The atmosphere of overweening politeness in American philanthropy is leading to our ruin. It keeps me from telling you, in the clearest possible terms, that your five-year, $2 million initiative to end homelessness is well-intentioned magical thinking at its best and boneheaded ignorance at worst. Albert Ruesga, Greater New Orleans Foundation
One of the odd contradictions of life is that in our personal lives, intentions tend to matter over outcome, but in most other situations outcomes are all that matter.
If family or friends make a mistake or cause harm, we tend to judge them on their intentions. We realize those we love are human and make mistakes, but unless they intended harm, we lean to forgiveness.
As life broadens from our intimate circle, intentions matter much less. Even if you work round the clock, you will generally not get promoted unless you perform. No one wants to fail at their job. But wanting to do well is not enough. The performance culture so clear in sports extends to business and most other places of our wider life.
The different treatment makes sense. As an activity scales away from one to one intimacy, the collective has to take priority. In an organization, if weak players are allowed to stay in key spots, everyone suffers - and in many cases even that weak player - who could be an asset in another situation.
These rules don’t seem to apply in philanthropy.
A great deal of modern non-profits look and feel exactly like for-profits in terms of a group of people working in a systematic way to achieve a goal. But, given the apparent selflessness of the task at hand (there’s no profit after all!), we tend to judge performance based on intentions. This fact gives a lot of our non-profits (and their donors) a free pass on accountability.
In 2018, Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, devoted a great deal of time and money advocating for Proposition C in San Francisco. The initiative instituted a tax on corporations headquartered in San Francisco to fund the fight against homelessness. It raised money for an aggressive “housing first” and “harm reduction” approach. Some people had a different view on policy, including then-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey. He feared the funds and policies would do more harm than good. Benioff went on the offensive, launching personal attacks on the selfishness of Dorsey and other CEOs. “You’re either for the homeless, or you're for yourself,” he proclaimed. It was a huge PR win - for Benioff and the Proposition, which passed easily.
I don’t doubt for a second Benioff’s efforts were well intentioned. I have respect for his devotion to tackle a real and persistent problem. And, his actions appeared truly selfless and altruistic. He put his time and money on the line.
The only problem is it appears he was dead wrong. San Francisco massively increased its funding for homeless programs, now spending a billion a year on the problem. But, in every way things have gotten worse. More homeless numbers, more overdoses, more public violence and filth.
If Benioff was CEO of a Homeless Inc., he would be fired.
But since he is a philanthropist, his generosity and noble intent is what sticks. In fact, his honest and sincere commitment adds to his status and reputation regardless of outcome. He wins, but San Francisco…well, in this particular case, it loses.
Now it’s easy to criticize a project gone wrong. And it sounds harsh.
But, when you are talking about high profile efforts to intervene in the most complex problems, we do need to have a critical perspective. And in the era of big philanthropy, there is no reason why large scale charitable efforts should not get the same scrutiny as large scale business or government efforts. Their impacts, good or bad, can be every bit as big.
Yes, there is a danger here. We want successful people to devote time and money to solving our biggest problems. Scrutiny and criticism could deter those efforts. But feedback is often elusive in the non-profit world. A business gets constant feedback - from customers. Bad business concepts lose customers and adjust…or die. Charities can keep at bad ideas until the donor money runs out - a long time in this day and age. But, if the donors got more scrutiny on results, from the press and the public - they might more readily redirect dollars to new ideas. My bet is the desire to make positive change will remain.
Of course most charity is good on its face. It is isolated and personal and has an immediate and defined impact. Giving $5 to the homeless on the street is very different than driving a massive policy change to housing, tax, police and drug enforcement policy to deal with the homeless. We need to ask questions about the grand plans, particularly:
Causes aimed at “wicked” systemic problems that have no easy answers and many complex causes and consequences
Causes backed or run by celebrity or high status seeking individuals
Causes that weaponize moral language deeming any critics as bad or evil
Causes with a comprehensive “solution” with little room for experimentation or course correction
Causes with no real customer feedback mechanism
The Benioff approach on homelessness checked every box. His claims demanded a more honest stress test, not just from individuals, but especially the press which focused almost exclusively on his noble intent and hard work for the cause - a common tendency.
Climate, race relations, education, inequality - these are just a few of the “wicked” problems attracting massive non-profit dollars pushing society wide changes with highly charged moral claims. And let’s hope the efforts continue. But, we can’t give a pass to debate, and even criticism of ideas just because they emerge from charity. There are no easy answers to any of these issues. Pushing real accountability can only drive better results - and better outcomes for all of us.
Good Links
The other approach to “housing first”: shelter first.
Understanding effective charitable giving is a bit of a recent obsession. Here are a few past posts on the topic: Giving to Save the Poor or Notre Dame and the need for more experimentation or Seed Philanthropy.
The ultimate dissident’s guide to philanthropic giving by Joe Lonsdale. “Treating philanthropic work as if it’s a totally separate endeavor than entrepreneurship is a huge mistake. In reality, good entrepreneurship and good philanthropy come from the same place: how could the world work differently tomorrow than it does today?”
The ultimate non profit work: parenting. It’s no exception to the unfortunate truth that a helping hand can often just make things worse: