Altruism Today

Source; New York Times

A devastating article last weekend by Eric Lipton and Brooke Williams, part of a series running in the New York Times, last weekend raised big questions about the independence of the think tanks that specifically trade on that independence, issuing research reports and generally acting as research based-arbiters of a wide variety of issues in the media and the highest levels of government. Perhaps think tanks have gone for the same short-term-return-above-all-else strategy that has caused such havoc in our general economy, a strategy inadvertently aimed at destroying what is most valued in the organization.

The behavior of think tanks vis-à-vis the issues that their corporate funders are invested in has been raised repeatedly by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) who has termed the practice “thinly disguised lobbying.” NPQ has covered a number of reports about theirfunding in general, by foreign governments, and the corporate funding of right-wing think tanks on issues like education.

“This is about giant corporations,” Warren said, “who figured out that by spending, hey, a few tens of millions of dollars, if they can influence outcomes here in Washington, they can make billions of dollars.”

Indeed, a group of state attorneys general is investigating whether ExxonMobil worked with think tanks to produce reports that would obscure the impact of fossil fuels on climate change.

Are these institutions that function with government subsidies so they might act in the best interests of the public guarding their ability to do so, or are their business models carelessly but specifically courting a lack of integrity and credibility?

The annual budget of the Brookings Institution has doubled in the past decade to $100,000,000, so whatever it is doing seems to be working financially—at least in the short term. But stories like the one below may begin to erode its necessary reputational capital.

Brookings is featured front-and-center in the Times for its close “strategic partnership” with Lennar Corporation, one of the largest homebuilders in the United States and now central to a controversial $8 billion redevelopment plan in San Francisco. (Before we go any further, we want to provide a link to a very brief refutation made by Brookingsyesterday in response to the article.) Brookings received $400,000 from various divisions of the corporation and Brookings began an aggressive promotion of San Francisco project, offering among other things to “engage with national media to develop stories that highlight Lennar’s innovative approach.” It also named Lennar Executive Kofi Bonner as a senior fellow at Brookings. Bonner is in charge of the San Francisco project. An internal Brookings memo suggested he would be a “trusted adviser” even as a $100,000 donation was being solicited from Lennar.

The New York Times and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting reviewed documentation indicating that other corporations like K.K.R., Hitachi, and JPMorgan Chase (which donated more than $15.5 million to the nonprofit— for which they received, among other things, a lot of profile nurturing) were often promised that Brookings would provide “donation benefits” like events on the topics of interest that would mix donating corporate executives with government officials, presumably helping to brand the corporation as a credible policy player.

The article concedes that much of Brookings’ work appears unconnected, at least on the surface, to corporate interests. Still, as Bill Goodfellow, the executive director of the Center for International Policy, another think tank, said, “People think of think tanks as do-gooders, uncompromised and not bought like others in the political class.  But it’s absurd to suggest that donors don’t have influence. The danger is we in the think tank world are being corrupted in the same way as the political world. And all of us should be worried about it.”

Government decision enriches attorneys, stings homeowners

In 2011, three attorneys set up a firm called The Mortgage Law Group that took advantage of a federal program aimed at helping people threatened with foreclosure to stay in their homes.

Business boomed. In just over two years the Chicago firm signed up more than 5,200 clients who paid more than $18 million in advance fees for legal services they hoped would either reduce the size of their mortgage payments or hold off foreclosure.

But federal regulators say the firm was little more than a sophisticated telemarketing scam that masqueraded as a law practice and cheated thousands of financially vulnerable people.

Most Mortgage Law Group clients received little for their money, according to federal officials, who in a lawsuit filed in 2014 accused the firm of employing misleading and deceptive sales tactics to lure in customers.

One telemarketer deposed in the federal court case described the high-pressure atmosphere on the sales floor in the firm’s Chicago offices as straight out of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Wolf of Wall Street. He said some sales agents even posed as lawyers to close deals.

Attorney-affiliated firms that aggressively market mortgage reduction plans have mushroomed in the past few years because of a loophole in a government program called “loan modification.” Created in 2009, the program was designed to help struggling homeowners facing foreclosure brought on by the recession. But a government decision to exempt lawyers from a ban on charging advance fees for modification services has led to scams that have cheated thousands of homeowners.

Many homeowners who were supposed to benefit instead lost millions of dollars to firms that promised them loan modifications and other foreclosure-relief services that they failed to deliver, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.

Since 2010, these practices have drawn tens of thousands of consumer complaints to federal and state authorities, sparked multiple legal and ethical concerns over what constitutes the legitimate practice of law, and raised questions about how aggressively states have monitored the conduct of lawyers who profit from the schemes, the Center’s investigation found.

The Center identified more than 1,000 attorneys — more than one-third of them in California and Florida — who participated in loan-modification and foreclosure-prevention schemes that resulted in either law enforcement actions or disciplinary reviews by state legal authorities.

A big part of the reason Bernie Sanders stuck around in the primary process for as long as he did was to ensure the inclusion of a number progressive issues into the Democratic Party platform that otherwise stood no chance of being included. His stubborn (and often wrongheaded) longevity paid off in a number of ways—he got Hillary Clinton to embrace a $15 minimum wage, for example. But one plank his supporters could not get adopted to the platform was a call for "an end to [Israeli] occupations and illegal settlements" in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Though the five Sanders supporters on the platform drafting committee were able to get the language included in the draft, it was defeated 73-95 at a DNC conference earlier this month, and a substantial number of Sanders delegates have been sporting "I Support Palestinian Human Rights" signs, buttons, and stickers at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) to express their dissatisfaction with the party's current policy. 

One of these Sanders supporting delegates, Ayman Eldarwish of Virginia (who described himself as an American-born of Arab descent) told Reason, "We are disappointed that it did not enter the platform of the Democratic Party. We understand the dynamics of our country (but) the justice scale has to find its resting place correctly." Eldarwish added, "Our unlimited support for Israel is very unreasonable and it distorts the understanding of the reality on the ground. There are people without a land and freedom. They have to find their place on Earth, just like the Israelis want." 

Walter Conklin from Rhode Island said he thought the U.S.' position regarding Israel and the Palestinians was "absurd," and that despite the violence perpetrated by both sides, there needs to better recognition of the fact that Palestinians "are people."

Wife and husband delegates Aila Amany and Iyad Afalqa of California—both supporters of the democratic socialist from Vermont—were decked out in Robin Hood hats (get it?)—and told Reason of their disappointment with their party's platform. 

The Jerusalem-born Afalqa says, "Bernie Sanders was the only presidential candidate who acknowledged the human rights of Palestinians. At the same time, he acknowledged Israel's right to exist, and as a Jewish man that was a big deal." He added that he believes the U.S. has a responsibility to be an "honest broker" in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and that some of his fellow delegates were considering leaving the party because they see no hope that a Hillary Clinton administration will be that "honest broker."

Clinton, Afalqa says, will not be a "peace president, she will be a war president," adding that under her husband Bill's administration, "we were not at peace." He cited the sanctions on Iraq as a form of "collective punishment" on civilians and said he would not commit to voting for Clinton in the general election. Afalqa's wife, the Iranian-born Amany, says one reason she supported Sanders in the first place was because he refused to attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress opposing the Iran nuclear deal.

The American political relationship with Israel is currently in a rockier state than it has been in decades, which can be seen not only in the pronounced personal tensions between President Obama and Netanyahu—which could very well have lasting implications for the once-intractable alliance between the two countries—but also because young American liberals are increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinian plight and no longer on board with U.S. support for Israel as a default position. 

At this year's American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Clinton went toe-to-toe with the many Republican presidential contenders in attendance in competition for who could be the most vocal supporter of Israel. In contrast, Sanders skipped the event entirely and gave a fairly measured but still controversial speech which condemned Hamas' attacks on civilians and its opposition to Israel's right to exist, but also condemned Israel's bombing campaigns which disproportionately harmed civilians.

Issues relating to the U.S.' handling of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are unlikely going to be a dealbreaker for most Sanders supporters come Election Day, but the Palestinian cause has become increasingly important to the Democratic base, and if the unsatisfactory-to-all status quo continues, the issue could end up affecting future Democratic contests.

Source; The Nation

Building on the Ford Foundation’s Darren Walker’s concept of a “new gospel of wealth,”The Nation recently invited eight philanthropic leaders to consider how philanthropy as a field can respond to growing inequality. As a cross-section of some new approaches to giving, the piece is a forceful reminder of the major challenges that exist in the world today and the diverse ways that organizations and individuals are using philanthropy to provide solutions.

In their introduction to the piece, Leah Hunt-Hendrix of Solidaire and Jee Kim of the Ford Foundation argue that, in a reflection of the Gilded Age 100 years ago, “Our current Gilded Age [is] marked by the accumulation of vast fortunes and a new generation of donors who occupy increasingly significant positions in civil society. It’s no coincidence that the big questions of philanthropy’s appropriate role are being rekindled.”

The authors cite the Ford Foundation’s Darren Walker’s response last fall to Andrew Carnegie’s 1889 “The Gospel of Wealth” with his own essay, “Toward a New Gospel of Wealth,” in which he posits:

Yet while inequality certainly merits attention and effort, some have fairly pointed out a tension—if not a contradiction—between philanthropic efforts to address inequality and the structural economic realities that make it possible for foundations to exist at all.

From this starting point, the authors call on eight philanthropic leaders for recommendations. The responses span a range of ideas, with some fairly straightforward and others more aspirational. As one of the more straightforward proposals, Steve Phillips, co-founder of PowerPAC, argues that Carnegie ignored that “inequality in America—especially profound inequality between racial groups—is a direct result of public policy decisions.”

He adds, “From a leverage standpoint, far more money can be moved by changing policies than by making individual grants.” As part of what he describes as a “public policy revolution,” Phillips recommends that philanthropists take a leadership role in supporting a wealth tax, a stronger advocacy role for nonprofits and legislation to make the voting population more reflective of the actual demographics of the country.

Jessie Spector, executive director of Resource Generation, is worthy of bearing the title the piece carries: “The Game Changer.” Spector opens her essay with the rallying cry, “I dream of a world in which philanthropy is not only unnecessary, but remembered as a bizarre and unfortunate creation of societies past.” She continues, “In this future world, accumulating resources in the hands of the few—whether for alleged social good or private benefit—will be recognized as fundamentally unequal, unfair and unjust.” Highlighting NCRP’s statistic that a mere 14 percent of annual foundation funding goes to social justice organizations, she calls for a radical shift. “Our long-term goal should be to put ourselves out of business,” she asserts.

As strategies to redistribute the resources of foundations, she recommends higher taxes on financial transactions, raising the minimum wage, raising the 5% foundation payout rate, and requiring that foundation boards include non-wealthy people. Although the Atlantic Philanthropies have provided an extremely valuable model through the “Giving While Living” program, this is not a strategy that will necessarily fit as well for other organizations.

Daniel Lurie, CEO and founder of Tipping Point Community, explains that his organization operates on an “intentionally hungry model.” The foundation has no endowment—as he puts it, “We start from zero every year.” The organization’s website explains that the board annually covers the organization’s fundraising and operations, so that programs can be at the forefront. An amazing model, but how replicable is it?

Leah Hunt-Hendrix, co-founder and executive director of Solidaire, states that her organization’s approach to philanthropy “doesn’t mean finding or funding this or that solution ourselves.”

Rather, it means being led by the social movements of our time, and working in partnership with those who are experiencing the burdens of an inequitable society, and who are trying to change the deep social structures that perpetuate this inequality and injustice.

As a historical precedent for her organization’s approach, Hunt-Hendrix highlights the work of a few family foundations that collectively funded trainings in the ’50s and ’60s “and anchored organizations like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the NAACP.” In place of altruism, Hunt-Hendrix explains that her organization aims for “philanthropy of solidarity…which emphasizes real relationships.”

Neva Goodwin of Tufts University and Rosemary Corbett of the Center for Constitutional Rights, both members of the Rockefeller family, are committed to “ a new economic paradigm in which all resources are distributed more equitably.” They, like others in this group, share the view that foundation boards need to be more diverse and that foundations as a whole should be more responsive to the work of community organizations working with under-represented populations.

A member of the San Francisco’s elite tech community, Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, speaks for the value of individual involvement, affirming, “You don’t have to make a killing to make a difference.” As a straightforward reminder for philanthropists and elevator passengers everywhere, Newmark suggests, “If you are lucky enough to do well, keep sending the elevator down.”

Finally, Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation, appropriately described as “The Advocate” for his own role as catalyst for renewed discussions of inequality, explains that his organization is currently investigating “how we might make our endowment strategy align with our program strategy.”

In light of these interesting ideas, it would be interesting to see a follow-up forum of some sort involving these authors that looks in depth at implementation.