Gara LaMarche has been a respected grantmaker for many years, first at the Open Society Institute and later at Atlantic Philanthropies. In this essay, he recounts the doubts he had “about the legitimacy of philanthropy in its engagement with the democratic process.” …
… LaMarche acknowledges that one of the ways that potential critics of philanthropic power evade the issue is by considering what the foundation grant dollars are being used for. If the grantmaking of George Soros’s Open Society Foundations or Charles Feeney’s Atlantic Philanthropies was being used for positive social change, such as universal health coverage, perhaps progressives might convince themselves to overlook the discomfort of the privatized power behind the grantmaking. It leads to a critique that focuses not on the private control of philanthropy, but on the uses of grant dollars. LaMarche, a board member of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, notes that NCRP belies that only seven percent of foundations spend 25 percent or more of their grantmaking budgets on social justice issues. “That leaves,” LaMarche says, “the vast bulk of American philanthropy focused on safer things that do little to affect the titanic issues of inequality, poverty, human rights, and environmental degradation.” Few foundations, he adds, have focused on helping build or expand “a more democratic base of support” for social justice issues. (Full disclosure: this writer was once the executive director of NCRP.)
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