A helping hand: The Bulletin's guide to charity work in Belgium

In the summer of 2005, Denise Baines and her husband, Richard, visited a slum in Nairobi, Kenya. A longtime teacher like her husband, she was baffled to see dozens of children scurrying around on a school day. When she subsequently learned that the handful of women who volunteered to teach the kids didn’t own a single textbook, a light bulb went off.

“That’s when I realised the extent of the poverty we were up against, and also how easy it would be to simply feed the children and get them basic school equipment,” she says.

On returning to Belgium, the Baineses’ adopted home since the mid-1980s, they started their own charity. Today, the Giraffe Project sponsors the tuition fees, supplies and meals of approximately 450 children in two primary schools in Nairobi, plus several secondary schools, including one it owns and runs, and has a number of students in colleges and universities. The charity has an annual turnover of €255,000.

Though the couple have stumbled through many hiccups and administrative headaches along the way, the rewards of that visit to Kenya have been plentiful, Baines says. “We founded our own charity because we wanted to do something that was in education; that was our expertise and passion,” she says. “We believe in education as the key to development, much more than simply giving money – actually seeing that it changes a young person and their life and their possibilities.”

Although people may feel compelled to spring into action when they stare poverty or injustice in the eye, launching your own charity is not for everyone. But contributing to a good cause needn’t be incompatible with a busy lifestyle, nor do you need dazzling sixfigure sums to really make a difference. Many expats in Belgium contribute to local charities and causes through sponsored events, the companies they work for as well as the clubs and associations they’re members of.

Brussels New Generation, the British Chamber of Commerce’s platform for young professionals, has organised a Great Brussels Charity Bake Off. All the funds raised at this baking competition and networking event go to YouthStart, a charity based just outside Brussels that works with disadvantaged local young people.

For Amélie Coulet, the Brussels New Generation chair, supporting a charity like YouthStart allows the association to show that it is firmly rooted in the local fabric. “We don’t want to be a bubble network. We want to be a professional network that is actually interacting with Belgian communities,” says Coulet, a French expat who has lived in Brussels for five years. “There is this typical idea that expats don’t contribute, and we hope to change that.”

Expats interested in giving money to a very specific cause may want to consider setting up a dedicated fund, and the King Baudouin Foundation’s Philanthropy Centre can help with that. Funds are like small foundations, explains philanthropy adviser Ludwig Forrest, except they are managed by the centre and they don’t have legal personality.

In addition, he says, by creating a fund you benefit directly from income tax deductibility. “People are not giving to the King Baudouin Foundation; they are giving through it,” he explains. The King Baudouin Foundation is one of the seven founding members of the European Foundation Centre.

In Forrest’s view, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to philanthropy. Informed choices are the basis for effective giving. The centre advises all donors of all sizes and shapes on their philanthropic vision and offers independent counsel on the most efficient way to give. “We offer a number of unique tools to improve the philanthropic impact of gifts and secure their
legacy to come.”

The Brussels-based European Foundation Centre is an association that defends and promotes the interests of more than 200 philanthropic foundations in Europe and across the globe. Established in 1989, the EFC opened the Philanthropy House in the heart of Brussels in 2013.

It’s home to several philanthropic support organisations as well as the EFC and brings philanthropy to life, with exhibitions, debates, meetings and screenings.

“We are deliberately trying to get the ordinary public to be more aware of what foundations are doing, to realise that there are these players in your society, in your city,” explains chief executive Gerry Salole.

Giving back to the community you’re part of is important, he says, for expats and locals alike. “I think there’s an incredible need for people to volunteer and get involved in their societies and where they’re living, to contribute and give something back. I think it enriches one’s life to get more involved in society,” he says.

At the same time, Salole, a British expat, points out that the fruits of that labour may be even bigger for expats. “It’s really important that people are reminded that they need to make connections with where they’re living,” he says. “The real added value of getting engaged in the community you’re living in is getting to know it better.”

That’s an idea that George Candon from FTI Consulting Belgium, the local branch of the global consulting firm, can get behind. In his view, companies can help expats find their way to local charities.

Citing the language or administrative barriers that internationals may run up against, he says: “Having some sort of company initiative allows people to more readily get involved in community efforts where they might not ordinarily have been able to do so, or wouldn’t have known how to.”

FTI Consulting Belgium itself supports two charities – Retrak, a charity that works with street children in Uganda and Ethiopia, and École Chanterelle, a Brussels state school for children with special education needs, typically from low-income families.

For Candon, an Irish expat who’s lived in Brussels for 10 years, it’s a no-brainer that companies have a role to play in the communities in which they are based.

“As a business, of course you’re focused on profitability and being excellent and best in class, but part of being a responsible and involved business means being involved in the community as well.”

Still, he warns that no company should engage in charity solely as a PR effort. “The reason for doing charity has to be meaningful. It cannot be for whitewashing. One should be doing it for the sake of doing it,” he says. “I also think it’s good to keep it relatively under the radar. Some of the most effective charity work is done behind the scenes.”

Vivian Auer, a British expat who has lived in Belgium for more than 30 years, had never really done anything for charity, aside from the occasional money wire. In 2012, he resolved to take action for the first time. “Being retired, I thought: ‘I’ve got the time available, so that’s a chance for me to do something like that.’”

A long-time rugby player, he enlisted the help of five of his friends to put on a fundraiser to help a Nairobi orphanage buy sports gear and equipment for its rugby team. Since then, the six former Brussels Barbarians RFC team members have organised a golf tournament and quiz every year, typically raising between €6,000 and €8,000 for The Orbit/Rinya Charity Projects.

Auer says they had little difficulty in getting people involved since they each had an extensive network of contacts across the expat community. Pointing out that the non-existent overhead was probably also a big draw for sponsors and donors, he says: “It’s not like a big fundraising organisation with a lot of extra costs; we don’t have any. We know that the funds are going to be used in the right way.”

His advice to those wanting to raise money for a charity? “Find a good cause, find a couple of people who are like-minded and make sure the money is used in the right way, and you can’t go wrong.”

This article was first published in ING Expat Time. Photo courtesy the Giraffe Project