Endowed Foundations

They are a pillar of much of American philanthropy, and through their work, often generations removed from the vision and interests of their founders, have influenced the direction of American public policy immeasurably.

In the marvelous book, Giving Well, Doing Good: Readings for Thoughtful Philanthropists, an essay from Jacques Turgot (1727-1781) reflects on the endowment.

An excerpt.

“To found, in the sense in which we are now using the word, is to assign a fund or a sum of money in order to it being employed in perpetuity for fulfilling the purpose the founder had in view, whether that purpose regards divine worship, or public utility, or the vanity of the founder—often the only real one, even while the two others serve to veil it…

“Our intention in this article is limited to examining the utility of foundations in general, in respect to the public good, and chiefly to demonstrating their impropriety. May the following considerations concur with the philosophic spirit of the age, in discouraging new foundations and in destroying all remains of superstitious respect for the old ones!

“1. A founder is a man who desires the effect of his own will to endure forever. Now, even if we suppose him to be actuated by the purest motives, how many reasons are there to question his enlightenment! How easy it is to do harm in wishing to do good! To foresee with certainty that an establishment will produce only the effect desired from it, and no effect at variance with its object; to discern, beyond the illusion of a near and apparent good, the real evils which a long series of unseen causes may bring about; to know what are the real sores of society, to arrive at their causes, to distinguish remedies from palliatives; to defend oneself against the prestige of a seductive project, to take a severe and tranquil view of it amidst that dazzling atmosphere in which the praises of a blind public, and our own enthusiasm, show it to us surrounded; this would need the effort of the most profound genius, and perhaps the political sciences of our time are not yet sufficiently advanced to enable the best genius here to succeed.

“By these institutions support is often given to a few individuals against an evil the cause of which is general, and sometimes the very remedy opposed to the effect increases the influence of the cause…

“2. But whatever utility a foundation might be at its conception, it bears within itself an irremediable defect which belongs to its nature—the impossibility of maintaining its fulfillment. Founders deceive themselves vastly if they imagine that their zeal can be communicated from age to age to persons employed to perpetuate its effects. There is no body that has not in the long run lost the spirit of its first origin. There is no sentiment that does not become weakened, by mere habit and by familiarity, with the objects which excite it.”(pp. 333-334)