6. CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY

The rationale for corporate philanthropy has shifted from the needs of the community to the interests of the corporation. The argument seems to be that CEOs are either too uninformed, too insensitive, or simply too clever to be taken in by the rationale that prevailed in the days of the Filer Commission.

In the 1950s it was the CEOs who made the case for corporate philanthropy; now CEOs have to be persuaded by their staff.

Staff members in turn discover that it is easier to make the case on the basis of corporate interest than it is to make the case on the basis of community need.

The following quotation from a recent Giving U.S.A. Special Report presumably expects to find a receptive audience:

"'My role as a marketer is to put our limited marketing dollars in the causes that will get us the biggest bang for our buck. As a marketer, what catches my attention is great press. What we're looking for is good exposure, good positioning and good contacts, and you're looking for the funding. There's nothing wrong with having a class nonprofit and a class corporation joining hands in a victory celebration. It's image enhancement for both of us, and it makes an everlasting impression on the corporation."' (I'm reminded that Jane Fonda made an "everlasting impression" on Dow Chemical.)

Corporate philanthropy is not about the superficiality of "image enhancement." It is about corporate service to the community beyond what is required. If it serves the corporation first, it should be treated as a business expense, not as a philanthropic contribution. It is the CEO' s responsibility to know the difference.

A good friend of mine, a longtime staff member in charge of a corporation's program of grantmaking and community relations, made it very clear: "A generation ago," she said, "I would have been attached to the CEO's office and he [it would have been a 'he'] was personally and directly involved in the corporation’s philanthropy. Since we've become more 'professional,' people in my role are vice presidents-specialists--and the philanthropic program depends on us. And we don't have the same clout as the CEO."

The CEO remains the key figure in corporate philanthropy. His absence or lack of interest -- his lack of involvement -- sends a clear signal that philanthropy isn't important. Real philanthropy, that is. The struggle to protect the mission of corporate philanthropy from becoming something else -- a public relations program, usually -- has always been difficult. Going out into the community has always entailed risks, risks that raise fears of angry shareholders, prying reporters -- criticism, even.

At the time of Filer I, most of that criticism came from the Left: corporate grants were often for the wrong purposes or organizations. Filer II will hear the same complaints but perhaps drowned out by the criticism from the Right: corporate grants are often for the wrong purposes or organizations. Both Left and Right compile "enemies lists" and judge corporate philanthropy according to an ideological test.

Unless corporations give up making grants altogether, such criticism will continue. CEOs will have to decide whether to march to someone else's drum or listen to their own.

For the most part, business schools have made matters worse. They have increasingly accepted a too-narrow and too-short-term view of corporate performance. But philanthropy, under the guise of "nonprofit management," may infiltrate the corporate culture once again. Young people trained in such programs may ask more and expect more of corporate leadership.

If so, John H. Filer -- the person and the CEO -- would approve. He came to call it "corporate social involvement" and he was right. That's what it takes. One reason why the American business corporation has stood apart from other countries' corporations has been its social involvement and its social responsibility. The future of that tradition now appears problematic.

Andrew Carnegie learned about philanthropy from his parents, his religion, and the Scottish culture in which he grew up. He also learned from a specific act of philanthropy from which he benefited -- the invitation to use the 400-volume private library of Colonel James Anderson, which prompted him to make the construction of free public libraries his boldest and most extensive philanthropy. Colonel Anderson gave Andrew Carnegie the gift of self-education. Self-education meant self-help, and all that a young boy like Andrew needed was the chance to learn. A truly philanthropic gift for the society that welcomed him, he thought, were public libraries where children could learn if they had the desire to do so.

The university that most decisively influenced my attitude toward education, the University of Chicago, was made possible, at least in part, by the gifts of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Libraries and universities brought me into dialogue, if you will, with public teachers like William James, whose values as well as whose learning have given me insight into philanthropy.

There is a web of philanthropy and education that helps millions of people make sense of their lives- Philanthropy is a cluster of values and ways of being human within society; it is a "tradition" that is much more than a set of laws and theories. As such, it is imperative that it be preserved, strengthened, and passed on.

If the concept of the three-sector society is the Filer Commission's most important contribution, I believe that the emergence of philanthropy as a field of study, research, teaching, and training is Filer's second most important contribution.

Phase one in the development of philanthropic studies is now well advanced. There are hundreds of courses, many degrees, thousands of students, and perhaps a thousand faculty members working at more than forty academic centers and in a hundred or two less formal settings. Those of us who have been most involved in the effort to make the diffuse subject called philanthropy a "real" subject can feel some sense of accomplishment for the post-Filer (and post-PONPO, the most direct outcome of the Commission's work) progress toward this goal.

There are, however, some reasons for concern. From the very beginning, there has been reason to worry that philanthropy in the academy will become fatally academic. We now have journals, learned societies, even tenure-track positions. We have demonstrated that philanthropic studies can find a place in foundation philanthropy. Those advantages sometimes mark the onset of the bureaucratic sclerosis that haunts the academy as it haunts every other domain of organizational life. My request to a future Filer Commission is that it assess the consequences of launching this new field of study.

A second request is that it look beyond the place of philanthropic studies in higher education to the sequentially secondary, but substantively primary, need of philanthropy in the education of children at the level of secondary and especially elementary school. If philanthropy is good for children -- good for their self-esteem (as evidence seems to indicate) and, through that, good for their behavior and performance in other aspects of their lives -- then it should become part of their formal education. If that is the case, we have to retrace our steps to higher education again to ask about philanthropic studies in teacher education. A future Filer Commission might recommend that a consortium of teachers' colleges, in league with a consortium of academic centers of philanthropy, bring philanthropy formally and seriously into teacher education.

Teacher education in philanthropy has already cropped up in a most surprising place. Jasminka Ledic, a young Croatian woman, became involved in philanthropic studies while a Fulbright scholar at Indiana University. On her return to Croatia, she talked with the director of an international foundation office in Zagreb; she wanted to know if there were others who might be interested in her project to introduce a course for teachers on philanthropy. She was told somewhat rudely that, in a country torn apart by war, there was no time for teaching children about philanthropy.

Jasminka was seeking colleagues rather than money, however, and so she persisted. Now, as far as I know, hers is the first successful effort of its kind -- certainly the first I've heard about. The course on philanthropy she has designed is now a requirement for students who plan to major in education at the University of Rijeka.

The Commission might also ask for the development of teaching materials about philanthropy for classroom use, but also for use with ordinary citizens and volunteers, to help more people, prepare for roles as trustees and stewards. There are few areas of philanthropy where more progress has been made than in taking trusteeship seriously, so much progress in fact that much more should be done to carry that experience farther in the lifeworld of volunteers.

The education and training of those who would find their occupation (their calling?) in philanthropy is another extension of the Filer Commission's diffuse influence. The question now is, Is the third sector moving toward the kind of institutionalization that has shaped the traditional professions? Will career service in philanthropy become a "profession," and if so, how will it resemble and how will it differ from other professions?

A related question, of course, is whether the concept of professional is any longer meaningful or even necessary. My own answer would be that the status of professional is meaningful only if it is identified with being trustworthy in commitment to service. Philanthropy's integrity requires trust. Will not-for-profit organizations seek the same level of credibility and trust once claimed by hospitals, say, or will they return to caveat emptor?

Finally, if it is true that the Filer Commission brought the subject and then the study of philanthropy into public consciousness, then a future Filer Commission should ask about the well-being of the field. There should perhaps be a "National Board of Visitors" for the field of philanthropic studies.

Public attention seems to focus on the importance of money in philanthropy. Because it is harder to measure, voluntary service is less visible. Neither voluntary giving nor voluntary service would have much effect were it not for voluntary association. Voluntary association gives effect to personal values of compassion and social values of community.

In the seminar in Gdansk, one of the Polish participants spoke of his personal experience as an ally of Solidarity and an opponent of the Communist regime. There was some personal risk involved, more serious, I gather, than the risk accepted by protesters in the United States in recent decades -- for civil rights, for example, or against abortion.

My Polish friend told the story in response to my question about the difference between the notion of philanthropy and the notion of "civil society." He said that civil society has meant "growing independence from the state" -- political freedom, freedom of choice.

As we discussed it later, we agreed that the protest movement in Poland was possible because of voluntary action. Solidarity and its extensions became a movement of voluntary associations sustained by the voluntary service of individuals -- a movement strong enough to bring down a tyranny.

We agreed that no democracy of the future will be possible without a strong third sector, without philanthropy.

That is the ultimate challenge (opportunity?) facing any future Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs.

Robert L. Payton

November 1995