Corporates and charities get together to discuss how much is enough when it comes to charity

BusinessToday: It is said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. What are your views on this?

Qasmi: When we talk about charity, whether we are individuals or institutions, there is a national need for a commitment to society. As you were saying, we are taking from society. Should we return part of it to society? I feel we should, but again there are a few points that we need to deliberate on. Today, the time has come for the nation to gear up and project the humanitarian aspect. A mechanism should be put together so that such projects are really effective and add value to society.

Jawad: First of all, we have to differentiate between philanthropy and charity. Tomorrow, if I go and pay for a mosque, that is not philanthropy. Philanthropy should be very organised and systematic. And it should be non-religious, non-obligatory and unconditional. If we refer to Islam, it says that you have to pay zakaat (one of the five pillars of Islam, the main act of worship which has to be performed monetarily). Even zakaat, people pay individually. But in some countries, even Arab countries, it is orga-nisations of zakaat. Now, I would welcome that sort of organised thing. But there should be more awareness. Ramadan is coming now. You will see that within every organisation people are lining up and everybody says 'Please give us zakaat'. And everybody pays, but it is not organised.

Ali Jawad: One point. Ramadan is basically for food, it is not for helping somebody. As real business people, we know what we are talking about and what we are aiming at. We do need a system, a mechanism, a tool, combined with private involvement.

Groves: The topic of today's debate was business and philanthropy. Looking at the bigger picture, first of all we have creation of wealth by perhaps a few or many. Then there are those in society who need help because they are less fortunate. The idea is that those who have money, help those who don't. I think that crosses all religions and philosophies. There's a difference between philanthropy and charity and there's a difference between personal and corporate.

There are a number of issues here. Looking at the icons of philanthropy today, like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, they are giving of their personal wealth and not their corporate wealth. There are those of you here who are in the corporate world, but have created personal wealth as well. It's a matter of how you can best handle your wealth to help others.

Personally, I sit here representing a large corporate. What I do myself is probably separate from that. Some of you around the table are perhaps in a position to make personal as well as corporate social responsibility decisions. So I'm not quite sure where we want to take the discussion. Philanthropy is not a new thing. It has been around for hundreds and thousands of years. But it is the specific focus of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates that has caught the headlines.

BusinessToday: There are people here who are involved in helping others. And there are people who are involved in giving some of their wealth back. Should there be more awareness on how to do this?

Khimji: There are two ways in which the corporates contribute – through organisations or through sponsorships. In organisations such as ours, and I'm sure as in Hussain Jawad's, you tend to get a lot of requests for sponsorships of cultural programmes and fashion shows to aid other things. Does that become a measure of philanthropic abilities? When you sponsor a programme, you know fully well that the sponsorship does not have much commercial value but you're doing it for the sake of society. I think there is that measure that needs to be taken on.

If I have to make a spreadsheet and say how much money is given to charity, will I take into account the fashion show and the individual I paid something to because he was going around on a cycle? Does that become part of my corporate responsibility? I think it does because if you're not going to do it, who will do it? There are things that need to be brought into the forum, apart from what is being physically handed out.

Abbas: I think the new word is corporate social responsibility. Some countries have stepped it up to not including these companies, who don't meet the criteria of their social obligations, in the stock markets. This is a good word that has a wide definition. It doesn't only mean helping out charities, it also means how you treat your employees, how you are in the marketplace; it's a huge definition that comes along with it. What we are addressing today is how that affects the community. Coming from a charity, I can say that we have got an incredible response from the companies that are here. Even when we were not a registered organisation, there were a lot of companies that came forward by spons-oring different activities for us or by simply giving us rations and goods instead of money because of the fact that we were not registered. Now that we are registered, I don't think we will have any problems approaching these companies. In general, I think that the community is aware because of the fact that we come from a religious background that actually practises the concept of zakaat. Every household practises this whole concept of giving. The problem that is being faced is of how to reach these people without them approaching more than one company. Now I think there is more awareness of allowing these charities to become registered to go out and reach the whole community as opposed to just the Muscat area for example. People need to understand that they can give on their own. But we also need to understand that these are registered organisations that have that responsibility to help directly and reach out. As corporates, it is nice to know that your money has gone to the right place.

Groves: We find it easier to give financial support to a registered charity. Our relationship with the Association of Early Intervention for Children with Special Needs has been very good. Now Dar al Atta is registered therefore we're able to prov-ide financial support. What I would like to see apart from financial support is for my staff to be more involved in activities. So if we can come up with some activities whereby they help Dar al Atta and other such organisations, that would give me a lot of pleasure. I got a statistic where HSBC groupwide, something like 280,000 hours a year is given to charitable good works. Now we have 284,000 employees worldwide. So it's actually one hour a year that is given by each person. Now that means that we can do a lot more. I would like to be able to mobilise staff to be able to do some good work. We would give them some time off to do it as well because people lead very busy lives. We're looking at that for Injaz now, which is a young achievers forum, and we are getting some staff volunteers for their programmes. So it is happening.

Moosa: I think this is a very good idea because one of the most difficult things that we face is to recruit volunteers. It is sometimes easy for corporates and individuals to give their money but to give time is very difficult. And there are so many activities that we have to cancel last minute because we don't have enough people. So if corporates encourage their staff to get involved, that will be wonderful. Because once they get involved they know that's how they can get committed for more hours. Because they have to feel also that the one hour of theirs is adding value and benefiting them as much as it is benefiting the charity. If they don't feel that it is a win-win situation when they come to us, and feel that they are wasting their time, then they will not come back.

Abbas: I think we have a huge responsibility as charities here, to guide these businesses. I think it's our job to have programmes where we can get involved and raise awareness in companies because many of them set a specific amount every year and then tell us that we have this much that we would like to spend per year on different charitable activities. We always sit back and say that it's our people who are doing everything. We should say that this is what we want to do, this is the project – whether it's a housing project, whether it's just going out and giving out rations, whether it's a clean up. You guys sound like you are open to this.

Ali Jawad: If you are an active organisation, then that's fine. But there are a few organisations that are not active. They are not aware and educated. We have to create a mechanism so that all organisations are equal. Like it is said – teach me how to fish, don't give me a fish. It's not my responsibility to just finance you, it's also my responsibility to educate you. That's why, like Richard said, if I participate not only financially, but through my staff and my promotions, then that's what's needed. Look how it is with an unregistered organisation. Purely from a taxation point of view, I demand a receipt from you and you can't give it to me. I would say thank you very much and go to some other organisation that can give me a receipt.

Jawad: Do we think that with the business activities that we have in Oman, are business people really donating what they should? Or is there a gap somewhere?

Moosa: From our experience, it all depends on your contacts and on the people who are making the decisions, whether they have that feeling of social responsibility or not. For example, we have a good relationship with HSBC and a few other other companies because they understand our concepts. But there are many companies where I can't even get an appointment with their CEO or a general manager because they think that it's a waste of their time. They don't even give us a chance to explain who we are and what we do. We, at Early Intervention, are the only organisation in the country looking after the age group from newborns to the age of six, which is the most vulnerable age group. Now many people think that I have given this much this year, it must be enough. They wonder what we have spent on. I'll give you an example. We have an assessment unit, which has four specialists. It's the only assessment unit in the entire country. Neither the government nor the private sector nor any other charitable organisation has such a unit. Those four specialists alone cost me RO60,000 per year. Many organisations want to get involved and sponsor an activity. Nobody thinks about the fact that so much money goes to payroll. And then they come and ask me how much goes directly to the children? All of it goes to the children. If we don't have the specialists, we cannot assess the child. If we cannot assess the child, we cannot produce an individual programme of rehabilitation and therapy for the child. And we cannot achieve anything with that child. But payroll is something that no organisation wants to talk about. But the bulk of the money that we need goes for payroll. The way we work, we try to reduce our costs. Most of the services and products that we need, we get them from companies. Our building is an endowment from the Ministry of Awqaf, the cleaning of the building is being done by Al Nabar for the last five years, the water comes from Al Waha, the milk and juice came from Zain until recently, breakfast comes from Al Fair, and our computer maintenance comes from Al Madina. So these are services that are covered. The money I need is to pay the staff. We have 30 staff members. The Omanis are paid minimum wage but still at the end of the month I have to spend RO150,000.

Jawad: My question was whether our society, our business sector, is donating enough?

Moosa: No. Few organisations do enough.

Ali Jawad: Looking at public companies, being a stockbroker, all the companies provide RO20,000-30,000 but they don't know how to spend it, they keep it. I was part of one of those public companies and we kept it for six-seven years. That was cash flow for them. If I provide RO20,000 every year, which I don't want to spend, it means that there is a problem with the system.

BusinessToday: The levels of awareness have been mentioned by almost everyone.

Groves: Getting back to your question about what is enough, it's never enough. I actually haven't seen any statistics about how much companies get.

Jawad: The charitable organisations are the ones who have a feel as to whether society is giving more or not. The second point is that we are here to make people aware. When I talked about zakaat earlier, I wanted to know if all the zakaat money, which is big money, goes to them? Do we have another organisation where all this money goes? I don't know.

Qasmi: It is there in the Awqaf but until now it is all voluntary.

Jawad: It is compulsory only in Saudi Arabia.

Qasmi: We don't have statistics so far but I am positive that the public sector and the companies pay a lot of money in a year. But where does it go? Does it go where it is supposed to or does it go to these Nancy Ajram kind of things? As a nation, we need to re-prioritise. We need to have national awareness. In BankMuscat, where I was working, they pay a lot of money, but where did it all go? That will never be eliminated. But when a magazine like BusinessToday comes up with this very valid subject for a debate, we need to come up with a mechanism. The government itself has to sponsor this kind of concept.

Khimji: When you say government sponsored, it has to be recognised.

Raisi: Then it will not be a charity.

Khimji: I still feel that it needs to be led by corporate entities. Somebody like BankMuscat needs to come together and say that we are now going to set an example and start an institution where you can pool into. We are the corporate bodies, the large private organisations, with the banks, who will form a corpus, and this corpus will be looked after by a board member or a group of people who are recognised and respected in society. Again if it goes to the government, it is like me paying baladiya tax. What does baladiya do? Well, it's supposed to build me a road and make sure that the sewage is clean and that the government prov-ides for social housing as well.

Qasmi: When I said government, I didn't mean 100 per cent government. It could be semi-government. In other parts of the world, these things go to researchers. Cancer research, for example. It's not as if someone just turns up at my door and asks for one rial and I donate. It has to be organised. Research goes into everything from dealing with blindness to treating polio.

Ali Jawad: Correct me if I am wrong, but we don't have proper statistics of what we need in real terms. That's why we see so many organisations coming up. But we don't have actual numbers. It is important to see how much money should match that requirement.

Raisi: The link between charitable organisations and private businesses isn't very good. Except for three or four companies in this country, if you go to any other company, they have no plans of what charity they should do. There is a rule of the government that allows you to use five per cent of your profit for cha-rity instead of paying tax. There is a Royal Decree, from 1976 or 1978, which allows a company to use five per cent of its income to pay for social development programmes in this country. And nobody is using it. We und-ertake programmes, we go to the companies, and we take them files of studies with photographs. We do not give zakaat to everyone who comes and asks for RO10. We decide after doing a social survey and studying the pers-on's life, his family, his income. The problem in this country is also that the culture of charity is very poor. When we go to some companies, we are glad that they don't hit us. They kick us out. But when we go to neighbouring countries, they tell us that 30 years ago, they faced the same situation. The best country in the Gulf region is Kuwait. It is very planned in its cha-rity work. They have 52 organisations who are dealing with a lot of money. They don't need to go to anyone now. They just conduct a study, make a file and send it out. Charity work here is different here from that in Europe or America. I have someone now who is from Canada who is volunteering for Lebanon. But there's a problem with volunteers too. I have about 1,000 volunteers registered with me, but sometimes if I need two, I cannot find them. And would you believe that we have to pay for volunteers here?

Groves: I remember when I was in Delhi, India, I met the people from a charity, an NGO. And I asked, What do you want? They said, ‘Give us the money because then we have control. If you say you'll give us volunteers, we can't rely on them. We don't want second-hand PCs, we don't want second-hand toys, just give us the money to do what we want to do’. There was some discussion earlier about the role of the government versus the role of corporate voluntary sector. Sometimes there's an idea that the government will do everything for you. The only way that the government can do everything for you is by everyone paying high taxes for the government to be able to spend to relieve everyone of pov-erty and helping out organisations such as yourselves. Personally, coming from the UK, where there's a very old traditional developed voluntary sector, many charities and a lot of people who support and work for charities, I like the voluntary sector. But to say that the government should be doing this and the government should be doing that is not correct. Yes, the government should be doing some of it, but where do you draw the line? That's a difficult question. The charities have to come in to bridge that gap. In most countries, the big cancer research is supported by the voluntary sector.

Qasmi: When I said the government, I meant create some sort of cooperation. I am very glad to hear what Ali said about the five per cent from a company's profit. If we take about three or four companies that make over RO100mn, it is RO5mn. And it simply needs to be managed.

Jawad: I wasn't aware of this five per cent rule either. It is probably our weakness of not rea-ding. But this rule is a good thing.

Ali Jawad: There's another thing, I'm not sure if it is a Royal Decree, if you employ more than 50 people, it is compulsory that you have to employ one handicapped person. But who is doing this?

Jawad: About the five per cent, the government says - don't pay me, pay the charity. This will encourage everyone.

Qasmi: The government should enforce this.

Raisi: We have this 15 year old boy, who has a hearing problem. He needs an implant, a kit, that costs about RO10,000. For him, the operat-ion and treatment is free in the hospital. I went to so many companies but there was no reply from them. We were supported by LNG and Shell Marketing, among others. We have done the operation now but we are still short of money. There are many such cases but who do we go to? As Abdalla said, all companies are spending, they have their budget, but it all goes towards advertising. It doesn't go to charity. Give us just two per cent of this advertising money and help some needy people.

Moosa: The problem of this child (with the hearing problem) will not end with the implant. After that, he will need rehabilitation. In the hospital, they don't do rehabilitation. We are the only people who do that.

We have a long waiting list because we have only one speech pathologist. All the surgeries for cochlear implant that are done at Al Nahdha, end up with us for rehabilitation, because they don't have the facilities for it. We need to expand to get more people. To expand, we need more money – to buy the land that is next to us, to build there and get equipment, I need RO25,000.

Abbas: As you say, there is a running cost. And there are constantly going to be new cases. But we have to think as an organisation, how can we then generate more money? Perhaps we should think bigger, think of projects that will give us income. We need to think like corporates. We shouldn't just go ask for the money and sit back. Perhaps I should build a multipurpose hall and rent it out and that will be good income for me.

We need to market ourselves. The suggestion that charities are not active is flawed, it can be the same with companies. If a company is not active, am I going to go to them and say you need to change? Obviously, something needs to be done. If something is not working, a core change is needed. It is not your job as a comp-any to go and say, 'You are the charity and you are not working. This is what you need to do.' You don't have the time for it. You barely have the time to see us when we come to you.

Moosa: By law, as a charitable organisation we cannot enter into investment. If Towell, for example, decides that they buy a property, and rent it out, but allow the proceeds of that property to come directly to us, that is fine. That will be an endowment that they create for us. It's not just that. The bureaucracy in dealings never fails to amaze us. To start with, it took us four years of struggle to get the organisation chartered.

Abbas: It took us five years to get registered.

Moosa: I want the government to know that they are not doing enough. The bureaucracy is not playing its role. These are not His Majesty's orders. He wants a lot for his nation and his people. But his ministers and his government are not doing enough.

BusinessToday: Two very important points of view have emerged. The charitable organisations say that not enough is being done. On the other hand we have the corporate sector representatives here, who say that they want to do more but because of the lack of knowledge and facility to do that in a systematic way, there is a gap between what charities want to do and what corporates want to do. There's a disconnect. What can be done to improve the whole system? Philanthropy now is not just philanthropy, it requires a lot of skills. Skills that you put to use in your own business. So how can the system be more effective?

Jawad: We need, first of all, to have coordination between the charitable organisations here. They have to tell each other about the programmes and projects that they have. Then they can support each other.

Raisi: If you have something useful, particu-larly on the social development side, then we can help.

Moosa: In Oman, there is no formal training for special needs education. All the people who are working within the associations, are volunteers. They are doing their best but they are not trained to do the job. Most of them have been doing it for a long time so they know how to do it. And we give them training from time to time. We're trying to develop a diploma programme to benefit these people. A lot of people who are working in the interiors don't have any training. We realised that we would have to develop ourselves this diploma programme. It was going to cost us RO87,000 to do that. We approached HSBC and they supported the library. We went to the Ministry of Higher Education to get approval for the programme. Their condition was that you cannot run it yourself, it has to be run through a local college or university.

We told them there was nobody. They said that Nizwa University was registering a similar programme for Bachelor's Degree this year, why don't you approach them? So we approached the university. They agreed to do it and we agreed on certain terms. But the cost jumped from RO87,000 to RO235,000. Now I need the money to run this programme, not just to develop people of our association but to develop the rest of the country also. People think that charity is something small. You have people, you feed them, you dress them, you get them things on Eid and that's it. That is not the issue. This is a very sophisticated programme in which you have specialised people. We get referrals from all the hospitals for assessment because we don't have assessment facilities in the government hospitals.

Groves: Going back to the very first point, I think that it is absolutely essential for sustai-nable business that we put back something into the community. As Pankaj was saying, we get many many calls for our time and money. We decided some time ago to concentrate on education for the underprivileged and the environment. So we have to be focused on what we do, then we can make a real diffe-rence, rather than a scattergun approach. I think it's important to coordinate among the various charities.

And we, as coporates, have to ensure for our shareholders and others that we know where the money is going. We like to see that it is being put to good use. Which is probably different from a personal donation, where the inclination to follow through is possibly not so great. In this country, I look for opportunities for us to play our part. We have supported the Early Intervention Centre for the last four years and we have just started with Dar al Atta, and we look forward to a long relationship with them.

Qasmi: I think the time has come for the nation to create a body that would coordinate between individuals and organisations who want to add value to society.

Khimji: I am very pleased to know that there is a tax-deductible contribution that can be made. Every organisation will leave aside something, whether it is for charity, donation, or for a social cause. But this whole thing comes under one large geographical chunk. We need to define ourselves. We, as corporates, need to be a little more focused on what we are doing as opposed to how much we are doing. I think that there is a lack of focus in private organisations. I appreciate what Richard just mentioned about the bank having a particular obligation. I say this on behalf of the private sector that we are not focused or organised enough. Are we aware that we should be cont-ributing? Yes, we are. Are we doing enough? No, we are not.

Nobody is going to say: yes, we are doing enough. Like Abdalla said, I wish there is a non-government organisation that is not doing any charity work but is just a holder. We should probably see a more private face, a more recognisable face to it. Let it not be a curtain wall, where you put your money through and they say we will take care of it. The message we get from the Oman Charitable Organisation where we send our money once in a while is that they take the money and we don't know what happens to it.

Raisi: The money goes to the particular prog-ramme that you have donated to. If you send money for Lebanon, it goes for Lebanon. I am ready to tell you where the money is going.

Khimji: If only there were some recognisable, socially creditable people to be part of that organisation, like Hussain Jawad or Richard. Then those people could pick me up by the ear and say 'we need this' and I would have to give it. What you need is a marketing face. What I need is a softer face to the organisation. We need something that is more approachable and more friendly.

Abbas: I think that educating the community – the corporates as well as the charities – is very important. The corporates can be educated on how they can help and the charities can be educated on how to approach and market themselves. The face is very important. To go to a company with a project, to let them know exactly where their money is going, to keep in touch with them, is very important. Don't just contact the companies whenever Ramadan comes around. I think a lot of international companies have seen the benefits of linking themselves with huge charities. An example is Avon and the way they have linked themselves with the breast cancer campaign. They have seen huge benefits out of that. Working with the other organisations is also very important to have some sort of a system.