Twenty years ago, two scholars and I launched the Good Work Project, a study of what constitutes “good work” in various vocations. Our research sought to illuminate how we train people to do good and how we reward those who carry out their work in impressive ways.
One day Mihály Csíkszentmihályi — a psychologist working with William Damon and me — began to wonder whether philanthropy is, or should be, a profession. In pondering this question, he made use of one tool of our research enterprise: the way in which we have classified jobs.
According to our terminology, a field is any organized occupation in which there are participants, career paths, and gatekeepers that decide who can participate and who gets rewarded.
A domain entails a higher bar. A domain is a part of society dedicated to the pursuit of a clear set of values — values that are publicly stated, carefully monitored, and directed toward a recognized public good.
Mihály mused that the philanthropic enterprise should be considered a field but not a domain, at least not yet.
Let me explain this distinction. Any occupational area can be a field, but in our study, we restricted the use of the word “domain” to organized professions. In 19th-century America, it was relatively easy to call oneself a lawyer or a doctor; the field was wide open. In the 20th century, these fields became professionalized: There were clear standards of preparation, a set of ethical principles, and specific or explicit criteria by which one could be ostracized — barred — from the profession or domain.
Nowadays, almost any vocation — from barber to beekeeper — can call itself a profession and, accordingly, surround itself with the appropriate paraphernalia.
My colleagues and I prefer to reserve the description “profession” for those vocations that fulfill a number of requirements. According to sociologists of the professions, those include: a core set of values that entail service to the broader society; extensive training with certification by knowledgeable instructors; ability to make and defend complex, disinterested decisions under conditions of uncertainty; and, crucially, the possibility of decertification if these requirements are violated.
Law and medicine clearly qualify; journalism can be thought of as an aspiring profession; individuals in arts, crafts, and business can be admirable, but they are not professionals.
In philanthropy, it seems that anyone can call herself a philanthropist or (to use a term sometimes in vogue) a philanthropoid — the latter being someone who gives away money accumulated by someone else. As long as one obeys the law, has an office, and dresses in a suit, one cannot be expelled from the practice of philanthropy. It is a field but not a domain; a vocation, not a profession.
But clearly many people would like to place philanthropy solidly within the professions. Before we consider this possibility, it’s first advisable to examine current instantiations of philanthropy. I discern four forms.
Charity. In this oldest form, one gives money or other kinds of support to those most clearly in need: those who are ill, destitute, or helpless.
Standard “SOB” Support. Much of philanthropy consists of supporting community organizations that have traditionally relied on such support. The playful acronym “SOB” refers to symphonies, opera, and ballet. I would extend that characterization to other activities and organizations — many of them worthy — that have been around for a long time: annual community drives, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders. One does not need to scrutinize their activities annually; barring scandal, one assumes that these well-known “do-good” organizations are going about their work in a reasonable manner.
Needed and appreciated though these two forms of philanthropy may be, those who practice them lack strong claims on being professionals.
My own experience as a researcher has led me to ponder two other forms. One was dominant decades ago; the other has come to the fore in recent years. I’ll describe them in sharply contrasting ways — as what we social scientists call “ideal types.”
Accountability. In this form of philanthropy, donors and recipients agree on a goal, and a precise strategic plan is laid out: the means for realizing the target; the milestones along the way; and the ways that these can be measured. To be sure, there can be slack or branches in the plan, but unless there is a well-worked-out game plan, an applicant will not even be considered. Think McKinsey; think Boston Consulting Group.
Taste. In this variety, grant makers and recipients agree broadly on a question to be answered or a problem to be solved. There can be steps along the way, even designated measures. But by and large, the project is seen as a work in progress. It’s assumed that the recipients are thoughtful and committed individuals and will keep in regular touch with the donors. However, it’s understood as well that the project — indeed, even the question to be pursued or the shape of the goal — may well change, and that change, while not anticipated, may be appropriate and commendable.
Like Artists in Workshops
Returning to the question at hand: What does it take to be a profession? Beyond question, it’s much easier to train individuals in the accountability form. Philanthropists of that stripe require business, financial, and strategic acumen; they are expected to observe and honor the ways in which they have been trained; both they and the beneficiaries of their due diligence know where they stand and what needs to be done. The proper training is likely to include attending one or more professional schools and then ascending the ranks in an organization committed to process and accountability.
In contrast, in the taste form of philanthropy, the practitioner resembles a curator. The philanthropist reviews various priorities; considers the credentials, track record, and cogency of the grant request and requester; and makes a considered judgment about what should be financed and under what conditions, if any, support might be cut off.
So instead of professional school, these donors are groomed much as artists are in their workshops.
As Mihály Csíkszentmihályi expresses it, “Philanthropy resembles artistic domains: People are joined by a common goal but left free to change and improvise the means of reaching this goal.”
And, as in the arts, one becomes an excellent philanthropist much like one becomes an expert curator — by apprenticing oneself to individuals who themselves have accumulated excellent track records of philanthropic support and observing how they go about making choices, evaluating what they’ve chosen, interacting with grantees, and changing course or even fields.
Perhaps I can capture the difference between these varieties of philanthropy by recounting two personal experiences. First, about a decade ago, I attended a meeting where a well-known philanthropic leader, representing a foundation with billions of dollars, discussed the foundation’s shift from 20th-century grant making to contemporary approaches. “No more betting blindly,” he declared. “From now on, we will know exactly what we are funding, whether we are succeeding, and how to cut our losses.” He was wildly cheered by the audience, composed of successful individuals drawn from several sectors of society.
I asked to speak. I acknowledged the appeal of the message he was delivering. But I added, “I’ve been raising funds for several decades. By most accounts, the work that I’ve done has been of quality. Under the ground rules that you outlined, I’d never have been able to raise a penny.” That’s because, in my own fundraising, I at most had a promising idea and a reasonable track record. But neither my colleagues nor I ever knew ahead of time what we would discover and how we would make sense of it.
Second, I thought back to words uttered by John Gardner, the Johnson administration cabinet secretary and a grant maker and activist whom many (including me) considered an outstanding philanthropist. In 1995, when my colleagues and I first described the aforementioned project that we wanted to undertake about vocations and professions. Mr. Gardner commented, “It’ll take you five years to figure out what you are trying to accomplish.” And then he helped us secure our first grant.
I’ve sharply contrasted two forms of philanthropy, but they need not be mutually exclusive. An aspiring philanthropist can be trained in both ways; indeed, a person with both management-consultant and apprentice training could become a very skillful dispenser of support (so long as he kept the aforementioned distinction in mind and did not attempt to merge these two philanthropic strands inappropriately). Perhaps, indeed, this would be one way to move philanthropy closer to a professional status.
Moreover, there are efforts to codify what it means to be a professional in the field of philanthropy, broadly conceived to include both those who seek and those who dispense support. Recently I examined the Code of Ethical Standards for the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Most of the 25 principles seem reasonable, if predictable. But I was struck by one of them: “Members shall recognize their individual boundaries of professional competence.”
As phrased, this point seems to presuppose what is meant by professional competence — be it on the part of one who seeks funds or one who dispenses them. My argument here, to be explicit, is that we still need to define that competence (or those competences!) and do so in such a way that some kind of supervising body could declare, with confidence, “You have violated the boundaries of professional competence; henceforth, you will no longer be allowed to identify yourself as a philanthropist.” We remain far from that point today.
More so than in other aspiring professions, people with great wealth (or those in charge of disbursing riches) are always making value judgments about what to support and how much support to give. As far as I can see, there is no way to remove this central element of philanthropy. And so while it certainly should be possible to make philanthropy more professional — more like excellent management consultancy, more like excellent curating, or an elegant synthesis of the two — I don’t expect to see the time when we will clearly consider philanthropy to be a full-fledged profession. Nor should we shed any tears: To be excellent at what one does is what matters, not how one classifies that work. We can certainly honor a great artist or curator, a great statesman or leader, without dubbing her a professional.
Howard Gardner is the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
