Philanthropy – Page 8 – artdiamondblog.com

Gates Should Apply His Entrepreneurial Skills to His Philanthropy

From a cogent letter to the editor by Fred Smith:

(p. A13) The tragedy of Gates-style philanthropy is less that it will do little good but, rather, that he has abandoned the entrepreneurial skills used so creatively in his truly significant wealth-creation work at Microsoft. Had he employed similar skills in dealing with the problems of Africa, he would not — as Mr. Barro notes he is largely doing — simply replicate the tried and failed policies of traditional paternalistic aid. Rather, he would be examining the barriers — political, cultural, tribal — that block entrepreneurial activity throughout Africa and explore ways to remove them. Could we, for instance, out-compete the oligarchs and tyrants by creating prizes that would bypass the bureaucracy and achieve success in health- and wealth-creation, in reducing corruption?

For the full letter, see:
Fred L. Smith Jr. “Do Something for Other People by Getting Very, Very Rich.” Wall Street Journal (Fri., Jun 29, 2007): A13.

“The No. 1 Need that Poor People Have is a Way to Make More Cash”

Moving water is easier with the 20-gallon rolling drum. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. D3) . . . , the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, . . . , is honoring inventors dedicated to “the other 90 percent,” particularly the billions of people living on less than $2 a day.

Their creations, on display in the museum garden until Sept. 23, have a sort of forehead-thumping “Why didn’t someone think of that before?” quality.

. . .

Interestingly, most of the designers who spoke at the opening of the exhibition spurned the idea of charity.

“The No. 1 need that poor people have is a way to make more cash,” said Martin Fisher, an engineer who founded KickStart, an organization that says it has helped 230,000 people escape poverty. It sells human-powered pumps costing $35 to $95.

Pumping water can help a farmer grow grain in the dry season, when it fetches triple the normal price. Dr. Fisher described customers who had skipped meals for weeks to buy a pump and then earned $1,000 the next year selling vegetables.

For the full story, see:

DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. "Design That Solves Problems for the World’s Poor." The New York Times (Tues., May 29, 2007): D3.

(Note: ellipses added.)

The photo on the left shows a woman safely drinking bacteria-laden water through a filter. The photo on the right shows a "pot-in-pot cooler" that evaporates water from wet sand between the pots, in order to cool what is in the inner pot. Source of photos: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Fraternal Odd Fellows Helped Each Other Without Depending on the Government

The officers’ banquet of the annual convention of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Source of the photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

Before the New Deal and the Great Society, voluntary mutual assistance organizations provided insurance and help in the face of life’s setbacks. One such fraternal orgainization was the Odd Fellows.

(p. 12) Since his installation as top Odd Fellow, Mr. Robbins has warned that this order, dedicated to caring for the widowed, the orphaned and the needy, is in a “state of crisis.” Members are dying by the thousands, local lodges are closing by the dozens, and actual participation among the 289,000 members is dropping. If the people sitting before him do not heed his call to replenish the ranks, they will be the Odd Men and Women Out — defunct, extinct, done.

“Unless we can do something to turn the membership losses into significant gains in the next couple of years,” he says later, “we may be at a point where we can’t recover.”

Once we were a nation of joiners, and so many joined the Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization whose name stems from an English journalist’s observation in 1745. He found it “odd” to see “fellows,” rather than the aristocracy, helping widows, orphans and one another. The name stuck, oddly.

In many communities, you can still find an old I.O.O.F. building, a place of some mystery, where the rituals would include acting out the story of the Good Samaritan. Members were to apply that story to real life by aiding their brothers and sisters, chipping in to pay burial costs, for example. You merely had to express belief in one Creator to be eligible; atheists and pantheists need not apply.

Odd Fellows tended to frown on alcohol, loved bestowing medals on one another, and reveled in seeing their sword-carrying, uniformed brothers, the chevaliers of the Patriarchs Militant, march in Main Street parades. In their small worlds, Odd Fellows mattered.

Then came social changes to dull the appeal of fraternal organizations. Tighter government regulations forced the Odd Fellows out of their signature cause, orphanages, while baby boomers found all the pomp and secrecy to be, um, silly.

. . .

A toast then, to all national leaders of the world, as is Odd Fellows custom. Another toast, to all fraternal leaders of the world. Dinner, remarks, benediction, recessional to the strains of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Odd Fellows and Rebekahs everywhere, good night.

For the full story, see:

DAN BARRY. "A Grand Gathering, but One With a Solemn Note." The New York Times, Main Section (Sunday, August 26, 2007): 12.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

"The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, dedicated to caring for the widowed, the orphaned and the needy, is in a “state of crisis.”" Source of the photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Puzzle: Entrepreneurial Silicon Valley Donates Mainly to Democrats

Source of graphic: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

Entrepreneurship thrives when government is small, so it puzzles me when the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley embrace the Democrats, who generally advocate bigger government.
Of course, my Wabash professor Ben Rogge used to point out that there are always cross-currents that go in a different direction from the mainstream. And among the Democrats, there are what used to be called “new Democrats” who appreciate Schumpeter, and entrepreneurship, and dynamism.
Plus, some Democrats are more respectful of personal, lifestyle choices, and in Silicon Valley, that may be what is given the most weight.
Or, more cynically, maybe there’s a public choice explanation—that Silicon Valley donates to Democrats as a form of ‘insurance,’ in the hope that if the Democrats are elected, they will refrain from over-regulating and over-taxing Silicon Valley. (Even more cynically, compare the case of Florida’s sugar-subsidy-rich Fanjul brothers, one of whom donated huge bucks to the first Bush, while another donated huge bucks to Bill Clinton.)
(Another factor is that, alas, entrepreneurs often do not pay much attention to what conditions encourage entrepreneurship.)

(p. C4) In a flip from the primary season for the 2000 presidential election, 60 percent of the contributions so far from people in the technology field here are going to Democrats. The Democratic candidates raised $1.4 million from the industry in the first half of this year, while Republican candidates raised $890,000. That total is up from $1.2 million in the first six months of each of the last two presidential primary races.

For the full story, see:

LAURIE J. FLYNN. "In Primary, Tech’s Home Is a Magnet." The New York Times (Fri., August 24, 2007): C1 & C4.

Let There Be Light

One of Mark Bent’s solar flashlights stuck in a wall to illuminate a classroom in Africa. Source of the photo: http://bogolight.com/images/success6.jpg

What Africa most needs, to grow and prosper, is to eject kleptocratic war-lord governments, and to embrace property rights and the free market. But in the meantime, maybe handing out some solar powered flashlights can make some modest improvements in how some people live.

The story excerpted below is an example of private, entrepreneur-donor-involved, give-while-you-live philanthropy that holds a greater promise of actually doing some good in the world, than other sorts of philanthropy, or than government foreign aid.

FUGNIDO, Ethiopia — At 10 p.m. in a sweltering refugee camp here in western Ethiopia, a group of foreigners was making its way past thatch-roofed huts when a tall, rail-thin man approached a silver-haired American and took hold of his hands.

The man, a Sudanese refugee, announced that his wife had just given birth, and the boy would be honored with the visitor’s name. After several awkward translation attempts of “Mark Bent,” it was settled. “Mar,” he said, will grow up hearing stories of his namesake, the man who handed out flashlights powered by the sun.

Since August 2005, when visits to an Eritrean village prompted him to research global access to artificial light, Mr. Bent, 49, a former foreign service officer and Houston oilman, has spent $250,000 to develop and manufacture a solar-powered flashlight.

His invention gives up to seven hours of light on a daily solar recharge and can last nearly three years between replacements of three AA batteries costing 80 cents.

Over the last year, he said, he and corporate benefactors like Exxon Mobil have donated 10,500 flashlights to United Nations refugee camps and African aid charities.

Another 10,000 have been provided through a sales program, and 10,000 more have just arrived in Houston awaiting distribution by his company, SunNight Solar.

“I find it hard sometimes to explain the scope of the problems in these camps with no light,” Mr. Bent said. “If you’re an environmentalist you think about it in terms of discarded batteries and coal and wood burning and kerosene smoke; if you’re a feminist you think of it in terms of security for women and preventing sexual abuse and violence; if you’re an educator you think about it in terms of helping children and adults study at night.”

Here at Fugnido, at one of six camps housing more than 21,000 refugees 550 miles west of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, Peter Gatkuoth, a Sudanese refugee, wrote on “the importance of Solor.”

“In case of thief, we open our solor and the thief ran away,” he wrote. “If there is a sick person at night we will took him with the solor to health center.”

A shurta, or guard, who called himself just John, said, “I used the light to scare away wild animals.” Others said lights were hung above school desks for children and adults to study after the day’s work.

For the full story, see:

Will Connors and Ralph Blumenthal. "Letting Africa’s Sun Deliver the Luxury of Light to the Poor." The New York Times, Section 1 (Sun., May 20, 2007): 8.

(Note: the title of the article on line was: "Solar Flashlight Lets Africa’s Sun Deliver the Luxury of Light to the Poorest Villages.")

Source of map: online version of the NYT article cited above.

Bill Gates Does Not Owe Society Anything

Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, helped create a revolutionary computer software company, and earlier this month collected an honorary degree from Harvard University. But he may not understand the vital role wealth creation plays in society.

In collecting his degree, Mr. Gates delivered a commencement address that focused not on the information age, the rise of personal computers or the relentless efficiency his software has brought to nearly every industry. Instead, he focused on his own personal philanthropy. His implicit theme was that so far what he has accomplished may have been good for him and Microsoft shareholders, but it has been no great contribution to society. He suggested that with a personal fortune of about $90 billion (including what he has transferred to his foundation) it is time for him to give something back.

I find this perspective hard to understand. By any reasonable calculation Microsoft has been a boon for society and the value of its software greatly exceeds the likely value of Mr. Gates’s philanthropic efforts.

. . .

Ironically, Mr. Gates’s inspiration to "give back" apparently comes from the world’s second richest person, Warren Buffett, who recently promised to donate much of his fortune to the Gates Foundation.

I say ironic because one can make a much better philosophical case for a give-back of Mr. Buffett’s $52 billion than for Mr. Gates’s $90 billion. Mr. Buffett’s money came mostly from being a good stock picker. Whether his fortune is the product of luck or skill, the social benefits are hard to pin down. These benefits have to derive from improving company management practices or investment decisions.

Of course, Mr. Gates is free to do what he wishes with his $90 billion. But I think he is kidding himself if he believes that the efforts of the Gates Foundation are likely to provide society anything like the past and future accomplishments of Microsoft.

For the full commentary, see:

ROBERT BARRO. "COMMENTARY; Bill Gates’s Charitable Vistas." The Wall Street Journal (Tues., June 19, 2007): A17.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

Nonprofits Often Fund Risky, but Useful, Research that is Shunned by Government

The following excerpt from a summary of a May 17th Nature article, has a message that complements what I found in a paper published a couple of years ago (see the reference at the bottom of this entry).

Do charities like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation produce better medical research than institutions supported by the government?

. . .

. . . , some scientists believe philanthropies make better use of that $5 billion than corporations or governments, says Nature’s Meredith Wadman. Many researchers have stories about nonprofits who rescued risky but useful projects that had been shunned by government-backed institutions. Charities can make decisions more quickly and can take bigger risks. Philanthropists also tend to closely monitor their investments and want the satisfaction of a mission accomplished.

For the full summary, see:

"Informed Reader; PHILANTHROPY; Do Charities Outdo Research By Federal-Backed Agencies?" The Wall Street Journal (May 18, 2007): B6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

The reference to the Nature article is:

Meredith Wadman. "Biomedical philanthropy: State of the donation." Nature 447, (May 17, 2007): 248 – 250.

My related paper is:

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. "The Relative Success of Private Funders and Government Funders in Funding Important Science." The European Journal of Law and Economics 21, no. 2 (April 2006): 149-61.

Rockefeller Clan’s “Tradition of Philanthropy”

Swan Lake is part of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve created and donated by the Rockefellers. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article cited below.

(p. D1) THE tranquil hamlet of Pocantico Hills, N.Y., has been bound up with the Rockefellers for more than a century. The family’s imprint is everywhere: In the thousands of acres of nearby pastures, woodlands and lakes that John D. Rockefeller Sr. began acquiring as he created his family’s estate in the 1890s. In the august stone walls enclosing a collection of even more august mansions. And in the stunning stained-glass windows by Matisse and Chagall that grace a simple stone church.

The Rockefellers are still an active presence — David Rockefeller, who at 91 is the last of the “brothers” from the illustrious third generation, spends weekends at his farm, Hudson Pines, and still rides in his horse-drawn carriage over the graceful carriage roads designed by his father and grandfather. A number of other Rockefellers — including Happy, the widow of David’s brother Nelson, the former governor and vice president — have houses on the family land as well.

Much of the Rockefeller family’s business and pleasure in and around Pocantico Hills is, not surprisingly, out of view. But the tradition of philanthropy that has defined the clan as much as its vast fortune also operates there. The result is a sense of shared bounty.

The public has long been allowed to enjoy the Rockefellers’ 55 miles of carriage roads, which also function as hiking trails, and the opportunity to experience Rockefeller country grew with the creation of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve. Its 1,384 acres are used for hiking, horseback riding and carriage driving. . . .

. . .

(p. D5) A visitor can hike quiet trails evoking the family’s legacy, with names like Peggy’s Way and Brothers’ Path, and then have lunch in a smartly rustic cafe at Stone Barns — or an elegant dinner at Blue Hill. And while tours of Union Church of Pocantico Hills, with its Chagall and Matisse windows, will not resume until early April, anyone can attend Sunday morning services at 9 and 11. (But be discreet: the pastor, the Rev. Dr. F. Paul DeHoff, noted on the phone that services were for worship, not window viewing.)

. . .

The rose window over the altar was dedicated on Mother’s Day 1956 in memory of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, John D. Jr.’s wife. Mrs. Rockefeller, a co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art, collected contemporary art, including works by Matisse. The head of the museum at the time suggested Matisse, then in his 80s, for the memorial window, and approached the artist on the family’s behalf.

Matisse accepted the commission, which turned out to be his last. The paper cutouts he used to design the blue, green and yellow window were in his bedroom when he died.

A much larger window at the rear of the church, by Marc Chagall, celebrates the life of John D. Rockefeller Jr., who died in 1960. The window tells the biblical story of the good Samaritan in brilliant blues and greens, echoing Matisse’s window.

Unlike Matisse, Chagall traveled to Pocantico Hills to see the church. At the dedication, Chagall broached the subject of the lackluster nave windows. He received a commission to redo all eight, including one in memory of Nelson Rockefeller’s son, Michael, who died in New Guinea in 1961.

If the memorial windows represent an extraordinary gift of culture in an unlikely nook of Westchester, the family’s present of the state park preserve was equally significant — a chunk of green space one and a half times the size of Central Park.

A good winter hike in the preserve is along Eagle Hill Trail, a steep ascent that offers panoramic views of the Hudson, farmland and Kykuit. Another scenic walk is on Brothers’ Path, which runs next to Swan Lake near the visitors’ center. Brothers’ Path connects to Brook Trail, which crosses a half-frozen stream: water bubbles beneath thin sheets of ice and the dazzling snow frames dark pools of water.

For the full story, see:

LISA W. FODERARO. "Spending a Day at the Rockefellers’." The New York Times (Fri., February 23, 2007): D1 & D6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Upper left is a carriage road in Rockefeller country; upper right is a Marck Chagall window in Union Church; lower left is a map of Rockefeller country. Source of photos and map: online version of the NYT article cited above.

To Help Poor: “Allow Entrepreneurs to Flourish”

Of the three "views" discussed in Wessel’s original commentary, the following excerpt just includes the one that I share:

With the billions of dollars they are spending, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton and Bono are likely to make progress in their quest to prevent treatable diseases from killing millions of people. Nearly all of these people live or will live in poor countries.

That worries economist Simon Johnson. He doesn’t doubt the moral imperative to fight disease. Still, he wonders: "Do we really know how to help the poor people — the increasing number of poor people? Do we really know how to help them out of poverty?"

Such questions haunt academics, governments, international institutions and global do-gooders. They are impressed with China’s rapid modernization, though puzzled that it has done so well without following standard precepts. They are disappointed and puzzled that Latin America nations haven’t done better, especially because so many did take the advice of the experts. They are depressed and puzzled by the continued widespread misery in Africa.

With intellectual humility, Mr. Johnson, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, faced a roomful of peers at the annual meeting of the American Economics Association last weekend and said, "Public health had the germ theory of disease. Economics has made great progress, but it’s still waiting for its ‘germ theory of disease.’" That probably overstates the challenges remaining to public-health warriors — avian flu, AIDS/HIV, malaria and all — but not the shortcomings of economic understanding of what poor countries should do to achieve sustained growth.

. . .

A third view is that earlier economists focused on the wrong thing. Mr. Johnson, among others, argues that what really matters is having solid political, legal and economic institutions — courts, central banks, honest bureaucrats, private-property rights — that allow entrepreneurs to flourish. Imposing what seem to be sound economic policies on corrupt, incompetent or myopic governments is doomed. Building strong institutions is a necessary prerequisite. In this camp, there is a running side argument about which comes first: the institutions or the educated people who create them. Was the Constitution key to U.S. success, or was it Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton?

For the full commentary, see:

DAVID WESSEL. "CAPITAL; Why Economists Are Still Grasping For Cure to Global Poverty." The Wall Streeet Journal (Thurs., January 11, 2007): A7.

Gates Foundation Will Not “Rule With a Dead Hand”

Source of image: online version of WSJ article cited below.

When he was discussing with Pierre Goodrich the rules for Goodrich’s Liberty Fund, my late-lamented mentor Ben Rogge tried to convince Goodrich to set some date by which the foundation would be required to spend all of its funds. Rogge would quote Smith against the practice sometimes called ‘ruling with a dead hand’ by which the dead try to put restrictions on the living. Rogge thought the dead had a right to restrict the future use of their money; its just that he thought it would become increasingly hard for them to do so effectively, the further out into the future you go.

There were at least a couple of reasons. One of them was that as you go out into the future, it is increasingly hard to make sure that those supervising the money will remain true to the donor’s intent. Another reason was that as you go further out, and conditions change, it becomes increasingly hard to know what the donor would have wanted done. (Rogge used to jest that probably, evenually Liberty Fund would end up spending libertarian Goodrich’s money on making films promoting the beliefs of communist Anna Rosenberg.)

On this issue, it appears that Bill and Melinda find Adam Smith more persuasive, than did Pierre:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it will spend all its assets within 50 years of the death of its last trustee, a decisive move in a continuing debate in philanthropy about whether such groups should live on forever.

. . .

The decision is expected to influence other charities to consider following suit. . . .

. . .

The Gates decision will add fuel to a debate about whether foundations should live in perpetuity, a longtime model used by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations and Carnegie Corp.

For the full story, see:

SALLY BEATTY. "Gates Foundation Sets Its Lifespan; All Assets Are to Be Spent Within 50 Years of Death of the Remaining Trustee." Wall Street Journal (Fri., December 1, 2006): A10.

Microsoft’s VX-6000 LifeCam Really Stinks

Microsoft’s VX-6000 LifeCam. Source of image: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/gallery/hardware/WC6_Angle_Silver_lg.jpg

I posted this to Amazon.com, late on Thurs., Nov. 30, 2006:

I have spent a frustrating afternoon and evening trying to install the VX-6000 on a fully updated MS XP pro system. The install took forever, because every couple of minutes the install program couldn’t find a needed file (if they need it, why not put it on the install CD?). So I had to browse my system and point them to where the file was (why couldn’t they design the install program to search for the file instead of making me do it?). Finally I got a successful install, and then I was informed there was an updated version, and I needed to install that. So I went through the whole time-consuming process all over again, including the schtick about searching for the location of several files. Finally it again said I had installed the program successfully. So I rebooted my PC, and clicked on the Microsoft LifeCam icon. After cranking for awhile I get "initialization error". I try rebooting again—same error. So I type in "initialization error" in the search bar of the "help" section, and I get back "no topics found." So they sell me an expensive camera, run me ragged installing it, send me a repeated error message, and provide me no clue on what to do about it. (I guess now that Bill Gates is saving the world through philanthropy, nobody’s left minding the shop?)

The final comment is probably a bit too snide or harsh. Microsoft has always had the deserved reputation of letting some products out the door before they are ready. E.g., the first couple of versions of Windows paled in comparison to the graphical-user-interface operating system that Apple was offering at the time. And the CD that accompanied Bill Gates’ The Road Ahead would not work on what was then Microsoft’s premier operating system: Windows NT.

Maybe these kind of glitches result from a conscious operating strategy that gives employees a lot of freedom to make their own decisions. The upside can be speedy decisions, and creativity. The downside can be glitches such as the VX-6000 LifeCam. Taking the broad, professorial view, maybe overall, the upside justifies the downside. Tom Peters endorses companies accepting this trade-off rather than adopting layered, rule-bound, slow, bureaucratic decision-making. (See his: Re-imagine!)

(But did I mention that the VX-6000 LifeCam really stinks?)

The reference to the Peters book is:

Peters, Tom. Re-Imagine! London: DK, 2003.