Country Report 2020: Kenya

Abstract

Philanthropy—i.e., the private giving of time or valuables (money, security, property) for public purposes—is an age-old social practice that binds societies together (Salamon, Sokolowski, and Sturza 1992; Payton, 1988; Payton and Moody, 2008; Moyo, 2016). In many parts of Africa, philanthropy is deeply embedded in everyday practices characterized by a reciprocal obligation dynamic (Mati, 2020b). Philanthropy, as a social exchange, has undergone transformations, especially in terms of scope and structure over time. Specifically, philanthropy as experienced in Kenya and the rest of Africa has, in recent decades, evolved from practices deeply embedded in everyday prosocial behaviors to some form of formal institutionalization (Fowler and Mati, 2019; Moyo, 2016).