overcoming Obstacles to International Giving" by CAFAmerica CEO, Susan Saxon-Harrold. For more information about CAFAmerica visit their web site.
The King Baudouin Foundation United States (KBFUS) is a public charity that works as a donor-advised fund and assists U.S.-based individuals, foundations and corporations who wish to support non-profits in the larger Europe. KBFUS is also available for donors who wish to identify local HIV/AIDS organizations in Central Africa. Increasingly, they work with community foundations and national funds that seek to support organizations overseas on behalf of their donors. KBFUS is affiliated with the King Baudouin Foundation (based in Brussels), named after Belgium's late head of state and a founding partner of the European Foundation Centre. For more information about the King Baudouin Foundation United States and examples of how they have helped individual, family, and corporate donors, visit their web site.
WINGS is a network of 100 membership associations and grantmaker support organizations that provides a forum for open discussion and peer education for those groups with the goals of encouraging collaboration and information-sharing. The organization, founded in 2000, also includes community and corporate branches designed to support the global philanthropic infrastructure of these types of foundations. WINGS five program areas include: information and communication; organizational development; international meetings; new initiatives; and strategic visioning. To learn more about WINGS and their initiatives, visit Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support.
Initiated in 1999 by Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the TCFN supports community foundations all over the world in their localized charitable efforts. It aims to identify best practices and proliferate them among existing and burgeoning community foundations. The TCFN hosts issue-related "working groups" to encourage information exchange among its community foundation members. For more information about the TCFN, visit their web site, co-hosted the European Foundation Centre, the Trans-Atlantic Community Foundation Network.
Grantmakers Without Borders provides peer-to-peer support for individuals and foundations new to international giving, is a venue for discussions of good practices in international giving, and facilitates information-sharing and education among international donors. Their primary mission is to encourage participation in social change philanthropy on a global scale. In response to growing concern about the restrictive nature of the Patriot Act and its effect on grantmaking, Grantmakers Without Borders has launched an advocacy effort to encourage the government to protect the rights of nonprofits and to allow them to carry on their good works. For more, please visit Grantmakers Without Borders
Drawing on the Rockefeller family's long history of global philanthropic engagement, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), offers a myriad of services to donors and their families wishing to give to causes overseas. RPA thoroughly researches and reviews grantmaking themes and issues, as well as individual non-governmental organizations and makes specific recommendations to donors. Senior philanthropic advisors provide counsel on how to meet specific goals and then help implement programs and ideas that donors wish to realize.
In one of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors' recent projects, Afghan Women Leaders Connect, a founding donor was able to work closely with staff to establish a safe and vetted direct funding channel to Afghan women-led nonprofit organizations. Read more about the launching of this initiative from founding donor Diana Newell Rowan and Program Manager Jasmine Nahhas di Florio in Investing in Afghan Women Leaders: Strategic Grantmaking in Afghanistan.
What is the U.S. Patriot Act?
The U.S. Patriot Act was passed in the days immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, and is intended to prevent American resources, fiscal and otherwise, from being used—even inadvertently—to support terrorist organizations. The Act prohibits individuals or charitable groups from contributing "material support" to groups engaged in terrorist activities including "monetary instruments" and "expert advice or assistance." While the spirit of the law is simply to prevent American capital and resources from falling into the hands of people intent on violence, some articles of the law are proving problematic for nonprofits, particularly those affiliated with causes in the Middle East.
What impact has it had on the philanthropic community?
Recent stories of nonprofit assets being frozen and their top officials being investigated for connections to terrorist organizations are causing worry in the philanthropic community. As recently as last month, top officers at the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation were indicted by the U.S. Justice Department due to FBI allegations that the organization funded several welfare groups rumored to be fronts for the terrorist group Hamas. While representatives for Holy Land maintain that the foundation "not only had nothing to do with Hamas, it assiduously avoided Hamas," and that the FBI's information is flawed and incomplete, the matter remains tied up in court. (Washington Post, Muslim Charities, Officials Indicted)
Some vagaries in the law concerning the definition of what constitutes "material support," the expansive breadth of the government's right to search and investigate nonprofits and their employees, and a "gag-order" clause have many in the nonprofit community crying foul. According to OMB Watch, since the Patriot Act was enacted local governments have passed more than 160 anti-Patriot Act resolutions and the House of Representatives has refused to allot more funding to searches authorized by the bill. (Patriot Games: The US Patriot Act and its Impact on Nonprofit Organizations.)
Most recently, a group of nonprofits, including the American Civil Liberties Union, and Amnesty International, withdrew from the Combined Federal Campaign due to new regulations requiring that participating nonprofits certify that their employees do not appear on a lengthy list of individuals suspected of having terrorist ties. They contend that the new requirement is not only an invasion of the privacy of their employees, but will also put undue bureaucratic strain on nonprofits whose only intensions are to do good works.
How can a nonprofit or donor comply with these regulations?
To comply with the Patriot Act, the American Bar Association, recommends "practical, flexible guidance that informs the sector how better to 'know your grantee' without prescribing overly burdensome requirements that may be costly without being effective." Knowing your grantee, however, is often more difficult than it sounds; particularly if you'd like to support causes in countries where information is neither reliable nor readily accessible.
This is where intermediaries can be particularly helpful because they not only have intimate knowledge of the grantees in their region, but also because they often have a wealth of legal resources to help philanthropists comply with the new regulations. According to Jean-Paul Warmoes Executive Secretary of the King Baudouin Foundation United States, the Patriot Act has changed donors reasons for approaching KBFUS for grantmaking assistance. Prior to the passing of the legislation, most donors sought out KBFUS for their knowledge of the Western and Central European nonprofit sector, but more recently the Foundation has been receiving more requests from smaller family foundations or donor-advised fund holders who are seeking assistance in complying with the new due diligence requirements.
The new legal requirements have also changed the way intermediaries conduct their due diligence processes—making sure that funds are not diverted to support terrorist-affiliated groups and are indeed used for charitable purposes. According to Warmoes, research procedures on grantees are now more formalized and scrupulously documented at KBFUS. Of the screening process he says: "We have always made sure that we knew our grantees and felt confident that when we did send a check out, the money was going to a good cause. But now, more than before, we are also able to demonstrate that we took all the appropriate steps to avoid any potential diversion of funds."
Both the Council on Foundations and the Independent Sector have voiced concern that the overly cumbersome and stringent laws will stifle international philanthropic efforts. At this point, no one can be sure what the long-term effects of the Patriot Act will be, but experts are hopeful that, with a wealth of good guidance from these sorts of intermediaries, international giving by family philanthropists will continue to make a positive impact on the world.
For more on the Patriot Act, see the following resources:
Patriot Games: The US Patriot Act and its Impact on Nonprofit Organizations by OMB Watch
Leading the Charge by the Philanthropy Roundtable
The kind of intermediary group you choose to establish your international giving agenda is very much dependent on the goals you have in mind and how large a gift you are planning to make. If your goal is general or your gift modest—say you'd like to make a gift of $500 to provide medical care to citizens of under-privileged countries—Jean-Paul Warmoes of the King Baudouin Foundation United States recommends that you give through a U.S.based nonprofit organization with international programs like Doctors Without Borders which would apply your donation to its general budget. If your goal is more specific and you'd like to have a more intimate relationship to a particular cause or region—you want to help orphans in the Romanian town your grandfather immigrated from or to provide relief to AIDS victims in South Africa—and your gift larger, he recommends looking into several intermediaries and their areas of expertise before choosing the one that is the right fit. Many groups like the King Baudouin Foundation US specialize in grantmaking in a particular region—this case, Western and Central Europe and some countries in Central Africa—where they are already familiar with many local grantees. While others such as CAFAmerica will accept donations—some for as little as $25—to any legitimate foreign charity anywhere in the world. Other groups like the Global Fund for Children or Global Green Grants provide services to allow donors to accomplish specific programmatic goals such as feeding, clothing and educating children, or protecting the environment. In addition, many community foundations, such as the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, allow donors to make grants internationally through their donor-advised funds. To further explore this option, contact your local community foundation.
Handbook on Counter-Terrorism Measures produced jointly by the Council on Foundations, the Independent Sector, InterAction and the Day, Berry, and Howard Foundation
Global Social Investing: A Preliminary Overview by the Philanthropic Initiative.
International Grantmaking: Funding with a Global View by GrantCraft.
International Grantmaking Update from the Foundation Center
United States International Grantmaking
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