NYTimes | I HAD spent much of my life writing music for commercials, film and
television and knew little about the world of philanthropy as practiced
by the very wealthy until what I call the big bang happened in 2006.
That year, my father, Warren Buffett, made good on his commitment to
give nearly all of his accumulated wealth back to society. In addition
to making several large donations, he added generously to the three
foundations that my parents had created years earlier, one for each of
their children to run.
Early on in our philanthropic journey, my wife and I became aware of
something I started to call Philanthropic Colonialism. I noticed that a
donor had the urge to “save the day” in some fashion. People (including
me) who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that
they could solve a local problem. Whether it involved farming methods,
education practices, job training or business development, over and over
I would hear people discuss transplanting what worked in one setting
directly into another with little regard for culture, geography or
societal norms.
Often the results of our decisions had unintended consequences;
distributing condoms to stop the spread of AIDS in a brothel area ended
up creating a higher price for unprotected sex.
But now I think something even more damaging is going on.
Because of who my father is, I’ve been able to occupy some seats I never
expected to sit in. Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you
witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate
leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems
that others in the room have created with their left. There are plenty
of statistics that tell us that inequality is continually rising. At the
same time, according to the Urban Institute, the nonprofit sector has
been steadily growing. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of nonprofits
increased 25 percent. Their growth rate now exceeds that of both the
business and government sectors. It’s a massive business, with
approximately $316 billion given away in 2012 in the United States alone and more than 9.4 million employed.
2 comments:
"statistics that tell us that inequality is continually rising."
That's what happens when parasites are paid to go forth and exponentially breed more of their useless selves....
lol, and when infertile old parasites are permitted to continue sucking up resources long after their minimal utility has been exhausted...,
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