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AMUWO ODOFIN MERIT AWARDS : BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN RHETORICS AND ACTION – Editorial

PUSH NEWS 24 INTERNATIONAL : January 4th, 2022

AMUWO ODOFIN MERIT AWARDS : BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN RHETORICS AND ACTION – Editorial

I believe we can bridge the gap between community service and philanthropy. Why does philanthropy exist? Why is it necessary? Let’s start here and move toward answering the question more directly.

Philanthropy’s and community service purpose is to improve the well-being of humankind – this is spelled out clearly by the word itself, which translates to “love of humankind” from its Greek origins. Our focus should be on preventing and solving social problems. Contrast this with charity, which focuses on eliminating suffering caused by social problems; both are important, but philanthropy seeks to address the causes of suffering – treating the disease, not the symptoms.

Why does this distinction matter? – It matters because 3 in 5 children in Nigeria live in poverty. In 2018, that meant over 12 million children in our country are experiencing food insecurity, toxic stress and opportunity gaps that threaten to have cascading effects for the rest of their lives.

Children do not have many opportunities to engage in civic actions that can lead to political changes that would improve their circumstances – and the parents of children in poverty, already rightly focused on survival, are poorly represented in policymaking as well. These children, and their poor families, need powerful and responsible voices speaking on their behalf, advocating for them.

Philanthropy can be this powerful voice and Amuwo Odofin Merit Awards is a targeted platform to identify persons and Organisations that are helpful in this aspect. Motivated by a love of humankind, Amuwo / Oriade Merit Awards exist to solve social problems. This means investing in closing opportunity gaps – and not only through awards but the continuous engagements of the social and civil societies towards adding value to the community. However, our social, moral, intellectual and reputational capital is immense – these give us a seat at the table and a voice that others will listen to. We should use this privilege on behalf of those who cannot be there and, all too often, are not offered a seat at all.

When we speak, however, we must be able to do so with authenticity, sincerity and the wisdom of lived experiences as in the case of the Amuwo Odofin/Oriade Merit Awards – without these, we have no credibility. This is where living our purpose, and bridging the gap between rhetorics and actions, is most critical.

We believe there are five critical ways for philanthropy to do this:

  1. Learn About, Understand and Listen to the Community
    The organizers of the Amuwo/Oriade Merit Awards, tells us to “get proximate” to the problems we seek to address. Our job is not to make grants and hope for the best or to hand down rules and requirements under the assumption we know what is best. Our job, and our responsibility, is to be on the ground, establish strong connections with community leaders and organizations, listen to them and use that invaluable information to determine where we can be most effective. Then, we must continue to maintain and cultivate these relationships as part of our evaluation process – establishing strong and trusted feedback loops that provide invaluable qualitative data.
  2. Demonstrate Courageous Leadership
    The generational challenges our country faces today are “an opportunity to actually be bold” and “an opportunity for us to go out and fail and then tomorrow fail a little bit better.” Being bold when there is a significant – even likely – chance of failure is the definition of courageous leadership, a concept at the core of Philanthropy. We have this luxury, people and organizations want to come out strong in community service and needs a platform – Amuwo/Oriade Merit Awards gives such platforms.
  3. Solve Problems Through Public/Private Partnerships and Collaboration
    Sometimes, to move forward, we have to step out together. One of the key trends we saw in our community response to the challenges of the past two years was unprecedented levels of partnership and collaborations which were done unnoticed. Members of the community were connected with foundations, and with experts in the field to learn, grown, and adapt, all because we recognize that philanthropy itself possesses limited financial resources to achieve the kind of change that needs to happen in our country. However, our collective power to educate and advocate for change goes far beyond in Amuwo Odofin.
  4. Using Every Form of Capital at Our Disposal to Advocate on Behalf of Children, Families and Communities
    There are five forms of capital available to philanthropy: social, moral, intellectual, reputational and financial, or SMIRF. No other sector of society enjoys this combination of assets, and we must not be afraid to accumulate each of them by building relationships within the community, adhering to principles and best practices, and investing in data and research. Amuwo/Oriade Merit Awards from it’s structures seems not afraid to spend each of these effectively to command the attention of policymakers, fuel research that reveals uncomfortable truths, bring unlikely allies together for a common cause and more.
  5. Identify Clear Outcomes and Accountability Measures
    We do ourselves no favors when we create vague goals or set the bar low – large-scale progress is only possible by setting well-defined, desired outcomes based on what is required to truly move the needle on indicators of poverty, economic mobility and prosperity. Even if we do not achieve these outcomes, we will be left with objective results that provide more data to inform future efforts.

This is a core component of accountability for the Amuwo Odofin/Oriade Merit Awards. We must also hold ourselves accountable for changing both the culture of our own institutions and the broader culture of philanthropy. Internally, that means assessing not just individual performance value of the award but the living culture of the organization hosting it. Externally, we must assess our impact in new ways. As an NGO, they have started looking beyond their own traditional metrics – to assess the impact of the organization on the effect of the award. Are we helping organizations and individuals transform their philanthropic practices?

Lastly, philanthropy must be open to holding ourselves accountable to those we serve – the organizations and communities that we exist to support and preserve. We must approach our work with humility and know that our impact is negligible without the efforts of millions of organizations and individuals working on the ground every day to improve outcomes in their communities.

These five steps all require humility, honesty and hard work – and they are all essential if Amuwo Odofin/Oriade Merit Awards are to live out the lofty aspirations of our vision and mission statements. But I firmly believe if organizations hosting awards can do these things, it will create a positive feedback loop that will enable us to make an even greater impact and bring prosperity to more children, families and communities.

Copyright ©️
Prince Olalekan Ojo Martins (MNIPR)
Director, Push Communications Media

By Prince Olalekan Ojo Martins

Push News 24 International is a member of Push Communications Media , a 21st century public relations, multimedia and events management company with offices in Nigeria and the United States of America.

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