No Good Deed . . .
EDITORIAL No Good Deed . . . Lately we’ve been hearing that California has been restored to its historic position as harbinger of America’s political future. Let’s hope not. On January 29, in a...
...If AB 624 becomes law, then, California once again will be the place where America’s political future happens...
...The logical response to donor fl ight is, of course, to nationalize disclosure requirements...
...This sample is “by no means representative” of the foundation sector at large, the Greenlining authors admit...
...the “number of grants and percentage of grant dollars” awarded to groups serving “specifi ed communities...
...It does not create racial quotas for grant making and employment...
...and ¶the “number of grants and percentage of grant dollars” awarded to groups “where the grantee’s board of directors and/or staff” belong to “specifi ed groups...
...we hear the next targets likely will be New York and Illinois, and that Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee are interested...
...Or that “fi ve independent foundations” studied by the Greenlining Institute awarded “no grants” to “minority-led organizations...
...The study Coto has in mind is “Fairness in Philanthropy” (2005) by the Berkeley-based Greenlining Institute, the sort of place that bestows a “profi le in courage” award on Representative Barbara Lee for casting the lone vote in opposition to authorizing the use of force against al Qaeda and the Taliban back in 2001...
...Did you know, for example, that “independent foundations awarded only 3 percent of grant dollars and 4.3 percent of grants to minority-led organizations” in 2002...
...Which “groups” and “communities” are “specifi ed...
...How many grantees fi t these criteria the report’s authors do not say...
...AB 624 “does not require foundations to invest in minority communities,” writes Assemblyman Joe Coto...
...Both studies purport to reveal, in “alarming” detail, a “dramatic philanthropic divide” between “minorityled nonprofi ts” and “non-minority-led” nonprofi ts...
...His offi ce says he has “no position...
...And that is yet another reason to oppose the bill...
...One thing the Greenlining study does prove is that a lot of information about the demographic composition of foundations and grantees is out in the open already...
...So AB 624 properly should be understood as an attempt to make easier the work of outfi ts like the Greenlining Institute...
...In other words they spent a lot of time trolling the web checking out the color of people’s skin...
...And they did so at a time when those organizations were not required by California state law to disclose such information on an annual basis...
...The authors of “Fairness in Philanthropy” examined data from the “top 50 independent foundations and the top 25 community foundations by total giving in 2002...
...Such data are necessary because foundation “grant making and governance” suffer from a “lack of diversity...
...AB 624 is expected to pass the California Senate, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may even sign it into law...
...What is the position of the Southern California chapter of the ACLU on legislation that would force private foundation diversity offi cers to run around each year asking employees whether they like girls or boys...
...The legislation’s author says that his intentions are benign...
...A minority-led organization,” the authors of “Fairness in Philanthropy” write, “is one whose staff is 50 percent or more minority...
...If it reaches his desk, Governor Schwarzenegger should veto this bill...
...We don’t have a position,” says a spokesman...
...Whereupon they investigated whether or not those groups were “minority-led...
...Let’s leave aside, however, the numerous questions that Joe Coto’s bill and the Greenlining Institute’s research raise involving donor intent and the role of foundations in American society...
...It’s also largely unnecessary...
...A number of studies” say so, he declares...
...This gratuitous and unprecedented imposition on the nonprofi t sector has been met with surprisingly little opposition...
...whose board of directors is 50 percent or more minority...
...The United States is a multiracial, multiethnic country, but the combined numbers of “blacks,” “Hispanics,” and “Asians” equal only about a third of the total population...
...Emphasis in the original...
...Assemblyman Coto’s bill is based on seriously fl awed research...
...You could have a foundation whose chairman was a minority, or whose board and staff were both 49.99 percent minorities, and it still wouldn’t qualify as a “minority-led organization” in the Greenlining Institute’s view...
...And how will California’s minorities—and Californians generally—be served by that...
...What counts as a “minority-led” group...
...AB 624’s vague language notwithstanding, the required information must be “posted on each private foundation’s Internet website” and published in its “annual report...
...Now, “in some cases, this information was not available,” the authors of “Fairness in Philanthropy” disclose— in those cases, it should be noted, where foundations and their grantees didn’t fi nd any particular reason to share their demographic makeup with others...
...What AB 624 won’t make any easier is charitable giving in California...
...The legislation does not say, though that whole bit about “race, gender, and sexual orientation” offers a clue...
...No, Coto’s legislation is a “simple attempt” to require foundations to “disclose key data related to diversity on an annual basis...
...Except that such a future—where an entire sector of the economy is brought under the purview of diversity bean-counters—is a place where we don’t want to live...
...On January 29, in a party-line vote, Democrats in the California Assembly approved AB 624, which requires “every private, corporate, and public operating foundation” with “assets over $250 million” to disclose, “among other things”: ¶the “race, gender, and sexual orientation” of its board of directors and staff...
...No one should want to make the lives of racial mau-mauers any easier...
...And let’s leave aside the insidious racial essentialism that plagues all such bills and studies—the idea that only “minority-led organizations” are able to serve the interests of minority populations...
...Indeed, the Greenlining Institute aims to do exactly that...
...The “50 percent or more minority” number is therefore entirely un-representative...
...It is true that they occasionally ran into trouble: “If an organization did not have a website,” the report states, “researchers called the organization to gather information about the ethnic makeup of board and staff members...
...Also, it’s ridiculously high...
...Using subscriberbased databases like Guidestar, the researchers compiled a list of the groups to whom foundations were awarding grants...
...The Washington, D.C.-based Philanthropy Roundtable, along with former Stanford law dean and NAACP lawyer Paul Brest, oppose the bill on the grounds that it will actually drive foundations out of the Golden State, as donors who do not want to expose grantees to the onerous reporting burden spend their money elsewhere...
...Historically, foundations have been free to direct money wherever they want, as long as it is being spent on genuinely charitable purposes...
...To determine if the grantee met Greenlining’s defi nition of minority-led,” write the authors of “Fairness in Philanthropy,” “researchers conducted web-based and media searches to collect demographic data on staff members, boards of directors, charitable programs, and organizational missions of listed grantees...
...Instead, let’s just take a cursory look at the methodology by which the Greenlining Institute arrived at its “alarming” fi ndings...
...and whose mission statement and charitable programs aim to predominantly serve and empower minority communities or populations...
...Let’s also leave aside the false argument that the government is legally permitted to require race, gender, and sexual orientation disclosure on the basis of the foundation sector’s tax exemption, which is like saying that because the IRS allows you a mortgage deduction it also gets to know everything that’s going on in your house...
...And they probably can’t say, because if they did they would reveal that the fi x was in from the start...
...Matthew Continetti, for the Editors...
...It’s not as if California’s privacy-rights community is concerned...
...And there will be no exceptions...
...the “percentage of . . . contracts” awarded to businesses owned “by specifi ed groups...
...In 2006, the Greenlining folks followed up “Fairness in Philanthropy” with “Investing in a Diverse Democracy: Foundation Giving to Minority-Led Nonprofi ts...
Vol. 13 • February 2008 • No. 23
