As if the bombardment of economic news isn’t enough to push us to the edge, today’s WSJ had an opinion letter “Philanthropy and Its Enemies”, by Naomi Schaefer Riley. If you are a thinking individual, especially an individual passionate about making the world a better place through your charitable deeds, you will sense a call to action.

The letter profiles the works of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), Greenlining and the Council on Foundations. The work of these organizations is fundamentally that of creating “acceptable” templates for grant distributions, regardless of donor intent, as well as setting “acceptable” standards of diversity among board members.

These organizations aren’t subtle in their tactics nor are they ineffectual. Greenlining uses the methods of groups such as ACORN by shaming institutions publicly until they fund the causes Greenlining supports, regardless of donor intent. This being first successful in San Francisco, they have now descended on Florida, Pennsylvania and New York, gaining steam.

NCRP insists that foundation boards and staffs include people with a “diversity of perspectives”. Consider the impact they had on the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. “We strive to be an anti-racist institution” writes the head of the organization to show that by golly, we folks at Kellogg are towing the line. Better, consider how Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation has reshaped its organization to the template of such organizations as the NCRP. Even though the founder, Charles Noyes had chosen “family, friends and business associates as board members, all white with similar life experiences”, they now offered a head count of their board of 41% people of color and 71% women.

There is no reason that the board shouldn’t be comprised of people of color or women, so long as those people follow donor intent. But that is not the intent of these organizations. They want to dictate grant distribution. The NCRP specifies that grants “best serve the public good by contributing to a strong participatory democracy that engages all communities”.

Let me be clear, that is the job of government, not charities. Charities are formed by passionate people wanting to address specific issues they are drawn to due to a recognized void of attention. Consider the works of One Laptop per Child (http://www.laptop.org) or Smile Train (http://www.smiletrain.org). The former is on mission to provide a durable, child centric laptop to 2 billion of the world’s poorest children. The latter provides free surgery to repair cleft lips and palates for children in developing nations who otherwise would not receive the surgery. These wonderful efforts are driven by passionate people who are brilliant, and they surround themselves with competent individuals driven by a single purpose. Their work has a laser focus, and they are changing the world. NCRP et al would diffuse the coherent purpose of both, reducing hero’s work to that of the post office.

On what basis do these frighteningly socialist organizations exist? They use the argument of philanthropy groups being in the public domain due to the tax deductibility of charitable contributions. The opinion letter points out that this argument would give public rights to your home since you deduct interest and taxes. How about churches-surely this is next? Political speech is already verboten in churches lest they lose their tax-exempt status. Under the NCRP doctrines, surely churches would have to be inclusive of all views and the deaconate or boards must be populated by those of diverse views.

This must stop. This will become a Hydra, the mythological multi-headed serpent which grows two heads if you cut off one, if a Herculean effort doesn’t kill it. Newsweek recently proclaimed that “We’re all Socialists Now”. The growing effectiveness of these organizations is frightening evidence of just how prescient Newsweek might have been.

Get on the phone, write letters, send emails. This must stop!

Posted in BIG Blog, News