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Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

newyorker.com

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Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#131

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Another only mildly disguised attack on democracy.

> If you’re used to thinking that our democratic system is in bad shape, that can sound jarring. But she’s working in the tradition of what philosophers call “ideal theory”; the aim is to sketch out what a good system would be, assuming that everyone fully complied with its rules.

I'm used to thinking that democracy is in poor shape because rich and powerful people prevent it from spreading further.

Which seems appropriate for this topic. But instead of diving into that, this author seems to take as a fairly key element of their argument that people getting stupid rich and then doing government type stuff without democratic oversight is good because the obvious alternative, democratic governance is fundamentally broken.

I'll check out the book by Emma Saunders-Hastings, “Private Virtues, Public Vices: Philanthropy and Democratic Equality” as its arguments sound pretty sensible.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#132

Post by throw__away7391 »

krageon wrote: post #74
habosa wrote: post #68

Don’t let all the shenanigans at the top stop you from doing good. It’s clear that the American system of tax preference for philanthropy is easy to abuse, but while it’s there you might as well use it to help people if you can afford to. If your company matches donations, take them up on that. That means for $1 pre-tax (~$0.60 out of your pocket) you can give $2.00 to an organization that could use the money. That’s…

And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze…

I worked for several different charities for a few years. Supposedly "good ones", a couple of big names. After what I have seen I don't think I'd ever donate to a charity. The CEO's pay is almost the least concern, everything runs according to the whims of people who wouldn't last 5 minutes in a for-profit business. The people donating just want to feel good about themselves or get some positive press for donating. Those are the real customers, that's the real product, and that's what the charity focuses on delivering first and foremost. They have a couple of "showcase" projects/centers/cases they use for the cameras over and over again and the rest of the work is done as cheaply as possible to get their numbers up. The disconnect between the folks on the ground and what's happening in at the home office is greater than anywhere else I've ever seen.

In terms of finances, the real money is in fundraising. From the perspective of the charity, spending $999 on fundraising to raise $1000 dollars in donations is a net positive and huge amounts of money are "wasted" on fundraising efforts. If you want a lucrative career in the industry, being a freelance fundraising consultant is definitely the way to go. You can ask for nearly as much as you can raise and you get none of the scrutiny the CEOs get.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#133

Post by s1artibartfast »

ars wrote: post #55
lmm wrote: post #3

I don't necessarily want it to go away entirely, but the tax breaks should be abolished. It's particularly offensive to see the state and local tax deduction (money that actually goes to help one's fellows in the ways they see fit, without being beholden to the whims of the "donor") capped while 503c "donations" remain an unlimited deduction.

The tax break is only around 20% of the donation. Even if the donated money is not spent as perfectly as you would like, there's 5 times as much of it.

Exactly. You would have to believe that taxes do 5x more public good per dollar than charities.

With defense spending, pet projects, and incompetence, it is hard to make a case that they are on parity.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#134

Post by 9oliYQjP »

paisawalla wrote: post #76
krageon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze…

What should a non-profit CEO be paid? If it's someone who attracts top talent in the industry or has the connections to large donors, but they have equal/more passion for getting paid than the mission, what's the right choice? Surely you can see that "get the best person you can for $40k" has limitations as a hiring strategy.

Having worked at non-profits, the distribution of wages can be unlike anything ever seen at for-profit corporations and has made me become quite cynical. At a couple of the organizations I was involved with, there was lots of unpaid volunteering, grossly under-market salaries, and unpaid overtime at the bottom of the hierarchy with anemic pay all the way up the pyramid until you reached the CEO position. The CEOs rarely did much of anything except help keep alive the notion that everyones sacrifice was worth it. In one instance, the CEO went on sabbatical for over a year, appointing a few senior management to share their leadership role and the whole operation actually seemed to function better while they were gone.

I don't have anything against a non-profit CEO paying themselves well if they also pay their employees well. Many do not, with some unspoken culture of employees needing to accept meager compensation so that resources can be directed toward the core mission whose objectives are fluid and progress often difficult to measure.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#135

Post by Diggsey »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #126
exdsq wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s okay if altruism is inherently selfish and for a warm fuzzy feeling or social media points as long as the altruism takes place

This comes across as divorced from reality - this is not why most people donate

What's the difference between someone who donates because it makes them feel good (to have a positive impact on the world) and someone who does it because they want to have a positive impact on the world?

There isn't one. It's the same thing.

All choices can be traced back to a "selfish" reason. To deny that is to suggest that there is something other than our self that determines if we are a good person or not.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#136

Post by rufus_foreman »

lmm wrote: post #48
cherrycherry98 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to assume that the government is benevolent, whereas private actors are not. I have come to view government programs with the perspective that they are intended primarily to benefit the politicians efforts to become reelected. They can claim to be saving the world, but with other people's money. Some good may come of these efforts but I don't view them as inherently virtuous. You argue that private actors…

> This seems to assume that the government is benevolent, whereas private actors are not. Not so much benevolent as accountable. The government, for all its faults, has a huge edifice of checks and balances, and while the gears grind slowly they do limit how far astray things can go. A private 503c is a real wild west in comparison.

If a charity to which I contribute does a single thing I don't like, I can decide to never give them another penny.

If the government doesn't do a single thing I like, more than half my income still goes to taxes each year to fund the government (income, property, sales, etc.), and there is nothing I can realistically do to change that.

Which one is accountable?

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#137

Post by maccard »

suture wrote: post #130
krzysiek wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I believe that the other way around would be way better. There is a lot of inefficiencies in the way governments work, plus they operate like monopolies. On the other hand there is competition between nonprofits, plus they are often multinational. I find it interesting that some of the most efficient government organizations (like World Food Programme) actually operate as charities (in the sense that everyon…

I think you are very much wrong when talking about efficiencies. There are no examples in the history of the world of charity sufficiently providing for the needs of the poor at a national scale. There are lots of examples of government programs providing the basic needs of the poor at scale.

I'm definitely in the pro-government-involvement camp but

> There are no examples in the history of the world of charity sufficiently providing for the needs of the poor at a national scale.

This is just false. Literally right now we have the case where food banks are filling in the gaps of the UK government at a national scale.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#138

Post by BobbyJo »

suture wrote: post #130
krzysiek wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I believe that the other way around would be way better. There is a lot of inefficiencies in the way governments work, plus they operate like monopolies. On the other hand there is competition between nonprofits, plus they are often multinational. I find it interesting that some of the most efficient government organizations (like World Food Programme) actually operate as charities (in the sense that everyon…

I think you are very much wrong when talking about efficiencies. There are no examples in the history of the world of charity sufficiently providing for the needs of the poor at a national scale. There are lots of examples of government programs providing the basic needs of the poor at scale.

> There are lots of examples of government programs providing the basic needs of the poor at scale.

I'm not sure what you're comparing here. Are you saying governments are more efficient because they are bigger? Are you saying they are more efficient because they've filled a need more completely?

The first is non-sense and the second is more a function of size and power than efficiency. Efficiency is about benefit per dollar, and governments are really really bad a that, typically making up for how bad they are by simply throwing more dollars at the problem.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#139

Post by newsclues »

rtpg wrote: post #128
kortilla wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should rethink this stance. Do you want competent people running the organization or the cheapest possible? A charity that just passes money straight through by sending envelopes full of cash to a war torn country is much worse than one that spends a ton of money on analyzing first what the most effective way to help is.

Loads of people take below market salaries. Plenty of CEOs are merely paid low six digits instead of 300k+! Is it unreasonable for a charity CEO to merely be paid a bit closer to the median for their kind of work?

Is it unreasonable for charity CEOs to be charitable when negotiating salaries and living on the local medium salary (great incentive to raise the local economy)?

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#140

Post by ZeroGravitas »

spicyusername wrote: post #127

> Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats ...And much isn't...

Weirdly, though it sounds negative out of context, this line in the article is trying to portray this as a good thing, in comparison to some rich guy who lives elsewhere ruining your local school system for no good reason.
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