“May I interest you in a susu account or would you like to hear about Sharia-compliant lending?”
Those kinds of solicitations are not something many of us in the nonprofit world hear very often—or would understand.
But if we are in the business of investing, lending, or giving in diverse
communities, we must do better at increasing our understanding of how
culture matters in the handling of money.
After all, many of the inequities that philanthropy seeks to eliminate are rooted in cultural bias—and many of the opportunities for change are rooted in cultural awareness.
For example, those who work with African or Caribbean communities should
know that susu collectors are popular in these cultures, and they made the
idea of giving small loans popular long before microfinance became trendy.
And if we work with Muslim communities, we must understand that Islamic law, known as Sharia, prohibits the acceptance or payment of interest fees on
loans.
But it takes a lot more than knowing such terms. We must become familiar
with the cultural influences that affect how people and institutions
aggregate, deploy, and discuss money. The notion of wealth itself can be a
cultural construct. For example, some Native American or indigenous peoples
operate in a “gift economy” in which people give valuable goods and services to
others without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.
Wealth in this case is derived as much from distribution—be it money, time,
or knowledge—as it is from accumulation.
Even a seemingly simple offer of financial support may have cultural
significance. First, the person making the offer needs to know who has the
power to call the community to action or response. In some Asian cultures a
“clan,” or a group of families or households, makes decisions about the
welfare of the community, determining resource requirements and allocations.
For many Hispanic, Latino, or Chicano communities (yes, how people
identify themselves is important), the church often takes leadership in acquiring
and dispensing financial support.
Fund raising can also be influenced by culture and race.
Boards of nonprofits are usually expected to make large gifts to their
organizations and attract big donations from others.
However, in black communities, the number of individuals who can make
large-dollar or sustaining contributions as board members is small in
proportion to the population.
A 2010 study from Brandeis University reported that the typical white family is now five times richer than its African-American counterpart of the same class and that black wealth was largely stagnant from 1984 to 2007.
But in spite of income disparities, African-Americans have a long and
storied history of giving. They formed mutual-aid societies in the early
19th century to finance businesses, schools, and hospitals. As Kelley D.
Gulley, president of the National Community Development Institute, says, “Giving can’t always be defined by just what you deposit in the bank. The knowledge and work of some community leaders is worth more than gold.”