We know what fake philanthropy looks like. It looks like the Broad Foundation, training inexperienced superintendents to shut down public schools and turn them over to private entrepreneurs. It looks like the Gates Foundation, foisting one bad idea after another on schools, like Common Core and test-based evaluation of teachers.
This is what real philanthropy looks like.
After years of handing out massive grants to talented individuals (the so-called “genius awards”), the McArthur Foundation decided to have a competition for a single grant of $100 million. The proposal had to be ambitious but within reach. It had to be a project that solved a very important problem. It had to be supported by a team of competent people and organizations.
I was one of many judges. I was very impressed by the applications I reviewed.
The link contains the names of the four finalists. Their ambitions are large and impressive. They aim to help large numbers of people and improve the quality of their lives. They don’t impose their agenda on anyone. They want to solve basic problems in the world.
Bill Gates, Eli Broad, John Arnold, Walton family, Helmsley Foundation, Fisher Family, Reed Hastings: take note. Do good. Leave your ego behind Don’t impose your ideas on others without their consent. Don’t engineer other people’s lives. Solve problems of human existence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Love your last paragraph, Diane.
Beat me to it. Second that.
You hit the nail on the head, again.
In Kalamazoo Michigan a group of generous anonymous donors fund college tuition for graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools. They have spent several millions of dollars. They don’t tell teachers what to teach or limit scholarships to any income group.
That is true generosity.
Catholic Relief Services should be automatically eliminated because their team is 100% white Americans, yet they are “serving” developing non-white nations. Until and unless they actively and equitably partner with those nations (as in, those nations need to be on the team), they are just more colonial interlopers, which the world does not need more of. Perhaps their intentions are good, but we all know what the road to hell is paved with.
Seems a bit harsh — and, judging by their names at least, their team seems something less than 100% white Americans. Their web site lists the following as their team:
Dr Shannon Senefeld, Senior Vice President, Overseas Operations, CRS
Philip Goldman, Founder and President, Maestral International
Georgette Mulheir, Chief Executive, Lumos
Caroline Bishop, Senior Technical Advisor for Vulnerable Children, CRS
Fenny Mwamuye, 4Children Project Director, CRS Kenya
Vijayalakshmi Arora, Head of Programming, CRS India
Kelley Bunkers, Technical Director for Child Welfare and Protection Systems, Maestral International
Dr Domnica Ginu, Acting Country Director, Lumos Moldova
The applications I reviewed were amazingly impressive. All had the goal of such large projects as eliminating hunger and disease in areas where they were widespread.
How anyone could find fault is beyond me.
Yes, Diane, I find fault with colonialism. If CRS really wants to partner with these countries, at the very least, they should make a tiny effort to make it appear that these countries are equal partners. Yet the picture shows not a single black face, even though Kenya is one of the countries. And, while it’s harder to tell, I don’t see anyone who looks Haitian or Guatamalan either. Other groups at least made the effort to make their photos look representative. A very small thing to ask.
And, yes, simply posting a diverse photo by no means guarantees equitable representation by members of targeted countries, but at least it indicates a basic awareness of the idea of partnership – “we’re in this together”, rather than “we’re here to save you”.
None of these are profit making ventures.
If a group of scientists can develop and encourage sustainable crops that feed the populace and end hunger and famine, I don’t see that as colonialism, no matter what the race of the scientists.
Giving 100 million for a computer project? This is not good and MacArthur is not pure at all.
Give the money to the people and let them decide how to educate their children.
Are you sure they have no profit motive?
Who knows who’s in the photo. It could just be the office staff in a US office.
“Do-gooding”, without the active and equitable participation of the people being done good to (yes, I know that’s a grammatical nightmare), is always colonialism, regardless of profit. It further disenfranchises and marginalizes already disenfranchised and marginalized people – they are not even allowed a voice in their own “help”. You seem to understand this when it comes to idealistic young white people coming into minority schools to “teach” and “help”. It’s the same principle here.
Dienne,
I don’t fault Doctors Without Borders or any other group that offers help without conditions. Your standard of purity exceeds mine.
Dienne is correct about this one, as a matter of theory. A lot of people here think it’s appropriate to call Success Academy a “colonialist” organization because, in large part, the teachers and administrators are mainly white and “affluent” while the students are mainly black/Hispanic and non-affluent. The same principle would seem to apply to charitable work targeted at populations in developing nations.
In theory, but not in fact. Do you call Doctors Without Borders a colonialist enterprise?
I do not. But then again, I don’t call Success Academy one, either. If I ever did, it would be an exercise in hyperbole.
“Who knows who’s in the photo. It could just be the office staff in a US office.”
True. (And, to be fair, we don’t know who’s in the other pictures either – for all we know, they could have pulled in random people of color off the streets just for the photo shoot.) But the question remains why CRS would chose those people to put in the picture? Why do they want a picture that looks like all affluent white Americans when they’re working in countries like India, Kenya, Guatamala and Haiti?
Dear Dienne, I am a white person who once worked for years in all black schools the US. I taught overseas where the native speakers were all Spanish and in a school where students came from 52 different countries. Somehow, I don’t feel a bit like a colonialist. I was doing the best job I knew how in cultures that were totally different from mine.
It shouldn’t matter what the color of one’s skin is if they are working to help others. Too many billionaires don’t fit in the category of ‘helping’. They are looking for a sneaky way to make money off of those who are suffering..offering false hope with nothing underneath.
The problem is that what we think we’re doing by “helping” is often experienced by people from other races and cultures as controlling, which usually makes the situation worse.
Affluent white people certain can work with and in poor and minority communities and countries. The key is, as I’ve said, partnership. All voices have to be equal (or, even, the voices of the poor and minority need to be elevated because the tendency (and the history) is so often to override). The “helpers” have to come in with the understanding that the people they are “helping” have their own perspectives, their own needs and their own ways of doing things (and that such ways are not necessarily “wrong”). They need to understand that the “helpees” have as much to bring to the relationship as the “helpers”. The “helpers” can’t be saviors. As Jitu Brown put it, “you are not smarter than us, you are not better than us, and you do not love these children more than we do.”
As long as you (and anyone else in such a situation) approach the work as equal partners in a relationship, good things can happen. But good intentions alone don’t necessarily make that happen. Which is why, again, I find it so concerning that CRS doesn’t even go so far as to suggest that the nations they work with have representation on their team through their picture.
I recall going to China in the mid-1980s with a group from the Kellogg Fellowship. I went as a tag-along because my partner was a Kellogg Fellow, the first teacher ever to be so selected. We drank a lot of beer because we had been warned that many places served water that would make us ill. One of the fellows mocked us for worrying about the water. He said that clean water was a western fetish and that we should respect the local culture. Was he right? I can’t say for sure, but I didn’t want to get dysentery. I kept drinking the excellent Chinese beer. The bottled orange soda was pretty good too. By the way, the fellow who pooh-poohed our western fetish also drank beer and soda, not the local water.
Divergent thinking is what is needed to address serious world problems. Bubble tests will not prepare young people to think outside the box. Problem solving often requires team work and collaboration, not self promotion. It is interesting to note that the majority of people on most of the teams are women.
I’m not sure they are as altruistic as we want to think?
It’s my understanding that the group “Sesame Seeds” is one of four finalists chosen by the MacArthur Foundation – a foundation deeply involved in digital badging, social impact bonds, and CBE/personalized learning – for a 100 million dollar grant. Sesame’s idea is to team up with the UK’s nudge unit” (behavior modification unit) to deliver digital content to help Syrian refugee children “learn” the social-emotional skills they will need to cope with being refugees…
MacArthur is no longer a “non-profit” in form. New laws in the eighties allowed them to count for-profit investments as charity, to build their own funding stream and that of their beneficiaries. Monstrosities ensued.
“With a $500 million allocation of its assets, MacArthur makes impact investments to advance established and emerging program goals. Totaling $500 million since 1986, these loans, bonds, stock, equity, deposits, and guarantees directly meet the capital needs of special-purpose funds, for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations tackling environmental and social challenges around the world.”
https://www.macfound.org/programs/program-related-investments/strategy/
Mary, whether MacArthur is a for-profit foundation (?) or a non-profit foundation is not a judgment on the awards they give. Were they wrong in giving a MacArthur award to Deborah Meier? I don’t think so.
There were 2,000 applications to the most recent competition for $100 million for a big idea. I evaluated about 10 of them. A few I didn’t like. Most were very impressive efforts to alleviate suffering, hunger, and disease.
MacArthur is also involved in impact investing (including SIBs), digital badging, and CBE, and they also just picked four finalist for a 100 million dollar grant –
Sesame seeds was one of the finalists.
It’s idiotic to give out one $100 million grant; the concept is entirely wrong. Why not give out ten $10M grants and see which ones really are effective? This mega-concept is absurd and is a PR stunt. What if the money is wasted? Diversity of giving is better than putting all your eggs is one basket.
Honestly, real philanthropy would be fighting for social justice in order to eliminate the need for philanthropy in the first place. Most of these problems boil down to poverty and war, both of which are a matter of exploitation by western forces, primarily the U.S. and prior colonial powers. If we weren’t intent on capturing the globe to strip it of resources for our own benefit, there wouldn’t be so many malnourished poor people who can’t provide for their own children.
Excellent point, Dienne!
I agree.
I’m very concerned about the Rohingya’s in Myanmar. So far 400,000 have left the only home they’ve know for centuries. They are trying to get into Bangladesh. The reason they are moving is because the military runs Myanmar (Burma) and it is killing and destroying these Muslims. Their villages are being burned. Land mines and barbed wire fence is being put up along the border to kill them.
Nobody is coming to their aid. Why? They have nothing to give [resources] so they are not being helped. They were not allowed to go to school so they are not eligible for good paying jobs.
Where is the consciousness of a world when people who have nothing are not considered worthy of being helped?
That is what the UN was created for. To reduce conflict, to help refugees, to provide relief.
But as Trump said today, every nation should look out for itself first.
Leave the issue to Burma and all these people will be murdered or driven out.
I think he used the word “sovereignty” dozens of times.
Diane: I hope Kim from N. Korea doesn’t have to ‘save face’. He has been threatened by a bully whose inability to speak without demeaning can cause a world upset. Do we really want Japan and S. Korea to suffer because of tRump’s inability to stop blustering?
He should grow up and not pretend he is back in the WH doing early morning Twittering. There are consequences to having power and no ability to show any self-restraint.
Here is one of tRump’s horrible quotes done while speaking in front of the United Nations. He can’t stop bullying. Guess that makes America Safe Again. It certainly doesn’t make America Great.
……………..
“Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime; the United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary.”
Diane, I just read this on the NYT. The UN at first said they wouldn’t intervene because these people are undocumented. They have no official registrations in Burma because the government doesn’t recognize them. Hope something can be done since obviously this is an attempt at genocide. Shame on the leader of Myanmar for glossing over this fact. She isn’t standing up for these people and she has receive the Nobel Peace prize.
………………….
A stark satellite analysis by Human Rights Watch shows that at least 210 Rohingya villages have been burned to the ground since late August, sending hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing into Bangladesh with accounts of a vast military campaign of killing and rape.
Remember Rwanda? 800,000 people were murdered, hacked to death, burned to death, and the world stood by.
Diane, I read the book, “Left to Tell, Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust” by Immaculee Ilibagiza. This was a New York Times bestseller written by a survivor of the Rwandan holocaust. She lost most of her family during this 1994 genocide. Once again, if a group of poor people don’t have something to offer the world [oil, minerals, gold or whatever], they are left to die in horrible circumstances. So much for our benevolence and caring.
Don’t forget about the genocide that also occurred in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge did a job on their own people. What help did they get?
It was the colonial Belgians who originally created the Tutsi/Hutu division in the first place, basically as a way of creating loyal house ______s to serve their interests and keep the field ______s in line. Those “class” distinctions survived the colonial period. It was inevitable that resentment would build (and be fanned for political purposes) and the Hutus would eventually retaliate.
I need billionaires to pay their taxes . With the the top 1/10 of 1 percent controlling more wealth than the bottom 90% of Americans, it is time to restore the rates of the 1950s . This would give them less money to influence politicians to create the policies that have created the tremendous inequality.
So somebody listed a list of Americas top 10 Billionaires and their charitable giving. Bezos was at the bottom of the list . We can debate what is considered a charity and whether they are self serving like the Koch brothers. I’ll throw Bill and Malinda’s contributions in education in that same category , I guess Micro Soft stands nothing to gain from the policies he advocates(NOT!!!) .
Back to Bezos
” we don’t want to attack a man who has created 300,000 jobs ” was the meme on CNBC .
Really while Jeff was cheating every municipality out of sales tax a subsidy of 8 3/4 % here on Long Island granted by the Congress.
He created 300,000 Jobs and destroyed close to a million Jobs in Retail .
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-is-going-to-kill-more-american-jobs-than-china-did-2017-01-19
The Irony is the Orange haired ass got that one right as well or more likely the Bannons of the world are able to capitalize on the legitimate concerns of the left that are dismissed by the establishment . Who are feeding from the money trough.
Time to go vomit again .
Slightly off topic but very much on topic from Alternet this morning
http://www.alternet.org/education-cant-solve-poverty
MacArthur Foundation is another false-philanthropy tool. The new philanthropy model is that big finance will cut in and profit-mine services that are meant to promote the public good, through a data-driven mechanism called “Social Impact Investing”. It makes private profit the explicit driver of public investment.
Vendor-investors buy control of projects in schools, prison rehabilitation, disaster relief, community health initiatives, or any “service” funded by public money. They run it as they see fit, and collect whatever digital evidence they see fit, as part of the cost of doing business. If their own data demonstrates “success” for their service, they are repaid with a profit premium.
Thus, profit is mined by outside investors, in areas of desperate need and urgency, from the limited public resources and foreign exchange available. Africa becomes a profit mine for the data and financial industries, without its consent. How is that not colonialism?
Mary,
Do you oppose Doctors Without Borders? Are they colonialists?
If a group of scientists develop a cure for AIDS, which is rampant in many countries in Africa, should they withhold the cure because it wasn’t developed in Africa? Even if it is offered for free?
If a recipient of the MacArthur funding creates crops that are nourishing, sustainable, and easy to grow, should they refuse to distribute the seeds in Africa for free because the crops were not developed in Africa?
I don’t understand.
I see Bridge International Academies as colonialism because a passel of billionaires are offering Western-style education, written by charter school teachers in Boston and delivered by rote from a script on a computer, to African children–for a fee.
But aid to poor countries with no strings attached does not seem to me to fit the definition of colonialism. If we sent teams of doctors and machinery to help the victims of the earthquake in Mexico, is that colonialism too?
Foreign aid is less than 1%(surprised a measly 1%) of our budget much of it goes to military aid one way or another . Much of it is in-service of US corporate interests .
Is it possible to envision a world where the above was not the case where billionaires paid their fare share and our aid truly reached the needy of the world.
As for AIDS NIH has and will do most of the funding on that drug research yet Big Pharma will reap enormous profits most of it from governments subsidizing patients who can not afford these patent protected drugs.
“$2.7 billion (8% of the overall request and 10% of the domestic budget) in the FY 2017 request is for domestic HIV research across multiple agencies, a decrease of $15.5 million (0.6%) below the FY 2016 enacted level. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), which carries out almost all HIV research6, receives $2.6 billion in the FY 2017 request for domestic HIV research activities” Kaiser
Quite a racket we pay than we pay again .
ZIKA; Sanofi just developed a ZIKA vaccine completely funded by the Department of Defense .
Gee think it will be given out at a nickle a shot or what ever the cost to manufacture and distribute it . THINK AGAIN !!!!
“Politics = who determines who gets what when and how.”
Joel,
You are doubtless right but I still would not want Trump to slash funding for NIH and other scientific research as he hopes to do.
fair share .
I see you are having problems with WordPress . So I wont ask why i can’t have that 5 minute edit button . Have to wait for my next birthday
missed this one
Diane, Doctors Without Borders is NOT a Social Impact Investor philanthropy. They require no payment at all, from anybody. I’ve given them $30 per month, for many years, and follow their work closely. They divert no resources from local health infrastructure. You weren’t promoting Doctors Without Borders.
You are promoting a financial predator, and you are falsely characterizing a very important objection to the aggressive, profit-sucking model of philanthrocapitalism. You wrote:
“This is What Real Philanthropy Looks Like”
Take a minute to study what their philanthropy actually looks like, and then please answer. This is a good explanation (which they funded).
There are a hundred links to the specifics if you are willing to look.
Click to access CLASP-Social-Impact-Bonds-SIBs-March-2014.pdf
Mary,
I was a judge in a competition with 2,000 applicants. I read about 10 entries. I didn’t promote anything.
My point was that MacArthur was seeking a winning application that addressed a major social problem boldly. None of the applications I reviewed involved profit for any one. There were no social impact bonds. There were teams of people trying to address poverty, hunger, illness.
dianeravitch
That certainly was not my intention . The only thing I want to see Trump do is hang from a tree for Treason . Along with the half the Republican Party who enables the abomination.
My point was that much of our research is conducted with grants from NIH or the Defense department in technology . Then we grant Patent protection to corporations. In effect a tax on the American people .
We negotiate Trade agreements to protect these patents, so that poor people in other countries get to pay higher costs on life saving drugs like Americans do. , Stieglitz and Baker envision better ways to fund research.
Our foreign aid budget has been a tool of the corporate dominated state .. Rather than helping people around the world . Much of it going to development projects that enrich American corporations like Bechtel or Halliburton or American banks. Projects that were over-scaled to yield higher profits . . Loans that kept an economic strangle hold on these nations . Much of it from the IMF and World Bank whose largest contributor is the United States from our foreign aid budget.
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/IMF-Medicine-for-Latin-American-Debt-Killed-the-Patient-20150416-0045.html
But Diane, to your last reply to Mary. There is so much evidence against MacArthur being the good guys. They are like gates et al. With so many people reading your posts and believing everything you say, I would hope that you call them out on this. Strings are attached.
They are destroying our public schools and my kids….like many….are in the midst of it.
Please do the right thing and call the MacArthur foundation out as they are not doing what is best by children when they are influencing policy that is about forcing children to be taught my computers verses experienced and certified educators.
They have not funded the 74; or Students Matter; or the American Federation for Chuldren; or the Center for Education Reform; or FutureEd; or Education Reform Now; or DFER; or Students First; or TFA; or NewSchools Venture Fund; or any of the other prominent corporate reform groups.
I am not a detective agency. I don’t do forensic audits of every Foundation in the U.S.
I did not review the portfolio of the MacArthur Foundation, and I won’t condemn them until they actively join the Waltons, Broads, Gates, Bloombergs, Arnolds, Hastings, and others who actively and aggressively seek the privatization of public education. So far they have not. If they do, I will call them out as I regularly call out the other malefactors of American education.