When you are a businessman or an individual who has grown up or lived in a certain community, there is a certain obligation to that community that never goes away. In Kenya for instance, when you are a member of a church, local development group or parent in a public school, you hold a responsibility as a member of that community. More often than not, the responsibility is to be shouldered in monetary terms.  This would require one, especially those people who are marked as successful, to make contributions even on monthly basis. It usually gets to another level when you are appointed as a custodian of the development projects. At this point, when targets set are not reached, it most likely becomes the responsibility of the person in charge to make up for the difference on the target amounts.

This brings up the question, do you always have an item on the budget to take care of such activities? Sometimes the miscellaneous item in the budget can have such expenditures, but apart from emergency funds, contributions for communal development are usually fairly large sums of money and cannot all pass for the miscellaneous items.

If you make such contributions or donations from personal income often, is it advisable to budget for the expense?