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.

posted on: Thursday, March 19, 2009

By Niki Jagpal

On the March 14 edition of Fox News Network’s The Journal Editorial Report hosted by Paul Gigot, three members of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial team discussed NCRP’s Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best: Benchmarks to Assess and Enhance Grantmaker Impact. The Journal’s panel comprised columnist and deputy editor Dan Henninger, senior editorial writer Colin Levy and deputy Taste editor Naomi Schaefer Riley. Gigot asked Riley to explain how “foundations are being lobbied heavily to make some of their donations based on race, gender and sexual preference, a portion of it.” Riley’s response echoed her opinion piece published the day we released Criteria, a work that nobody - including she - had ever seen and issued numerous myths and falsehoods about as we released the book publicly. Riley responded to Gigot stating:

“Well, last week, a group called the National Committee for Responsibility came out with a report saying that these are the things they think foundations should do with their money. They should start giving 50 percent of it to marginalized groups. And you've just defined those for us. They should be giving 25 percent to organizing activities. And that they should also have diverse boards and staff, meaning that they hope that, you know, all these marginalized groups are represented on the board, and that those different groups basically spend their time on the boards arguing over where the money should go. Without regard, of course, to the intent of the donor, who gave the money in the first place.”

Reality check: Riley’s written piece made a similar argument, reducing our broad definition of special populations to “simplistic racial and gender headcounts.” In fact, her piece is titled “Philanthropy and Its Enemies: Activists want to redistribute foundation wealth based on racial quotas.” Far from this politicized opinion "piece,” Criteria: a) explicitly states that it’s a tool for meaningful funder self-regulation and assessment; b) doesn’t include a single mandate or legislative agenda; c) and doesn’t call for “racial quotas,” as she calls it.

In her opinion piece in the Journal, Riley raised the following questions:

“The idea, put forward in the report, that giving grants to ‘large cultural or educational institutions’ doesn't benefit minorities is offensive. Black people don't go to museums? Hispanics don't go to college?”

Reality check: First, no where in Criteria do we contend that the nation has made no progress in addressing racial inequality in our country. Was the nation’s first African American president not sitting in the Oval Office as we finalized Criteria? Second, of course non-white people in this country go to museums and college. But because her piece was written while we were releasing Criteria on March 3rd, she could only have seen a confidential draft summary that was somehow leaked to her, not even the actual Executive Summary of the full book. Anyone who reads the book would know that: a) the Values chapter explicitly addresses how whites comprise the largest number of those living in poverty; b) that we analyzed income and wealth inequality for ALL RACES over time in suggesting a socially inclusive poverty paradigm; and, c) that giving to any group that remains disadvantaged would be seen as grantmaking that benefits “marginalized groups, broadly defined.”

And contrary to Gigot and Riley’s reduction of our inclusive definition of vulnerable populations, we did not limit our analysis to “race, gender and sexual preference.” In fact, NCRP counted 11 different marginalized groups – cleverly disguised in the first endnote of the book and repeatedly listed out in the Values endnotes and data appendix. These groups go well-beyond base measures of race, gender or sexual orientation. The 11 groups that we analyzed include: economically disadvantaged; racial or ethnic minorities; women and girls; people with AIDS; people with disabilities; aging, elderly, and senior citizens; immigrants and refugees; crime/abuse victims; offenders and ex-offenders; single parents; and LGBTQ citizens.

Responding to Riley’s closing assertion about donor intent, Gigot agreed, stating:

“That's the thing. These foundations are created based on intent. Somebody says I want this money to go to, say, religion. I want this money to go to higher education. I want it to go to cancer research. All those things are very apolitical in the sense that they're not designed to go to any politically organized group. This is a way of politicizing charities, it seems.”

Riley agreed wholeheartedly:

“Absolutely. There are a number of large groups of that bought into this idea that with the goal of all charities is encouraging what the NCRP calls participatory democracy. It doesn't matter if your foundation is devoted to curing of cancer or higher education. What it should be devoted to is to the public good as we define it. We're getting these activist groups and a lot of legislators signing on to this idea this is the money should go.”

In her written piece, Riley similarly stated that “[NCRP’s] real aim is to push philanthropic organizations into ignoring donor intent and instead giving grants based on political considerations.”

Reality check: NCRP explicitly respects donor intent, acknowledging that certain trust restrictions might make it difficult for a particular foundation to meet a certain benchmark. On p. 24 of Criteria, we specifically note how donor intent might make meeting the benchmark we set for giving to vulnerable groups a challenge and we suggest a lower threshold for these donors to consider, and offer ways in which foundations might benefit from an approach called “targeted universalism” (see p. 16 for a definition). This is a strategic approach to universalist programs that focused on the most disadvantaged with benefits for all society. But it seems in Riley’s world, everything is apparently an either-or question.

In fact, it does matter if your foundation is devoted to either of the causes Riley mentions. Does curing cancer not benefit women, one of the 11 groups we included in our analysis? Does ensuring that all people have equal opportunities and access to higher education implicitly violate donor intent? Why is this seen as an inherent conflict? And NCRP again deviously states that everything we advocate for is intended to maximize the social benefit of philanthropy and augment impact – the ultimate measure of the civic sector.

Criteria challenges grantmakers to wrestle with difficult issues when making decisions about charitable giving priorities and recognizes that ultimately, its up to the leadership of these institutions to decide whether or not it makes sense to try and meet or exceed the metrics we suggest. And yet again, our activist political considerations are cloaked, e.g., in the Preface and in the speech our executive director gave at Criteria’s release. As the Preface so deviously states: “This particular document, however, is not a call for regulatory action on these issues. Instead, we view these criteria as central to informing meaningful self-regulation for foundations and other institutional grantmakers.”

And as for Riley’s false assertion that we are advocating “giving grants based on political considerations,” as we note on our page debunking the series of myths and mischaracterizations of our work, foundation leaders visit members of Congress annually during Foundations on the Hill, an event sponsored by the Council on Foundations and the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers. Why should the grantee perspective on issues related to philanthropy be anathema to Riley unless she has her own political agenda that she wasn’t clear about. Of course, you’d have to visit her personal site to see the pieces come together: a) contributing writer at the American Enterprise Institute; b) contributing writer and editorial intern at the National Review; and, c) she has received grants from the Randolph Foundation among others. This last piece is particularly telling. Do you know who is the president and director of Randolph? None other than one Heather Higgins, also vice chairwoman of the Philanthropy Roundtable, who recently wrote an article for Forbes based on Riley’s opinion piece (both came out on the day we released Criteria, a nearly 130-page book.) But that’s another article altogether.

I’ll end this post by asking the questions I started out with: Who is philanthropy’s real "enemy"? Who hasn’t been transparent about their "political considerations"? Can anyone seriously consider the Journal’s deputy Taste editor’s critique of a work she hasn’t even read? And again, we slyly make our materials publicly available for free download on our site precisely to engage in constructive discussions and robust debates – that’s healthy and we encourage constructive criticism of our work. I invite you to read Criteria or at least the executive summary and join this discussion – I welcome all feedback, positive or negative. But to the likes of Riley and every conservative blogger who is repeating her falsehoods, I have no more comment.

Niki Jagpal is Research & Policy Director at NCRP, and primary author of Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best: Benchmarks to Assess and Enhance Grantmaker Impact.