How and Why Do Diaspora Give?

Diaspora philanthropy is the transfer of resources (money, time, labor, knowledge) to countries of origin for the public good. Do you know any diaspora philanthropists, like Kalekeni, the founder of Banda Bola Sports Foundation?Kalekeni moved to the U.S. from Malawi with his family as a teenager. Kalekeni grew up in Chituka, a farming village in Malawi, and while spending his youth in the U.S., he fondly remembered playing sports in Chituka. Longing for that connection, Kalekeni created the Chituka Village Project to serve the children of his home village. This turned into the Banda Bola Sports Foundation, a non-profit organization that uses soccer to promote education and social change in Malawi. The organization is based in Upstate New York and is entirely volunteer-based, with Kalekeni leading its vision.

Diaspora philanthropists leverage collective action.Marcela, with a group of other Boston-based Colombian immigrants, started the New England Association for Colombian Children (NEACOL) to fundraise and support social programs for children in Colombia, for example. The first fundraising initiative was raffling off tickets for Colombian singer-songwriter and actor Carlos Vives’ concert in Boston in 2013. From there NEACOL was created and the next year it was legally incorporated. By 2023, the organization had channeled $350,000 to 33 projects serving 18,000 children in Colombia. Have you heard about the 2nd annual India Giving Day? U.S.-based donors – mostly (but not only) the large Indian diaspora – were called on for the second year in March 2024 to give time and money to India. It is spearheaded by the India Philanthropy Alliance which was created in 2019 by 14 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. that fund development and humanitarian projects in India. In 2024 their efforts raised $5,543,837, from almost 2000 donors to give to 35 organizations serving India.

Diaspora philanthropy involves individuals from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Maral, an Iraqi-Armenian from Los Angeles, provides support on a grassroots level by purchasing cows for economically disadvantaged families in Armenia to help them achieve sustainable income. Her commitment goes beyond financial aid, as she personally visits these families during her annual trips to Armenia to show her encouragement and support. Maral also contributes to school renovations, equips labs, supports displaced Iraqi-Armenians, and organizes fundraising events for Armenia. Equally, diaspora philanthropists can be quite wealthy individuals like Kirk Kerkorian, a billionaire businessman and philanthropist of Armenian descent from Las Vegas, Nevada. He established the Lincy Foundation (1989–2011), which donated $1 billion to rebuild Armenia after the devastating earthquake in 1988, significantly impacting the recovery and development of Armenian communities.

Other examples are far more informal. On a recent research trip to Cape Town, South Africa, one of us (Susan) metChris, a Zimbawean, who has lived in Cape Town for 9 years. He moved there for economic opportunity, starting as a taxi driver and then working his way up to buy his own small fleet of taxis to create and run “Cape Cabz”, a local taxi company. As he built his life in South Africa, he started to return annually to his village in Zimbabwe. His giving to his village started informally, by bringing school supplies from Cape Town, to then starting to support children who were orphaned by HIV/AIDs. Annually he raises funds from Zimbabweans he knows in Cape Town to bring back home to Zimbabwe. He has started to coordinate more deliberately with the local school and his dream is to continue helping his homeland.

Studying Diaspora Philanthropy

Diaspora members and initiatives like those above are sprinkled everywhere across the world. As the examples suggest, diaspora giving is informal and formal as well as small and large. This type of giving is a mainstay of global philanthropy, and is producing growing scholarly curiosity around what can be called “diaspora philanthropy”. But how do we understand more about such giving? How do we study it?

Our recent NVSQ paper explores these questions. We ask, what are the (global) drivers that influence diaspora philanthropy (macro level)? What are the channels that allow for, or challenge, diaspora philanthropy (meso level)? And what are the individual motives of diaspora philanthropists (micro level)? Our work has relevance for the study of global philanthropy and for practitioners working in international development and the nonprofit sector.

In our article, we address the phenomena through macro, meso and micro levels, drawing on and compiling interdisciplinary research on the topic to propose a conceptual model (Figure 1).

• At the macro level, the article outlines the global drivers of diaspora philanthropy, including migration and development trends, and how migration patterns and transnational ties allow for and influence diaspora philanthropy. We posit that cross-border and global philanthropy especially presents a framework for the field of nonprofit and philanthropic studies to consider diaspora giving.
• At the meso level, we summarize intermediaries such ashometown associations and faith-based organizations in facilitating diaspora philanthropy; and introduce tools like government incentives, donor-advised funds (DAFs), and crowdfunding (like India Giving Day!) as enablers for diaspora giving. We gather research that can inform practical insights on how practitioners can leverage these intermediaries and tools. We suggest factors that might promote or stunt diaspora philanthropy such as trust and capacity among diaspora communities.
• At the micro level, we ask why do diaspora give? Our research identified the individual motivations behind diaspora philanthropy, such as emotional ties, identity, response to conflict/disaster, altruism born of suffering, and a sense of obligation.

Figure 1. The Nexus: Migration, Development, and Philanthropy

Concluding Remarks

As we argue in our paper, diaspora philanthropy is ripe for greater attention in scholarship and across nonprofit and philanthropic practice. From a scholarly perspective, the field of nonprofit and philanthropic studies is well positioned to think about many of the macro, meso and micro questions related to diaspora philanthropy. We argue especially that understanding the macro trends – around the timely policy (and political) issues of migration and development – is highly relevant to questions at the meso and micro levels, where our field and practice tends to focus and contribute. A growing interest in global philanthropy allows us to extend the field’s meso and micro strengths to more macro heights, as it is embedded in larger cultural, social, political, and economic phenomena. The field of nonprofit and philanthropic studies can contribute additional knowledge through a more macro lens.

While data about the magnitude of diaspora philanthropy is not readily available, in part because it has so many different kinds of intermediaries and is not easily tracked, the stories of diaspora philanthropists like those introduced above are rampant. Our hope is that our conceptual model makes a modest contribution to help researchers and practitioners bring their stories, challenges, and visions for their homelands to the forefront of conversations about global philanthropy.

Click here to read the full original NVSQ article: Appe, S., & Papyan, S. (2024). How and Why Do Diaspora Give? A Conceptual Model to Understanding Diaspora Philanthropy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640241275098