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The purpose of this article is to present a strategic conceptual framework for targeting and mining the emerging market segment of Black philanthropy (black gold).

This strategic and normative conceptualization utilizes a socio‐historical and socio‐cultural perspective to posit the black gold construct and recommend tactics for mining it.

Black communities have historically engaged in social justice and self‐help activities for racial equality and advancement and with increasing levels of wealth accumulation now comprise a significant market for philanthropic giving for domestic and global non‐profit organizations. However, in light of Black America's tortured socio‐historical experience and racial/cultural identity, non‐profits must devise a historically‐informed and culturally‐nuanced strategy of relationship marketing to mine the emerging market of black gold.

Domestic and international non‐profits can utilize the proposed strategic conceptual framework to increase their donor and volunteer participation in segmented or minority philanthropy markets.

The proposed framework is strategic in nature, original in conceptualization, and socio‐historical and cultural in its methodological analysis. It can serve as a model, with some contextual modification if necessary, to tap other minority philanthropy markets.

This paper aims to propose a normative framework focusing on the need to enhance the roles of the four fundamental environmental forces of management – socio‐demographic, techno‐economic, politico‐institutional, and cultural. The objective is to create a business climate of certainty so that Kenya can achieve its goals of national and private sector development and of elevating its global competitiveness in terms of foreign direct investment and exports.

The paper uses secondary data to describe Kenya's development goals, its current level of private sector development, its position in the global economy, and the historical and cultural dimensions of its management practices. Against that backdrop, the article combines systems thinking and broad‐based reasoning to develop a normative management framework for policy makers and for domestic and international business managers. After using data to describe Kenya's status with respect to the four environmental forces, the article explains how Kenya – through reforming private and public institutions and implementing enlightened national development polices – could shape its management system and its prevailing climate of uncertainty in order to enhance its competitiveness in the present global economy.

The paper concludes that, if Kenya takes policy actions necessary to redirect and enhance its environmental forces, it would improve the efficacy of its resource management system and reduce the uncertainty inherent in the system. This would also promote openness to international trade and business and reduce the “cost” and other real or perceived barriers to business in the country to world levels, leading Kenya to become more competitive in the present global economy in terms of both increased foreign investment and export. As a result, Kenya should experience higher levels of private sector development, economic growth, and employment and, consequently, reduced poverty and higher standards of living for its citizens.

The paper introduces a normative, broad‐based management framework for national and private sector development in a cross‐cultural context. This framework should prove particularly useful to governments, policy makers, and business managers in countries that are in the early stages of private sector development and who are charged with achieving national development goals and with increasing the global competitiveness of their countries' economies.