From time to time, the Carnegie Reporter explores issues relating to philanthropy. In this essay, noted broadcast and print journalist Ponchitta Pierce takes a personal look at how a group of prominent African Americans view philanthropic giving and examines the relationship of philanthropy and the black community in the United States.
At a time when African-American philanthropy proudly bears the distinctive stamp of its origins—notably, the key role traditionally played by black churches—it is also being transformed by a new class of ultra-wealthy donors. “We’re about to see an enormous breakthrough in philanthropic institutions being created by African Americans,” predicts Dr. Emmett D. Carson. “We may not be there yet, but we are poised,” says Carson, who heads the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which has $1.9 billion in assets and a mission to “strengthen the common good, improve quality of life and address the most challenging problems” throughout California’s San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
Pioneering industrialists John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford made a dynamic difference while they were alive, Carson observes, yet their posthumous impact, particularly through the foundations and other institutions they created, including Carnegie Corporation of New York, has been even more dramatic. Carson singles out Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, and a host of athletes, and entertainers as the first generation of what he calls “African-American affluents.”
Carson has been especially taken with money manager and chair of Fletcher Asset Management Alphonse Fletcher, who operated below the publicity radar until 2004, on the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, when he gave $50 million, to be awarded over a number of years, to endow scholarships that will advance the ideals of the decision. Fletcher has formed a committee, which includes Henry Louis Gates, Jr., director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, to help him decide on the most effective ways to disburse the funds. Fletcher intends for a portion of the money to support established institutions such as the Howard University School of Law, the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, but individuals doing innovative and committee work on improving race relations and related issues will likely benefit, as well. “Fletcher is the future,” says Carson, and he should know: when it comes to research on African-American philanthropy, Dr. Emmett Carson is the gold standard.
For African Americans, Carson explained during the course of a conversation with this reporter, philanthropy has been “a survival mechanism” almost from the beginning. At first, African-American philanthropy was characterized by aid from friends and neighbors during periods of crisis: a house that burned down, a passenger seeking safe haven on the Underground Railroad, a school or bank hungry for seed money. “These direct services were often channeled through the churches,” Carson notes. “At many points in our history we lacked access to the capital of mainstream society, so we have had to cultivate our own charitable resources to fuel our civic efforts. We have really had to do things on our own.”
Carson defines the second stage in the evolution of African-American philanthropy as taking shape in the late 1960s and 70s as represented by the National Black United Fund, which was founded in 1972 “to provide a viable, systematic, and cost efficient mechanism for black Americans to make charitable contributions to black American organizations engaged in social change, development, and human services.” For the first time, people were systematically donating money to causes and institutions that were not necessarily known to them personally, but that they believed would benefit the African American community as a whole.
“Now fast-forward to the year 2000 or 2001,” Carson continues, “and you see the third stage in the evolution, where wealthy African Americans are beginning to serve as donor advisors through community foundations—or even setting up philanthropic foundations of their own. Now consider what a difference it would make if only a fraction of wealthy African-Americans were to ask in the course of their estate planning, ‘How do I want to continue to be generous when I’m no longer here?’” Carson notes that since “wealthy people share an information network that differs from that of others” and have more access to financial advisors, it may be that today, distinctions among groups of people are based much more on class, than race, which may also be a contributing factor in planning for a philanthropic legacy.
Assessing the trends he sees emerging in African American philanthropy, Carson is thoughtful, suggesting that, “We have not used black philanthropy in the modern period to support social change nearly to the extent that we did in our earlier years.” Why is that? Carson suggests that perhaps it’s because in the past, blacks in America saw themselves as an oppressed community, and so their philanthropy reflected that sense—but today, successful Americans of every race have benefited from the nation’s economic progress and so, in many cases, seem less focused on systemic reform.
When asked if the problem, then, is that African Americans aren’t giving enough, Carson says, “I tell charitable organizations, ‘If people aren’t giving to you, it’s not because of them—it’s because of you.’ People today are generous, but charities must be more accountable: for instance, does your staff reflect the diversity of the broader community?” Citing specific examples, Carson points to a study of teen pregnancy in Newark, New Jersey that showed, despite the high teen pregnancy rates, Planned Parenthood lacked an office in that city. “How can you mount a campaign when you’re absent from the community?” he asks. And, “Heart disease is a leading cause of death for black men,” he notes, “but how many times have you seen an African American talking about heart disease on a billboard or a TV commercial?”
When asked about his own clear-eyed view of charitable giving, Carson, who has urged black philanthropists not to limit themselves exclusively to supporting black organizations or causes, explains, “My father always said, ‘You’ve got to rake the neighbors’ leaves, you’ve got to shovel their snow.’ By his own actions—helping the elderly neighbors on both sides—he demonstrated that voluntarism is just as sturdy a pillar of African-American philanthropy as giving money. Although I started working in philanthropy only later in my life, my father showed me that I had been a philanthropist all my life.”
How does it feel for someone so thoroughly steeped in the psychology of philanthropy to donate money from his own pocket? “It gives me a sense of satisfaction,” Carson replied without hesitation. “It’s comforting to think that a kid from the South Side of Chicago could become secure enough in his professional development—and in his family’s financial future—to support a cause he cares about without having to worry about eating the next day.
Building Blocks of Black Philanthropy
Among the keystone organizations that aim to institutionalize Black philanthropy, these are a few of the notables that have either emerged in recent years or endured for decades:
Association of Black Foundation Executives, founded in 1971, focuses on promoting “effective and responsive philanthropy in Black communities.” The organization supports initiatives aimed at strengthening “the effectiveness of philanthropic professionals and institutions whose priorities include addressing issues facing communities of the Black diaspora.”
The Twenty-First Century Foundation was created in 1971 as an endowed, national philanthropic institution that supports the civil rights, economic empowerment, and grassroots leadership of the African American community in the United States through its grantmaking and donor services. Its mission is to facilitate “strategic giving for black community change. Specifically, 21CF works with donors to invest in institutions and leaders that solve problems within black communities nationally.”
The National Black United Fund was founded in 1972 with a focus on the areas of “health, education, children, criminal justice, economic development, discrimination, and other systemic needs that shaped the quality of life for Black Americans.” Among its current concerns: “A restoration of philanthropic values must be introduced to a young Black American wealthy and affluent class, and systematic models and channels for philanthropic giving must be created for both traditional and new generations of Black American philanthropists.”
National Center for Black Philanthropy “conducts National Conferences on Black Philanthropy, which began in Philadelphia in 1997.” Today, the conferences feature “on average, over forty workshops, panels and plenary sessions exploring black participation in grant making, fundraising, individual giving, and faith-based philanthropy through the Historically Black Church.”
Of Social Networking and Net Worth
The setting was casual yet elegant: a summer dinner party in upscale Sag Harbor, on the shores of New York’s Long Island Sound. Japanese lanterns lit the garden and threw soft highlights on a pair of handsome Vietnamese vases while jazz played in the background and hot food beckoned from the buffet table. Many of the guests that evening were African Americans of achievement who knew one another from Manhattan. Eager to trade the hustle and bustle of the city for a weekend in the Hamptons, the partygoers seemed intent on relaxing and enjoying themselves.
I was among the partygoers. As I stood talking to friends, I heard someone ask, “Are you coming to my benefit?” The speaker was Reggie Van Lee, senior vice president in the New York office of Booz Allen Hamilton, and he was referring to the Evidence Dance Company, which holds two benefits—one in Bridgehampton and the other in New York City—each year. The next event, which was to be held in a week’s time, would feature a special program: a fusion of ballet, contemporary and African dance performed by Evidence’s eight-member dance troupe. Van Lee confided his hope that the benefit performance would raise $250,000 to $300,000—nearly quadruple the $80,000 the benefit had netted five years previously. He was expecting 400 benefit-goers, up from 75 just four years ago.
“In truth,” Van Lee told me, “I use every opportunity I get to plug my favorite cause.”
He wasn’t alone. Earlier that evening, I had heard Charlynn Goins reminding guests that her New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation theater benefit would be held later in the fall. Starring Sarah Jones, who took home a Tony for her one-woman Bridge and Tunnel show, the benefit had an ambitious fundraising goal of $300,000. Sponsors aimed to get there by charging $100 to $125 for the performance only, and a lofty $600 for cocktails, dinner, and the show. To anyone expressing interest in the event, Goins handed an envelope containing more details.
“I’m no fundraiser,” Goins told me, laughing. “I’m chairing this benefit because I couldn’t get anybody else to do it.”
Her words were an apt précis of what I was about to discover in the course of investigating the dynamics—and mechanics—of African-American philanthropy (or any other type of giving, for that matter): Whether you’re trying to get people to donate their money or their time, persuading them to step up to the plate can be a difficult task indeed.
During a weekend that summer in which cultural events competed with political fundraisers for African American support, I also visited the East Hampton home of well-connected Carl and Barbaralee Diamonstein, who were raising money for Congressman Charles B. Rangel (D-Harlem) and his political action committee. Still several months in the future was the Democratic groundswell that would sweep the Democrats back into power in Congress and hand Representative Rangel the reins of the House Ways and Means Committee, making him the most powerful African American on the national political scene. Even so, I was surprised at the sparse African American turnout at the fundraiser—and disappointed by the low percentage of black attendees who actually broke out their checkbooks.
I had come to the Hamptons as the weekend guest of Loida Nicolas Lewis, widow of Reginald Lewis, the financial guru whose nearly $1 billion leveraged buyout of TLC Beatrice had galvanized Wall Street in 1987. Not long after that coup, Lewis was being hailed as the wealthiest black man in America. It was a wealth tempered by generosity: among the many educational efforts Reginald Lewis undertook during his lifetime was to provide a $3 million endowment to the Harvard Law School, which named its international law center after him.
When a brain tumor felled Lewis prematurely at age 50, American finance and philanthropy lost a role model for African Americans all across the socioeconomic spectrum. The torch then passed to Philippine-born Loida Nicolas Lewis, who had married Reginald Lewis in 1968. It was time for Mrs. Lewis to make her own mark in the field.
Determined to keep her husband’s memory alive, Loida and her two daughters, Leslie Lewis Sword and Christina S. N. Lewis, pledged $5 million to the Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture in Baltimore, where Reginald Lewis had been born; it was renamed the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. The $5 million in private seed money donated by the Reginald F. Lewis Foundation ultimately helped to leverage $30 million in public funds from the state of Maryland. Indeed, since its doors opened in 2005, the museum has become a signature destination for city visitors—and an archetype of African American philanthropy.
“My husband taught me how to give,” Loida Lewis told me in the magnificent Fifth Avenue apartment she once shared with Reginald Lewis. There wasn’t much money in the early years of their marriage, Lewis recalled, but even then her husband insisted on sending Harvard an annual check for $10. As the Lewises prospered, those contributions—not only to Harvard, but to other institutions as well—steadily grew.
Today, Loida Lewis continues on as a philanthropist in her own right. One fundraiser she attended, a gala to benefit the Studio Museum in Harlem, brought out what Lewis dubs the “crème de la crème” of African American society. Thanks largely (but hardly exclusively) to the patronage of America’s black corporate elite—among them, American Express chairman and chief executive officer Kenneth Chennault; former chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, E. Stanley O’Neal; and Richard Parsons, chairman of the board and former CEO of Time-Warner—the benefit raised more than $1.5 million in the course of a single evening. “Wow, it broke a record!” she said, her pride and sense of achievement shining through. “That kind of thing is going to happen more and more,” she told me, noting that the audience was more than 90 percent African American.
From Citrus Grove to Capital Management
In Baltimore, I met another African-American philanthropist, investor Eddie C. Brown, and his wife, Sylvia. My visit to the elegant row house that holds the offices of Brown Capital Management told a tale of understated financial success. Peering out through one window, I caught a glimpse of the ultramodern Brown Center, the beneficiary of a $6 million contribution the Browns made to the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2003. The college contributed the remaining $14 million in costs.
“We don’t believe in buildings so much as in education,” Sylvia Brown told me with a shy smile. “I think I would have preferred for that gift to remain anonymous.” On the other hand, there is pride in the fact that this stellar building—a new city landmark—stands as a reminder to all city residents, minority children among them, of just how much a black man can achieve.
The source of that symbolism is Eddie Brown, a modest man who began his career as a portfolio manager and vice president at T. Rowe Price Associates in 1973. Nine years later, he launched his eponymous investment company. Today, Brown handles investments with a minimum entry of $20 million—all this accomplished by a man born to an unwed mother 66 years ago, then raised by his grandparents in a Florida farmhouse with no hot water or plumbing. Although Brown helped his grandfather pick oranges and grapefruits on the farm, his grandmother correctly sensed that better days lay ahead for her sharp young grandson. On a trip to Orlando, she pointed out to young Eddie every man she saw wearing a suit and tie. Education, she told him, was the ticket that would take him from the citrus groves to an office job.
The Browns’ business success has enabled them to establish a considerable art collection, with a primary focus on African American artists. In 2002, for example, they gave a partial gift of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bishop Benjamin Tanner to the Baltimore Museum of Art. In Brown’s office hangs another Tanner, The Three Wise Men, alongside an arresting sculpture by Edmonia Lewis, Rebecca at the Well, Edward Bannister’s Woodland Interior and Jacob Lawrence’s Genesis Series.
Oprah and Others
An African American donor particularly distinguished by both her wealth and her generosity is Oprah Winfrey, the television host who once famously opined that “The benefit of making money is to give it away.” When Winfrey traveled to South Africa in 2002 to deliver gifts to 50,000 children, she wound up adopting 10 children, ages 7 to 17, who had no parents or family. She placed them in private boarding schools and told readers she had hired caretakers to look after them.
Then she went to visit them—unannounced.
As Oprah related the scene in the December 2006 edition of her namesake magazine, she was shocked by what she saw of their newly adopted lifestyles: “When I sat them down in the living room for a conversation, everyone’s cell phone kept going off—the latest ‘razr’ model that costs about $500. That inner spark I was used to seeing in their eyes was gone, replaced by their delight in rooms full of things.”
Immediately, Oprah said, she realized she had given them too much. And she had not helped to instill the proper values to help them appreciate those gifts. “What I now know for sure,” she revealed in the pages of her magazine, “is that a gift isn’t a gift unless it has meaning. Just giving things to people, especially children, creates the expectation of more things.”
That disappointment didn’t prevent Winfrey from traveling to South Africa in January 2007 to open the $40 million Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in the hamlet of Henley-on-Klip, south of Johannesburg. The school received 3,500 applications for the 152 spaces available, but will eventually make room for 450 girls. Later in the year, Winfrey was reportedly devastated by the news that a dorm matron at the school had been arrested for abusing some of the students. Winfrey flew to South Africa to meet with school officials and parents, and many praised her for directly confronting the problem. Writing in the Lexington Herald-Leader, columnist Merlene Davis said, “The good coming out of this…is that those girls, who all have come from extreme poverty, have some idea of what a powerful woman looks like and what she stands for. So do those who no longer work at the academy.”
Another prominent African American donor is music impresario and entrepreneur Russell Simmons, who has contributed more than $10 million to various charities. He tells family and friends that he hopes his tombstone will say, “Here lies a philanthropist.” Yet another noted figure in the African American community, Tiger Woods, receives countless requests to donate his golf earnings to worthy causes, but he has opted to focus on building a learning center in California and another in Washington, D.C. where young people will find tools to further their education.
Magnanimity Enshrined in Arts and Culture
On September 26, 2007, the Smithsonian Institution, partnering with IBM, announced the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian’s 19th and newest museum. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the museum—in its current incarnation—is that it’s a virtual institution, existing at the moment only online, at nmaahc.si.edu. The physical museum—created by an Act of Congress in 2003—will be built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and is scheduled for completion in 2014. Its collections and educational programming will focus on slavery, post-Civil War Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights movement, among other issues and events.
Historian, author, curator and educator, Lonnie G. Bunch, III is the founding director of the museum, and is deeply involved in developing the museum’s mission, coordinating its fundraising and membership campaigns, and establishing its collections and cultural partnerships. If Bunch feels burdened by that responsibility, he doesn’t let on in person. On a balmy September morning not too long ago, I walked across the Mall in Washington, D.C., the gravel of the wide walkways crunching noisily beneath my feet, to visit Bunch in his office near the museum. Bunch’s ever-present smile and spontaneous bear hug embodied his contagious determination. He feels confident, for example, that in support of the museum, he is about to tap into a new, younger source of African American philanthropy.
“If my parents gave to the church,” he told me, “and my wife and I give to education, then my daughters—following their own interests—will cast their net even wider.”
If that’s the case, it may signal a marked departure from the experience, for example, that independent producer Margo Lion had fifteen years ago when she tried to raise money for “Jelly’s Last Jam,” starring Gregory Hines and directed by George Wolfe of the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival. The musical brought to life the controversial turn-of-the-century New Orleans jazz musician Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, yet Lion was able to attract very few African American investors. Seeing investment in the theater as a barometer for raising money, she told me, “I’m interested in where African American philanthropists—or perhaps I should say those in a position to be philanthropic—feel their money could best be applied. What projects are they most interested in supporting?”
We were speaking in Lion’s cozy office at the St. James Theater on New York’s Theater Row. The office overflowed with mementos of her many stage successes, among them “Hairspray,” “Elaine Stritch at Liberty,” “Angels in America,” and “The Crucible.” In her latest coup, Lion brought the August Wilson play “Radio Golf” to Broadway in May 2007.
For all her obvious éclat, Lion has found it challenging to raise large contributions from African American donors. “Broadway is always risky,” she muses, “but August Wilson was a great figure in the history of dramatic literature, and ‘Radio Golf’ had received great reviews all over the country. Wilson was writing for all America, but the fact remains that this is a play abut black Americans, and I was frustrated by the lack of support for it.” Lion acknowledges that there might not be a rich history of theatergoing among African Americans—the 2002 National Endowment for the Arts Survey of Public Participation in the Arts reported African American attendance at non-musical plays at under seven percent—but she feels that the financial barriers to that particular cultural tradition are falling. “Surely there are many African Americans who have the money, no?”
Grassroots Giving
Does all this high-profile activity mean that only well-known players are making an impact in the world of African American philanthropy? Far from it. Individual donors—including those with modest lifetime earnings—can make a difference, and often a disproportionate one. For example, there is Oseola McCarty, the 87-year-old laundress, who gave her life savings of $150,000 to the University of Mississippi for scholarships. She said of her gift, “I’m giving it away so the children won’t have to work so hard, like I did.” In many ways, McCarty reflects the bedrock role that African American women have long played in philanthropy, whether it was enacted by the Links, a membership organization of 12,000 professional women of color that also supports programs and services aimed at improving the quality of life for African Americans; the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, founded in 1913 by twenty-two collegiate women at Howard University to promote academic excellence and to provide assistance to persons in need, and which, with a current membership of over 200,000, continues to work toward advancing human welfare; or the National Council of Negro Women, “a voluntary nonprofit membership organization helping women of African descent to improve the quality of life for themselves, their families and communities.”
As Emmett Carson likes to point out, “It’s not the amount you have—it’s focusing that resource on what you care about.”
Numerous studies seem to back up that notion: low-income people tend to give a larger percentage of their disposable income to charitable organizations than do the rich. America, in particular, seems to have developed what Carnegie Corporation of New York president Vartan Gregorian has termed “a culture of giving.” A recent study by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University adds more evidence, reporting that the average American donates 2.6 percent of his or her income. When it comes to giving by blacks specifically, a Chronicle of Philanthropy report reveals that blacks give 25 percent more of their discretionary income to charity than do whites. For instance, blacks who make between $30,000 and $50,000 give an average of $528 annually, compared with $462 donated by whites in the same income range.
That model of grassroots generosity is one familiar to many African Americans. It certainly underlies the story Charlynn Goins, chairperson of the board of directors for the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, told me about her husband’s dream of attending medical school. After confiding those hopes to his own physician, Dr. Aurelious King, Warren Goins was admitted to Howard University Medical School in 1959. Goins worked his way through all four years on what he thought were academic scholarships. In his second year of medical school he found out through documents the school had sent him that Dr. King was paying those tuition bills.
That story is readily understood by Loida Lewis, who remarks that the “sub-rosa generosity” of African-Americans often renders it invisible to larger or different communities. For example, “The white community probably did not—could not—fully understand the community where my husband grew up,” she observes. “African Americans have always been giving—but not necessarily in a very public manner. They’ve sent their nieces or nephews to school, or they’ve paid the overdue rent for an uncle or aunt or best friend. There’s a similar dynamic at work in the Philippine-American community, where philanthropy is spontaneous, small-scale, and not splashily publicized. Because it takes place beneath the radar, the philanthropic associations tend to discount it. But the fact of the matter is that giving is going on in the African American community.”
Charity Begins at…College?
A more typical historical target of African-American fundraising has been the educational institution, often singled out by individual donors. At board meetings for Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans—which, among other accomplishments, is distinguished by its high number of outstanding pharmacy graduates—I listened as the college’s development officer described Xavier’s struggle to raise enough money to cover its annual budget of around $90 million. In l999-2000, the university received major grants from the Kresge and the Southern Education foundations to enhance their development program. In 2006, Xavier received a $4 million grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to help revitalize higher education in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. (Tulane and Dillard universities received Corporation funding for the same purpose.)
In December 2006, the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian award—was conferred on Dr. Norman C. Francis, who has served as president of Xavier for more than 40 years, for his “steadfast dedication to education, equality, and service to others,” and in recognition of his work as Chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, in which he played “a vital role in helping the people of the Gulf Coast rebuild their lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.”
In a wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Francis constantly touched on the moral responsibility of raising money to help the university achieve its educational mission. His face lit up as he retraced the last half-decade—banner years for Xavier University in terms of alumni giving. “My parents and the families around us had to focus their time and resources on raising children and holding down jobs,” Dr. Francis remarked. “Today’s college graduates have different priorities. A crucial dimension of their lives is to give back to the institutions that played a significant part in their growth and development. I’m thrilled to see Xavier graduates responding to our needs; [their contributions] tell me black philanthropy is flourishing.
Making a Leap of Faith
Although a handful of naysayers continued to contend that philanthropy has yet to gain serious traction within the black community, it’s a matter of historical record that African Americans have always generously supported their churches, their schools, and their families.
“When I was growing up,” Norman Francis recalls, “I watched people with very small incomes give to their churches. Religion was close to them. If there was one sustainable part of their lives, they knew it had to be their church. ‘God will take care of you in times of need,’ they believed. ‘The bread you give up today will come back to you tomorrow.’ My Neighbor is not just that person next door—he is any human being in need.”
Indeed, writes LaTasha Chaffin in “Philanthropy and the Black Church,” “Historically, the Black church has been a core institution for African-American philanthropy. The Black church does not only serve as a faith-based house of worship, but it facilitates organized philanthropic efforts including meeting spiritual, psychological, financial, educational and basic humanitarian needs such as food, housing, and shelter. Black churches are also involved in organizing and providing volunteers to the community and in civil and human rights activism.”
If the black church has not historically matched the endowment and special-giving levels of other faiths, Reverend Tom Watson, pastor of the Greater New Orleans Council of Black Ministers, suggests that it is only because the members of its congregations have lagged commensurately in individual wealth. “We still have a long way to go,” he notes, in terms of overall economic disparity.
Reviewing the keystone role played by black churches, Reverend Watson also notes how it has served as a path to leadership for many notable African Americans, including, of course, Dr. Martin Luther King. “We didn’t own a lot of businesses,” says Watson, “except, perhaps, for the occasional franchise, so the institution we relied on as our wedge into large-scale political participation was the black church.”
As African Americans do, increasingly, join the ranks of the American middle and upper class, the role of the black church in terms of charity and philanthropy seems to be changing as well. “The strongest black churches, “notes Watson, “are led by the black middle and upper classes, which have become larger and more educated. These institutions have strong constituencies, and their congregations understand the role played by philanthropy because the economy has allowed them to participate in it.”
Should African Americans Give More?
Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, the civil rights champion-turned-Harvard-academic (he is professor of psychiatry and faculty associate dean for student affairs at Harvard Medical School, as well as director of the Media Center of the Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston) told me about a fundraiser given in his honor and chaired by Bill Cosby. It netted about $170,000—a tidy sum considering that the donors were far from wealthy, and that their average gift was $1,000. This was certainly an example of generous giving—but at the same time, Dr. Poussaint said that he felt torn. In his mind, at least, African Americans can and should be doing much more on the front lines of philanthropic giving.
Dr. Poussaint says he sometimes thinks that “African Americans don’t have enough commitment to charitable giving, even though it works in their behalf. There’s also a trace of suspicion: ‘Will my money be used right?’ And then there’s the reluctance to hand over money that might be better used for something else.”
When I asked Dr. Poussaint to diagnose the current state of African American philanthropy in America, he said, “It has to improve, because right now, it’s not sufficient to support our organizations. We can do much, much better. Indeed, it’s crucial for African Americans to give more.” In his opinion, many programs meant to benefit blacks show an over-reliance on corporate support, as opposed to the sort of grassroots funds that might be raised from the black community. He draws an analogy to black businesses that fail in the black community because the latter neglects to support the former.
Especially damaging, said Poussaint, is when scandals enter the picture—when some major religious figure gets convicted for embezzling funds from his own church, for example. “People read about scandals like that and worry about whether their money was simply paying that official’s fat salary.”
“People like to see results,” Poussaint continues. “What did you accomplish? What victories have you had? What are you going to use this money for in the future? Some people prefer programs in which their money funds ‘general operating expenses,’ but that sounds just unacceptably vague to me.” Where should African Americans concentrate their giving, then? “The needs in the black community are so great,” Poussaint answers, “that in the beginning you should help take care of your own.”
Pouissant’s detractors might well disagree, pointing out that giving takes many forms within the African American community. Though some are perhaps not nearly generous enough—a charge often leveled at black athletes and entertainers raking in millions of dollars—others are generous to a fault. And, as noted earlier in this article, many blacks whose income is hardly even near the “wealthy” range tend to be steady and dedicated givers.
Generation Next: The Future of Philanthropy
Mention the name “Vernon Jordan” and not everyone will call to mind his wife, Ann Dibble Jordan. Yet she is a powerhouse in her own right, chairing or sitting on the boards of corporations and nonprofits alike—among them, the National Symphony Orchestra, public television station WETA (Washington D.C.’s PBS affiliate), the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, Sasha Bruce Youthwork, and Catalyst. This year, Jordan retired from the boards of Citigroup, Johnson & Johnson, and ADP, after long years of service.
Some observers see Ann Jordan as a “philanthropic influential”—someone who can wield her fiscal expertise to benefit select worthy causes; a person strategically positioned to broker connections between donors and recipients. She doesn’t deny it. “You have to use what resources you can,” she said to me, laughing. “We all reach out to our friends, who we think can help us or introduce us to other people in pursuit of a worthwhile cause.”
Corporate America has become a stakeholder in African American philanthropy, Jordan believes, but at the same time “we always want to see more.” Looking forward ten years, she sees African-American philanthropy as part of the mainstream. “All of these young people you see doing so well have sound philanthropic instincts,” she notes. “Young people focus on their return on investment, which is a smart way to do it. They want to know what percentage of funds raised go directly to the cause versus what percentage goes to administrative costs. When I think about the intelligence they are applying to the process, I feel optimistic about the future of charitable support for community organizations.”
Why Tavis is Smiling
One recent event not to miss for those interested in African American giving was the Sixth National Conference on Black Philanthropy, held in Washington, D.C. over three days in July 2007 and sponsored by the National Center for Black Philanthropy. The symposium explored how African American philanthropy in particular can help solve the problems facing many black Americans.
The touchstone throughout the conference was Tavis Smiley’s searingly honest essay collection, The Covenant with Black America (Third World Press, 2006), which takes a hard look at the array of social and economic circumstances confronting African Americans. Attendees were challenged to come up with new ways of identifying potential donors, as well as new ways of welcoming young people into the philanthropic fold.
The first thing you notice about Tavis Smiley is, in fact, his smile. Perhaps it’s the occupational legacy of the countless television shows on which he has appeared, including his current platform: a late-night television talk show, as well as his radio program, The Tavis Smiley Show, which is distributed by Public Radio International (PRI). Smiley has also written an autobiography, What I Know for Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America (Doubleday, 2006).
What people may not know for sure is that Smiley directs one of the most successful charitable foundations around. The mission of the Tavis Smiley Foundation is to “enlighten, encourage and empower youth by providing leadership skills that will promote the quality of life for themselves, their communities and the world.” It all began when Smiley became the mentor of a young boy whose mother was seeking influences that would shield her son from gang recruitment in their Atlanta neighborhood. “Many young black men around the country face that challenge,” Smiley says. The mother asked Tavis if her son could shadow him for a day, and Tavis decided to extend their time together to a week. For a while, the boy traveled everywhere Smiley’s work took him, including on a business trip to Canada. Smiley described their growing bond of trust during one of his commentaries on the nationally syndicated radio program, The Tom Joyner Morning Show.
That’s when the floodgates opened up. “Every mother in the country, it seemed, wanted me to do this,” Smiley explains. He also received—and answered—an avalanche of mail from young people seeking his advice about some fairly profound intersections in their lives. So dynamic was this feedback—and so dramatic was Smiley’s positive effect on his “mentee”—that in 1999 he created his eponymous foundation to try to continue the work on a wider basis.
In forming the foundation, Smiley sought out a council of experts who had trod these paths before. They advised him how to set up the foundation, how to manage the finances, and how to be crystal-clear about the mission. “From the very beginning,” Smiley recalls, “we knew exactly what we wanted—and that’s half the battle right there.” Still, Smiley doesn’t hesitate to admit to mistakes. Among the early painful lessons Smiley and his team had to learn were these:
When a grant comes in, you can’t simply spend what has been given to you. Backers need to know what you’ve done with their money. Reports not filed on time can cause problems. Someone who is an ace at programming can make a lousy bookkeeper. You need someone strong in that position so you don’t find yourself spending money you don’t have. It’s never a good idea to blow the deadline on submitting the results of an internal audit.
Because Smiley’s name was on the foundation, he wanted to be intimately involved in every aspect of its work. That commitment has enabled him to engage with young people, which in turn has made him increasingly hopeful about the future. Each year he spends time speaking with students at the foundation’s annual Leadership Institute, a five-day conference held during the summer on a college campus. Since its inception, more than 6,000 youths ages 13 to 18 have participated in the foundation’s Youth 2 Leaders program. “A lot of bright, talented, ambitious young people out there want to make a meaningful contribution to their community and country,” Smiley says.
Blinkered by the intensity of his drive to reach the pinnacle of his profession, Smiley explains that he had no clue his one-on-one work with kids would emerge as the most rewarding aspect of his work with the foundation. “That’s going to be my focus going forward,” he says, “and I hope it will be my lifetime legacy, as well. The TV show, the radio show, a book in print after I’m gone—none of that matters. What truly lives on is the work you do for young people, because they’re going to pass it on to other young people, in turn.” He adds, “I never realized that giving could feel so good.”
A Last Word
Clearly, African Americans have a long tradition of philanthropy, giving not only their money but also their time and other personal resources to a variety of organizations and causes, which are by no means confined to the black community. They have proven time and time again that they are committed and consistent givers in a wide range of areas such as humanitarian causes, institutional development—including schools and churches—and they give to advance social issues, education, political causes and to promote the arts and cultural enrichment. The habit of being philanthropic may, in fact, be so deeply ingrained in the African American community that many don’t even regard themselves as being particularly generous, even when they have to stretch their own resources to assist others. For many, that’s just the way they were brought up. The new crop of wealthy black Americans, it seems, are therefore simply carrying on the traditions passed on to them down the generations—but each, in his or her own way, has found an individual philanthropic path for addressing the issues they care about. That’s a form of personal expression that is surely satisfying to the giver, but the benefits to society are potentially, limitless.
From the magazine: CARNEGIE REPORTER
