The Oxford Dictionary describes philanthropy as “love of humanity” or “practical benevolence”. Arthur Lok Jack's $20 million personal endowment to the UWI Institute of Business (IOB) and pledge to raise $10 million more is a philanthropic gesture that will long be remembered.

Mr Lok Jack's generosity was not only a gift to the Institute but an Independence Day gift to the nation. Prime Minister Manning rightly noted that this altruism on the part of Mr Lock Jack is an act of corporate social responsibility.

Mr Lok Jack was uttering sound Catholic social doctrine when he said that successful businesses and individuals have a key role to play in their communities “beyond the observance of the mantra of productivity, growth and profit.”

There is a huge amount of “profit” in Trinidad and Tobago as can be seen by the number and quality of the SUVs on the roads and the blossoming of residential communities. This is occurring at a time when those who live under the poverty line are reaching close to 30% of the population.

If this gap is allowed to widen we are looking at increased social instability. The senseless bombings in downtown Port-of-Spain a few weeks ago, as well as possible gang wars in Petit Valley occasioned by the death of Jamaat al Muslimeen member, Glenroy Charles, only add to this social instability.

One way to reduce this social instability is for the private sector to give back to the communities from which it acquired its wealth. Of course the private sector will argue it does just that since it gives to several charitable projects, except that it is not simply a question of charity; it is one of justice. The private sector should also feel itself morally obliged to do so.

Neither should the private sector give pittance but in proportion to the wealth it has acquired. This is especially so of multinational corporations operating here with huge investments in oil and gas, and hopefully not aluminum.

Large companies need to be more pro-active in securing the help of public policy consultants and social ethicists so that their work will contribute to the building up of a moral and responsible citizenry. A case in point concerns places like Cedros and La Brea. People from these areas have worked in the oil and gas sector for many years. What have these areas to show for it?

They have to go begging to corporate citizens for handouts when these areas should be among the best developed in Trinidad . A visit to these places would easily provide the private/corporate sector with a list of things that are urgently needed.

This is where philanthropy comes in. Writing in USA Today , Claire Gaudiani, a professor at the New York University Centre for Philanthropy writes: “Voluntary contributions advance economic growth by providing a third pot of resources to address problems and create opportunities when government money and corporate investment are not available.”

She cites several instances where governments and private sector refused to give funding or just did not have enough to give. Both Scottish physician Alexander Fleming and young German scientists had to end up turning to the American philanthropist John D Rockefeller III to develop and refine the first dose of penicillin and to construct the prototype of the electron microscope respectively.

Philanthropy is big business in the United States , as UWI principal Bhoendrandatt Tiwarie said at the function at which Lok Jack handed over his millions.

In July 2000, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave $26 million to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to tackle malaria, while the same foundation gave $100 million to fight AIDS in India in November 2002.

Beth Duff Brown writing in the Chicago Sun quotes Gates as saying: “I realised about 10 years ago that my wealth has to go back to society” – again corporate social responsibility. He added: “A fortune, the size of which is hard to imagine, is best not passed on to one's children. It is not constructive for them.”

Interestingly, Gates learnt the practice of charity from his parents who regularly donated to charity. Another big US donor was the foundation established by the late computer pioneer and Stanford graduate, William Hewlett.

His foundation donated $400 million to Stanford University in May 2001. Arthur Lok Jack was following a long-established American tradition of giving endowments to universities.

But universities are not the only ones to benefit; American philanthropists have also given to museums, hospitals, libraries and theatres. The goal of philanthropy, therefore, is not just charity; it is development. Philanthropy is also picking up in the UK .

The UK ranks second in the world in philanthropic giving. Claire Gaudiani notes that while Americans give the equivalent of 2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to charity the British give the equivalent of 0.7% of theirs.

Surprisingly, the top charity giver for 2005 in the UK was international entertainment artist Sir Elton John who gave away 22.6 million pounds of his estimated 185 million pounds fortune (i.e. 12.2%) (“God and the money men”, Tablet , July 2005).

An American Catholic, John Studzinski, co-head of investment at the UK 's HSBC Bank, won this year's “Special Beacon Prize for Most Generous Businessman” from the Beacon Fellowship. Studzinski once toyed with the idea of becoming a Jesuit priest.

The Jesuit influence is still with him as he calls his giving not simply charity but “asset re-allocation” – again sound Catholic social teaching.

At a conference on religion and ecumenism in the Caribbean held at UWI in February 2005, Dr Joseph Springer, a Trinidadian professor of public policy at an American university noted that there are some 1500 NGOs in this country.

These NGOs would not survive were it not for the extreme generosity of the average T&T citizen, quite apart from private sector contributions. But clearly so many NGOs redound to the detriment of the nation with 1500 NGOs asking often the same companies for assistance.

There needs to be a more co-ordinated effort so that a greater impact can be made on the social health of the nation. There needs to be more social investment in development (not to be reduced to economic development) by both private sector and would-be philanthropists.

Mr Lok Jack has decided to give to the IOB. Others need not invest in the university. There is the whole area of prison reform. There are many ex-prisoners who have been abandoned by families and have neither employment nor lodging.

They need to be reintegrated into society if we are serious about controlling crime. There is also the problem of deportees from America who are also contributing to the explosion in crime.

They need to be re-integrated as well. We urgently need philanthropic giving that will concretely reduce social displacement and unemployment in the short and long term. There is something scandalous about increasing wealth (national and private) while unemployment soars.

Other areas that need investment by would-be philanthropists include funding parenting programmes in rural areas and areas prone to crime and violence; the restoration of the Magnificent Seven; the acquisition of low-cost housing; support for the major public hospitals, especially in terms of donating equipment and constructing specialist wings; and the EMA so that it can do some more challenging work in area of environmental pollution.

As we congratulate the watershed gesture of Arthur Lok Jack, as well as the noble efforts of all the “small philanthropists”, let us look towards more “asset re-allocation” as a form of restitutive justice in the service of national development.