The Farmer's Market of Philanthropy

Jacob Harold suggests that the phrase "the philanthropic marketplace" now conjures up images of Wall Street in mired in chaos, corruptions, and bailouts. He suggests that we talk instead of a "philanthropic farmer's market." Sean Stanndard-Stockton echos that sentiment, while expressing praising markets and telling us that they will soon be back on Wall Street better than ever.  What I like about the analogy of a farmer's market is,

• the food is real, and it is fresh, we are not being sold a bill of goods.
• the goods offered are subject to personal inspection, and even a taste or two.
• the farmer stands behind, literally, stands behind the produce.
• the farmer is a neighbor and possibly a friend; we may worship together; his wife coaches my daughter t-ball team.
• if the farmer dupes me in a big way, not only I, but everyone else will know about it; shame and disgrace will follow for him and for his whole family
• half the fun is hanging around the market talking to friends; civic capital is created, not just money being exchanged for merchandise.

Catherine Austin Fitts, who has had her share of Wall Street investment banking success, talks of going back to markets like farmer's market where we can have "financial intimacy."  Neighborliness, giving, pot luck suppers, sewing bees, barn raising, casseroles for the bereaved, sitting with the dying were all part of that small town America, and still survive in some places.  A good contract is not, I think, between those who love markets and those who love statism, but between those whose heart is in the small, intimate, caring communities that are a bit like family.  "Charity begins at home," as the saying goes. And, as Robert Frost noted, "Home is where when you go there, they have to take you in." Home, community, neighborliness are rooted in love - which may sound sentimental until you think about the heartbreak that goes with love, that network of mutual obligations, wounds and healing.  So, I am all in favor of a philanthropic farmer's market, where what we build together is a more congenial and carrying community, along with the deals, favors, kindnesses, and conversations that support our lives together. 

An MBA looking at a Farmer's Market will say, "Yeah, ok, primitive, but better than no market at all. Listen folks! Gather round! I will help you make this rinky dink little marketplace of yours more effective and efficient.  I, Ladies and Gentlemen, will bring this little market to scale.  With a little debt, a few derivatives, a lobbyist, a publicist, a franchise attorney, an advertising budget, a leverage buyout and roll up of thousands of other farmer's markets, and with a decent salary plus stock options for me, and golden parachute if I blow up the thing, I will make you all rich and happy."

My concerns with "market metaphors" for philanthropy is that I hear way too many social investor types who sound a bit too much like that MBA. We have seen the damage that can be done when we make "efficient and effective" or "ROI," or various bottomlines our goal. I would say to the MBA, "All in good time, son. This summer, though, and the next, why don't you unload the trucks and get a feel for what is going on here.  There's Bill Somerville. He is not too proud to work, why should you be?" Meanwhile, I hear a farmer, holding a pitchfork and muttering, "Scale up our famer's market, Mister? Scale this up, Jackass!"

If building a caring community is part of what philanthropy is about, the whole question of "scale" looks different. Marriage is hard. Children are hard, let alone several generations. Neighborhood is harder. Farmer's market and small schools sort of work. But try markets and governments for  State, Region, Country, and World.  Giving for some of us is our way to participate in a local world, an intimate world, with those we like to think of neighbors, civic friends, and supporters of our own felt sense of identity.  We vote, yes, for all the difference it makes, but giving and volunteering is a way to make a difference you can feel, touch and taste, like an apple in that farmer's market. Not to say that big is always bad, with markets and governance, but we have seen the colossal badness, as bad as it has been in societies that were fundamentally corrupt.  It is hard now to pretend that our trust was not betrayed, that our credulous belief in markets was not played upon by those who knew how to rig the game in their own favor, who profited when we lost, and who knew how to get us to bail out their mess.  We got the market losses; they got the bailout.

The ways things are going day to day, farmer's markets may play a prominent role, along with blackmarkets, as we close the Collapse Gap with our former rival, the Soviet Union.