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Robert Payton on Philanthropy as a Civic Virtue

Robert Payton (in 1988) on philanthropy as a civic virtue:

Civil disobedience and even revolution have thus often been thought to be a virtue—the virtue of political courage—whether directed against public policy or private interest. Philanthropic activity—voluntary initiative for the public good—is the mechanism by which many Americans use their First Amendment rights to reform American society. Such efforts often require demonstration of the virtues of courage and charity, hope and justice. The much-debated virtue of prudence—practice of the virtue of knowing the truth of the consequences of one's acts before committing them—may be lacking. Hence the problematic nature of philanthropy, a qualified virtue as all of them are.

When we speak of "social capital markets," or reduce giving to a computerized social capital stock exchange, where atomized donors push buttons to transfer cash without leaving their chair, or think of giving as a strange sort of double bottom line business venture, or as a weird form of investment, we are at risk, perhaps, of losing touch with the animating ideal of civic virtue expressed as "voluntary action for the public good."

Think good deeds. Giving is a subset of good deeds. Think character. Giving as the formation and expression of moral identity in community with others. Think obligation, as in the "proper uses of riches," an ancient topic of moral essays and sermons. Or, the heck with it, think investment and markets, if that is your only language of value, but your giving however you disguise it is a civic virtue all the same. You need not be ashamed of that.

HSL - Hear, See, Love

Mark Jones is the CEO of The Integral Wellness Group. His full bio is at the end of the attached 11 page pdf on the HSL ("Hizzle") Practice a commonsense, but profound practice for converting hate to love. Per the Dailai Lama, "People want to be heard, seen, and loved in that order."

I recently attended a gathering where Mark extemporized the "HSL" practice for us. In a few minutes he transformed our group dynamic, as we all made the effort to hear, see, and love one another. This may sound touchy feely to some, so let me add that Mark is black and in his pdf you will read how he used the Hizzle practice to save his own life when confronted by skinheads in a park in New Orleans. That story ended in love, not death.

We need this Hizzle practice in our world so riven by frames that set us against one another, Red, Blue, Black, White, with walls being built on the borders, and wars of civilization. Hateful frames are created and focused group tested by think tank thinkers and consultants who are paid the price of Judas. But, then, I should hear, see, and love even the most sold out think tank thinker. They too are human, as was Goebbels, who probably turned out the way he did because he had a club foot.

In any case, Mark's practice is profound. I have a long way to go before I can approach his wisdom and virtue in practice. When I hear lies in high places, lies backed by force dealing death, my mind still closes, my fist still clenches, and I seek victory rather than mutual understanding and love. I would rather be victorious and alive than win in a spiritual way through an exemplary death. Mark is right, as was Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Jesus, as are the monks in Tibet facing Chinese force. If only their words could be heard. If only we could see them, love them, and follow them in risking the ultimate price.

Download the_hsl_workshop.pdf

Post-Mortem America and the Hard Way Ahead

 Criminal means once tolerated are soon preferred, Edmund Burke, from Reflections on the Revolution in France

Chris Floyd on how democracy died in America while we were discussing giving, or the Super Bowl, or whatever it was that preoccupied us as consumers and citizens over these years since 9/11. The hard way ahead will have few philanthropists, I am afraid, but many givers. Those who create a new currency of conversation and show us how to live in truth without paying a high price for it will be the most valuable.  I have no idea what I am talking about and would suggest that you have no idea either.  By way of bibliography you might find these helpful.

• The Parable of the Sower, by St. Mark
• Robert Frost, Directive
• Andrew Lobaczewski, Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes
• Bakhtin on dialogism, heteroglossia, and carnival
• Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing
• James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance
• H. Peter Karoff, Sleepwalkers
• Inspector Lohman, Rebuilding Invisible Comic Community
• Tomasz Rozycki, translated by Kombinat!, The Castle
• Catherine Austin Fitts, Tapeworm Economics
• The Happy Tutor, Why Laundering Drug Money Through Philanthropy is Good for America

To this list I might append the life and works of Paul deMan.  My fellow citizens, we are all collaborators now. In the spirit of the liberal arts, the arts of liberty, let us collaborate for the world we want.   

Lessons from Wingspread: Revisited in 2007

"Look how my tongue whirls, almost like a knife. Remember that." -  Dario Fo, The Birth of the Jongleur

Written in 1994 by The Philanthropic Initiative, these may still be the best 24 pages on promoting the field of philanthropy. Register to download.  In 13 years the field has attracted many more consultants. Now, too, every financial firm teaches what Sean calls "tactical philanthropy," the tools and techniques of giving.  Most non-profits now have a planned giving Board of Advisors, drawn from local professionals.  The number of foundations and the dollars in donor advised funds have grown rapidly. Philanthropy has been democratized some, and the press is full of articles about giving. Yet, I still feel like a safe-cracker, turning the dial back and around, listening to a tumbler fall, then another, but still the door does not open. 

H. Peter Karoff founded TPI. That he is a poet is the essential point. The sciences of giving have been passed on and promoted, but the arts of civics are hardly in the ascendancy. Giving and wealth transfer and the trillions passing fascinate all. More people have gotten better at getting a piece of it for their organization, or found ways to earn fees. But the spirit of the jongleur lives in Peter, and not many others, even to this day.

12 Characteristics of a Good Proposal

Excellent 5 page article in pdf by Joel Oroz, Phd, on the characteristics of a good grant proposal:

1. Applicant's idea is innovative
2. Applicant has expertise but also an understanding of the project's weaknesses
3. Applicant has done needed homework
4. The applicant has done the project with, not to, those it is trying to help
5. The applicant is other centered rather than self centered
6. The applicant will invest its own money in the project
7. The applicant is determined to do the project no matter what
8. The applicant has taken a comprehensive approach
9. The applicant will work collaboratively with others who can help
10. The applicant is willing to have an evaluator assess the project
11. The applicant will continue the project after foundation funding ceases
12. The project has the potential for larger impact.

Reversal of Fortune

Bill McKibben in Mother Jones writes profoundly of why market logic once worked and no longer does, not when it comes to happiness, justice and sustainability. I just hope Heritage, Cato, and AEI don't subscribe to Mother Jones;  Mckibben would give them a migraine. I wonder if Fast Company would publish a piece like McKibben's? In other words, when does the fatal flaw in capitalism becomes public knowledge, commonly agreed upon, so that we can begin to take collective action, not just diddle at the margins with a green brand here or there?

Philanthropy, Love, and Evolution

Interesting people, burning questions, and important readings in progressive philanthropy. From a symposium held in June of 2006. 

Peter Singer on What We Who Have Most Should Give

Peter Singer, the Ira W. DeCamp professor of bioethics at the Center for Human Values at Princeton University, in the NY Times Magazine:

For more than 30 years, I’ve been reading, writing and teaching about the ethical issue posed by the juxtaposition, on our planet, of great abundance and life-threatening poverty. Yet it was not until, in preparing this article, I calculated how much America’s Top 10 percent of income earners actually make that I fully understood how easy it would be for the world’s rich to eliminate, or virtually eliminate, global poverty. (It has actually become much easier over the last 30 years, as the rich have grown significantly richer.) I found the result astonishing. I double-checked the figures and asked a research assistant to check them as well. But they were right. Measured against our capacity, the Millennium Development Goals are indecently, shockingly modest. If we fail to achieve them — as on present indications we well might — we have no excuses. The target we should be setting for ourselves is not halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, and without enough to eat, but ensuring that no one, or virtually no one, needs to live in such degrading conditions. That is a worthy goal, and it is well within our reach.

 

Peter Frumkin, "Strategic Giving"

Philanthropy is emerging as not only a fashionable topic in the mass media, and as a profession for advisors and foundation people, but also as a serious object of academic study.  Peter Frumkin, a Professor of Public Affairs and Director of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the LBJ School, is a PhD. In a field notable for "talented amateurs," he is a thoughtful scholar. I have been reading his new book, Strategic Giving, at the rate of one chapter a day, as a respite from the daily grind. I find myself underlining almost every sentence. Peter has strongly held personal opinions, about donor intent and the way it gets watered down by trustees and staff in foundations after the donor dies. His opinions are well argued and interesting, and give a kind of dramatic lift to the book, by endowing it with heroes and villains. But the permanent achievement, one that transcends opinion, are the conceptual schemas that he patiently develops chapter by chapter. 

Peter views philanthropy through a "prism," defined by the following inter-connected points:

• Donor identity and style
• Time frame of giving
• Vehicle or institution through which the gift is made
• Value produced through giving
• Logic model supporting the gift

The points connected make a five pointed star. Connecting the points around the edges makes a pentagon. The central space inside the star, where the lines intersect to define a small pentagonal, represents the balance or fit among these different ways of "seeing" or understanding a gift. 

The prism is a very useful tool for discussing a gift with a donor. It is more than a "checklist;" it encourages the donor to look at the gift through various lenses:

• Is the gift self expression? Oriented to family? To personal taste and predilections?
• Is the gift oriented primarily to a vehicle, like a foundation, or an existing charity?
• Is it oriented to a specific end in view for society?
• Is it guided by a strategic plan, or logic model?
• And is the giving oriented to a specific time-line: giving now versus later?

Any gift can be seen under each of these aspects. A great gift balances these complentary/competing considerations in a well-concieved, expressive, effective, timely, way - satisfying the donor and satisfying a public need. 

Along the way, Peter makes other important distinctions:

• Is the gift effective?
• Accountable?
• Legitimate as a private act in a public context, for a purported public good?

Or, to invoke another of Peter's favorite distinctions, a gift is part art, part science. We can ask of a gift:

• Is it like a work of art, expressive of what is deepest in the donor? Stunning? Uplfiting? Inspiring? Moving? Grand? Or narrow, petty, self-serving, tacky, tasteless, flashy? Vain?
• Is the work like a business strategy or political strategy logically well-calculated, even scientifically managed, to produce a key end in view? Is the gift efficient? Impactful? Supported by a well-validated theory of change? Backed up with data? Measured like an engineering feat with well-chosen metrics? Can it be replicated, as might a scientific experiment? Is it like a road-building exercise, or a Roman aqueduct, well managed from blueprint, through creation, to delivery?

Agreeing or disagreeing with Peter's particular personal opinions seems almost secondary. What he has laid out for the field is a conceptual apparatus from which anyone working with donors, or foundations, can benefit in thinking seriously about gifts and grants, about giving as a private act in a public space, about accountability of wealth to society, and the legitimacy of private wealth used to move society towards a donor's vision of "the world we want."

For the record, the opinion Peter presses is that donor's contribute to a pluralistic democratic ferment of ideas and institutions by making gifts with passion, or based on their own lights, however idiosyncratic, and that we lose something as the larger than life donor passes on, and dry and cautious professionals and trustees step in to manage a foundation with a rather timid view of the public good in mind, and with a fading memory of their passionate founder's vision. I can agree or disagree with that thesis, but I would find myself doing so within the "prism" of considerations  that Peter has presented. For that I am very much in his debt, as will be any other donor or professional who studies his book.

By the way, Peter has a blog.

Ford Foundation on Market Solutions for Low Income People

Via Brody & Weiser, from the Ford Foundation,  New report -- Part of the Solution: Leveraging Business and Markets for Low-Income People. 

Business can be a powerful tool for helping to improve the income and assets of low-income individuals – if a win-win relationship can be crafted. This report provides success models and analytic frameworks that help nonprofits and funders understand how to work with business as a force for positive social change.