East Africa Giving Report 2014

The East Africa Association of Grantmakers (EAAG) is a regional voluntary Association that brings together Trusts and Foundations from across East Africa. The main mandate of EAAG is to provide a platform for promoting indigenous philanthropy. EAAG recognises the need for relevant data as a basis of effective monitoring, reporting and coordinating philanthropy efforts in the ever changing landscape of institutionalized philanthropy in East Africa. To this end, EAAG undertakes an annual survey of local giving in East Africa, amongst others to determine the contribution of local philanthropy towards social change, enhance philanthropy knowledge, and generate evidence for public policy advocacy.

The 2014 Giving Report is based on data collected from 111 organizations across East Africa, of whom only 14 were EAAG members. 45 of the respondents were from Kenya, 36 from Tanzania and 30 from Uganda. Of these, 44% were NGOs, 35% Companies 16% Trusts and Foundations, and the remaining 5% Religious Organisations. The data was collected through structured questionnaires administered through Monkey Survey as well as Key Informant Interviews (KIIs).The primary data was complemented with secondary data. The main findings of the 2014 giving survey are elaborated below.

According to the survey, the major sources of funding for the respondents were from allocations from annual revenues (53%), individual giving (38%), International NGOs (33%), Foundations and Trusts (31%), Bilateral agencies (25%) and Companies (19%) . With regard to actual receipts, the major source was from national governments (85%) followed by companies (8%)and multilateral agencies (6%).

As concerns actual allocation of resources across sector, about 94% of the acquired resources were distributed more or less equally between across five sectors viz. environment, food security, human rights advocacy, emergency relief, and sports, arts, culture (all at 17% each), as well as education at 10%. The remaining amounts were shared between health and leadership/governance.

With regard to the organisational typology of the institutions that received funding from the respondents, majority were learning institutions (82%), local NGOs/ CBOs (50%) and Health institutions (45%). The others wereGovernments (11%), research institutions and foundations/ trusts each at 8% and INGOs at 3%. There were however notable variations in fund allocation across countries. As an example, while most Kenya respondents allocated most resources to learning institutions, their counterparts from Uganda and Tanzania mainly supported local NGOs/ CBOs.

The three most pressing challenges across all the three countries was inadequate funding, followed by capacity challenges for monitoring/ measuring social impact and unfavourable tax policies and legal frameworks. Subsequently up to 70% of the respondents prioritised sustainability, measuring impact, and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) as the key capacity development needs.

It may be concluded from the study that while a growing number of development organisation are generating own funds, the amounts are extremely small, with most of funding being generated from (mostly foreign) national governments through INGOs. Unfavourable tax law, knowledge/attitude and capacity challenges remain the greatest impediments to local philanthropy.