Seeking to plug a budget gap without raising taxes, Kalamazoo secured millions from two donors. Experts however caution there are risks from donors’ potential influence to shape public policy
KALAMAZOO — When Mayor Bobby Hopewell approached one of the city’s wealthiest patrons about helping plug a looming budget gap, he received an unusual response.
“He told me we were not thinking big enough,” Hopewell said of his series of meetings this spring with William D. Johnston, a personal friend and chairman of a privately held wealth management company.
Those conversations turned into one of the nation’s most unusual philanthropic initiatives, officially unveiled last month and poised to help remake government finances in the southwest Michigan city of 74,000. It also could set a precedent for a new type of government funding. …
… Aaron Dorfman, president and CEO of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, which bills itself as the nation’s only independent watchdog of foundations, said he’s concerned about the personal benefit to the donors of such a large gift.
“Would the donors be better off making a donation rather than having to take a tax hit” from a future income tax?” Dorfman said. “If so, that’s no way to do policy.”
It”s all part of the inherent danger “when donors decide what should be a democratic decision,” he said.
Leave a Reply