May 05, 2008
A Paternalistic View of Philanthropy?
As more and more bloggers cover the Council on Foundations annual meeting this week, debates are erupting about the future of philanthropy and how the meeting handled them.
Peter Manzo, a board member of National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, writes that the opening remarks by Steve Gunderson, the council’s chief executive, and a video presentation about philanthropy “were abysmal.”
“Gunderson gave an unremarkable speech filled with vagaries, platitudes, and so many buzzwords that during one heavy stretch where he seemed to touch on a half-dozen in a row, I had to stifle the urge to yell ‘Bingo!’” Mr. Manzo writes on the Tactical Philanthropy blog, where several conference-goers are writing about the event.
What bothered him about the film, he said, was that it “presented a paternalistic image of philanthropy as the heroic savior of the wretched, and made outlandish claims that philanthropy, as the ‘fifth estate,’ accomplishes more than the combination of the other four (originally, religion, government (nobles), the common citizenry and the media).
He adds: “At one point the video claims that philanthropy has accomplished more good than any government ever has, and at another, fantasizes about a world without governments, just institutions that see the world as problems to be solved, with “no one to tell them what they can and cannot do.’”
But others were more supportive of the opening session.
Peter Deitz, founder of Social Actions and another guest blog writer on Tactical Philanthropy, writes that Mr. Gunderson made several points worth noting, such as “Philanthropy must become a movement, more than an institution” and “Our greatest power is not in the checkbook but in our vision.”
He describes the meeting of 3,000 nonprofit leaders as the “Davos of Philanthropy.”
To learn more about the conference, The Chronicle has frequent blog updates from various sessions of the event.
What do you think? If you are attending the meeting what has been your impression so far? Click on the comment link below this post to share your thoughts.
— Ian Wilhelm
Comments
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If Mr. Manzo is anywhere near accurate in his characterization, then Mr. Gunderson should be ashamed of himself. We don’t need to encourage government to do LESS to create social justice!
— Dennis Fischman May 6, 02:04 PM #