This article kicks off a series that will explore the ideas Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, advances in a new book, “From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel of Wealth.” Tomorrow, we’ll hear from Elizabeth Alexander, head of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, who answers questions posed by the Chronicle, and you’ll be able to watch video clips of remarks she made at a conference held by Ford to discuss Walker’s book. We hope readers will chime in with their own ideas about how to update the giving philosophy Andrew Carnegie advanced in his essays on wealth. Use our comments section to share your thoughts.
This series explores the ideas Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, advances in a new book, From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel of Wealth.
It’s no secret that our philanthropy is at an inflection point. As the cultural climate grows increasingly polarized — and gaps in wealth, access, and opportunity continue to widen — many people question what philanthropy’s role is and should be. Over the past couple of years, growing numbers of journalists, academics, and commentators have offered insightful, and sometimes incisive, critiques of philanthropy. In fact, many of these critical conversations have been happening in this very publication.
For example, not long ago, Edgar Villanueva, author of Decolonizing Wealth, discussed how structural racism and histories of oppression continue to shape modern philanthropy in his article “How Philanthropy Can Get Serious About Racial Healing.” Just Giving author Rob Reich called for greater transparency and equality in giving in “Give Everyone the Same Tax Incentive to Donate — Not Just the Rich.” And Anand Giridharadas, in Winners Take All, has notably called out philanthropic giving that purports to save the world while reinforcing systems that exacerbate inequity. These assessments, and others, ask what for all of us should be a pressing question: if philanthropy has its roots in some of our deepest structural problems, how can it be part of the solution?
That’s why, for some time now, I’ve been thinking about how philanthropy can and should respond to this moment, and to the inequality around us. In 2015, I revisited Andrew Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth,” which informed so much of the American philanthropy in the 20th century and fundamentally altered how the world thought about wealth and giving. What began as a modest reflection on modern philanthropy’s founding visionary sparked countless questions and conversations with others interested in our field. In time, these discussions inspired my book, From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel of Wealth, and a daylong session at the Ford Foundation this fall — as well as this series in partnership with the Chronicle of Philanthropy. [[video url="https://youtu.be/ctxC1r6dCE0" align="center” size="full-width” class="" starttime="" caption="" credits=""]]
Broken System
The ideas being discussed could not be more important in this season of giving. Since Carnegie wrote his essay, there’s no question that philanthropy has benefited millions of lives around the world. And yet, for all the good philanthropy has done, it remains “a creature of capitalism,” as Henry Ford II once put it. It is the product and beneficiary of a broken system that has produced the massive inequality we see today — without doing all that much to address the underlying issues.
Of course, philanthropy alone can’t fix the world’s economic and political systems. But I believe we must do better and meet our current challenges. We should ask ourselves: what if we reimagined Carnegie’s gospel for today, and for our future? What if we committed ourselves to changing the circumstances that create the need for charity in the first place? In short, what if we moved beyond generosity and toward justice?
To me, this shift isn’t about abandoning the work that philanthropy has done, and is doing, to combat issues of homelessness, hunger, displacement, and the like. Rather, it’s moving beyond tackling the symptoms of our problems and digging into their root causes to confront deeper systemic and structural issues. It demands that we empower undervalued and overlooked communities and engage them as partners, to help shape their own destinies. And it’s about building toward a future in which philanthropy, as we know it, becomes unnecessary.
Reason for Hope
After first writing about reimagining Carnegie’s gospel for the 21st century, I heard from people around the world who were excited about the promise of moving from generosity to justice — and, most important, willing to do the work. To write my book, I interviewed 22 leaders with a range of perspectives on philanthropy — Alice Walton, Mellody Hobson, Ken Frazier, David Rockefeller Jr., and many more — to help capture the breadth and potential of this movement. The more people I spoke to, the more I learned about what this work would require, and the more connections and resonances I began to see among the perspectives of these leaders who are running foundations old and new, and are on the ground and advocating for structural change. Together, it represents a movement in philanthropy: a movement toward justice.[[video url="https://youtu.be/0_e_6SL_l80" align="center” size="full-width” class="" starttime="" caption="" credits=""]]
In this series, you’ll hear from some of the already indispensable contributors to the New Gospel of Wealth efforts — the book, the event we held at Ford this fall, and the larger movement — as they reflect more deeply on their journeys and visions for the future of philanthropy.
Even though the road ahead will be challenging, these voices give me hope. They are proof there’s a burgeoning coalition of leaders committed to bringing justice to everything we do. And no matter your role, I hope their insights inspire you to join this conversation about how we can foster a more just world, and put justice at the center of our work.
