April 19, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
NEW BOOKS
Portrait of a Giving Community: Philanthropy by the Pakistani-American Diaspora
by Adil Najam
Each year, Pakistani-Americans give time and money worth $1-billion to charities, although they consistently underestimate their philanthropy relative to other Americans and Pakistanis, writes Adil Najam, who teaches at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
This fundamental misunderstanding points to “a need to move beyond anecdotal stories” toward real analysis of Pakistanis in the United States and their philanthropy, he argues.
After conducting 54 focus groups and interviews and reviewing 461 questionnaires, Mr. Najam reports on giving trends among Pakistani-Americans. He finds that the combined value of cash gifts and volunteered time by the 500,000 Pakistani-Americans amounts to $1-billion a year.
In the third chapter, “Total Giving,” Mr. Najam discusses the discrepancy between the perception of Pakistani-American generosity and their actual giving — they are at least as generous as both Pakistanis living in Pakistan and other Americans living in the United States. The community experiences “a misplaced sense of philanthropic inferiority,” he writes.
Mr. Najam also studies what kinds of fund-raising efforts appeal to Pakistani-Americans, what motivates them to give, what organizations they support, and how their giving compares to that of other minorities in the United States.
He concludes with seven lessons gleaned from the data and analysis, and directions for future research.
Publisher: Harvard University Press, 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138; (800) 405-1619; fax (800) 406-9145; contact_hup@harvard.edu; http://www.hup.harvard.edu; 231 pages; $19.95; ISBN 0-674-02366-8.
