Philanthro-capitalism and universities: Enabler or ossifier?
This month Paul Vallely’s book Philanthropy: from Aristotle to Zuckerberg has been released and has put into the public arena some challenging reflections about what is genuine philanthropy.
Paul Vallely is a respected commentator and researcher and is well placed to undertake this comprehensive study. Much of his career was spent as a journalism reporting in trouble spots, that included the Ethiopian famine of 1984. He went on to serve as an author Tony Blair’s Commission on Africa report published in 2005.
“Elite philanthropy is about elite causes” he writes, and Mr Vallely uses support to higher education to evidence this. Rather than making the world a better place, he suggests, current high net worth philanthropy reinforces the existing status quo.
Is he right? Well, from research we have conducted and continue to publish on UnversityPhilanthropy.com Paul Vallely is absolutely right. Elite philanthropy tends to benefit elite institutions.
To Mr Vallely’s main point, higher education philanthropy is dominated by giving to Ivy League institutions and OxBridge in the UK. This is beyond dispute. From our research of philanthropic giving to universities primarily by the big foundations in the US and UK
The author Vallely writes “In the UK, in the 10-year period to 2017, more than two-thirds of all millionaire donations – £4.79bn – went to higher education, and half of these went to just two universities: Oxford and Cambridge.” The basis for this appears to be the Coutts Million Pound Donors Report, a study undertaken by the Centre of Philanthropy at the University of Kent and which has been published annually over the past decade. Their research supports Paul Vallely’s withering conclusion – as does ours.
Certainly it is the case that in our research undertaken of UK and US university philanthropy, a number of elite institutions are repeated beneficiaries. Our research has been less focused on high net worth individuals and millionaires and their giving practices, rather established philanthropic foundations and trusts, many of them have a long pedigree in giving. These include institutions such as Carnegie, Ford, Mellon, Rockfeller and Wellcome. The elite beneficiaries are Ivy League institutions such as Harvard and, in the UK, Oxford.
Old school philanthropic foundations appear to uphold old school giving habits shaped by decades of giving behaviours. Indeed, the reinforcing of “elite” institutions also plays out in Africa. The University of Cape Town is – by many leagues – the favoured place for university philanthropy in Africa. The University, probably Africa’s best resourced higher education institution - is the biggest African recipient of giving in the past five years by Carnegie Mellon, Rockefeller, Wellcome and the second biggest Africa recipient by Ford.
Even more recent philanthropy entrants - often considered “progressive” by their admirers – such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations follow this pattern of giving. In the past five reported years, Harvard is the fourth biggest beneficiary of Gates giving and the second biggest of Soros giving. In the UK, Oxford has been the biggest beneficiary of both foundations’ university philanthropy. Equally in Africa the University of Cape Town is the biggest beneficiary of Gates’ university giving in Africa (although it ranks number 5 in Open Society’s Africa giving).
In all this, the question which Paul Vallely puts to his reader, is what is the purpose of philanthropy? Funders such as Gates would point to the fact that elite institutions are often the home to the best researchers where scientific progress – which will benefit humanity – can be achieved faster than funding institutions with less scientific capacity. In that sense philanthropy – or philanthrocapitalism – can be deemed as well placed. The downside to this is that such philanthropic giving patterns do not help advance greater social equality nor help universities particularly in the developing world to build their schools of expertise our output.
The unpalatable conclusion, perhaps, is that the current culture of philanthropy appears to ossify, rather than serve as a change agent for universities and higher education. But as I set out in my previous blog University Challenge: The next generation of philanthropists we appear to be on the cusp of significant change in philanthropy and giving patterns.