Alwaleed Philanthropies and Bold's 'Who to Give' OOH campaign tackled fake panhandling in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan 2016 by redirecting public generosity
Alwaleed Philanthropies Challenges Saudi Arabia to Give Wisely
"Who to Give" is a 2016 Saudi Arabian public interest campaign created by Bold Creative Boutique for Alwaleed Philanthropies that used outdoor advertising to expose the scale of fake panhandling and redirect public donations toward legitimate, verified charitable organisations during Ramadan.
Alwaleed Philanthropies, the global humanitarian foundation established by HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and documented across alwaleedphilanthropies.org, occupies a defining position in Saudi civil society. In June 2016, the foundation partnered with Bold Creative Boutique, a Riyadh-based agency, to address a problem that intensifies every Ramadan across the Kingdom: the proliferation of fraudulent begging that diverts charitable giving away from those genuinely in need. The campaign's single archived media asset — an outdoor execution — anchored a public interest message directly in the physical spaces where donation decisions are made.
The strategic ambition behind "Who to Give" was threefold, as articulated by Abeer Alessa, Co-Founder and General Manager of Bold Communication Agency: to grab the public's attention, to raise awareness of the tricks and the scale of the problem, and to direct donations toward official and trustworthy charities through an interactive method designed to generate word-of-mouth and broader awareness. Ramadan's elevation of charitable obligation in Saudi culture made the campaign's timing deliberate and precise. Saudi Arabia's Associations and Foundations Law, which took effect on March 17, 2016, according to Lexology, had just formalised the regulatory landscape for nonprofit organisations in the Kingdom months before the campaign launched, lending institutional urgency to the message. "Who to Give" asked Saudi donors not to give less, but to give better.
Fake panhandling represents a documented and recurring challenge across Gulf societies during Ramadan. The month's religious emphasis on zakat and sadaqa — obligatory and voluntary charitable giving — creates concentrated demand from donors and, in parallel, organised exploitation by fraudulent beggars. Alwaleed Philanthropies identified this behavioural gap as the strategic entry point for a public service intervention that could change not the volume of Saudi generosity, but its destination.
Bold Creative Boutique, operating from Riyadh and documented across bold-xp.com, had maintained a working relationship with Alwaleed Philanthropies since approximately 2013, based on a 2020 statement reviewed by Clapboard indicating the partnership had existed seven years earlier. That accumulated institutional understanding informed the campaign's direct, confrontational framing. Rather than celebrating charity in the conventional Ramadan advertising register — a register crowded with emotionally warm brand narratives from competitors across the Gulf including du and STC — "Who to Give" positioned itself as a corrective. It acknowledged donor goodwill while questioning where that goodwill was actually going.
Saudi Arabia's formal nonprofit sector was itself in transition at the time of the campaign's release. The Associations and Foundations Law, effective March 17, 2016, according to Lexology, provided new legal infrastructure for civil society organisations in the Kingdom. That regulatory shift made the campaign's call to redirect donations toward official and trustworthy charities not merely a moral argument but a structurally timely one. Directing Saudi donors toward legitimate registered entities carried newly concrete legal meaning in the market.
"Who to Give" operated as an outdoor public interest execution. Mohamad Baalbaki served as Executive Creative Director on the campaign, with Ziad Abou Rjeily as Digital Creative Director, as documented in Bold's production credits. The campaign's single archived asset places its core message in the out-of-home environment — the precise urban space where Saudi residents encounter beggars and make spontaneous giving decisions, making the medium and the message structurally inseparable.
The creative approach drew on the logic of the social experiment and documentary observation, genres that were gaining cultural currency in Arab media during this period as mechanisms for surfacing social truths that conventional advertising could not carry with equivalent credibility. By framing the campaign's revelation — that many visible beggars are part of organised deceptive networks — as discovered rather than declared, Bold positioned Alwaleed Philanthropies as an informed guide rather than an authority issuing instructions. Abeer Alessa explicitly described the interactive method as central to the strategy, designed to increase word-of-mouth and awareness beyond the physical footprint of the outdoor placements.
Production credits beyond the named creative directors are not publicly documented for "Who to Give." The campaign's reliance on a single OOH asset is itself a creative choice: concentrating impact into one image or installation demands that the execution carry maximum communicative weight without the support of a multi-channel narrative architecture. In the context of the Saudi public interest category in 2016, that restraint represented a deliberate bet on the power of a single, well-placed provocation over a dispersed campaign footprint.
No verified performance data for "Who to Give" is publicly available. No published donation-lift figures, awareness-shift measurements, or reach data have been located across trade sources including Campaign, Ad Age, Adweek, The Drum, or Contagious. No verified award recognition for the campaign has been confirmed across Cannes Lions, the Effies, The One Show, D&AD, the Clios, Webby Awards, or WARC Awards.
Structural analysis, however, identifies several characteristics that support campaign effectiveness in the Saudi public interest context. The medium-message alignment is precise: outdoor advertising placed in the physical environment where fraudulent begging occurs creates an encounter between the warning and the behaviour it describes at the moment of maximum relevance. The Ramadan timing concentrates exposure during the period of highest charitable intent in the Saudi market, when the audience is both most motivated to give and most susceptible to misdirection. The campaign's social experiment framing, as articulated by Abeer Alessa of Bold, extends the message's potential reach beyond paid placements through the word-of-mouth mechanism that characterises effective on-ground activations. Alwaleed Philanthropies' institutional credibility, as a foundation documented across alwaleedphilanthropies.org and Alwaleed Com Sa, lends the campaign's authority claim — give to official charities — the weight of a trusted source rather than an abstract instruction.
Clapboard rates "Who to Give" 63 out of 100, reflecting a campaign that is strategically coherent and contextually well-timed but limited in documented execution depth and independently verifiable public reach.
"Who to Give" was a 2016 Saudi Arabian outdoor campaign created by Bold Creative Boutique for Alwaleed Philanthropies. It targeted the problem of fake panhandling during Ramadan, raising awareness of fraudulent begging networks and directing Saudi donors toward legitimate, officially registered charitable organisations instead.
Ramadan intensifies charitable giving in Saudi Arabia, making it the period when fraudulent begging causes the most significant diversion of donations. Alwaleed Philanthropies timed the June 2016 campaign to intervene precisely when Saudi donors were most motivated to give and most likely to encounter deceptive panhandlers in public spaces.
Bold Creative Boutique, a Riyadh-based agency, created "Who to Give" for Alwaleed Philanthropies. Mohamad Baalbaki served as Executive Creative Director and Ziad Abou Rjeily as Digital Creative Director. Bold's relationship with Alwaleed Philanthropies began approximately in 2013, according to a 2020 statement reviewed by Clapboard.
"Who to Give" used outdoor OOH advertising as its primary medium. Placing the campaign in the physical urban environment where begging occurs gave the message direct contextual relevance, confronting Saudi donors with the problem at the precise moment and location where giving decisions are made.
No verified award recognition for "Who to Give" has been confirmed. Clapboard found no documented wins across Cannes Lions, the Effies, The One Show, D&AD, the Clios, Webby Awards, or WARC Awards. The campaign received a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100, reflecting strategic coherence without fully documented execution reach.
"Who to Give" anticipates a creative direction that Alwaleed Philanthropies and Bold extended in later work, including the 2019 social experiment campaign "Words Matter – Badriyah's Social Experiment." Both campaigns use documentary and observational formats to surface social issues in Saudi Arabia rather than relying on conventional charity advertising emotion.
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