African Immigrant Innovations in 21st Century Giving

African Immigrant Innovations in 21st Century American Giving is an in-depth analysis of the giving of today’s African immigrants, especially the majority of Africans who are from indigenous sub-Saharan ethnic groups identified as black in a United States (US) context. This is the third study in the US African Diaspora Giving Project (U-DAP) designed to advance understanding of the giving traditions of US African-descent ethnic groups. Our hope is to deepen knowledge of the diversity of America’s rich civic leadership and contributions. U-DAP originated from the advocacy of the Pan-African Women’s Philanthropy Network (PAWPNet), a national coalition of diverse African-descent women and their allies devoted to advancing all forms of giving in the African diaspora (Copeland-Carson 2012). With critical support from PAWPNet, and funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the African Women’s Development Fund USA (AWDF USA), a public foundation committed to supporting African women’s development, published a monograph over viewing US African immigrant philanthropy’s cultural values, history and practices (Copeland-Carson and Okome 2013). U-DAP has also included public outreach to raise awareness of African diaspora giving throughout the US, including a public campaign to promote Black Philanthropy Month (BPM). Recognized by the United Nations, BPM is an annual celebration of black giving created by PAWPNet in 2011. A successful BPM 2013 campaign co-led by The Giving Back Project, Black Gives Back, the Community Investment Network with AWDF USA brought U-DAP’s research to millions, increasing awareness of the diversity and global dimensions of black giving. This current study is the collaboration of the three scholars, Drs. Copeland-Carson, Okome and Osili, who have written most of the research in the emergent African diaspora philanthropy field over the past 15 years. There is a well-established movement and field of black philanthropy in the US that primarily focuses on the giving traditions of the “historical” diaspora, that is, the voluntary sector traditions of black Americans who are the descendants of US African slaves from the 17th through 19th century. Despite the 3.7 million foreign-born African-descent people who make up the country’s black population today, less is known about the giving traditions of foreign-born blacks such as African, African-Caribbean, Afro-Latin, Afro-European and Afro-Asian groups that also comprise today’s black American community. Although there have been notable efforts to examine and promote giving of Latino and Asian Diasporas, there is comparatively little effort to study the philanthropy of America’s African diaspora. The first two U-DAP studies established the broader context of African immigrant giving in the development of US black and American philanthropy more generally, as well as a related, emergent Pan-African movement (see Copeland-Carson and Okome 2013 and Copeland-Carson 2012). African Immigrant Giving in 21st Century America builds on our prior identification of ten key African immigrant giving social structures and delves more deeply into the amount and dynamics of this understudied but critical component of American giving. We use a cross-cultural model of giving recognizing that private finance for the public good has different values, forms and dynamics worldwide that also influence the giving practices of US immigrants.This study moves beyond standard notions of community and giving to include diaspora approaches that may not more explicitly be seen as “philanthropic” from a conventional or strictly mainstream Western point-of-view. We recognize that Africans — like everyone else in our increasingly global world — are creating novel practices including giving that mixes and matches traditions from the new and old worlds.