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By JOHN E. CORBALLY


Philanthropy:
The spirit is more important than the dollars

My task in this series of essays is to consider the role that philanthropy and philanthropic organizations can play as the people of Illinois and their institutions attempt to meet the challenges of the coming century. I approach this task with a deep and abiding belief that the most consistent challenge that any society, anywhere and anytime, has faced, does face and will face is the challenge of human nature.

In spite of technological, demographic and political changes throughout the world, it is my belief that the claim of uniqueness for the present is not as critical as is the plea that we understand today in the light of yesterday. Whether the problem is developing a plan to share food and warmth and security in a Stone Age cave or a plan to share food and warmth and security in a unit of the Chicago Housing Authority, a basic and consistent factor that must be considered is the nature of human beings. A concern about AIDS or a concern about the Black Plague varies little in the heart and mind of a mother watching a child die of either epidemic. The gang down the street is no more nor less threatening than was the saber-toothed tiger outside the cave. Famine in Ireland in the last century and hunger in Springfield in this century differ little in their effect on the human spirit.

Thus, when Pogo describes the enemy as "us," he is half right. "Us" is either the enemy or the hope for salvation, depending on which elements of human nature we permit to govern our individual selves and our society. Unfortunately, the predominance of the "better half is not a hallmark of human civilization. The challenge, then, is to find ways in which our better half can lead us into a future society in which both known and unknown dangers can be faced with confidence and with skill and in which both known and unknown opportunities will be capitalized on for the benefit of all human beings. A worthy challenge and perhaps even one that we can meet.

Percent change in charitable giving, 1992-93

At the outset it would be worthwhile to define "philanthropy" as I am going to use that term here. The World Book Dictionary (an excellent Illinois product) offers two possibilities:

1. love of mankind shown by practical kindness and helpfulness to humanity, or
2. a thing that benefits humanity; a philanthropic agency, enterprise, gift or act.

The thesaurus on my word processor offers the following synonyms for "philanthropy": charity, benevolence, humanitarianism, patronage, generosity, altruism, beneficence or magnanimity. Each of these synonyms, of course, has synonyms and the trail could become endless. Let us, therefore, adopt both of the dictionary definitions. In the first case, philanthropy is the love of mankind that results in practical acts. In the second case, philanthropy is something that does philanthropic things — a social service agency, a foundation, a donor to worthy causes and the like.

Given the number of "philanthropies" in the United States — more than 30,000 foundations, literally hundreds of thousands of social agencies, millions of Americans who include charitable donations on the Schedule A that they attach to their federal income tax forms each year, not to mention churches and other not-for-profit agencies that include philanthropy among their missions — it is difficult to imagine why there are any unsolved problems for humanity in such a society. It would seem that the "love of mankind" is one of the dominant forces in the nation and that benefits to humanity should flow in abundance from the philanthropic world.

Unfortunately, such is not the case. In an earlier essay in this series, Nancy Stevenson pointed out with stark clarity the degree to which we have shortchanged our children — the portion of humanity that must be nourished, protected and provid-

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ed with motivation, values and their own sense of philanthropy if humanity is to survive ("A modest proposal: Raising children by barnyard standards," Illinois Issues, July 1994). Debates about education, assistance to families and to children, health issues, guns, smoking — almost any important social issue — rarely exhibit much "love of mankind" except for that small portion of mankind to which the debater may belong. In fact, it could be that our philanthropy is based more upon the purse than it is upon the heart and is, therefore, not really philanthropy at all. Lack of heart could be the problem that philanthropy must overcome if it is to have a major influence upon the social well-being of our nation and of the world in the 21st century.

If one does measure personal or institutional philanthropy solely in fiscal terms, two facts stand out. First, our society does provide a great deal of money to a variety of social service agencies through voluntary giving or through what we call philanthropy. Second, however, in spite of the volume of philanthropic giving, its inadequacy is clearly revealed.

Let us take higher education for a moment — not because it is the most important target for philanthropic concerns, but because some data are readily available. These data come from the Almanac Issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, an annual survey of information about colleges and universities in the United States published in September at the start of each academic year. As this decade began, public and private colleges and universities in the United States were receiving from all sources and spending about $160 billion each year. About $11 billion of that amount came from voluntary support from alumni, other individuals, corporations, foundations, religious organizations and other organizations. Interestingly enough, the annual budget of the University of California system is about $11 billion, so all of the voluntary support for higher education combined could support that one system. In short, as important as philanthropy is in higher education, it represents only about 7 percent of the income that higher education receives.

Similar comparisons can be made in every social service field in the nation. Philanthropy is important, but philanthropy in dollar terms is insignificant when compared to the funds poured into the field by government at every level. Our taxes are far more philanthropic in dollar terms than are our donations.

Incidentally, the fastest growing segment of philanthropy is in "charity gambling." This segment includes bingo games, casino nights and the like, but does not include state lotteries. In 1993, Americans bet more than $7 billion on charitable gambling — two-thirds the amount they contributed to higher education. As a result of all of this "philanthropic activity," less than $1 billion actually went to charity because the remainder (about $6.25 billion) went to the operators and to the gamblers ("Charitable Gambling in U.S. Topped $7 Billion Last Year," Chronicle of Philanthropy, October 18, 1994). It is difficult to determine how much "love of mankind" is represented by this form of philanthropy.

Other data can be presented to indicate that as important as philanthropy is, it cannot be viewed as providing the solution in fiscal terms to any major social problem. Community foundations — important avenues for the expression of philanthropy in our cities and towns — in 1995 had total assets of about $10 billion. The five largest private foundations in the nation had combined total assets of between $15 billion and $20 billion. In 1993, about three-fourths of all American households gave to charity with annual giving per household equaling $646 or 1.7 percent of current household income. About $400 of this average household gift went to religious organizations, with the second largest amount ($74) going to educational institutions. If one adds up these numbers and others, it is clear that even the expenditure of all of the annual gifts of individuals plus all of the assets of philanthropic institutions would not come near to equaling the national bill for higher education, let alone the needs of other social service agencies.

This fact should not lead to the conclusion that philanthropy is both useless and hopeless. It is possible for a philanthropic institution to support activities that can and do point the way for both individuals and governments as they work to improve our society. The Mott Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, among others, have each designed and funded programs that have had a profound impact upon communities in the Midwest. In Chicago, such organizations as the Joyce Foundation, the Chicago Community Trust and the Wieboldt Foundation have designed and supported creative and forward-looking community action programs. Philanthropic institutions have the freedom to experiment, to dream and to assist those who are experimenting, dreaming and taking action. Too often, however, philanthropy becomes trapped in its own bureaucracy and in the preservation of its own precedents and procedures, thereby losing its opportunities to provide creative leadership. If, however, the funds available to philanthropy are not adequate to solve society's problems, they are sufficient, if used wisely, to provide stimulating examples and case studies of efforts to solve those problems — efforts which might then be adopted by and funded by government agencies which have greater fiscal, if not creative, resources.

So what are we to say about philanthropy? Is it merely a nice gesture on the part of individuals and groups, but a gesture that is of little meaning today and probably of less meaning in the centuries to come? Would it not be more efficient simply to add a 1 percent or 2 percent charitable surcharge to the income tax of each head of household and distribute the funds with more systematic analysis than results from the random actions of millions of individuals? Perhaps those suggestions have merit if philanthropy is viewed only from a fiscal vantage point. But philanthropy should be much more than a simple transfer of funds from one person or agency to another. As a matter of fact, the definitions with which we began this essay made no mention of money at all. Recall that they spoke of "practical kindness and helpfulness" on behalf of a "love of mankind." Philanthropy is one of the few acts in our daily lives in which we can express a love for and a concern about our fellow human beings.

Recently, I participated in a "think tank" (a horrible expression) concerned with "Grantmakers at the Millennium: New Roles in a Changing World." The 20 members of the group were mostly from private and corporate foundations of varying size. Each of us was asked to write down the most significant grant that we could recall from our grantmaking experience. The results were amazing. I, who for years had headed a $3 billion foundation making nearly $150 million in grants

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annually, recalled a $5,000 grant made to a group of Chicago parents of children born with Down's Syndrome. They were organizing a national WATS service to assist parents and physicians of newborn Down's children by providing information, hope and support in a personal and loving and direct way.

As I recalled this grant, I also recalled my great and good Chicago friend, Dr. Effie Ellis, who died in 1994. Effie was a small, energetic, impassioned black physician of indeterminate age who throughout her life had been concerned with the quality of life of all human beings. Her particular concern was the pre-and neo-natal care of teenage mothers and of their children. I met her at the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois, and we became close friends. Jim Sammons, then head of the American Medical Association, and I established a small fund through our philanthropic organizations in support of Effie's work. Her major need? She wanted a few dollars so that when she got a dozen or so young girls together she could buy them a good lunch as they talked about the needs of their unborn children then and in the future. Our small grants to this dedicated woman helped touch the lives of thousands of people in Chicago and made society a kinder place for young people who needed help.

Independently and without consultation among ourselves, each member of the "think tank" had written down or recalled similar small, personalized grants rather than one of the massive and impersonal grants in which we had been involved. I was quite proud of our group during that session because the "better half of philanthropy, the "love and caring" half, had carried the day. It was also a fact that the grants we recalled did not permit someone to "buy" a solution to a problem, but helped provide the means through which some individual or group could "do something" about a problem. These grants actually supported individual acts of "practical kindness and helpfulness" and thus supported real, nonfiscal philanthropy. Neither the parents of Down's children nor Dr. Ellis were paid for what they did; their acts came from loving concern for fellow human beings who needed kindness and help.

Any thoughtful analysis of the problems that we face today, that we have faced in the past and that we will probably face in the future reveals that a major source of any social problem — whether it involves a marriage, community, nation or world society — is our inability to act upon the requirements of a "love for mankind." Philanthropic acts give each of us an opportunity to express our concern for and our willingness to do something practical on behalf of our fellow citizens in this world. Without philanthropy, we may from time to time pay lip service to the better elements of our human nature, but we do not need to sit down and purposely do something on behalf of those better elements. None of the high-technology dreams so prevalent in today's world — the information superhighway, the elimination of a number of congenital disabilities through genetic manipulation, the creation of new pharmaceuticals from both laboratory and natural sources to prevent and/or to treat disease, and similar real or imagined breakthroughs — will lead to a tranquil, productive, high-quality society for the 21st century if we do not accompany each of those opportunities with the philanthropic spirit — with the love of mankind and with the commitment to do real things on behalf of that love.

That spirit will lead those of us in Illinois who live downstate to want to do something to alleviate the problems facing those of us who live in Cabrini-Green in Chicago. That spirit will lead those of us in Illinois who are not parents to want to do something to ensure that all of the children of Illinois are fed, healthy and well educated. That spirit can change our legislative sessions in Illinois from mean-spirited, partisan games to meetings in which a desire to act in a practical way upon a love of mankind is paramount.

Philanthropy, in that sense, is not something that might be nice in the century ahead; it is something that is essential if the century ahead is to be worthy of our real abilities as human beings. Giving of our dollars is important; giving of ourselves is something we have been forgetting to do, something that we need to relearn as more and more of us attempt to live together in our shrinking world. *

Dr. John E. Corbally is former president of the University of Illinois and former chief executive officer of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.


State of Illinois

A challenge for Illinois: Shaping the future

Fifth in a series of nine essays funded in part by the Illinois Humanities Council

This essay is part of a special series to be published from 1994 through 1996 by Illinois Issues. The premise of the series is that our major institutions have an inadequate understanding of the profound changes that are challenging today's leaders. Consequently, our institutions are not addressing current issues effectively and seem incapable of looking to the future creatively. Illinois Issues has asked a group of distinguished Illinois leaders and thinkers to address, within their areas of expertise, how this problem is being played out in our major institutions, including business, education, philanthropy, the law, organized religion and the family.

The series began in January 1994 with an essay by a noted historian who provided a historical perspective on the ways we misread the past. The essayist was Douglas Wilson of Knox College in Galesburg. Among the other writers involved in this project are William Clossey (see our January 1995 issue), Dolores Cross, Susan Getzendanner, Martin Marty, Nancy Stevenson and Sara Paretsky.

Several essays in this series — including this one by Corbally — are funded by the Illinois Humanities Council.

The editors

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