Mothers’ clubs, volunteer groups, corporate social outreach, school organizations, and even glass of milk committees? comités de vaso de leche permeate today’s Latin American philanthropic landscape. Humanitarian activity and citizen development are becoming commonplace in the hemisphere’s hospitals, schools, and other social institutions. Academics and government officials, as well as the media, are discovering the potential of these organizations to provide services for people in need.

This interest in philanthropy is new in Latin America. Until recently, the top priorities for social scientists were poverty alleviation or economic development. Indeed, when people thought of philanthropy they conjured up images of pre-modern ways of social assistance–handing out the dole or dropping money into a beggar’s cup. Philanthropy was also piecemeal; it was difficult for researchers to see how it came together and formed a common dynamic. Its successes and failures were elusive, making it hard to identify the most important philanthropic areas of concern. Governments weren’t interested in the concept either; and policymakers rejected the importance of modifying legal and tax frameworks to promote more philanthropic practices as a way to solve social needs.

Despite this newfound interest in philanthropy, some might argue that the historical roots of giving and volunteering in Latin America remain the same. How much difference is there really between colonial and contemporary philanthropic practices? What has been the role of the Catholic Church in the evolution of philanthropy? How much progress has been achieved towards the institutionalization of philanthropic practices?

A common colonial past

There are indeed some common characteristics in colonial philanthropic practices of Latin America. As Andrés Thompson and Leilah Landim suggest (Voluntas 8/4, December, 1997), giving and volunteering were practices introduced by Spanish and Portuguese colonial authorities in close coordination with Catholic Church. Charity and welfare ideas became an essential component of ecclesiastic presence; Christian evangelization relied heavily on charity to attract followers. What was the clerical position about concepts such as working, wealth and charity? For the Church, all members of society had a duty to be hardworking to atone for original sin. Worldly wealth was considered an “innocent good,” provided that “it is obtained with moderation”. In fact, the manner of obtaining wealth and using it was of much concern to the Church. When wealth was accrued through illegal or dubious means, it was indeed considered a source of sin. The Church also expected wealthy individuals to engage in charity practices–one of three essential theological virtues to comply with the commandment to help the suffering of human beings.

The Church also compensated poor people who demonstrated their veneration of Christ. However, during the 18th century, some church members stressed the importance of work as a sacred duty, and warned against providing too much charity because it might promote laziness. The Catholic Church maintained a symbiotic relationship with the colonial state and organized civil society, acting as a kind of right-hand man for the vice-regal administration through the organization of civil society into institutions for the assistance of the most socially deprived people. Orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and particularly the Jesuits provided education, health and assistance facilities for the poorest people until 19th century. That was the role they played in civil society; practically no one else was providing these services. Thus, the Church created new spaces, initiatives and values that later became what we call today philanthropy. Although during the 19th century, the Catholic Church was progressively and formally separated from the State, its influence decisively planted the seeds for today’s giving and volunteering practices.

Philanthropy in the Peruvian Vice-royalty

During the colonial period, fraternal associations (cofradías or brotherhoods) flourished at all levels of society. Shoemakers, button makers, tailors and carpenters each had their own association with its very own patron saint. These cofradías, which lasted until the advent of the Republic and even more, focused on pious activities, property management and revenue collection. Their members learned about Christian doctrine, received sacraments and complied with certain devotions. Held together by a common bond and purpose, members participated together in the lavish celebration of their patron saints’ days and other religious activities. Whether the association was based on the veneration of a saint or on the common denominator of ethnic, labor or social status, these associations were natural spaces where a mutual cooperative spirit was shared and a common sense of identity and property was created.

Collective worship, however, was neither the only nor the most important reason for their members to join. These organizations encompassed a wide range of social actions, ranging from activities of mutual cooperation to acts of charity such as caring for sick people or providing funerals at the association’s chapel.

Colonial elites did concern themselves with poor people, carrying out charitable activities and creating organizations to provide social services within an authoritarian and paternalistic context. Together, the Catholic Church and private elite philanthropic contributions were responsible for practically all education in colonial cities. As Pablo Macera indicates (Trabajos de Historia, INC, 1997), “during the Colonial period, schools were created within the context of testamentary commands with charity and prayers for deceased people, to get relief from sin, as a posthumous restitution. Whether during their lives or in their wills, mayors, bishops, miners and priests returned the income accumulated in the course of their careers.”

The Vice-royal State also relied on private initiatives, both nonreligious and religious, to provide health services and hospitals for the dying and indigent. However, this does not indicate that there was no concern about poverty alleviation and health care. Concern about these issues had been increasing since the mid-17th century.

Peruvian civil society in the 19th and 20th centuries

During the first decades of the Peruvian Republic, cooperative charitable and philanthropic organizations? flourished and grew in importance for several reasons. The early 19th century marked the establishment of welfare organizations. Both the State and the elite class carried out their philanthropic initiatives through these institutions, and collaborated with activities on behalf of “sorrowful mankind.” Around the second half of the century, the Catholic Church’s institutional activities increased notably in an effort to overcome scarcity of religious staff and to meet the challenges of its power of convocation in these foreign colonies where sectors of the society were demanding separation of Church and State. During these decades, mutual cooperation societies appeared among the working and artisan classes and contributed to the increase of non-profit organizations and philanthropic practices in Peru.

At the beginning of the 20th century, anarchism starts to overtake this concept of mutual cooperation. It began to gain influence among the working class and to disseminate its libertarian ideas through several Lima-based newspapers such as Los Parias, (The Pariahs, 1904 – 1909), El Oprimido (The Oppressed, 1907 – 1909) and La Protesta (The Protest, 1911 – 1926). Starting in 1905, some working class and artisan groups from Lima adopted anarchism or the libertarian ideology. Later on, anarcho-syndicalism, combining the premises of the two movements, would become the prevailing doctrine among the working class. The anarchist ideology, which argued that economic exploitation of oppressed workers could only stopped by destroying all state machinery. The syndicalist premise asserted that the organization in labor unions was the authentic liberation instrument of proletarians. With the official approval of the eight-hour workday in 1919, the anarcho-syndicalism leadership, in hands of the working class, passed on from the artisans (such as bakers) to the industrial working class (such as those in the textile industry).

Thus, traditional ideas of mutual cooperation restricted to aiding the sick, burying the dead and self-aid were displaced by more political demands. In fact, in the mid- 1920s, the foundations of a clear anti-oligarchic and anti-imperialist line of thought and action emerged. Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and José Carlos Mariátegui became the spokesmen of a new ideology that would center itself meaningfully around the political behavior of the low and middle classes in the following decades. In 1924, under the influence of the Russian and Mexican revolutions, an exiled Haya de la Torre founded the American Revolutionary Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana–APRA, seeking to ally intellectuals and craftsmen). This was also the period when socialist ideas began to be disseminated in Peru through José Carlos Mariátegui’s writings and the formation of the Socialist Party, later to become the Peruvian Communist Party.

By the mid 1950s, mass migration was changing the social face of Peru’s cities. Migration was also provoking a deep change in the migrants themselves by introducing them to a complicated urban and multi-ethnic modernity. Migrants kept their Andean practices of mutual cooperation and collective work as well as some of their cultural habits. Among these were the maintenance of strong family ties and large families, creating support networks that allowed these new migrants to progress. However, the migrants were not immune to change. It was a challenge to combine the idea of family with small business, family ties with productive relations, family interests with collective interests, individualism with community, associative and self-help principles. The large number of migrants and the State’s incapacity to provide adequate housing provoked land invasions, resulting in marginal shanty towns constructed by their inhabitants and thousands of new neighborhood associations. These new actors radically modified the cultural map of Peru and introduced a new dynamism into the operation of civil society.

Philanthropy and corporate social responsibility

Peru’s oligarchical families left some times a great deal of money to charitable institutions in their wills, since many pillars of society believed that business prosperity and growing family fortunes should be based on Christian charity and concern for the poor. A virtuous life, they felt, should not ignore the responsibility for the most vulnerable sectors–children and the insane and elderly–and those with the fewest resources ?sick people, single mothers, indigenous peasants and poor people in general.

However, not all donations and such activities were attributable to religious motives. Members of the upper class had civic concerns, as well as moral and philosophic ideas, that sometimes led to important contributions to better society. It was not only the pious who indulged in paternalist attitudes and behavior. In fact, many of these donors with their sense of humanitarian obligation shared a generous compassionate concern about poor people in a society of deep economical and social inequalities. (Me parece que algo se perdí aquí).

Today the old oligarchy is virtually gone, but this philanthropic spirit has been revived among new generations of economic elites, in a limited but increasing fashion. After having experienced the agrarian reform and the nationalist tendencies of the military government during the 70s, the populism of the APRA that led the country into a state of economic bankruptcy and made it politically ungovernable in the mid 80s-, and Fujimori’s ethically obscure decade of neoliberalism during the 90s, the economic elite began to understand that social stability was an essential ingredient for the economic progress not only of the country but also of their own businesses. The political violence let loose by the terrorist acts of Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) and the Revolutionary Movement Tupac Amaru (Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru) stressed the need to redefine their relationship with society.

As a result, a small but dynamic segment of the business elite began to explore different forms of social responsibility, including innovative forms of direct giving as well as the creation of corporate foundations. According to some estimates, the top 30 mining and oil companies made social investments (donations) for US$ 21 million in 1997, which is equivalent to almost 60 percent of the total amount annually donated by corporations. From a more institutional point of view, it is worth pointing out that just a few Peruvian corporations have offices and trained staff to promote these activities, and that there is a limited tradition of involvement among employees to develop voluntary initiatives in support of the community. Without considering the mining sector, most companies do not establish annual donation funds; they do not plan their philanthropic activities and they usually do not assess the impact of their donations. In brief, even though an increasing awareness regarding social issues is emerging in corporations, institutionalized private philanthropy is still weak in Peru and the total amount of private giving remains very small. There is still a long way to go before the full potential of elite private philanthropy for civic participation and social change can be realized.

How much change has occurred in philanthropic practices since colonial times in Peru? The Catholic church still remains one of the soundest institutions in doctrinal terms, and stands out for its extensive coverage and variety of initiatives in this field. There is no doubt that the deeply-rooted and mainly Catholic culture of this country has reinforced this permanence. On the other hand, the corporate social responsibility practices require that, given the limited professional formation of those in charge of developing projects in benefit of the community, universities fill up that formation gap introducing courses and seminars on social projects management, mainly in career programs such as Business Administration. Likewise, even when several Latin American experiences have shown that tax incentives are not the panacea, there are legal and bureaucratic obstacles that need to be eliminated to create a more favorable climate for donations in Peru.