Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 4, No. 3 | International Philanthropy: Strategies for Change, page 3

Since 2001, the more than twenty Carnegie organizations around the world have partnered in an innovative philanthropic effort, attempting to collectively encourage philanthropy by biennially awarding the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, a kind Nobel Prize for the field. Americans have so far dominated, but medals have also gone to individuals from Japan, India, the United Kingdom and to the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims.2 In 2003, when Dr. Kazuo Inamori of Japan was given the medal at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., for promoting “academic and cultural development and international understanding” through his Inamori Foundation, “just about every newspaper in Japan carried on page one that he received the medal,” William Thomson says. He wishes American newspapers paid as much attention because “it would be picked up overseas.” The medal’s goal is to stimulate giving in Andrew Carnegie’s tradition: using private wealth for the public good.

Then there is Peggy Dulany, a great granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and the founder of the Synergos Institute, a 21-year-old nonprofit that has catalyzed the growth of homegrown philanthropy around the world in an effort to reduce poverty. It has helped establish private grantmaking foundations in Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. Of Synergos’s grass-roots work and sharing of talent, one big fan, Manuel Arango, who founded the Mexican Center for Philanthropy (CEMEFI) in 1988, says: “Sometimes that’s more important than the money itself.”

More recently, in 2001, Dulany started the Global Philanthropists Circle (GPC), which brings together rich families in an attempt to deepen their commitment to social giving and to share ideas. Aside from regular meetings, members travel to countries in need to get an on-the-ground look at conditions and to meet locals (who may become partners).

“When we started, we expected this would be of interest to Americans,” Dulany says. “It was more surprising to us how interested philanthropists in other parts of the world were, including some who’ve been at it for quite a while. The less experienced among them find the more strategic aspects of philanthropy to be appealing—they want to go there. They are becoming more strategic and are thinking about impact.” Many members, she added, also want to ensure that their values pass on to their children; GPC thus now has a “Next Generation” group for those in their teens, 20s, and 30s.

Of the 63 families who are GPC members—each encompassing anywhere from three to 20 individuals—about half are American and the rest come from more than 20 countries around the world, Dulany says. American members commit to giving away at least $1 million a year; for others, it depends. Membership, which costs $25,000 per year, is confidential and Dulany says she has no idea what any member’s net worth is. Nor is their donation record of concern. “We’ll meet people wherever they are, and move forward,” she says.

Some of the members have impressive records, according to Synergos case studies. In Morocco, for example, the Benjelloun family of bankers has built about 100 schools in isolated rural Berber villages and sent dozens of students to colleges, spending an undisclosed amount. In Colombia, María Eugenia Garcés and her siblings, working through their AlvarAlice Foundation and with several partners, are tackling poverty and violence with a “restorative justice” program that includes running homes for young criminal offenders and offering alternatives that lead to work, like training in agriculture. In the Philippines, members of the Lopez family have programs in child abuse intervention, environmental protection, and educational television programming, among others.

Along with the rise of such individual efforts has come the blossoming of an infrastructure that encourages and supports philanthropy. When some international members of the Council on Foundations spoke of trying to spur philanthropy in their countries, Buchanan says, the COF helped create “WINGS,” which stands for Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support. From 50 or so members in 2002, WINGS has expanded to 135 members.

Similarly, there are like-minded groups at the continental level—the European Foundation Centre, for example—and country level, like Brazil’s Group of Institutes, Foundations and Enterprises (GIFE). From 25 members in 1997, it can now boast of 71 members in a field “which essentially did not exist in Brazil” 15 years ago, according to a Synergos white paper. These groups help train people to work in foundations, share expertise, and advocate policy changes, like tax law revisions and other legal considerations, that enable philanthropy. (Studies show that income tax and inheritance tax policy has a dramatic effect on donations, as does the certification of institutions as tax-exempt.)

Giving in a Globalizing World
There’s no question, too, that recent disasters have inspired giving—and not just the 2004 tsunami, the famines in Africa, and Hurricane Katrina, all of which led to jumps in donations. Some that did not provide such indelible images had an impact. For example, Daniel Yoffe, a philanthropy consultant in Mexico, says that the 2000 economic meltdown in Argentina “created a groundswell of solidarity— and donations—as most people became aware of the plight of the most fragile sectors of society.”

Putting top spin on of all these factors is globalization: “People, ideas, money—everything is flowing more quickly,” says Johnson, of the Philanthropic Initiative.

Not surprisingly, like globalization itself, these developments are welcomed by many but there are those who seem to be of mixed mind. Carlos Slim, for example, has said that philanthropists could do more good by investing the money and employing people. “I think that charity and social programs don’t resolve poverty,” he explains. “Poverty is resolved with education and jobs.”

Robert Barro, an esteemed Harvard economist, endorsed that sentiment last June in The Wall Street Journal, when he criticized Bill Gates for dwelling on philanthropy in his commencement speech at Harvard: “His implicit theme was that so far what he has accomplished may have been good for him and Microsoft shareholders, but it has been no great contribution to society.... [yet] By any reasonable calculation Microsoft has been a boon for society and the value of its software greatly exceeds the likely value of Mr. Gates’ philanthropic efforts.”

Next page: The Gates Foundation’s attempts to reduce poverty in Africa, Barro continued, should learn from China and India, where together 390 million people escaped poverty between 1970 and 2000.

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