Everyone knows by now that you can sometimes hurt by helping too much. So it should come as little surprise that some of the nation's non-profits, horrified by the Trump election, have doubts about helping too much. Not that they're worried about helping the needy too much; the
real problem is that, by ramping up private charity, they might be encouraging conservatives to think their preference for keeping government out of the charity business is a model that works:
Caleb Gayle, a former program officer at the George Kaiser Family Foundation, wrote an op-ed last week for the Chronicle arguing that the philanthropic sector shouldn’t spend more to make up for gaps in government funding.
“It should instead exercise strategic restraint,” he wrote.
Gayle is unabashed about his plan to put partisanship above helping people. “To many foundations, it might seem cruel to resist calls to spend more . . . But if grant makers start to far exceed the 5 percent annual minimum, they will validate the conservative desire to strip money from government antipoverty measures.”
I wonder what the limits on that are? At some point, has the ship sailed on small government conservatives getting their way -- such that they could then step up and do more? (And if so, shouldn't we charge wholeheartedly toward that point?)
ReplyDelete"non profit"
ReplyDeleteA disingenuous title designed to induce the idea they are operating out of some noble impulse, when in fact most are sucker traps eating up the bulk of contributions to pay huge salaries and fund "fact finding missions" AKA vacations, for their executives.
I guess G.E. could be a non profit too, all they need to do is get the workers to work for free, and eat up all the income in salaries.
Voila, instant non profit.
"Nonprofit", in all too many cases, means only that there are no pesky shareholders with whom the loot must be shared.
ReplyDeleteGayle's been reading my stuff. And taking the wrong lessons from it.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
Charity is a bit like self defense. It needs to be personally exercised or we get lazy and start to think the underlying issue is someone else's problem. Let the government do it, it's what we pay them for. Then when need arises, we find the government response to be substandard.
ReplyDelete-Stc Michael