Bad Philanthropy: The Rinsing of Toxic Money

In their new paper, “Bad Philanthropy: The Rinsing of Toxic Money, authors Ese Emerhi and Nkasi Wodu explore how and why illicit funds are used for philanthropic purposes and offer guidelines on how organizations can avoid scandals from using or accepting funds from questionable sources.

“When organized criminal networks engage in philanthropy, they are hacking into the people’s value systems.”

If philanthropy can be defined as the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed by the generous donation of money to good causes, then for centuries, philanthropic activities have done a lot of good. History is replete with philanthropic organizations changing the course of people’s lives for good. Whether it is building schools, endowing a Chair in a University, providing loans to small businesses at low interest rates, establishing soup kitchens for the marginalized, or setting up shelters for the vulnerable, philanthropy has done a lot of good and will continue to do a lot of good.

For the 10 percent of the world’s population – 734 million people who live on less than $1.90 a day - philanthropy is the only bridge between them and hope for the realization of a better life and future for their kids. But what happens when the purpose of philanthropy isn’t just to do ‘good’? What happens when the source of funds used for philanthropy is tainted and toxic? Does this cancel out the good deed that is done with those funds? Why and how are illicit funds used for philanthropic purposes by criminal networks? It can be argued that even if there are good intentions, the money used to do that good also has to come from a good source. And in 2020, sources of good money are few and far between. For the most notorious amongst us, no matter how many times that toxic money is rinsed, it will still drip sludge on the innocent, still taint that “good thing”, and leave behind a legacy that is hard to swallow.

Download and read the full article HERE.

Ese Emerhi has spent the last 20 years working in the international development field, supporting human rights defenders and organizations in the Middle East and North Africa region. As the project lead for the Kiisi Trust, she directs a multi-million donor-advised fund for the benefit of the Ogoni people in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria that has awarded small grants to over 30 local community-based organizations and other non-profits in Ogoniland. Prior to joining TrustAfrica, Ese worked as the Advocacy Program Manager for PIND Foundation in the Niger Delta. As a knowledge manager and online community manager at the World Bank Institutes’ Knowledge Exchange Unit, Ese developed and led strategy and member engagement for the WBI Community Managers of Practice and provided advisory and editorial support for the re-design and production of the 2nd Edition of the Art of Knowledge Exchange: A Guide for Practitioners

Listen to our “Conversations With” podcast with Ese Emerhi HERE

Nkasi Wodu is a lawyer, an alumni of the prestigious Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center, and a certified mediation trainer and practitioner from the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators in Nigeria. He holds a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and has more than 10 years of experience working in the non-profit sector in peace building and human rights. Wadu is currently the Peace building Manager for the Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND), one of the largest corporate and social responsibility investments in West Africa. He is the lead facilitator of the Partners for Peace Network, a network of over 9,000 peace actors in the Niger Delta that establishes grassroots-led community initiatives that contributes to reducing violence. For over three years, he has mentored several civil society organizations in designing and implementing indigenous conflict resolution approaches to respond to conflict in their communities and is instrumental in providing grants to them. He led in the development of a robust early warning and early response architecture and the most comprehensive dataset on conflict risk publicly available in Nigeria.