Nothing Better to Do?

What? Two postings in two days? Has the man nothing better to do? Fear not; just a brief note to point out an interesting (to UK philanthropoids anyway) article - the top story, in fact - in yesterday's New York Times, exploring the apparently growing challenges to the tax-exempt status of US charities, on a variety of grounds - for example, when is a nonprofit a business? does a nonprofit hospital give enough to charity care to earn its exemption? (cf the 'public benefit' test as now applied to fee-paying schools here in the UK) . You can read it here.

Soup

The New Yorker is a wonderful magazine -- the best. Anyone disagree with that? No, I thought not. Barely a week goes by without me being excited or moved or challenged by something in it. This week, it was all three, in a remarkable - and beautifully written - account of a church-based day centre for homeless people in Manhattan. Ian Frazier's stories of the writers’ workshop which is attached to a soup kitchen, the effect it has had on people and the changes it has brought about in their lives are truly impressive. The soup kitchen is clearly about more than soup.

But it is its funding which was the challenging bit. After all, the very phrase ‘soup kitchen’ symbolises everything that’s wrong about old-style philanthropy. My mentor in this world is (of course) Joseph Rowntree. In December 1904, he used the example of the York soup kitchen to explain why he wanted the trusts he was then setting up to focus on tackling the causes of problems rather than the symptoms. He wrote that ‘The Soup Kitchen in York never has difficulty in obtaining adequate financial aid, but an enquiry into the extent and causes of poverty would enlist little support’.

I’ve bought into that approach to philanthropy in a big way. I distinguish between individual heartfelt responses to need, and institutional foundation responses. It's one thing to dip into your pocket when somebody waves a tin outside Sainsbury's on a Saturday morning, or to write a cheque after you've been moved to tears by images of suffering on television. But it’s quite another when you have the opportunity to sit and reflect, to look at written applications, to deliberate on a committee; institutions don’t have tear ducts.

But that’s not how it looks from the other end of the process. Frazier, writing about the funding of the soup kitchen, says of the foundations -

… they are well-intentioned and generous but subject to moods. "Donor burnout" is one of those. Fashions in charitable giving also come and go. Recently, foundation charity has been more focused on "making a difference," an idea that works against the soup kitchen, which changes people from hungry to not, but invisibly. Also, foundation donors now like to talk about "measurable outcomes" -- they expect recipients like the soup kitchen to single out the people who are helped, and measure the improvement in those people situations over time. Again, that's not something the soup kitchen, with the off-the-street population it serves, can easily do. In the past 18 months, several major foundation donors have dropped out, and no replacements have been found.

It would be very interesting to have Frazier debate the issue openly with someone from one of those foundations. We (I’m not permanently associated with a foundation at present, but I feel part of the foundation community) ought to be willing to open these issues up for discussion, and the power relationship being what it is, if we don’t do it, no-one else will. I’m struck by how few opportunities there are for this kind of discussion – most UK foundations have websites, but very few use them in any bi-directional way; it’s all about ‘these are our policies, this is how to apply; take it or leave it, and we certainly don’t want to know what you out there think about us’. Frazier’s candour is unusual, and should make us think hard – not least about why we have to read this stuff in the New Yorker, as distinct from hearing it as part of our day-to-day business.

Another journey round the houses.

Someone wrote in response to the previous entry on this blog “Nice blog entry - a bit circuitous but vaut le voyage as they say in the Michelin guide (apparently)”. Well, stick with me because this voyage is also a bit circuitous…

One of the most interesting things about the London mayoralty election, other than the election of a larger-than-life upper-class racist homophobic liar, was the increased turnout, by comparison with other local elections in the UK. This is put down in part to the focus on two famous characters, but may also have something to do with the fact that that -- unlike other local elections in England -- the system of voting is not one based on "first past the post". Instead (as most will know, but a few won't, so please forgive me) the alternative vote system meant that if no candidate got more than 50% of the votes on the basis of first choices, then second choices for the bottom candidate were redistributed, until someone (in this case, the l-t-l,u-c, r.h.l.) got a majority. There’s a theological debate about whether this is proportional representation or not, but it does mean that your votes count even if your first choice candidate isn’t elected.

The problem with FPTP is that most people vote the same way in most elections, voting being to a large extent a tribal thing - “We’ve always been Labour here…”. Accordingly, most constituencies are ‘safe’ for one party or the other and for most people there doesn't seem much point in turning out on a cold wet Thursday night. The relatively small number of people classified as "the swing vote" tend to be those who spurn the real rubbishy tabloids and read what they regard as a ‘proper’ newspaper -- often the Daily Mail. And to a significant degree, the Mail is about prejudice -- prejudice against anyone who isn't like its interpretation of "us", be they poor, black, homosexual, foreign etc etc. Thus it is that if you want to win FTPT elections in England, you have to pander to an agenda based on prejudice and hate. Which is why foundations interested in social justice should also be interested in electoral systems.

The day after the third Thatcher victory, my old employers, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, happened to be meeting and tearing their collective hair out over yet another kick in the teeth (Ed: isn't that a mixed metaphor? SB: don’t be an old pedant) for those who were poor and or otherwise socially excluded. One of our trustees, now retired, Grigor McClelland, proposed that the Trust should embark on what became a programme of funding to address what the trustees all saw as a democratic deficit. And while the JRCT couldn't and, I guess, wouldn't claim credit for all the constitutional reform which followed once the Labour government came to power in 1997 -- including systems of (possibly) proportional representation for elections in the UK other than local elections in England and Parliamentary elections -- the work that people did with Trust funding surely contributed to changing the climate, and establishing a dynamic of reform. Of course, as a charity we were limited legally by what we could support -- but to use that as an excuse for doing nothing would have been an unnecessary copout.

The turnout in London last week may have produced a result which many of us intensely dislike, but FPTP would have given Boris an even larger majority. In the long run, greater social justice demands that those who suffer injustice see it as being in their interest to vote for the political party most likely to improve their circumstances. And in a first past the post system, for much of the time there really isn't much reason for most people to vote. FPTP also creates disincentives for governments to address social injustice. Ipso facto - because this blog wears its minimal learning on its sleeve - when foundations work within charity law limits to support work to change the way we conduct our elections, they are working to promote social justice.

There! Nous sommes arrivés. Hope you enjoyed the journey. I certainly feel better.