Artists of Change

In this USA Today article, Millionaire Harris Rosen, a white guy from Hell's Kitchen, NY, has quietly transformed Tangelo Park in Orlando, Forida, a once drug-infested, trouble-plagued unincorporated community.

The twin cornerstones of this effort is Rosen's pledge to provide free preschool education for all 2-, 3- and 4-year-old children, and a college education for all high school graduates in Tangelo Park.

Rosen's largess has helped turn things around in this community, which has a little more than 2,400 people and is nearly 90% black.

"Government is just too dense, too stupid, too inept to do this," he says. "If Oprah came down here and saw what we're doing, she would do it somewhere. If I could get (NBA Commissioner David) Stern to come here, I think he would get every NBA team involved in a project like ours" in their cities.

Proper education for at-risk youths is a tremendous positive effect. Involvement in local communities by the wealthy and upper middle class is a huge opportunity to turn things around for decades to come.

Posted by tyler at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Slate Magazine, the tongue-in-cheek "Philanthropy Smackdown: Google vs. Gates for the World Charity Championship":

Google.org has accomplished in one week what it took its parent company years to accomplish: It has already stolen market share from Bill Gates. As the New York Times reported last week, Google will commit $1 billion to a for-profit philanthropic operation that will do everything from back startup companies to lobby legislatures. Among its first projects: helping to build a superefficient ethanol-gasoline-electric car engine.

Trendy and utopian? Absolutely... Google, which has managed to make Microsoft look old and stodgy as a business, is now trying to make the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation look stodgy as a philanthropy.

Philanthropy has been thrust into the business consciousness, creating competition among companies and individuals to see who can be the most generous, the most innovative, the most "giving". This is a good trend that will grow the sector and increase the size of the philanthropic ecosystem. But philanthropy can't be a flavor of the month - it needs to become deeply instilled with young children, who can be taught that they have the ability to make a difference and create positive change in the world. Hey Sergey and Larry: use your new initiative to not only fund immediately beneficial opportunities now, but also sow the seeds of philanthropy for generations to come.

Posted by tyler at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An interesting article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle from a local Rochester, NY foundation, and the impact they are having with the assistance of local philanthropists:

Fortunately, you don't have to be a Buffett, Gates or Carlson to become a philanthropist — nor do you need the Gates Foundation to get good results. Community foundations like ours were invented in response to the first golden age of U.S. philanthropy, when industrialists Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller formed foundations to address the challenges of a changing society. Community foundations allow people of every means to create and name a lasting legacy for their communities, causes or favorite charities.

The author does lower the bar for entrance, but still makes the case that philanthropy is primarily for the affluent. I would argue that harnessing "people-powered philanthropy," seen for decades in such local scenarios as bake sales and 10k sponsor runs, can have tremendous global impact if done in a scale that creates a community of critical mass.

Posted by tyler at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Socialist Worker Online, a rant against philanthropy by Richard Seymour:

Philanthropy has been most widespread when capitalism has been at its most vicious. In the US, since 2000, wages have consistently failed to keep up with inflation, while the wealth of the richest 1 percent has grown staggeringly.

In 1999, Bill Gates had more wealth than the bottom 45 percent of US society combined, and more than the GDP of the world’s 70 smallest countries. This creates an interesting situation. On the one hand, child mortality in the US is higher than in Cuba. On the other hand, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gets $26 billion to invest in market oriented initiatives in health and education.

Philanthropy is not exclusively the domain of the Gates, Buffetts, Turners and Bloombergs of the world. People-powered giving is a grassroots paradigm shift, where conscious communities harness experiential and financial assistance to create great positive change in the world. The more power and momentum that is manifested in the grassroots, the more potential to effect societal change that can address the disparities of which Seymour writes.

Posted by tyler at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

An editorial on top-tier philanthropists from the New Statesman:

And when the rich give, they are unaccountable: the Gates Foundation answers only to its own board. While we may not like our governments' uses of our money - it is hardly a prudent use of public funds for the British government to spend £4.5bn ($8.2bn) on the Iraq war, or for its US equivalent to spend $318bn on the same - at least we have the option of voting the politicians who make these kinds of choices out of office after a few years. There is no such redress if evangelical philanthropists get things wrong.

The author's assumption that government can be more effective philanthropically than organizations such as the Gates Foundation, is misguided. One, private organizations are designed to benefit non-profits in the most transparent way possible. Governments are filled with bureaucracy and prone to vast amounts of waste. Second, to assume that governments are being held accountable for their spending is absolutely ludicrous. In this black & white, polarized world we live in, what charities a government gives to aren't even in the top 50 of voter issues.

Posted by tyler at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From MSNBC:

While Gates and Buffett now stand alongside other business titans-turned-philanthropists such as the Rockefellers, the Gettys and the Fords, they aren't the only names in a growing wave of donors looking to change the world using the business and investing savvy they have developed during their careers. There's also Omidyar, Brainerd and Kirsch. While they're less famous, they're worth noting, too, as "venture philanthropy" becomes the buzzword of the moment in the world of giving.

"It's a sharing of business skills in the nonprofits," says Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Center on Philanthropy at City University Graduate Center.

While it is admirable to see another billionaire loosen the purse strings, and hopefully open his heart at the same time, I see philanthropy as something that can be instilled as a value in young children, who can grow up with a philosophy of contributing to the greater good as a way of life. Philanthropy does not have to be the sole domain of the wealthiest few, or those that have, by some definition, "made it." Rather, we can all provide financial and experiential assistance to some degree.

I once did a services exchange with an executive coach, who told me that I shouldn't worry about philanthropy until I had achieved some undefined plateau of success, at which time I could "really do some good." I sat with it a year or so, and it just doesn't hold water. We can all make a difference, regardless of our economic means, and the world will be a better place for it.

Posted by tyler at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)