Mike Leigh, Shakespeare, and - yes! - Philanthropy

In the past week or so it's been almost impossible to turn on the radio without hearing latest national treasure Mike Leigh speaking about his uncharacteristically optimistic new film, Happy-Go-Lucky. We saw it last week in a preview with a live Q&A with the director afterwards (only he was in London and we were in York and a satellite effected the link). But in all the fuss about the film I think something important has been missed.

We have been endlessly told that Poppy, on whom the film focuses (played by Sally Hawkins) is a model of positiveness and that we could all learn something from her. And while that might be true, she also makes it very difficult for anyone she encounters who doesn't want to share her relentless cheerfulness. When, early in the movie, she goes into a small bookshop and tries unsuccessfully to engage a staff member in conversation, I was reminded of Auden's ‘I have no gun but I can spit’. If she'd have gone up to the bookseller and playfully pinched his bottom, all right-thinking people would have agreed that she had trespassed into his personal space – but is personal space only physical? Don't we all have a right to some psychological personal space? If I want to be a miserable old git, don’t I have that right, so long as I don't impose my miserable old gitness intrusively on others? (message to my family: the question is rhetorical in this context).

The other key character in the film is a clearly damaged personality who works as a driving instructor. Poppy’s approach to life is as different to his as it is possible to be, and when the two approaches collide, it's he who comes off worst. I saw an interview with Sally Hawkins recently in which she spoke of the character she plays as "very sensitive". Oh no she isn't. If she was sensitive she wouldn't go around winding people up -- she would know when to shut up, and when not to impose her sunniness on someone else.

What, you will by now be asking, has this got to do with philanthropy or social justice? Well, there is a link, albeit a tenuous one. Before I spell it out, I want to say something about another experience last week -- we saw Northern Broadsides version of Romeo and Juliet (which would doubtless be advertised in the States as ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet’) at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough on Saturday (after an excellent fish and chip supper at the Princess Café – that’s just to add colour, and has absolutely nothing to do with philanthropy).

The Friar, in his eagerness to help the young couple, and in his certainty that he knew what it was right to do for them, was the immediate architect of the ensuing tragedy. He, and Poppy, and many in the field of philanthropy -- there you are, I promised we’d get there -- seem to have a kind of unthinking confidence about what is good for others. Of course, sometimes they might be right -- but if they're wrong than the lesson of Happy-Go-Lucky and Romeo and Juliet (Mike Leigh, who I'm sure is an avid reader of this blog, will doubtless be delighted that the two works are written of in the same breath, so to speak) is that the consequences can be awful.

This, of course, is the importance of grant making for foundations. It's grant making, when done well, which ensures that foundations are listening to the people at the sharp end and if not to them directly, then to people who are close to them. Foundations interested in social justice need to be sure that they are pushing their resources in directions where they will do good and at least do no harm. That's one of the messages of Happy-Go-Lucky and Romeo and Juliet; it's just that Mike Leigh and Sally Hawkins haven't realised it yet - though Shakespeare, who realised all sorts of things centuries ahead of his time, probably did.

Giving with one hand...

When York author Fiona Shaw wrote her first novel, The Sweetest Thing – a love story set against the background of the chocolate factories in York at around the turn of the century (19^th to 20^th) – one of the reviews suggested that her plot was unrealistic, because it featured a Quaker chocolate manufacturer who was also a philanthropist, and who used industrial espionage. This, wrote the reviewer, would never happen. But Fiona (who is a trustee of the Rowntree Society, a small charity which I chair) had in part based the character on Joseph Rowntree. There is ample evidence to suggest that JR did indeed use industrial espionage to keep Rowntree’s ahead of the game in cocoa and sweet manufacturing; and of course his record as a philanthropist, progressive employer and Quaker needs no elucidation to readers of this blog.

What, you will be wondering, has brought this on? Well, the other day at the Royal Academy From Russia exhibition, I was gazing at the wonderful picture of Tolstoy, and the voice in my headphones pointed out that he too was a bundle of contradictions – dressing like a peasant during the day and being waited on by servants in the evening, promoting the benefits of celibacy while…oh, you can imagine the next bit.

And of course the same applies to many of the great philanthropists. I got into a bit of trouble (see foot of 1st column on 13th page) a year or two back when, speaking about Andrew Carnegie at an event organised by the Carnegie UK Trust, I hinted that Carnegie had been a brutal employer. The same is true for that great philanthropist of the art world, Henry Clay Frick, who, acting on instructions from Carnegie, had his Pinkerton guards shoot strikers dead (I have a small interest in Frick – the man who tried and failed to murder him, Alexander Berkman, may just have been an ancestor).

Does it matter, when they give with one hand and take with the other? We all have inconsistencies in our lives; we present a face to the world which may not be exactly the one we present to those closest to us, or the one we see in the mirror in the morning. But, yes, I think inconsistencies on this scale do matter, and are at least worthy of critical appraisal. I don’t feel that Joseph Rowntree did much harm by his use of industrial espionage, and the good he did is in no way undermined by it; he might have argued that he was only enabled to do what he did by ensuring the commercial success to which the espionage contributed. But I’m not at all happy to wander round the magnificent Frick Collection near Central Park without recollecting how it came to be there. You (well, I, anyway) can’t just gloss over a conflict in character as sharp as that between a killer, and a collector and donor of great art.

Of course, Frick is an extreme example. But perhaps a little more critical scrutiny would be in order when the next contemporary billionaire businessman is feted because of his decision to give serious money to charitable causes. This takes us neatly back to the Mike Edwards book on philanthrocapitalism mentioned in my last posting. In her comments on it, Caroline Hartnell, writing for OpenDemocracy, said:

But more than anything, the underlying values are in conflict: philanthrocapitalism is a product of individuals making large personal fortunes. The very wealthy can wield enormous power in society, through their philanthropy as well as their economic activities. But social justice demands greater equality between people in terms of possessions and power. And the limits of the hard-pressed earth we live in mean that if everyone is to have enough, many may have to be content with less. How much transformation of the world that has made philanthrocapitalists so rich can they be expected to support?

Reasons to be Cheerful

I seem to have been doing a lot of cheering over the past few days. Here's why. First, someone drew my attention to Gara LaMarche's keynote address at the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan New York Symposium at the end of February, called 'Building for Capacity for Maximum Impact', available here. GLM is, of course, the relatively new boss of Atlantic Philanthropies, a significant funder of nonprofit evaluations (some of which yours truly has worked on). In it, he is candidly critical of much of what has passed for conventional wisdom in the field of evaluation, which is rather remarkable not least because AP itself has promoted much of that wisdom, with its love of logic models etc. GLM steps back, and takes a common-sense view of the whole business; it's well worth reading in full. But for a flavour, try this: he says -

I propose a three- year moratorium on logic models, theories of change and the like that use geometric shapes and arrows, particularly when arranged in a circular or oval form. I’ve never seen one of these that is not absurdly reductionist. I just threw that in to upset people, particularly those among my own staff and consultants. But if it results in a world with fewer Power Point slides, I feel I will have accomplished something important in my time on Earth.

...and this -

...remember that the lessons of business, the experience of the private sector, have much to teach non-profits but many limitations as well........ I would argue that most enduring successful business ventures must also have social value, but it’s also true that you can be successful in making money, at least for a while, by riding roughshod over community values – look at Wal-Mart’s impact on small business in small towns and rural communities, or the rapacious gains of certain extractive industries. Social investments, on the other hand, can’t be measured only in dollars and cents, and the bottom line has many components.

Which brings me neatly to my second reason for cheering which is Michael Edwards' new book, Just Another Emperor?, which dares to take on the philanthrocapitalists and their largely unchallenged conventional wisdoms. He unpicks what he calls the hype surrounding philanthrocapitalism, and examines the evidence (or lack thereof) which underpins it. But he does it in a constructive and balanced way; this is not mere polemic. This short book (92pp plus extensive endnotes) is essential reading for philanthropoids interested in social change and social justice.

Now, cheers usually come in threes, and there is a third reason for cheering, albeit one which isn't a close fit with the core purpose of this blog, but what the heck, it's my blog and if I say it goes in, it goes in. I've just read Obama's race speech in full and found it amazing - it's the sort of speech Bartlet would give (and we West Wing fantasists constantly had to remind ourselves that, sadly, that was fiction). Of course, it might not help him win the White House, but all praise to him for delivering it - read the full text here. With such a man in the White House, who knows what might be possible?

Is it socially just to let me travel free on the buses?

Emerging from a long weekend of partying, to mark the State's sudden burst of generosity towards me (free bus pass, cheap entry to theatres, museums etc, free prescriptions), I'm bound to wonder whether this is a wise use of your and my taxes. My good chum David - who, aged 60, has a well-paid fulltime professional job - told me the other day that he'd reckoned in that week alone he'd had £60 ($120 approx) of benefits by virtue of his age. That's over £3000 in a full year, in an ageing population. It just isn't sustainable. But neither is the problem solved by saying "Well, just give it to people who aren't in fulltime work, then"; for someone aged over 60 who is employed on a minimum, or near-minimum, wage, then these benefits - and perhaps especially the travel and prescriptions - will be vital supports. So - does it come back to some form of means-testing? And can that be done in a way which doesn't scare people off or deter them from saving?

There's another, slightly insidious, aspect to all this. If one is fortunate enough to be reasonable healthy, as I am (or will be, when I've recovered from the partying), and particularly if one is still working which I am (or will be, until would-be clients read this blog), then turning 60 isn't likely to mean that you suddenly start thinking of yourself as 'old'. But then, along comes the State, pats you on the head, offers you a seat and a pile of benefits, simply on account of your age. So, then you do start to think "Well, if the State thinks I'm worthy of all this stuff, then maybe I am old", which isn't, to my way of thinking, a very sensible frame of mind into which to get.

And all this is happening when the Government is failing to meet its targets to abolish child poverty. Something wrong somewhere. I will ponder all this as I walk to the station to get my Senior Railcard. Now, where did I put the Alka Seltzer?

Never mind the width; feel the quality...

Is it just me, or is it really a bit frustrating that there is such a research emphasis on the question of how much money people give away rather than about to what they choose to give it? The latest example is some recent work by the excellent Prof. Cathy Pharoah, who must know more about patterns of giving than just about anyone else. Her recent report, Family Foundation Philanthropy, gives a league table of the 100 largest family foundations in Europe. Has the time come when there should be an absolute - self-imposed - ban on any more research about how much money wealthy people give away? How does it help us to know this? Of what relevance is it to be able to compare what happens in the UK to what happens in, say, the US, or elsewhere in Europe? What I want to know is what they are spending their money on. The term 'philanthropy' can mean so many different things depending on the context. Those of us who think that it should be about changing the circumstances which give rise to the need for it in the first place need to know who their friends are.

Good, then that the new UK Research Centre on Charitable Giving and Philanthropy, in which CP is involved, is to focus on, as co-director Prof. Jenny Harrow puts it, "furthering the effectiveness of philanthropy" (my emphasis). But the danger is that the Centre will be 'captured' by the fundraisers, whose main concern is to find new ways to bring money in, rather than with how it is used. The next question for Professor Harrow is, of course, "Effectiveness at what, exactly?"

I'm forever blogging Bubbles...

Now and again, this blog will allow itself to venture into mischievous realms because ... well, because we can. I'm intrigued by the characters involved in the FutureBuilders /Adventure Capital Fund business. Stephen Bubb, who chairs ACF and is the chief executive of ACEVO, used to work for the Community Fund, when I was on the Board. I can reveal here that he had two nicknames - Bubbles, used when people were feeling kindly, and Beelzebubb when they weren't; I was usually in the latter category. One of Bubb's colleagues at the Fund was Richard Gutch, the apparently soon-to-be-displaced director of FutureBuilders (they collaborated on a report on commissioning published last year). Another colleague was Janet Paraskeva, who chaired the panel which appointed Campbell Robb (then at NCVO) , as Director of The Office of the Third Sector - I was also on the panel. Observers see NCVO as in effect having lost out to ACEVO in the bidding process for FutureBuilders, the rules for which were set by...The Office of the Third Sector. What to make of it all? I leave the question hanging...

Of charity, tax, and social business.

A pity that - so far, at least - there's been so little debate around Frank Field's (second) Allen Lane Lecture, delivered this week, in which he proposes a 10% surcharge on incomes over £150k, which could be totally offset by charitable giving. Frank can always be trusted to come up with original ideas; you might recall the joke that Blair hired him to "Think the unthinkable, Frank" - and he did, and when Blair saw his ideas, he said "But, Frank, this is unthinkable! " and Frank felt he had to resign. Well, how unthinkable is this idea? What purpose would be served by raising an additional £3.6 billion a year in tax revenues and then allowing it to be spent on charity? What kind of charities would wealthy people be likely to support? Would their choices be better for poor people than the choices made by government? It isn't clear to me from the written version of Frank's lecture (I wasn't there on the day) whether there would be anything to prevent someone putting their contribution into, say the endowment fund for a public school of their choice, or a church... So thus far, I'm a sceptic, but maybe Frank can convince me.

Moving on, BBC Today listeners yesterday morning will have heard Muhammad Yunus, defending the social business model and contrasting it with the notion of charity. His key criticism of charity is that the charitable $/£ can only be spent once, whereas business - if successful - is self-sustaining. He's right, but only if your concept of charity is the traditional ameliorative one -'Charity as ordinarily practised, the charity of endowment, the charity of emotion, the charity which takes the place of justice...' (Joseph Rowntree , approx 160 years ago). The foundations which focus on social change can hold their own on Yunus' territory - money spent on achieving longterm change is money invested - not spent and, once spent, wasted. And Yunus should know about that kind of philanthropy, because - as he acknowledges in his new book - if it hadn't been for a couple of US foundations (Rockefeller and Macarthur, as I recall from my browse in Borders), Grameen would not have got off the ground.

Money and Power

There's a fascinating article in last week's New Yorker (read it on line here) which, while it's about a foundation funding medical research, raises some pretty fundamental and more widely applicable questions about the amount of control that funders have the right to exercise over what their grantees do. The foundation director at the centre of the work described says, unapologetically, "Money gives you power to drive people's behavior". That's certainly true; what's in contention is how, to what degree, and even whether it's right, or effective, to use that power. Especially relevant, I feel, to foundations which have stopped making grants and started to employ people to do the work instead - the ultimate form of 'behaviour control'. (For a New Yorker piece, it's quite short - and non-medical types like me can gloss over some of the detail.)

And what about the endowed grantmaking trusts?

Continuing to think about what the Charity Commission ought to be doing, I've been wondering why no-one ever questions the regime for regulating endowed grantmaking trusts. What is the justification for using rules designed principally to protect the public from the misuse of funds raised directly from them, to regulate organisations which don't raise any money from the public? This isn't an argument for a light touch approach to the foundations - after all, they benefit from the same tax privileges as fundraising charities, and ought to be accountable for how they spend their money. And that's where it gets interesting. There's a growing school of thought (see the membership of the Woburn Place Collaborative ) that institutional philanthropy, being mostly the fruits of social injustice, ought to be about social justice, rather than what is colloquially thought of as 'charity'. So the foundations should need to show the regulator that they've spent their money in pursuit of social change/social justice, rather than maintaining the status quo. Which would make a large chunk of endowed foundation grant-making ultra vires. Now, I don't expect an imminent call from Dame Suzi along the lines of "Gosh, Steven, we'd never thought of that - of course, you're absolutely right and we will immediately go after the trusts which just support social welfare without any emphasis on changing the circumstances which give rise to the need for the welfare in the first place - thankyou for pointing this out. Would you like a peerage?". But as I said at the start, unless I've missed something, noone ever seems to discuss this issue. As Mrs Merton used to say "Let's have a heated debate...".

The Public Benefit Debate - what about religion?

My main focus in this blog will be on philanthropy and social justice/social change, with an emphasis on the UK. (But I may from time to time allow myself to stray into other fields and areas…)

I’m writing this first instalment on the day when the Charity Commission is all over the media talking about public benefit. They are getting excited about public schools, but I think the future of religious charities is much more interesting. I’ve never understood why ‘the advancement of religion’ continues to be a charitable object. The public benefit test is to apply to charities under this head too, but the reaction of some of the religious charities suggests that they are confident of finding a way round it - the Evangelical Alliance is convinced that there is ‘ready acceptance that religion generally contributes to social and spiritual wellbeing’ which begs a few questions.

But the Commission is evidently afraid to get to grips with the major issue. Its new guidance emphasises that ‘it is not within the Charity Commission’s remit to look into traditional, long-held religious beliefs or to seek to modernise them’ though one might have thought that given a) its commitment to take into account ‘any detriment or harm that might arise from the particular organisation carrying out its aims’; b) the fact that ‘Where benefit is to a section of the public, the opportunity to benefit must not be unreasonably restricted’ ; and c) that the advancement of science is also a charitable object, there really is quite a bit for the Commission to get to grips with.

Actually, most people have forgotten now, but a former Commissioner, Robin Guthrie (not the one from the Cocteau Twins …) did indeed dare to ask the fundamental question about religion and charitable status. Robin and I were never the best of friends, but he was brave to raise the issue when he did (in the late 1980’s as I recall). Maybe once Dame Suzi has sorted out the public schools, she should send for Guthrie’s files…