Philanthropy Conceptualize

The etymology of the word "philanthropy" derives from the Greek philos (love, lover of, friend of) and anthropos (human being); hence, philanthropy means, "love of humanity". The origin of the term dates back to Ancient Greece in the fifth century BC. Early philanthropy or Philanthrôpia in Ancient Greece was practiced successively in various contexts (Rey García, 2013). Philanthrôpia was initially associated with divinity and, in time, became linked to essentially civic virtues (Sulek, 2010a).

The term philanthropy has successive conceptual definitions within the framework of different philosophical, religious, or ideological perspectives, parallel to the transformation of the philanthropic phenomenon itself (Sulek, 2010b). Variations in the academic approach to the study of philanthropy is and has been a subject of scientific interest during the last decades ranging from philanthropy as the common good (Moody & Breeze, 2016) to the moral aspect of individual philanthropy as shaped by different cultures or altruistic motivation (Payton & Moody, 2008; Schervish, 2014). What is clear is that there are common themes relating to philanthropy as action connecting to the ideas of the ancient Greeks recognizing the civic virtues of the action.

The philanthropic process has been and is approached from different disciplinary perspectives. Among the current approaches, some are related to a sociological view (Moreira Hernández, 2015; Barman, 2017); others have an economic perspective (Giloth, 2019; Markley et al., 2016), or a political perspective (Nickel, 2018; Reich, 2016), or even a psychological perspective (Aknin et al., 2017; Oarga et al., 2015), among others. On the other hand, there are studies of an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary nature (Wiepking and Bekkers, 2012; Kottke et al., 2017).

Schervish (2014) understands philanthropy at a personal level as a moral biography of care; while, at a social level, he regards it as the moral citizenship of care. He states that philanthropy encompasses donating financial resources, contributing goods and volunteering: i.e., devoting time and effort to the assistance of others. Thus, he defines it as "the social relationship in which donors provide the means to meet the needs of others, simply because the humanity of those in need empathically encourages them" (p. 396), differentiating it from commercial exchanges (Ostrander & Schervish, 1990). Schervish (2014) posits that “philanthropy is a more profound array of biographical and societal relationships” beyond solely focusing on instrumental processes such as legal codes defining nonprofit and philanthropic organizations (p.389).

Rey García (2013) suggests that, in some cases, philanthropy has been reduced to the donation of funds and / or the foundational activity of a private and secular nature for purposes of public interest, developed outside the public administration, yet supported by the state through a favorable tax treatment.

The word "donate" comes from the Latin donare (give, grant, forgive), "donation" derives from the Latin noun "donatio-is", which in turn derives from "donum-i", the meaning of which corresponds to the act of giving, and it means "donation, gift, present, offering", among others, which originates from the Latin transitive verb "dono" (to give, donate, give away, distribute, or grant) (Álvarez-Salamanca, 2014).

Various typologies seek to group donors, taking into account different characteristics such as their contributory capacity (Collins, 2017), age group / generation (Dietz & Keller, 2016), the type of contribution they make, their motivation (Gangadharan et al., 2015) and the type of participation they choose (Dietz & Keller, 2016). Bekkers and Wiepking (2011) and Wiepking and Bekkers (2012) mention eight main theoretic mechanisms that prompt charitable donations: awareness of need, solicitation, costs and benefits, altruism, reputation, psychological benefits, values, and efficacy, as well as seven predictor variables: religion, education, age, socialization, gender, family composition, and income and philanthropic behavior.

Community Well-Being

Our proposal focuses on considering the community as a space for face-to-face relationships, returning to the first meaning of the word comunitas that showed how common was not one's own, what began where one's own ended, which concerned everyone and therefore it had the character of public, a space where reciprocity or mutuality of giving prevailed and determined a commitment. In the old sense, the meaning of communis was that of the one who shares a responsibility and comunitas was the set of people to whom a duty bound them as members of that community (Esposito, 2003, pp. 25–31).

In order to study community well-being we need to consider this concept not only from a personal perspective but also in social terms. As Sung and Phillips (2018, p. 68) pointed out: “the influence of the community on an individual’s well-being may certainly vary, but it is difficult to fully conceptualize individual well-being without a sense of community well-being”.

The elements that people value in community life do not always turn out to be the same in the city as in the countryside, in the urban area and in the rural context. In this chapter, we will refer to the quality of community life in an urban context, which includes not only large metropolises but also the areas that surround them, generally known as "suburbia" (Tonon, 2010).

When people are asked about the satisfaction they feel as members of the community they inhabit, there are several elements worth considering. This is so because having a sense of community refers to feeling satisfied with various situations: safety on public roads, social services, interaction between neighbors, infrastructure and equipment, public transport, the possibility of working and also enjoying free time, and the possibility of meeting in public spaces with other members of the community to exchange ideas and debate about common problems and concerns (Tonon, 2010).

Sirgy et al., (2008, p. 82) developed a study in which they stated that satisfaction with community services plays an important role in community well-being, the latter being understood as global satisfaction with one’s community, the perception of quality of life in the community and the perceived quality of life. A hypothesis held that people’s level of satisfaction with the community was largely determined by the services provided by the government, the possibility of business development, and non-profit services. The study showed that satisfaction with their community led people to become committed to it and that greater satisfaction with community services, as well as living conditions in the community, promoted a greater sense of community (Sirgy et al, 2008, p. 84). In this way, community well-being becomes a predictor of quality of life. In developing his studies Sirgy (2001) used the bottom-up spillover theory, which acknowledges the fact that life satisfaction is extensive to a variety of life domains; thus, the influence on a specific domain of life accumulates and expands vertically over the super-structural domains, i.e. on satisfaction with life in general (Tonon, 2010).

The definition of community well-being is not one-dimensional; it is complicated. Sung and Phillips (2018) proposed a framework for community well-being based on four significant community characteristics:

Community well-being can be assessed from individual levels of well-being of people who belong to the community, as well as the benefits that accrue from the synergy of a community (whether implicit or explicit)…it can be considered both a critical determinant and consequence of individual well-being, or quality of life (Sung & Phillips, 2018, p.77).

Any definition of community well-being needs to be contextualized within communities of population and interest, as well as of place (Wiseman & Brasher, 2008, p. 357) so, taking this into consideration, it is not possible to assume the universality of well-being (Tonon, 2017, p. 7). At the same time, it is important to remember that “…definitions and components of community well-being might vary depending on research interests and purposes” (Sung & Phillips, 2018, p. 67).

Community wellbeing is the combination of social, economic, environmental, cultural, and political conditions identified by individuals and their communities as essential for them to thrive and fulfill their potential (Wiseman & Brasher, 2008, p. 358).

Methodology

This is a pilot case study, developed with the intention of having a first approach to the opinions of people who carry out philanthropic activities, the characteristics of their activities, their reasons for developing them and the impact of these activities on community well-being.

Pilot case studies allows researchers to refine the data collection plan to both the data contents and the procedure, thus allowing the development of relevant lines of questions (Yin, 2003, p. 79). It is considered that pilot case studies are decisions that researchers can make for various reasons, and in general, they are studies developed mainly focusing on, the access to the groups, in terms of availability and geographical proximity (Yin, 2003, p. 80). For a case study not to be considered a soft research, it is necessary that the researchers should use systematic procedures; in this sense five elements are important in the design of a case study: the questions, the propositions, the units, the data, and the criteria adopted for the interpretation of the findings (Yin, 2003, p. 21).

The qualitative method was used for the development of this pilot case study. According to Yin (2003), Maxwell (2009) and Baxter and Jack (2008), qualitative studies allow us to understand the meaning that the participants in the study attach to the events, situations, and actions they are involved in, including the particular context within which they act and the influence this context has on their actions. “When the approach is applied correctly, it becomes a valuable method for health science research to develop theory, evaluate programs, and develop interventions (Baxter & Jack, 2008; Yin, 2003).

Qualitative methods search their problems in daily life and are used to study intersubjective and localized meanings, and they are oriented to discovery. In this type of studies, the construction of the empirical evidence and the theorization is an interactive process (Tonon, 2014, p. 5255).

The quality of the findings of a research project will be based on the researcher’s ability to present valid argumentation (Fink, 2000). Qualitative researchers need to demonstrate that data analysis has been conducted in “a precise and consistent manner disclosing the methods of analysis with enough detail to enable the reader to determine whether the process is credible” (Nowell et al, 2017, p. 1).

In this study, we interviewed 10 Argentine adults, living in different localities of the regional metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, males and females between 40 to 70 years of age, who perform philanthropic actions. The axis of the interview variables are listed in Table 1 below:

Table 1 Interview axes
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The data was analyzed applying Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). We decided to use Thematic Analysis in coincidence with Nowell et al, (2017, p. 2) when they said, “ it is a qualitative research method that can be widely used across a range of epistemologies and research questions “. Braun and Clarke (2006) and King (2004) suggested that Thematic Analysis allows a highly flexible approach to deep qualitative case studies to examine research questions.

Thematic Analysis examines data for common themes to identify, analyze and report themes and structures, thus being able to reveal both people´s experiences as well as their meanings and realities in order to further examine the ways in which those events, realities, meanings, and experiences turn out to be the effects of the discourse of a society. In this way, thematic analysis is shaped as a qualitative data analysis strategy, through which results are systematized.

Braun and Clarke (2006) proposed different phases to developed Thematic Analysis, they are: familiarization with the information, initial coding, search for topics, review of topics, definition of topics, and writing of the final report. In this study, the aforementioned phases were developed.

In this case, the interviewees in writing gave the answers to the questions. First, we create a synopsis of the case, a summary sheet that summarizing questions that draw on all the data collection and can provide a structure for the analysis as a whole (Nadin & Cassell, 2004, p.272). We read all the answers and transcribed them in verbatim form in order to be able to encode them. Then, we found the topics that were relevant to our work and constructed a matrix. “A matrix is not the end point of the analysis; it has to be further interpreted and analyzed with care, the aim of which is to produce meaningful conclusions which are then written up alongside the matrix” (Nadin & Cassell, 2004, p.273). This lead us to have an analytic text by making a concrete analysis of the answers that corresponded to questions that allowed us to contextualize the characteristics of the philanthropic activities carried out by the interviewees and their history in relation to these activities, to finally focus on the effects of this action on community well-being.

As Nadin and Cassell (2004) pointed out the analytical process was grounded in and guided by the research questions to which the matrices relate, so for the final definitions of topics and the writing of this text, a theoretical categorization was used, defined from the theoretical concepts previously proposed for the analysis. The themes were identified in relation to "what the person said", which led to the description, organized progressively, towards the interpretation.

Finally we produced the report, which do more than just provide data; it is an analytic narrative that needs to go beyond description of the data and make an argument in relation to the research question (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 17).

Results

The group of people we interviewed was composed of ten (10) adults, living in different localities of the Regional Metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. Two of them are females with university studies and two males (one with university education and the other one with incomplete secondary education) between 42 and 50 years of age; three females (two of which had received university education and one with secondary education) and two men between 51 and 60 years of age (one with university education and the other one with tertiary education) and, finally, one female over 70 years of age with no schooling data.

Regarding the question on how long they have been carrying out these activities, “A” expresses that she has "always" done it; “B” points out that she has been doing it for 3 years; “C”, for 13 years and “D”, since 2016, that is, for 4 years. “E” points out that he has been committed to these activities for 2 years; “F”, for 15 years; “G”, for 30 years; “H”, for over 7 years; “J”, since her adolescence and “K” said that she has been doing it for near fifty years.

Regarding whether the interviewees have had any other previous experience on these issues, some of them have previous experiences and the other ones not, they said:

  • "yes, I always collaborate in some way or another" (A)

  • "not necessarily. In some projects I even got involved to acquire new knowledge”.(B)

  • “I have no previous experience” (C) (D) (F)

  • “I collaborated in my home province with a group of nuns in youth / missionary groups, as well as in nursing homes” (E)

  • "yes, through missionary work in the parish of my city"(G)

  • “my own life experience; all the hardships that I have also gone through were the strongest reasons that led me to decide to help and collaborate.”(H)

  • “everything I learned in my adolescence served as a guide, since I visited various institutions such as the lazaretto, a women's asylum, nursing homes, and children's institutions to offer help " (J).

Four of the respondents contribute time and personal work (volunteering), while the remaining six respondents combine those activities with donations and collaborations (money and / or goods). Among them, four respondents carry out personal actions, adding/or not their contributions to group projects, one presides over an institution that sponsors a rural school, and the rest work within the framework of a religious institution, in this case, the Catholic Church. They worked in business projects involving social and environmental impact, rural schools, citizen participation in the neighborhood where they live, migration ministry, Catholic neighborhood center, community diner, Caritas,

The interviewees said that make these philanthropic decisions which turn into action in order to:

  • “….collaborate with the public education of children who live in disadvantaged areas and who do not receive quality education simply because of the place where they were born and of their economic condition ". (C)

  • “….help the neighbors (D)

  • “ because migrants are among the most vulnerable groups of people in society, since many, who lack ID papers, do not enjoy certain rights as decent jobs and social benefits.(E)

  • "…. help people in need".(F)

  • "…. return to society as much as I can, to share and to thank for what I have”.(G)

  • “…..missionary work and helping people in situations of vulnerability”.(H)

They also said that they choose to engage in these philanthropic actions with these groups because of:

  • "to build a network, my contributions are always accounted for and with well- known links"(A)

  • "mainly because they are people and / or teams with whom I share the same background values"(B)

  • "because having a committed team makes it easier to be present and the continuity of the project (does not depend on a single person)".(C)

  • "to try to improve community life." (D)

  • "in my community, 90% of the people are migrants".(E)

  • " it runs in the family and among friends with shared group activities".(G)

  • “it does me good to be active and even more if it is helping the ones who are most in need” (H)

  • "it was my training, since I grew up in a religious school".(J)

  • “as charity begins at home, the well-being and needs of our people, who are 20,000 families, range from providing them with a decent home to assisting them in special needs”.(K)

Table 2 shows the textual answers of the respondents in relation with: the influence of the philanthropic activities in the community and the spread of philanthropic activities in educational institutions, sporting clubs and associations.

Table 2 The responses of the interviewees
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Analysis

In our pilot case study we began by asking the interviewees, questions that would allow us to understand what kind of philanthropic activities they carried out, how long they had been developing them, why they had chosen to carry out those activities, as well as the groups their philanthropic activity had been aimed at.

In order to specifically analyze the results of our pilot case study on the relationship between philanthropic actions and community well-being, we took into account the proposal of Sirgy et al., (2010, p. 295) that considered community well-being to be based on the notion that community residents perceive the impact of community service on the quality of life and the living conditions in various life domains: social well-being, leisure well-being, health well-being, safety well-being, family and home well-being, political well-being, spiritual well-being, neighborhood well-being, environmental well-being, transportation well-being, education well-being, work well-being, financial well-being, and consumer well-being.

In our pilot study we have identified four of those domains which allowed us to visualize the effect that the relationship between philanthropic actions and the act of donating have on community well-being; namely, neighborhood well-being, social well-being, spirituality well-being and environmental well-being.

In the case of Neighborhood Well-being, we identified: relations with the neighbors, respect for others and respect for diversity. “H” expressed the idea that the well-being of the community lies in the logic that helping others has an impact on her own well-being "I refer to the present activity, which we are currently going through due to the pandemic … the fact of guaranteeing food on the table of each family that approaches our diner; even though we do not get to cover all their needs, at least we guarantee a daily meal and that comforts us, day by day”. In this respect it is important to note that Schuyt et al. (2010) addressed the existence of a new form of philanthropy, which goes beyond the specific personal receiver by collaborating with the arts, with the preservation of nature, thus favoring the generalized others, the well-being of society; philanthropy occurs within personal relationships, unlike philanthropic objectives which exceed personal reach and are extended to good public causes. “D” points out that he does it "to try to improve community life." “B” speaks about these peculiarities in diversity “in the co-construction of solutions that are enriched by different points of view, realities and expertise”. Diversity is a subjective phenomenon, created by group members themselves who on the basis of their different social identities categorize others as similar (Mazur, 2010, p. 5); diversity is a concept that has different dimensions.

“E” emphasized cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, with a scope on social equity and honest community building, “ Respect, requires learning to listen, and it is an important value in a community. I consider that all our brothers must be respected in their culture and beliefs. Equity: treating everyone equally without distinction of nationality or religious belief. Honesty: generating the construction of a community that values the truth as opposed to deception or cheating”. “E” indicates that he does it with that group because "in my community, 90% are migrants". Interculturality indicates comprehensive communication among the different coexisting cultures, thus producing mutual enrichment and the recognition and appreciation of cultures in a framework of equality (Del Arco Bravo (1998, quoted in Hidalgo Hernández, 2005). “G”, points out that the influence of donation on community well-being occurs in "trying to see life without so much mistrust and violence and knowing that there is goodness in people and we should learn to value them." Associated to this remark, it is worth mentioning that Martínez Pacheco (2016) proposes to define violence as a form of social relationship characterized by the denial of the other, so it might be said that the contribution of “G” to community well-being would be oriented towards acknowledging the other.

In the case of Social Well-being, we identified communities of participation and co-construction of solutions. On the one hand, the contributions of time and money and their discretionary resources, whose personal level is of course subjected to both subjective and objective considerations. In this sense, the expression of “G” summarizes these considerations, when he points out that he carries out philanthropic activities "to give society as much as I can in return, ||and be thankful for what I have." Some testimonies evidence a point made by Ostrander and Schervish (1990), in the sense that philanthropy, understood as a social relationship, implies give-and-take between donors and recipients of that donation. Giving allows “G” to "return …,be thankful for what I have". Parallel to this, there is also an idea of circularity, almost like the sowing of the correct attitude in the donor's temperament, which could somehow influence his/her future.

This idea is reflected, for example, in “H” pointing out "you can do the same for me some time" and when “G” mentions "being grateful and doing good, since it always comes back”. The answers about why the interviewees have chosen to engage in these activities with the groups of their choice account for what Schervish (1995) calls communities of participation; one of the factors that constitute their causal model of charitable commitment, according to their remarks, it is the level of involvement with those communities that exerts the strongest influence over these actions. The author points out that communities of participation are networks of relationships, both formal (schools, soccer leagues) and informal (for example, families that care for the elderly or help their neighbors), to which persons are associated. These connections constitute the foundations on which persons build their awareness of existing needs and choose to respond to them. Thus, “A” points out that she carries out these actions "to build a network, my contributions are always well founded and aim at well-known ties", while “B” maintains that she does so "mainly because they are people and / or teams with whom I share the same background values”.

Spiritual Well-being is identified, in the cases of people who perform philanthropic actions related to their religious practices and considering a sense of community. Speaking about it “K” points out that giving "is a caress for our soul". “H” gives an account of the religious substratum of her solidarity actions, and she points out at the relationship of her solidarity actions and her religious formation with the Vincentians. “K” includes feelings ``we do it because we feel it”. In this regard, as Grönlund and Pessi (2015) point out, that religion in its earliest forms, as part of human existence and communities, has stood out in the history of human compassion, charity, and benevolence. Such elements are present in all religions and their respective sacred texts, although with different outlooks.

In this framework, the Christian doctrine of loving one's neighbor echoes the principle of treating others as we wish to be treated. Besides, “H” can be traced back to the value of love for Jesus establishing a historic continuity—a sort of temporal genealogy—with a primal example for her, while expressing a way of receiving that is part of the philanthropic relationship, which results in well-being / community sense: Whenever we accompany families in their needs, the only thing we ask of them is to build a community; that is to say, to be good to others, to shake hands with their brothers or neighbors; I believe that in this way we are generating well-being for all. In relation to this, Sarason (1974, p. 1) defined a sense of community as “the sense of being part of a readily supportive network of relationships upon which one could depend”. Individuals can experience a sense of community in geographical terms with neighbors or, in relational terms with others who share similar interests (Gusfield, 1975, quoted in Farrell et al., 2004, p. 9). Also, McMillan and Chavis (1986) defined the sense of community as the feeling of being part of a group, a shared feeling that collective needs will be met with a commitment to cooperation among its members. The authors also identified four components: belonging, reciprocal influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection.

Finally and in relation with Environmental Well-being, people expressed their intention to collaborate for the preservation of the environment and to help people´s needs, in this sense “A” points out that "it is the way I have and by which I can collaborate with my environment”, “F” points out that he does it “to help people in need”, which refers to the idea of a collective construction to resolve the problems of the others.

Conclusion

In this pilot case study we examined 10 people making different philanthropic decisions and taking action with different groups. Although some of them have been doing so for two years and others for 50 years, it is important to remember that pilot case studies are used to study contemporary events (Yin, 2003). It is important to note that the people interviewed do not live in the same neighborhood, each one of them lives in different localities. Differences across groups and localities offer important insights as a basis for future empirical work in the future.

Regarding the mechanisms, which encourage philanthropic actions, the interviewees expressed the sense of collective construction associated to community well-being. Thus, it is in the acknowledgement of, and attention to the other, that one of the spaces for the enhancement of the donor's own well-being lies, thus paving the way for philanthropic action as an enhancer of community well-being.

Finally and in line with the proposal of Sirgy et al (2010) about community well-being, considering community services and conditions in various life domains, our pilot case study allowed us to identify the relationships established between philanthropic actions and the dimensions of life, namely: social well-being, spiritual well-being, neighborhood well-being, and environmental well-being; in other words, philanthropic action in its different expressions, contributes to the development of community well-being.