[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.5 billion has already sparked public concern over its scale and thelack of broader accountability, as well as curiosity about how and howwell the Gates Foundation will manage to spend such large amounts ofmoney wisely and effectively.That gargantuan annual grantmaking budget imposes great respon-sibility on the Gates Foundation to take the lead in becoming a modelof transparency for American foundations.The public knows very littleabout foundations how they work, what they do, their role in society.As a result, whenever foundations come under attack by politicians, pub-lic officials, or the press for one or another misdeed or mishap, there isno existing reservoir of public support upon which they can draw.Theonly way for foundations to protect the freedom, creativity, and flexi-bility they now enjoy and which they need if they are to serve societyto their fullest potential is to open their doors and windows to theworld so that all can see what they are doing and how they are doing it.At this dramatic juncture in the history of the Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation, as well as of the entire world of philanthropy that has now 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 4848 Prefacecome into sharper public focus perhaps for the first time, it is essentialthat the Gates Foundation lead the foundation sector by becoming amodel of what a transparently run foundation can be.This book will explore many of the questions raised by Warren Buf-fett s historic action.It examines why the rich establish foundations, theroles foundations play in powering the civic sector, how they dischargetheir stewardship responsibilities, and the extent to which they producesignificant measurable benefits for society.Above all, this is a book abouthow charitable foundations have sometimes achieved high impact intheir grantmaking initiatives.I believe that most institutions and indi-viduals with charitable dollars to spend are eager to wring as much ben-efit for society as possible out of those dollars.Therefore, I have distilledin these pages some major lessons about how high-impact philanthropicinitiatives may be conceived and brought to fruition.The lessons are drawn from my study of a hundred significant foun-dation initiatives, many of which are referred to and described in thesepages.The complete list of these cases is in Appendix II, and those inter-ested in learning more can find them all in a companion volume, Case-book for The Foundation: A Great American Secret, ISBN 1-58648-488-5,which can be ordered on demand from 1-800-343-4499, or as a read-only document on the Web site www.pubpol.duke.edu/dfrp/cases/.AMERICAN FOUNDATIONS: THE GOLDEN PARADOXESAs I explain in this book, the role of America s 72,000 foundations is re-plete with paradoxes.Foundations must be free and autonomous in or-der to fulfill their mission of challenging, reforming, and renewingsociety.At the same time, in part because of the tax benefits they enjoy,they must somehow be accountable to society.There is the paradox of enormous wealth, originally generated bygreed and energetic pursuit of self-interest, being donated to help theless fortunate through motives of pure altruism.There is the paradox of great social and economic power concentratedin the hands of a few unelected and largely unregulated foundation lead-ers, who nonetheless feel insecure and threatened by the real or imaginedsuspicion and resentment of society at large. 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 49Preface 49There is the paradox of foundations striving to add value to societyby working to enhance, strengthen, and guide grant-receiving organiza-tions, yet doing so in ways that do not intrude on those organizationsautonomy.There is the paradox of organizations that devote their efforts tochanging society, yet rarely seek to measure, or even comprehend, the ex-tent of the changes they actually produce.Finally, there is the paradox of a huge number of wealthy organiza-tions spending their wealth to serve the public interest even as the pub-lic remains largely ignorant about what they do.All of these and other paradoxes will be explored and, I hope,explained in the chapters that follow.Two major themes run through this book.The first might be calledthe effectiveness and efficiency theme.I ll propose that there are spe-cific decision-making processes and progress-checking systems that foun-dations need to employ if they wish to increase the impact of theircharitable money.Specifically, I ll recommend that those who commandphilanthropic wealth be strategic in deploying their resources, focus onproblems that are ripe for solution, but remain flexible to be able to re-spond to opportunities that arise unexpectedly.The second is the public policy theme.Like all other institutions,foundations operate in a social context that significantly influences whatthey are able to do, what they choose to do, and how they can go aboutdoing it.It s important that those external influences, whether in theform of governmental regulation, public scrutiny, or self-policing, bedesigned to create positive incentives that will encourage foundations touse their money wisely and effectively for the broadest social good.Inthe final chapter of this book, I ll recommend several ways of strength-ening the social context within which foundations operate.In particu-lar, I ll strongly urge foundations to abandon their long-standingresistance to greater transparency in regard to their decision-makingprocesses.Foundations have long been, for good and ill, the least accountablemajor institutions in America.The challenge with which this book grap-ples is how to ensure that foundations can raise the level of their per-formance by reducing their insulation from beneficial external influences 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 5050 Prefacewhile retaining the independence they need.The reader will judgewhether or not I succeed in striking the right balance.Here is an analogy.As a music lover, I have found that composersmost often reach the heights of greatness in musical expression whentheir creativity is constrained within a clear yet flexible structural frame-work.The tension between insistent lyrical impetus and ordered, re-straining structure between the emotional energy and the confines ofthe rational is at the heart of the greatest compositions of Bach, Haydn,Mozart, and Beethoven.30In a similar way, foundations operate at their highest level when theymake their program choices within a structure of constraining bound-aries and prolonged, disciplined focus.No single foundation can doeverything.Therefore, a foundation must be willing to make hardchoices and to stick with programs and grantees over a long period oftime if it is to achieve significant impact.Creativity within a restrain-ing structure is one key to high achievement in both philanthropy andthe arts
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]