Badr Jafar
Credit - Andrew Matthews—In much of the Global South, generosity flows through donation boxes at churches, mosques, and temples, with Islamic almsgiving alone estimated as high as $1 trillion annually. The challenge with this generosity, says Emirati businessman and social entrepreneur Badr Jafar, is that it is fragmented and uncoordinated: 'Systemic challenges can only be tackled at a large scale with strategic philanthropy.'
Jafar's solution? Channel that goodwill into a strategic force by building what he calls philanthropic infrastructure: clear regulations, robust transparency requirements, and streamlined processes for starting and running nonprofits.
The CEO of conglomerate Crescent Enterprises, Jafar began laying the groundwork for such a force over a decade ago, when he launched the Pearl Initiative, a nonprofit that fosters corporate governance and accountability across the Gulf region. He subsequently became a founding patron of two university-based centers on strategic philanthropy. In 2020, Jafar launched HasanaH, a digital platform for Islamic giving. It has since hosted high-impact projects with cumulative fundraising goals of over $95 million. In 2024, he published a book, The Business of Philanthropy, which lays out the case for strategic philanthropy through conversations with high-profile thought leaders like Bill Gates.
Now he has a new platform to preach the spread the word of strategic philanthropy: last September Jafar was appointed the UAE's Special Envoy for Business and Philanthropy. He says, 'I expect that within the coming decade, you will see very different legislative environments for philanthropy.'
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