Culture and Human Development
Giving was another important initiative introduced within BCCI by its founder and President, Agha Hasan Abedi. It reflected his belief that a banking institution should be concerned not only with financial performance and professional achievement, but also with the human, moral and social development of its people.
Abedi regarded Giving as central to the quality and purpose of life. In his view, it was not limited to donating money or possessions. True Giving also involved offering one’s time, knowledge, energy, compassion, encouragement and personal service to other people.
The initiative sought to bring this natural human instinct into the daily consciousness of every member of the BCCI family. Employees were encouraged to consider not merely what they could receive from the organisation, but what they could contribute to colleagues, customers, communities and those who were less fortunate.
The Theme of Giving
At management conferences held in Geneva and London in February and March 1982, BCCI adopted Giving as an important theme in the continuing development of its corporate identity.
In a letter dated 19 March 1982, Abedi explained that, alongside the determination to build BCCI according to the highest standards of banking, he wished to establish the BCCI family upon the foundations of faith and Giving. He described Giving as a quiet and natural instinct within the human being and encouraged employees to discover and express that instinct in their own lives.
The initiative was therefore not presented as an ordinary corporate charitable programme. It was intended to influence the attitudes, relationships and conduct of BCCI employees throughout the organisation.
Abedi wanted Giving to become part of the institution’s culture: a continuing awareness that every person possessed something of value that could be offered for the benefit of others.
Giving Through Every Employee
To give practical effect to the concept, BCCI provided members of staff with an additional payment calculated as a percentage of their annual salary. Each employee was asked to pass that amount to a deserving individual or cause of his or her own choice.
In 1982, employees received an amount equivalent to two and a half per cent of their annual salary for this purpose. The decision was significant because the Bank did not select the beneficiaries centrally. Responsibility was entrusted to each employee to identify a genuine need and make a personal decision about where the assistance should be directed.
The initiative was repeated in subsequent years. In 1983, the payment was increased to an amount equivalent to three per cent of annual salary and was extended to full-time employees throughout BCCI’s subsidiaries and affiliated companies. The amount was paid without deductions, and each employee remained free to support a deserving person or cause of his or her own choosing.
This made the programme unusual in scale and character. Rather than concentrating charitable decisions in a foundation or senior committee, BCCI enabled thousands of employees in many countries to become individual participants in the act of Giving.
The result was a dispersed form of philanthropy capable of reaching people and needs that might never have come to the attention of a central charitable organisation.
More Than the Giving of Money
Abedi repeatedly emphasised that the payment of money was only the beginning of the process. The amount distributed by BCCI was intended to awaken or strengthen the desire to give; it was not itself the ultimate purpose of the initiative.
The deeper objective was to encourage employees to give something of themselves. This could include:
- time and attention to a colleague experiencing difficulty;
- knowledge and guidance to a younger employee;
- kindness and understanding to a customer;
- practical assistance to a family or community;
- courage and encouragement to someone who had lost confidence;
- professional ability in support of a worthwhile cause; and
- service to the organisation and the wider society.
Giving was therefore understood in its broadest sense. It embraced material assistance, but also generosity of spirit, humility, compassion, patience, respect and the willingness to place collective well-being above narrow personal interest.
The publications explained that the real importance of Giving lay in maintaining a continuous awareness of the needs of others and experiencing the satisfaction of contributing to their well-being.
Giving as Part of BCCI’s Major Purpose
Giving became closely connected with BCCI’s concept of its Major Purpose. The Bank was intended to be a commercially successful international institution, but Abedi did not regard financial success as sufficient in itself.
He believed that the organisation should use its resources, international presence and human capabilities to contribute to a wider social purpose. BCCI’s success would acquire greater meaning when it enabled the institution and its people to support others, particularly those who were disadvantaged, overlooked or deprived of opportunity.
The Giving initiative was therefore linked to BCCI’s wider support for education, health, culture, research, humanitarian assistance and development. However, its distinctive purpose was to involve every employee personally rather than leaving philanthropy only to the Bank’s foundations or senior management.
Each member of staff was encouraged to become an instrument through which the organisation’s resources could reach an individual, family or cause in need.
Personal Responsibility and Freedom of Choice
An important feature of the initiative was the freedom given to employees to select the recipient of their contribution.
BCCI did not require the money to be given to a particular institution or approved list of charities. Employees were trusted to use their personal knowledge and judgement to identify a deserving individual or cause.
This reflected Abedi’s wider management philosophy. He believed that responsibility helped individuals grow. By asking employees to make their own decisions, the Bank encouraged them to look beyond their immediate personal concerns, recognise need within their communities and experience directly the meaning of helping another person.
The process also removed the distance that can exist between a corporate donor and the eventual beneficiary. The employee became personally involved in deciding where assistance was most needed and, in many cases, could observe the effect of the contribution.
The Quality of Giving
For Abedi, the value of Giving depended not only upon what was given, but also upon the intention, attitude and manner in which it was offered.
Giving undertaken for personal recognition, influence or public praise lacked the quality he wished the initiative to develop. Giving at its highest level was to be undertaken with sincerity, humility and concern for the recipient, rather than with the expectation of reward.
Employees were encouraged to reflect upon several questions:
- How strong was their desire to give?
- How frequently did they give in their everyday lives?
- How much of themselves were they prepared to offer?
- Was their Giving motivated by compassion or by self-interest?
- Did their conduct bring hope and confidence to others?
- Did they contribute positively to the collective well-being of the organisation?
These questions demonstrate that the programme was intended as an exercise in self-examination as much as an act of financial assistance.
Positive and Negative Giving
In his letter of 15 January 1985, Abedi developed the concept further by distinguishing between positive Giving and negative Giving.
He observed that people continually give something to others through their words, attitudes and conduct, whether or not they are conscious of doing so. A person could give love, happiness, humility and hope, but could also give hatred, jealousy, envy, prejudice and intolerance.
Giving therefore did not always produce good. Careless words, negative attitudes and unkind behaviour could inflict pain and damage relationships. Abedi asked employees to become conscious of the quality of what they communicated to other people and to ensure that their presence contributed positively to the lives of those around them.
This broadened the initiative beyond conventional charity. Giving became a way of understanding every human interaction. Employees were encouraged to recognise that their behaviour affected the emotional and professional environment of colleagues, customers and communities.
Positive Giving meant offering confidence rather than fear, cooperation rather than conflict, understanding rather than prejudice, and hope rather than despair.
BCCI as a Caring Community
Abedi wanted BCCI to become not merely a large international bank, but a caring community. He described the organisation as a family whose members shared responsibilities towards one another.
This concept did not mean that professional standards or accountability were to be relaxed. Rather, Abedi believed that high performance and human concern should reinforce each other. An organisation whose members felt valued, supported and connected to a wider purpose would, in his view, provide better service and demonstrate greater commitment.
Giving was therefore intended to operate within the organisation as well as outside it. Senior officers were expected to share knowledge and experience, managers to develop younger colleagues, and employees to support one another during periods of professional or personal difficulty.
The initiative complemented BCCI’s Guardianship Programme, Real Management philosophy and emphasis on Total Quality. All were based upon the conviction that an organisation could develop only through the development and quality of its people.
Awakening the Consciousness of Thousands
One of the most ambitious objectives of the programme was to bring the meaning of Giving into the consciousness of the entire BCCI workforce.
By the late 1980s, this meant attempting to engage approximately 14,000 employees drawn from many nationalities, cultures and religious backgrounds. The financial distribution made by BCCI was a practical means of enabling each person to experience the act of giving directly.
The programme’s publications acknowledged that this deeper objective was not always fully achieved. It was easier to distribute money than to produce a lasting change in attitudes and behaviour.
For this reason, the message was repeated over several years. Employees were asked to read earlier letters again, reflect upon their experience and consider whether Giving had genuinely become part of their character and daily conduct.
The repetition demonstrated that Abedi did not regard Giving as an annual payment or temporary campaign. It was intended as an ongoing process of personal growth.
Giving and Receiving
The philosophy also recognised that Giving and receiving were interconnected. The recipient obtained material or emotional assistance, while the giver received experience, humility, awareness and a deeper understanding of the needs of others.
Abedi believed that the act of sincere Giving could free an individual from excessive self-interest and material preoccupation. It reminded people that their abilities, position and resources carried responsibilities towards others.
Receiving was not viewed as a position of inferiority. Every person gave and received at different stages of life. The relationship between the two was therefore part of a continuing human process rather than a division between the powerful donor and the dependent beneficiary.
The Influence of Khalil Gibran
In introducing the theme in 1982, Abedi shared with employees an extract from Khalil Gibran’s reflections on Giving.
Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-American writer, poet, visual artist, and philosopher best known for his 1923 book The Prophet, a collection of poetic essays translated into over 100 languages and among the best-selling books of all time.
Gibran’s distinction between giving possessions and giving oneself closely reflected Abedi’s own purpose. Material generosity was valuable, but the greater form of Giving involved the person’s own time, character, knowledge, love and service.
The inclusion of Gibran’s writing also illustrates the wider intellectual and spiritual character of BCCI’s internal communications. Employees were encouraged not only to follow administrative instructions, but also to reflect upon literature, philosophy and moral questions relevant to their professional and personal lives.
A Distinctive Corporate Initiative
The Giving programme was highly unusual for an international bank. BCCI committed its own funds but placed the responsibility for distributing them in the hands of individual employees throughout the world.
It combined corporate philanthropy with personal choice, organisational development and moral reflection. Its objective was not simply to record a charitable donation in the Bank’s accounts, but to encourage thousands of people to recognise their own capacity and responsibility to assist others.
The initiative also demonstrated an important feature of Agha Hasan Abedi’s leadership. He did not separate banking entirely from questions of human development, spirituality and social responsibility. He believed that the quality of a financial institution was ultimately connected with the quality, values and consciousness of the people who worked within it.
Giving was consequently not peripheral to his vision of BCCI. It was one of the means through which he sought to create an institution combining commercial achievement with service to humanity.
Continuing Relevance
The concept remains relevant to contemporary discussions about corporate social responsibility, employee engagement, ethical leadership and responsible banking.
Modern institutions frequently operate charitable foundations, encourage volunteering or match employee donations. BCCI’s Giving initiative went further by placing funds directly in the hands of employees and asking each individual to become personally responsible for identifying and responding to need.
It sought to transform corporate philanthropy from a centralised institutional activity into a personal experience shared across the organisation.
The enduring message of the programme was that Giving should not be confined to a particular year, payment or charitable campaign. It should become a continuing part of an individual’s character and relationship with society.
As one BCCI instruction circular explained, material Giving was only a means of rekindling and strengthening the wider spirit of Giving as a lifelong process.
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