posted on: Tuesday, July 07, 2009

By Aaron Dorfman

David Freddoso, a political reporter for the National Review and its online affiliate, which describes itself as “America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for Republican/conservative news, commentary, and opinion,” recently published two commentaries in the Washington Examiner attacking NCRP and our Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best. In the first commentary, he claims that Criteria is part of a “money grab” by liberal nonprofits. In his second piece, he accuses NCRP of manipulating foundation data and claims that there is no “crisis in philanthropy.”

What’s particularly interesting about both pieces is how Freddoso summarily dismisses the need for change in the current philanthropic sector by labeling efforts to address shortcomings as a leftist conspiracy. His readers are made to believe that there’s no room for improvement in how our nation’s foundations operate. Unfortunately, Freddoso got it all wrong.

First, Freddoso misrepresents NCRP’s motives for publishing Criteria. Both columns assert that NCRP seeks to regulate philanthropy on these issues and that our recommendations are about mandates. This is simply not true, and I have stated as much on more than a dozen occasions since the release of the publication this past March. The most thorough exploration of this can be found in the transcript of a debate with representatives from the Philanthropy Roundtable, an association of conservative foundations, held on May 28th at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

NCRP’s goal in publishing Criteria was to generate robust discussion within the field about issues we feel are critically important. That has been happening, and we’re pleased. If we wanted legislation, we would have drafted legislation.

I gave a speech at the Philanthropy Roundtable’s annual conference last year where I called for increased mandated disclosure for foundations. Near the end of my remarks, I shared my thoughts about having Congress tell foundations where to put their money:

“I don’t believe that politicians should decide where foundation dollars go any more than I believe the government should mandate how much protein should be in a frozen pizza. The dangers of that kind of political meddling are too great, and the independence of foundations should be protected. That independence, after all, is what allows foundations to contribute most meaningfully to a vibrant democracy.”

Second, Freddoso argues that NCRP’s data are flawed. He claims that because many grants are coded without any specific intended beneficiaries, NCRP has understated the actual benefits from philanthropy to underserved groups. There is some truth to this argument, and we acknowledged as much in Criteria; grants that are intended to benefit all of society also benefit marginalized populations to some degree.

But in the chapter on Values, we make a case for foundations to pursue “targeted universalism” with their limited dollars. We argue that investments strategically targeted to benefit the most marginalized in society have benefits for those groups and for society as a whole. And we also point out that programs intended to benefit all of society often are not particularly effective at reaching the most vulnerable. (Read previous blog posts on targeted universalism and marginalized communities.)

Liberals don’t have a monopoly on the concept of targeted universalism. The idea is credited to the liberal scholar john a. powell, who runs the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. But conservative scholar Chester E. Finn, Jr., a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and chairman of Hoover’s Task Force on K–12 Education, also advocated this approach in a recent commentary in the Washington Post. In that piece, Finn argues against universal preschool, saying that dollars can be more efficiently and effectively deployed if targeted for the specific benefit of those children who are most at risk.

Additionally, there clearly is a need for improving the way foundations report on the beneficiaries of their grantmaking, and how these are coded by the Foundation Center. Larry McGill, the Foundation Center’s vice president for research, wrote a thoughtful post on this very issue on the blog PhilanTopic as he talked about the numbers we used in Criteria and the results of a new report by The Philanthropic Collaborative. (We also explored the seeming inconsistency in a recent blog post by Julia Craig.)

Freddoso is not the first to use such a divisive tactic to discredit the recommendations in Criteria. (Read Philanthropy’s Real Enemy?) Thankfully, not all “conservative” thinkers share his feelings about the value of our contribution to the field. William Schambra, director of the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at Hudson Institute, made the following remarks recently:

“For all the talk in recent years about philanthropy’s need for transparency and accountability, our foundations by and large continue to discuss their work in a language that is obscurantist, pretentious, and faddish. They seldom if ever lift their sights from the operational details of their work to the larger ends that philanthropy should serve in a democratic republic. If nothing else, the NCRP’s report presents a well-articulated argument about philanthropy’s appropriate ends as well as means. It has therefore provoked a conversation that will in fact promote accountability and transparency in the only way that can ever be accomplished in a free democracy, namely through vigorous debate about our moral purposes in language that we can all understand.”

One final observation: it’s not uncommon for some folks to get NCRP’s name wrong; it is a mouthful after all. But surprisingly, Freddoso and the Washington Examiner butchered our name in both commentaries. As a news junkie, I value accuracy and fairness in the writing of the journalists and news outlets I follow.

Fortunately, efforts by the likes of Freddoso who think that philanthropy is entirely as it should be do not ring true to most thoughtful observers. A large group of experts and practitioners in the charitable sector—liberals and conservatives—believe that there is an urgent need for change in how philanthropy is practiced.

Aaron Dorfman is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.