| Philanthropy as a Right Part 2 of 3 The Independent Sector Under the term "independent sector," we will find "all voluntary organizations, churches, schools, private foundations, and the social responsibility programs of corporations that engage in charitable, educational, religious, scientific, and other not-for-profit activities that serve the public good." In 1982 it is estimated that there were 793,000 organizations in the independent sector, 339,000 of which were churches. (The quotation in the preceding paragraph and the statistics in this paragraph and the following are drawn from Dimensions of the Independent Sector published in 1984 by Independent Sector, organized and edited by Virginia A. Hodgkinson.) To put those numbers in some perspective, were one to count all of the "operating entities" in the United States, one would find 16.8 million business organizations and 1.2 million not-for-profit organizations. (The not-for-profit organizations include about 400,000 that are for the benefit of their members, such as veterans organizations and mutual aid associations; these organizations, plus the approximately 800,000 independent sector organizations, make up the "not-for-profit" sector.) Employment in the independent sector was 10.2 million people, 6.1 million of whom were full-time or part-time employees. (The remaining 4.1 million represent the conversion of volunteer time to a "full-time equivalent" number.) These and other volunteers 80 million of them contribute 8.4 billion hours of work to American society. That is estimated to be the equivalent of 4.9 million full-time employees or the equivalent of $63 billion of financially uncompensated services. The independent sector thus represents about 6 percent of national income (business contributes 80 percent and government 14 percent): In 1972 constant dollars, the not-for-profit organizations expended $200 in 1960 and $340 in 1982 for every American. Of these expenditures, it is estimated that over 90 percent of this contribution came from the independent sector. Independent sector organizations in 1980 accounted for 9.2 percent of all employment and 8.2 percent of all earnings from labor. Philanthropy, as the part of the independent sector that is concerned with gifts of money, reveals this profile:
Higher education reported voluntary support totalling $4.9 billion in 1981 & 1982. Of that, 26 percent came from alumni, 23 percent from nonalumni, 21 percent from foundations, and 20 percent from corporations. These figures are intended to support the contention that philanthropy permeates American life, both in terms of giving and in terms of the vast array of voluntary service it supports. That is my first point. Philanthropy and Freedom My second point is that philanthropy is essential to our efforts to make this a free, open, and democratic society. Robert Bremner's book, American Philanthropy, provides a summary of the role of philanthropy in American history. It touches on the philanthropic establishment of most of the educational, cultural, social, and religious institutions of the society. It refers to the vast array of efforts to reform and improve the society and to relieve suffering. Let me offer some contemporary examples, chosen at random from direct mail fund-raising appeals:
All of these organizations are private that is, not under direct government control and tax exempt that is, determined by the Internal Revenue Service to operate in the public interest. Contributions to these organizations are considered to be tax deductible. Although often concerned with public issues and policies, these organizations are not defined as "political." Some of them compete with for-profit business, but they are still treated as not-for-profit (because any surpluses are not distributed to their (“owners") and as in the public interest. To be classified as acting in the public interest means that these organizations relieve the public tax effort that might otherwise be undertaken to provide funds for these services. This use of tax policy and other legislation to encourage private sector giving and voluntary service results in a vast and influential system. It is a system that is unique in the world. Charles Livingston-Booth, President of the International Standing Conference on Philanthropy, pointed this out recently in his remarks at a conference in New York. In the Scandinavian countries, he noted, "taxation provides a disincentive to giving. ...In Belgium a newly arrived American multinational offered a swimming pool to the local community, which was angrily refused on the grounds that this is a proper responsibility of government and no such interference would be tolerated. " Japan has but twenty foundations (compared to some 22,000 in the United States). In France, government permission is required to make a significant gift to charity. In Finland, one of the many countries to limit the portion of one's private estate that can be left to charity, "the only giving that attracts tax privileges is to a body providing national defense. " The contrasting diversity of American philanthropy is worth mentioning again:
Or take this list, from the early part of the century, from Bremner's American Philanthropy: "Churches, home and foreign missions, temperance organizations ... orphanages, and homes for the aged ... the plight of newsboys, working girls, distressed immigrants, tenement dwellers, and southern mountain children..." (University of Chicago Press, 1960, pp. 122, 123). The list is almost endless: YMCA, YWCA, YMHA, Salvation Army, Volunteers of America, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, National Tuberculosis Association, American Cancer Society, Goodwill Industries, The Lighthouse, NAACP, Urban League, American Association of Labor Legislation, National Child Labor Committee.... In the United States, one could review instructively the legal history of the right to organize voluntarily for public purposes, the right to raise money, and the right to give it for public purposes. It is a constitutional history that supports the legislative actions to encourage voluntary service and philanthropy by tax policy. From the earliest days, it also reflects public and private sector cooperation, private giving supplementing and stimulating public funds. Neglect of the Benign My argument thus far has been intended to provide a quantitative outline of philanthropy and a qualitative sketch of some of the purposes it serves, purposes that I contend are central to our efforts to be a free, open, and democratic society. All of those organizations come into being, and call upon voluntary giving, because the operations of government and its bureaucracies, of the marketplace and its business enterprises, fall short of perfection. In the minds of some people, there is need for charitable acts to relieve suffering beyond what the system seems able to provide and need for philanthropic improvements of the community. One might then conclude, as I have, that philanthropy, especially when considered in its broader implications, is an activity of substantial importance. It is a subject worthy of scholarly research, research that could then be utilized in programs of education and training. What one finds, however, is a very uneven record of scholarship from one field of study to another, often superficial training programs, and a total neglect of the subject as a topic in undergraduate general education. Let me deal first with scholarly research. The two fields that seem to have devoted the most significant energy to the subject are history and social work. Barry Karl of the University of Chicago and Stanley Katz of Princeton University are engaged in a two-volume history of the impact of philanthropy on public policy in twentieth-century America. Bremner's American Philanthropy, a really excellent introductory survey written in 1960 for the University of Chicago Press series in the history of American civilization, has been reprinted recently but without revision. |
