What Happened to the COUNTLESS Ghanaian Celebrity Foundations?

Without any office to operate from, a checkable bank account and any structures in place to ensure the running of any sort of agency, several Ghanaian celebrities launched their own name tagged foundations some few years ago—and made noise on various media platforms.

The question I ask today is; what happened to all these Foundations? Are we seeing or have we witnessed any impact?

Apart from actress Yvonne Nelson who came out boldly to say her Glaucoma Foundation has become dormant as a result of the organisation being cash starved, we’ve not heard what has become of the many celebrity Foundations that were launched.

When it comes to Yvonne Nelson, she mentioned that the many pledges she received from various industry personalities were not honoured—and as such, she could not go through with the set activities of the Foundation she once passionately launched.

It is sad that people promised her Foundation all sort of support but failed to honour them. But launching a Foundation on the pockets of others is never the best thing to do. In fact, it is always appropriate to have your own money allocated to your foundation and then go about asking for more from others.

Again, with all the money Yvonne Nelson spends on those expensive bags and travels (let’s accept as she says, they are all real and she pays for her travels), can’t she pump some into her Foundation if she genuinely wants to make an impact through the Foundation?

That is Yvonne Nelson, at least she has given us an idea as to the state of affairs of her Foundation, though the reason does not connect with sanity.

What is the state of the Prince David Osei Foundation, the Becca’s Foundation, the Van Vicker Foundation, the John Dumelo Foundation, the Juliet Ibrahim Foundation, the Nadia Buari Foundation, the Nana Ama McBrown Foundation, the Confidence Haugen Foundation (Project Smile), the Luckie Lawson Take My Hand Foundation, the Majid Michel Foundation (MajiWoc Foundation), Kwabena Kwabena’s Save a Life, the Okyeame Kwame Hepatitis B Foundation—and the several others?

The above are just a few of the established/launched celebrity Foundations we have in Ghana and we have those who have announced that they will also be launching their Foundations too, with the recent person being Vicky Zugah.

Apart from Okyeame Kwame’s Hepatitis B Foundation that occasionally hosts free Hepatitis B screenings and the Juliet Ibrahim Foundation that throws in some news items, the others seem more like bragging rights.

I clearly remember when the act of launching Foundations became a celebrity must-do in Ghana; I stated among other things that; there was no point in these establishments. These celebrities do not even have the operational structures needed to run a Foundation and secondly, they can just donate or rally friends to donate without having come up with these numerous Foundations.

Even if the idea of a Foundation sounds great to them, they have the option of pushing their strengths and donations to some of the well-established and managed Foundations in Ghana, with proper structures and accountability mechanisms in place.

At the time, it seemed to me these celebrities were just looking to make names for themselves by riding on the Foundation wave and probably, squander some donated cash without any form of accountability—and today, I think we will all agree on a single conclusion…

The question remains; what happened to the countless Ghanaian celebrity Foundations and who actually regulates the donations they receive or received?

I miss the Serious Fraud Office!