Putting the Philia in Philanthropy

 Philanthropy is “the brotherly love of humans”.  Asian societies strongly believe in bottom-up family-centered philanthropy.  If each family practiced effective micro-philanthropy, then each layer of society from neighborhood, district, state and nation would have a strong foundation of well-adjusted, well-loved anchored human beings.    There is no scenario of a better world that does not include more love of others as the foundation of personal kindness.  However, there is more to building a moral society than just having a pipeline of moral individuals emerging from the cocoon of the family.  Technologies disrupt the rules of inclusion and exclusion outside of families. Large shifts in the class of haves and have-nots defy the blessings of a good upbringing.

 Big philanthropy conspires to moderate the social adaptation to technological change. Philanthropists cannot do everything for everyone. Big philanthropy dreams of small tweaks to unlock large structural changes. The Western model of how to find these tweaks is a top down elitist approach that relies on experts and theories of change.  Big philanthropists made or assembled fortunes from industries that got rich by high tech discoveries or financial wizardry by very smart educated people.  They can’t be blamed for thinking that high tech will be able to solve the problems of the world. 

This Eastern model points out that you don’t have to be Bill Gates to be a philanthropist (lower case p).  In the West, the word “philanthropy” is losing its “philia” love. Westerners think of philanthropy as large donations by the wealthy to support research, arts, human services, environment, and better lives for millions.  Modern philanthropies “listen” by contracting with consultants for needs assessments or supporting think tanks to do poverty metrics.

 

Both Eastern and Western philanthropy operate in a structure where new technology disrupts the old norms of power and control.  Disruptive technology used to be steam engines, cotton gins, and personal computers. Now it is artificial intelligence.  The scramble for who controls the growing profits of AI may be won by a small group who use their money and power to continue a disruptive cycle of control.  The ruling class can be expected to a “Brave New World” of ideas and norms that normalize their power.  Western philanthropists whose fortunes are tied to disruptive technology have obvious vested interests.  Their beneficiaries have to remain outwardly grateful while inwardly worried that philanthropy is a delaying tactic that puts off a genuine sharing of the returns to human innovation.

Without the direct unfiltered voices of the ordinary people philanthropy will enable the age-old techno cycle of  disrupt and control.  The needed piece is a platform for brotherly love to be projected out of the micro-arena of the home and into the public sphere.  The 19^th century cities of Europe had salons and coffeehouses to discuss common interests and build community.  Prior hopes that social media would bring a rebirth of community are now untenable. Algorithms make it more profitable to divide social media users into bubbles than to bring them together.

I see the public health profession as the natural host of efforts to organize local communities and give them voice. Public Health 3.0 actually calls on our profession to do exactly that.  The skills we need to teach our MPH classes must go beyond statistical p-values and embrace a different p for partnership.  Lets join biostats and epi with new skills like collective impact and community organizing.  New textbooks in public health should be Theory U, the Art of Hosting, and Difficult Conversations. 

In my work at HKU School of Public Health I want to augment our profession’s science based past with a values-aware future.  Practitioners are called to be a bridge towards a new style of small-p philanthropy. The roots of current NCDs and mental health needs go deep into the soil of alienated societies.  Trust can be built. Public health leaders have built it. Marlou de Rouw and her colleagues at The Constellation build trust using a teachable approach.  With help from Alice Kuan and Ria Shah we were able to build a Baltimore-based teaching case based on the work of Michelle Geiss at Impact Hub.

 There are catalytic steps that can turn our capacity for micro-philanthropy towards work-mates, school-mates, and neighbors as trusted partners.  A public health professional’s job includes getting these trust forming encounters to multiply inside their local area.  The global extent of the public health work force with 60,000 local public health districts all over the world can take community building to scale quickly if public health educators embrace the logical way to address the modern disease burden.  This asset -based community development is the basis of comprehensive primary health care. It was celebrated in the Alma-Ata Declaration, and it is alive and well all around the world as I document in Achieving Health for All edited with Meike Schleiff.  If you work or study in a school of public health, hospital, or health system ask your co-workers and leaders what they are doing about upgrading old fashioned philanthropy based on connecting to the people we all live with.

David Bishai is Clinical Professor and Director of the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health