“To Rotary World Over!” is the toast we make every Wednesday at the end of our Rotary meetings.

I was inducted into the Rotary Club of Arusha (Tanzania) this year as a Paul Harris Sustaining Member.  Founded by Paul Harris, Rotary is a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 32,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas.  The Arusha, Tanzania chapter is celebrating its 50 year anniversary this year.

Rotary is about fellowship.  We meet weekly for lunch, learn from each other, and enjoy each other’s company.  It has been a great way for me to understand the perspective of the Arusha business community.  Our club also has many interesting projects, including the distribution of mosquito nets to prevent malaria, a rainwater harvesting project, a cataract surgery and more.

Internationally, Rotary played a huge role in eradicating polio.  Which, according to our recent Rotarian Magazine, is a disease that has popped up again in certain African countries.  Since establishing its PolioPlus program in 1985, Rotary members have helped to immunize more than 2 billion children in 122 countries, and have contributed more than US$500 million toward a polio-free world.  Rotary is the lead private sector contributor and volunteer arm of the global partnership dedicated to eradicating polio, which includes the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Not bad for a group of people who (for the most part) do not do social work as their day job.

Before joining the Arusha Rotary club, I was a guest once of a Rotary Club in Silicon Valley under the invitation of Sally Osberg.  I was thinking about the difference between Rotarians in East Africa vs. those in the US.  In our club, many of the business leaders are likely the wealthiest in town.  Much of their formal philanthropy (time and money) happens through the club.  However, their connection to poverty is many degrees closer than those Rotarians I met in Silicon Valley (also likely to be well-off business people and civic leaders who typically donate to good causes).  

Indigenous philanthropy in Africa is very different than what I know of philanthropy in the US.  It is part of the reason why Acumen Fund will have to think carefully as it considers a strategy for raising capital from Africans for its activities here.  In the US, emotional stories sell.  Most Americans (and Western Europeans for that matter) have never met someone who lives on $2 per day and are so far removed from the realities of the people portrayed in those emotionally charged fundraising stories, that they will trust in the avenue that is in front of them to donate (given it is legally incorporated…and of course, the tax break helps). 

The African philanthropist however, likely sees the realities daily because his/her cousin, neighbor, employee, grandma, etc. is asking him/her directly for money to treat malaria, to pay for school fees, to get access to family planning services, to treat HIV, or to pay for food because lack of rainfall didn’t yield good crops this season. All deserving cases for financial support from a charitable soul.

Therefore, formal donations to institutions like Acumen or Rotary, have to do much more than portray a good story to raise money from Africans.  They have to show results at a scale where these realities knocking on their door are actually lessening in tangible ways. This is my perspective based on very limited exposure to philanthropy here- the bar is very high for the performance of philanthropic funds.   Acumen fund’s metrics (such as the BACO and other performance metrics) are critical to the demonstration effect required to channel funds into effective social enterprises solving poverty in Africa.