Irving Kristal & Philanthropy

He was one of the great public policy thinkers in America—he died last year—and had a lot to say about the world of philanthropy.

In this profile in Philanthropy magazine, his thoughts on what foundations should be doing through their grantmaking is very sound, though quite contrary to what most large foundations see as their role.

An excerpt.

“Few pretensions are as cherished in the philanthropic world as the notion that giving can change the world. When John D. Rockefeller’s foundation opened its doors in 1913, its stated mission was to “improve the well-being of mankind throughout the world.” His contemporary descendant, Bill Gates, has more than a few times announced his ambition to cure the world’s 20 deadliest diseases. Along with a host of public and private “partners,” the Pew Charitable Trusts responded to the attacks of September 11, 2001, by launching a national initiative to achieve “the ambitious goal of ensuring that every three- and four-year-old has access to a quality pre-kindergarten education”—one of the more recent in a long line of such disappointing efforts.

“Indeed, generation after generation of “philanthropoids” (as Frederick Keppel, president of the Carnegie Corporation from 1923 to 1941, once termed them) has been taught to distinguish the work they do as staff members for foundations or large nonprofit organizations from the activities of charities by emphasizing that they are committed to social change, not just helping the needy. Even “social entrepreneurs,” a new and supposedly more realistic group of philanthropists, often define their objective as not just giving someone a fish or even teaching them to fish, but rather revolutionizing the fishing industry.

“Irving Kristol aimed squarely at this posture. Philanthropists who thought they could change the world, he said in a remarkable 1980 speech at the Council on Foundations, were succumbing to hubris, the Greek word for the “sin of pride.” They should strive instead to accomplish worthwhile, but less ambitious, feats, such as establishing schools, rather than trying to reconstruct school systems.

“Kristol died on September 18, 2009, widely and justly acclaimed as one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century and the intellectual godfather of neo-conservatism. Although his recommendations went largely unheeded in the world of elite grantmakers, several foundations that Kristol advised have had an impact far greater than he would have foretold.”