Editors’ Note: Bojana Radovanović continues HistPhil‘s forum on the Inclusive Study of Global Philanthropy.
In academic discourse, philanthropy is most often identified with donating money and volunteering time to charitable organizations. However, I believe, such an understanding does not exhaust the concept of philanthropy and the variety of forms in which it appears. All over the world, people dedicate their time and emotions, invest work and energy, and give money and other material resources to help other people or improve life in their communities. Sometimes they do it through organizations, but more often through informal groups or in direct contact with those who need support. Nevertheless, the referent comparative studies and global surveys usually focus on activities that are more organized and formalized. Such a conception of philanthropy holds a “Northern bias”—when informal practices, which are the dominant form of philanthropy in the global South, are omitted from the analysis, we get a distorted picture about the scope and size of philanthropy.[1] It has been recognized lately that the way philanthropy is conceptualized and measured needs to be rethought. I cannot agree more.
I became interested in philanthropic studies when I started my PhD in 2012. Thinking about my own country—Serbia—I presumed that philanthropy is much more developed there than what was captured by the Charities Aid Foundation’s World Giving Index, one of the scarce studies on philanthropy in the country at the time. Although there is a term for philanthropy in the Serbian language – “filantropija”, in literal translation love of humankind,[2] it is not often invoked. According to one study, only 4% of citizens use this term.[3] Studies that focus on philanthropy in Serbia usually define it as “giving for the public good”.[4] Sometimes the Serbian term for benefaction or good deed (“dobročinstvo“) is applied as a synonym, particularly by organizations that promote philanthropy in the country (e.g. Coalition for Giving—“Koalicija za dobročinst”). To avoid ambiguities, I used “individual giving” in my PhD research, defined as “voluntarily dedicating one’s non-material and/or material resources for the benefit of others or the common good”.[5] My research focused on individual giving to organisations—civil society organisations and public institutions (e.g. schools, hospitals, etc.), which can be intermediary or final recipients, giving to (and through) groups, which included any ad hoc gatherings organised to address specific needs within a local community, and giving directly to people in need.
To assess the scope and size of various forms of philanthropy, I conducted a survey of a representative sample of individuals, using face-to-face interviews, in the spring of 2014. This empirical study confirmed that donating money and volunteering time to civil society organizations were less prevalent than informal philanthropic practices. In other words, Serbian citizens more often gave their time and money directly to people in need, or gathered through ad-hoc groups to address a certain problem, than gave to formal organizations. Many other studies on philanthropy that appeared in the past decade point in the same direction.[6] In fact, Serbian citizens most often associate giving for the public good with “helping people in need.”[7] This is hardly surprising to anyone who has followed local media in Serbia, since the most prominent philanthropic activities are donations for medical treatments. Although medical crowdfunding is present in other countries, it is by far the most important cause for Serbian donors, as, according to the Giving Serbia report, more than a half (57%) of the registered donated sum in 2021 was for medical treatments.
Here a bit of context is in order: Over the last few decades, there has been a shift in political and economic systems in Serbia, and throughout former Yugoslav countries, during which time the socialist welfare system has moved toward widening the responsibilities of individuals and their families—towards privatization and a plurality of service providers. The transformation of healthcare and social security systems created gaps in coverage and some people have been left without institutional support. So what do those who need expensive medical treatment uncovered by the public health system do? There has been a widespread practice in Serbia and throughout the former Yugoslav states whereby the relatives of a sick person raise money for the medical treatment.[8] They set up a bank account and through the media ask for donations to be made to the account. Or a telephone number is provided where donations can be made via text messaging. It is important to stress that a couple of years ago these were informal practices in the sense that donors contributed directly to recipients’ accounts, without an intermediary organization. Recently, we began to witness the change from informal giving to organized philanthropy in this area, with the establishment of the “Budi human” (Eng. “Be humane”) foundation, which connects donors and recipients. Those who seek financial support for medical treatment, currently more than 600 children and 300 adults, post their page on the foundation’s website, where the details of their bank sub-account and a number for text-messaging are provided. Although each recipient has their own bank sub-account, the recipients cannot dispose of the funds at their will, as the foundation administers the funds and guarantees that they are used for the specified purposes. When an urgent treatment is needed, fundraising campaigns are undertaken and billboards and boxes for charitable contributions appear all over the country, as well as calls for donations on famous TV show, various fundraising events, etc. Leaving out practices of direct donations to people in need certainly distorted the picture about philanthropy in Serbia at the time of my PhD research. However, as the fundraising campaigns are always organized for a specific person, it is questionable whether donors would report their contributions for medical treatments as giving to a charity, even if given through a foundation.
Apart from the methodological challenges posed by different forms of philanthropy, there are also those related to normative questions. What we as researchers, and as an academic discipline of philanthropic studies more generally, focus on, and what we omit, speaks to the underlying values behind the work. Going back to the example of donating for medical treatments in Serbia: Often huge sums of money are collected in only a couple of weeks—particularly when children are involved. Is this something to celebrate or to lament? On the one hand, it is certainly praiseworthy that ordinary citizens answer numerous requests for donations, particularly keeping in mind the unfavorable economic situation in the country and the fact that there are no fiscal incentives for individual giving. On the other hand, a society in which a life depends on the good will of fellow citizens is to be lamented. Perhaps, true love of humankind would require building a society in which medical treatment is a guaranteed right. But would such efforts (for example participating in a rally, or dedicating time to a social movement, which advocates for greater social rights) be recognized as philanthropic behavior in a contemporary study intended to capture philanthropy? I am afraid it would not, as philanthropy research tends to delineate itself from politics or at least political behaviors. However, on the ground, it is hard to draw a line between political and “purely” philanthropic actions. For example, eco-activism is on the rise in Serbia. Protesting against mini-hydro plants that endanger the natural environment, apart from being a contentious politics, could (and perhaps should) be considered as dedicating time for the common good and thus counted as philanthropy.
If we are to truly understand philanthropy, and particularly the variety of faces it takes around the globe, philanthropy research needs to focus on all the various activities intended to benefit others or to contribute to the common good. It must address the questions: In what ways do such practices differ across geographical places and gender, class, and cultural spaces? How are they referred to in local languages? What values are attached to them? In what terms are the benefits defined? Even more importantly—who defines them? What does the notion of the common good imply in any specific context? What does the existence or the lack of certain philanthropic behaviors tell us about a particular society? The engagement of local scholars, or those deeply familiar with the local context, is necessary to answer those questions. Most importantly, being open to question initial premises, and being aware of the underlying values and world views we as researchers hold is crucial in overcoming disciplinary and cultural boundaries.
-Bojana Radovanović
Bojana Radovanović is research fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, where she also coordinates the work of the Laboratory for Philanthropy, Solidarity and Care Studies.
[1] Jacqueline Butcher and Christopher Einolf (eds.), Perspectives on Volunteering: Voices from the South (2017, Springer International Publishing AG).
[2] Bojana Radovanović, What do We Talk about When we Talk about Philanthropy? (2021: Belgrade: Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory) (in Serbian).
[3] Balkan Community Initiative Fund – BCIF, “Individual and corporate philanthropy in Serbia” BCIF (2012).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Bojana Radovanović, Individual Giving: Theoretical Discussions and the Evidence from Serbia and Canada. Ethical Issues, Contextual and Individual Factors of Giving Time and Money to Organisations and People, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019.
[6] See for example Catalyst Balkans’ yearly reports, Giving Serbia.
[7] Catalyst Balkans (2019). Western Balkan Public Opinion on Philanthropy. SIGN Network.
[8] Čarna Brković, “Scaling Humanitarianism: Humanitarian Actions in a Bosnian Town,” Ethnos 81 (2015): 99–124.
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