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Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rod Davis, and this week we are taking a deep dive, and it's into one of my favourite topics, which is the subject of tainted donations. Now I should say, you know, it might sound like slightly old-fashioned or odd terminology to some people to be talking about uh things being tainted. Um, but that's because it has a very long and rich history, and this is uh the sort of terminology that we've inherited. But essentially what we're talking about is money or wealth or assets that come from sources that are seen for some reason, and there's a whole variety of reasons, to be ethically questionable. And really the the questions that this then throws up about what it is that makes that money questionable and what should be done with it, which essentially kind of boils down to the core question, really, which is is it possible to do good with bad money? Um, and so this sort of raises questions about what charities or recipients should do when they're faced with donations from sources that they're uncomfortable with for whatever reason. Um, and this gets you know quite complex. And what I want to do is kind of look a bit at the history of tainted donations and why people have thought that some donations are tainted and what they've thought should be done about it, why it continues to be such an issue for philanthropy today, and what's happening at the moment and where that might go in the future in terms of how issues around tainted donations might either be addressed by charities and donors or how they might kind of develop uh in new ways in the future. So I think it's just worth, you know, as a bit of context that we'll dig into more a bit further on down the podcast to say, you know, why is it that I thought it was worth doing an episode on this? Well, as I say, it's one of my favourite topics. I just find it fascinating for all sorts of reasons, because I think it kind of brings together lots of things I'm interested in, the sort of history, views from literature about philanthropy, ethical issues and sort of philosophical insights, and also some quite sort of you know nerdy, nitty-gritty stuff about governance and how the sort of governance of charitable organizations relates to some of these bigger picture issues. But I guess the reason that I thought it was worth doing, uh and it's a subject that I've written about before and even done previous podcasts uh on in sort of previous incarnations when I was working at Charities Aid Foundation, is that it felt like it was timely to do it again because it's not a topic that you can ever really run out of things to say on. And it is one that keeps coming back around and around again. You know, in over the last few years, the sort of dominant story when it comes to tainted donations has been that of the Sacklers and the Sackler family, um, who, for anyone who doesn't know, are the uh sort of uber wealthy American family uh that owned Purdue Pharma, among other companies. And Purdue Pharma was the company that launched OxyContin, um, which is the product that has largely been blamed for the opioid epidemic in the US and the Sacklers' role in promoting that and uh kind of um perpetuating it and thereby kind of perpetuating that opioid epidemic is one that has slowly come to light, and people have uh subsequently sort of cast doubt on whether the philanthropy of the family, which was you know very widespread and very kind of high profile because they have their names emblazoned over things, should be seen as acceptable. And increasingly we have seen uh art galleries and universities and other institutions not only say that they won't take future donations from the Sacklers, but also kind of turn down uh remove the names from uh wings and institutions that were bearing the the Sackler name. Um so this has been a sort of particularly noteworthy uh example. But there's also plenty of others. So, in light of the situation in Ukraine, for instance, in the introduction of economic sanctions on Russia and uh Russian oligarchs and wealthy people in in particular, many of whom are based in other countries like the US or particularly the UK, this has raised lots of questions again about tainted donations because many of these individuals um are sort of well-known philanthropists who have either given significantly, often to higher education or arts and cultural institutions, or are even kind of involved on the boards of those institutions. And so many of those organizations have been again faced with these questions of what to do about those relationships and what to do about that money. Um, but there's also been quite a lot of focus on the sort of historical aspect. I think in the wave of um the murder of George Floyd in the US in 2020 and the subsequent kind of upsurge of uh support for the Black Lives Matter movement around the world, there's been an increasing focus on issues of racial justice and the need to sort of reckon with uh the economic injustices uh of the systems that we operate in. And certainly in the UK, that has meant for many institutions facing up to problematic elements of their history to do with slavery and the way in which they have made their their money from uh extractive practices and extra uh exploitative industries, and what to do with some of that money is a question that has faced many cultural institutions and philanthropic institutions as well. So this, you know, it's an issue that touches on lots of really kind of live hot button topics within the world of philanthropy and ones that go much more broadly, I think it's quite an area of sort of mainstream interest. So I thought it would be uh you know really interesting to kind of dig into this a bit. So I think the first thing I want to do is take a bit of a look at the history behind the idea of tainted donations. And in order to do that, we've got to go all the way back to uh at least the fifth century. So let's do that now. So I'm taking the fifth century as the starting point because this is where I have the first of the sort of good quotes that I I've managed to find that I think are sort of specifically pertinent to the question of tainted donations. But in some ways, you could throw things back even further. And arguably, you know, if you look at biblical teachings and the words of Jesus about how, you know, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle and for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. This kind of tells you something about unease about the nature of wealth and whether and how that relates to uh an individual's immortal soul and whether it's sort of possible to become rich and still remain morally pure. Um so I think you know it's very clear that from a religious point of view, certainly when it comes to religious teaching, issues about wealth uh and the ethical status of wealth have been around for a very, very long time, and not just within you know the Christian tradition either. Um but where I want to start is with Augustine of Hippo, Saint Augustine, um, who in the fifth century uh in his writings um takes a bit of a view on the whole question of whether it's possible to purchase uh a sort of cleansing of one's immortal soul um through alms giving. And he says, you know, of course, life must be changed for the better, and arms should be offered as appropriation to God for our past sins. But he is not somehow to be bought off as if we always had a license to commit crimes with impunity. So he's saying, you know, it's important, yes, to give uh money uh in the form of arms or charity, um, because that is, you know, an important part of uh sort of serving God and ensuring you know that your a soul is in a position to to ensure passage to heaven when you die, but you don't just get you know it's not a get out of jail free card. You can't just make your money in whatever way you want and then kind of buy absolution. Um so you know that that tension is already established. If we move forward um, you know, a few centuries, but still very much in ye olden days. Um one of the the really great sources on this that that I've come across is um the work of the Venerable Bede. Uh now Bede was uh a Benedictine monk, um I think, but he's best known perhaps as the the father of English history, because he was one of the first great kind of chroniclers of of historical events and still acts as a very sort of important source for for around the kind of eighth century period. And uh just in a paper about Bede, um it says that you know Bede noted that many people gave much to the poor, but what they gave had been seized from others either by force or fraud. And Bede wasn't alone in these concerns, so it goes on to note it says here Bede was voicing concerns that would be raised also at the Council of Cloveshoe in 747, which was a kind of Anglo-Saxon witten, which is kind of getting together of lords and kings and important people in the church. Um and this meeting actually came up with a resolution, so it says Canon 26 of this council, an extended discussion of arms giving, decreed that arms should not be given from goods unjustly plundered or otherwise extracted through force or cruelty. Um so you see at that point they're kind of very much having to grapple with the fact that the you know the the church was looking to encourage people to give money in the form of arms, and the church itself obviously had a kind of enlightened self-interest because it would benefit from people giving arms and bequests, but but already there was unease that there were many people who were making money through sort of force and extortion, and then believing that by giving to the church or giving arms to the poor they could uh kind of obviate any any sins that they might have accrued through doing that. And here's Bede and the Council of Closeau saying, No, you can't, you know, again, you you don't get to just kind of scrub the slate clean. If we then move forward uh a few centuries again to I think about the 12th century, um we've got another saint, uh Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Aquinas uh in his Summer Theologica writes quite a lot about alms giving and questions of the nature of property and and the ethics of giving. This is fascinating stuff, it's not always that easy to unpick unless you are a sort of specialist medieval theologian, which I'm certainly not. But just what I wanted to pick out from Aquinas' view, which is perhaps not quite so sort of straightforward as Bede's, is that he is trying to sort of finesse some of this a little bit, and he makes a distinction that I think is sort of important subsequently in terms of thinking about the uh the exact nature of what it is that makes money tainted that that is worth noting. And he sort of makes a distinction between outright unlawful ways of making money and money that's just a bit icky essentially, which he calls you know ill-gotten gains. And he's saying, you know, he talks about filthy lucre, which is you know a wonderful phrase, but is also his his kind of uh terminology for money that is you know outright illegal and not acceptable. So then he's saying uh further, all filthy lucre seems to be ill-gotten. Um so he's saying, but the prophets from whoredom are filthy lucre, so prostitution obviously is his his term there whoredom is not one we've used today. Wherefore it's forbidden to offer therefrom sacrifices or oblations to God. So he's saying, you know, the proceeds of prostitution, it's generally agreed it's not okay to give alms from those. But then he goes on to say, um, but in like manner gains from games of chance are ill gotten, and most of all are the profits from simony ill gotten. So simony is the kind of selling of church offices or religious objects for for profit. But he says, nevertheless, out of such gains it's lawful to give arms, therefore one may give arms out of ill-gotten goods. So he's sort of saying it's not as clear as a lie, he's saying some things like filthy lucre, no, you can't give arms out of that and that'd be okay. But ill gotten goods, well, it's more of a grey area, really, and he's saying so you can give arms out of ill-gotten goods. And and these kinds of concerns continue, particularly, you know, Aquinas' focus there on uh prostitution as one thing that that the church was particularly concerned about is important. The next story I wanted to throw into the mix is a wonderful one um about the the founding of Notre Dame Cathedral. So when this was built in the 12th century, obviously it took a very long time and there was a lot of money had to be to be raised um in order to do that, which you know is is something that I kind of became aware of when there was obviously the the um tragic fire at Notre Dame uh in 2018, I think, or no, maybe 2020. And obviously the church then had to be rebuilt, and people were sort of it you know talking about the history of how it was built in the first place. But but one of the things that they did in order to raise that money was to essentially auction off the opportunity for guilds of merchants um to have a window in in the church. So if they paid a certain amount of money, they could then have uh one of the stained glass windows in the new cathedral, and it would show you know a happy smiling picture of of the the shoemakers or the leather workers or the mercers or whatever going daily about their business. But it's in a paper it says, When Notre Dame was being constructed, we're told, a group of prostitutes asked the bishop for permission to offer a window in honour of the Virgin, a very special instance of a guild window, which of course had to exclude any representation of the activities of this particular trade. So you know the local guild of prostitutes, because they were organised and unionized, wanted to have their own window, which obviously couldn't have a picture of them going about their activities because that would not be suitable. So they they um diplomatically asked if they could pay for a window but but do one in honour of the Virgin Mary. Um and the bishop, you know, embarrassed, the bishop made consultations and finally refused. And and so I think in the end, I mean they refused. I think the bishop essentially was trying to argue at one point that it would be okay to take the money, but that uh as long as it was done kind of anonymously um and nobody knew about it. But issues around you know prostitution continued to be a concern for the church and Simony as well, but there were other areas as well. So um usury uh was one that obviously was a kind of big issue, and usury again is the lending of money um at kind of inflated rates of interest, which was very much seen as a no-no. And this was a big deal in uh in Europe and and in the UK, um, and certainly when it came to tainted donations, it was a big problem because lots of people were making lots of money in this way. So in the 16th century, um Susan Bridgen uh writes in a paper, she was saying usury was a sin left to the individual conscience. The sinner must atone for it to God and make restitution to those he had wronged. Remorseful 15th century merchants had sought in gifts of charity to discharge consciences troubled by sharp practice. In usury, both borrower and lender suffered, the one in this world, the other in the next. Um so saying, you know, lots of these merchants were they knew the money was was kind of not acceptable really, and they were trying to use their giving as a way of buying restitution uh for their immortal souls. Um but this met with scepticism, um, and there was a preacher called Thomas Drant, just to take one example. And I think this is interesting because it goes to show that, you know, all the way through when when questions of tainted donations have come to the fore, there have always been differences of opinion between those who think that it is either genuinely acceptable to use charity or alms giving as a way of kind of cleansing money, or that it's just pragmatically acceptable because even if it doesn't cleanse the the donor's soul or or kind of you know get them off the hook, it's better that the money goes somewhere good than it stays where where it's problematic. But there have also been critics who sort of said, no, we can't have any of this and you know we we shouldn't pretend that this is okay. Uh and Thomas Drant said, Many that have raked a deal of wealth together by fraud and deceit, by usury, extortion and oppression, and by other wicked and unlawful shifts, they persuade themselves if in their lifetime they give now and then a penny to the poor, or at their death when they can use their self their pelt no longer, if they clothe then a few poor people to attend upon them to their grave, or give somewhat to set forth their prayers that they died to the children of God, or give somewhat to a hospital or almshouse, they persuade themselves to merit some great matter at God's hands. So again saying, you know, this is a problem that people are making money in ways they know to be problematic, but they are convincing themselves that if during their lifetime they give a bit to the poor and then when they die they leave quite a lot of money to the church or to the poor, you know, or to the almshouse, that that'll be okay and sort of be enough to get them into heaven. And he's saying, Don't kid yourselves, that's that's not true.

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When the man who dies leaving behind him, in a during life on this lake, guys display, this place, this lady.

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It shifts more on to kind of systemic issues. So as we get into the 19th century, uh moving quite a bit forward, um, we start to get um you know issues around money that is coming from the proceeds of slavery. And I think this is really interesting because um, you know, this is something we're still grappling with today, the whole question of the the proceeds of of slave labour, either direct or indirect, because obviously there were many industries like cotton and things like that, um, which were the the raw product would obviously rely on slave labour, but there were lots of associated industries, um whether that's in terms of the transport of the materials or then kind of refining those raw materials into clothes and other goods, um, that obviously couldn't really have happened if it hadn't been for slave labour, and a lot of the the money of Britain during the Industrial Revolution and during the growth of the empire is essentially kind of founded on that that slave labour. And sometimes when it comes to the question of what to do with the money now, there's a slight element of people trying to take attack of historical relativism and saying, oh, you know, the danger is that we're applying the standards of the present to you know to different periods of time, and that we need to be very careful because the problem is, you know, at the time everybody thought this stuff was kind of okay, and so we're just kind of projecting backwards our own views. But I think the important thing about this is that people were genuinely calling out these issues at the time. So if anybody wanted to listen, they they could hear some of these criticisms. So a really interesting example here, which I I've came across uh in a fascinating paper by Emma Saunders Hastings, which I'll put links in the show notes to and very much recommend that you that you seek out, um, is about the role that uh Frederick Douglass, the um the former slave and uh abolitionist and writer and speaker, had in the UK, actually, interestingly, in in leading a campaign against uh the acceptance of tainted money by the the Free Church of Scotland. So Douglas came over to the UK um to to come and sort of do a speaking tour and and you know work with people and kind of promote the cause of abolition. And actually when he was in Scotland, he he became involved in a campaign that was already going, but where people were criticising and pointing out that the Free Church of Scotland uh was not in accepting money from uh slave owners in in the US South, but was actively kind of seeking out more of this money. It says uh in this paper the accusation became the leading motive of the speeches on Douglas's British and especially Scottish tour, and fuelled a public campaign to send back the bloodstained money. Douglas encouraged audiences to chant send back the money at meetings and to shout it in the streets, and he personally helped to carve the slogan into the turf of Arthur's seat, the extinct volcano overlooking Edinburgh. So it was a really kind of you know public campaign at a sp uh levelled at a specific organization, the Free Church of Scotland, saying actually, you know, the problem was that they were accepting money from a core from a source that they clearly knew to be tainted because uh and thereby they were kind of complicit in perpetuating slavery. And you know, in lots of other places at the same time, um this was this was of course uh you know a source of of debate. So often there's a question, I think, in terms of slavery, but also just more broadly kind of business practices at the time, whether you know it was okay to kind of make money in one way with the right hand and then try and do good with the left hand through philanthropy. And you know, we'll see in a moment that some people very much thought that that that was okay, but there were plenty of others who didn't, so particularly the Quakers. Um so the Quaker community is very sort of noted during the Victorian era for its philanthropy, and and many of those uh individuals kind of had it uh as one of their core beliefs that you couldn't really separate things out in that way, and that the way in which you made money and the business practices you adopted in the first place had to be as ethically sound as you know as the philanthropy you were trying to do. Otherwise, you know, there would never be balance and you couldn't actually outweigh the damage that you were doing uh in in terms of how you made money through giving it away. Um, so the historian David Owen writes about. George Cadbury, he says to repeat, making money and giving it away formed for George Cadbury a single pattern, and making it could be as constructive socially as giving it away. No amount of philanthropic giving could take the curse off a fortune that had been accumulated carelessly or without regard for the welfare of the work people who had laboured for it. And we'll see in in a in a few moments that this is a view that's very closely echoed by Teddy Roosevelt. But to take the counter view uh as well on there, you know, there were there are others during the um the Victorian era when this this debate was really kind of rumbling along, who who sort of took the opposing view and said, no, actually, you should uh allow uh charities in particular to take money from tainted sources, um, not because we're saying it necessarily cleanses those sources and makes them okay, but because it's much better that it's in the hands uh of those charities and they're doing good with it. Um so a really fascinating source here is George Bernard Shaw, because his play Major Barbara is essentially all about tainted donations. So the the basic story is it's about um uh a young woman who is in the Salvation Army or joins the Salvation Army, Barbara Underschaft, um, and she's a a major in in that army. Um, and basically the story is that her father is a very wealthy industrialist who's made all of his money from selling weapons and arms, uh and he then goes on to offer a large donation to the Salvation Army. And a lot of uh part of the play, at least, is about whether or not you know it was okay for the Salvation Army to accept money from an arms manufacturer. Um and and Bernard Shaw got very annoyed with uh the interpretation of critics of the the first version of the play. So in the the second edition of the play he added um this preface, quite a long preface, in which he he described as the first aid to critics, and he kind of spelled out his views more clearly. And these are really interesting. So he said, even the handful of mentally competent critics got into difficulties over my demonstration of the economic deadlock in which the Salvation Army finds itself. Some of them thought that the army would not have taken money from a distiller and a cannon founder, others short thought it should not have taken it, all assumed more or less definitely that it reduced itself to absurdity or hypocrisy by taking it. On the first point, the reply of the army itself was prompt and conclusive. As one of its officers said, they would take money from the devil himself and be only too glad to get it out of his hands and into God's. And he goes on to say, you know, on the point that the army ought not to take such money, its justification is obvious. It must take the money because it cannot exist without money, and there is no other money to be had. And then this is the really key part, and this is a quote I I use a lot to sort of exemplify this one pragmatic approach to tack uh to um uh tainted donations. He says practically all the spare money in the country consists of a mass of rent, interest and profit, every penny of which is bound up with crime, drink, prostitution, disease, and all the evil fruits of poverty, as inextricably as with enterprise wealth, commercial probity, and national prosperity. The notion that you can earmark certain coins as tainted is an unpractical individualist superstition. So his point there isn't is not necessarily, you know, I think this is all fine, but it's a very kind of pragmatic, hard-headed one. He's sort of essentially it's a kind of whataboutism, I often think. He's sort of saying, Yeah, but if you're saying that these this particular bit of money is is tainted, what about all the other money? As soon as you start to pick at it, because you know, finance and the system of of capitalism and commerce is so interconnected, none of the money is genuinely clean. So where do you stop? And I think you know that's still an argument that you hear people very much making today about tainted donations, um, particularly around some of the grey areas, as we'll see. But then, you know, sticking with with the the 19th century and and the salvation army, actually, it's aposite that that uh Bernard Shaw's play is about the Salvation Army, because they were kind of famed for their pragmatism around this question of tainted donations. Um and William Booth, um, General William Booth, who was the founder of the Salvation Army, famously, if if possibly apocryphly, because I've never found a totally robust source for it, um, he said, you know, the only problem with tainted money is taint enough of it. And, you know, perhaps that reflects the fact that the Salvation Army's sense of its own moral certainty was particularly strong. You know, it was kind of it was a evangelical crusading organization, and it would go and and lead marches um uh uh through towns about sort of you know abstinence and teetotalism and this kind of thing. And also, interestingly, perhaps it was also a reflection of the fact that the Salvation Army maybe thought that it was offering a solution as well. There's another fascinating paper that I read very recently um by Julie Marie Strange and Sarah Roddy, detailing the way in which the Salvation Army was actually trying to establish its own financial infrastructure during the late 19th century and to offer kind of banking services and financial services that were supposed to be more ethical, essentially a kind of early version of social investments or social finance. And maybe they sort of thought, actually, on that basis, this forms a consistent whole, and it's fine for us to take money from bad sources because it's part of a wider programme in which we are shifting the entire capitalist economy away from the bad version towards what we are trying to create, which is the good version. Maybe that's you know doing the Salvation Army in the 19th century too many favours, um, but I do think it's a an you know an interesting kind of angle on the whole thing. And I'd again I'd definitely recommend um that you check out that paper and I'll put links in the show notes to it. And then in terms of the history, I'm just going to go on to say, you know, that if we hop across the Atlantic and not far too far forward in time, this in a way is where tainted donations as an issue really blows up, and certainly to a large extent where we get the name from in terms of tainted donations, because there was a particular it was an issue already, I think, because there were concerns about the money that had been made by lots of the sort of um robber baron industrialists of of the Gilded Age and and you know, slightly earlier than that in the late 19th century. So people like you know, Cornelius Vanderbilt and uh JD Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon and all these others. But it was particularly a specific controversy over the donations of Rockefeller that brought this all to light. Um so in 1905 uh this whole scandal blew up because Rockefeller had given a very large gift um to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and many sort of criticized the the board for accepting this gift on the basis that there were quite strong concerns about uh Rockefeller's unscrupulous and particularly monopolistic business practices. And so, you know, this kind of blew up into a big uh sort of public debate and and into the world of politics, as we'll see in a moment. Now, it's worth saying that the the American board was pretty robust in its response to this. And what they said is I think really interesting to look at briefly. So they said, you know, first of all, they argued that um, you know, it wasn't really their place to pass judgment on the money uh that was being given to them if it wasn't entirely legal. So it says, you know, the principle on which this policy rests is a belief that our responsibility begins with the receipt of a gift, then becomes our trust for which we are to be held responsible. Before gifts are received, the responsibility is not ours, but is that of the donors in their own conscience. It's a matter between them and their god. We are asked now to make an exception and to single out this recent voluntary gift for refusal. Your committee sees no reason why we should have departed from the custom of the board, one which has been universal in the world, and made our committee practically a tribunal to decide whether gifts are to be received. It would be manifestly unjust and unthinkable to reject gifts without thorough scrutiny, and it is equally clear that no committee could possibly undertake the task of such a scrutiny. So there's a few things in there. One is saying it's you know, when we get a gift, that's kind of, you know, as long as it's not outright illegal, the questions of whether or not the money has been made in ways that are ethically acceptable, that's up to the individual donor's conscience to decide, and it's between them and their God. And then at the end they throw in, you know, and also in practical terms, even if we did want to make decisions of that kind, how on earth would a committee, you know, within a within a charity be in a position to make those sorts of judgments? And then they also, uh the American Board went on to make another argument which I think is is important because it's one we hear again these days. So it seems to us in the second place that it would have been an assumption and a usurpation if from our position we had tried to stop the money of any man who wished to give it for missionary work among those who are needy. The reason assigned for rejecting the recent gift is that gifts constitute a relation of honour between the recipient and the donor. Certain gifts are made to the board with conditions attached, those it may refuse or accept as wisdom directs. This gift was made without conditions. This means in the eyes of the committee that it involves the American board in no obligation whatever, material or moral, to the donor. And this is crucial because as we'll see when we come on to sort of think about some of the broader issues this throws up. The question of whether the donor is getting a benefit, either sort of you know, tangible or just more broadly reputational in terms of the halo effect of their gift from their donation, I think is a really big factor in determining whether or not it's okay for an organization to take the money in the end. And the American board's saying, actually, Rockefeller's gift came with no strings attached, so it's fine. He wasn't exerting any control over how that money was spent, and they weren't necessarily burnishing his reputation because they weren't saying that what he was doing was was okay. They certainly weren't doing explicitly. I think there's another argument about whether there's an implicit uh sort of condoning of his of his business practices just by you know the mere act of accepting the gift. I think it's worth saying that critics at the time didn't necessarily buy these arguments. So one of the people leading a lot of the criticism was a man called William Dewitt Tucker, who was a preacher and he was the future president of Dartmouth College. Um he said, you know, in regard to the general position taken by the defenders of the action in accepting Mr. Rockefeller's gift, that a missionary organization has no right to discriminate in regard to money received, I take issue at once. The acceptance by the American Board of a gift from this source under the present conditions must mean one of one of two things. Either the board believes the business methods involved are correct, or that they're a matter of moral indifference so far as the reception of the money is concerned. For one, I do not like to see the American Board take either one of these positions. Such action hurts the conscience of the coming generation more than that of the generation which is passing. So again, he's sort of saying this this kind of uh trying to abdicate moral responsibility uh for how money has been made is not an okay stance to take, you know, even if it's sort of you're doing it on a pragmatic basis. And I think particularly he's saying he's the implicit argument here to my mind is he's saying actually the an organization like the American Board of Foreign Missions has a has a higher kind of ethical requirement on it, or the the benchmark that we're applying to to this organization is higher than we might apply to an organization that doesn't have a professed social purpose. And again, this is important because that's another argument I think that that we get uh to hear sometimes today when people are sort of make comparisons sometimes between you know uh m relationships people might have commercially with organizations where they are questionable and and saying, well, if it's okay to bank with so-and-so who has this relationship with you know another organization or does this, why isn't it okay for an you know charity to accept money from the same organization? And actually whether the nature of a gift relationship is significantly different from a commercial relationship, and whether there is a whether we have a higher expectation of you know moral standards from from charities, and whether that's fair or not, or whether we sort of place too high a requirement on them. I think it's worth saying, just uh I mean, just mostly because it's fun, that this this sort of blew up into a big uh kind of political issue. So uh Roosevelt, uh at the time president, uh, in a 1906 speech, uh famous speech called The Man with the Muckrake, which largely kind of focused uh muckraking journalism and his sort of issues with it. But but in the course of doing this, he talked quite a bit about questions of of wealth and philanthropy. Uh, and he said, It's important uh to this people to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes and the use of those fortunes, both corporate and individual in business. And he says this is this is crucial, he says, we should discriminate in the sharpest way between fortunes well won and fortunes ill won, between those gained as an incident to performing great services to the community as a whole and those gained in evil fashion by keeping just within the limits of mere law honesty. Of course, no amount of charity in spending such fortunes in any way compensates for misconduct in making them, which seems to very much echo what George Cadbury was saying earlier, that you know, you can't pretend that that any amount of philanthropy is going to make up for the damage done in creating money. And it's not just politics as well, in sort of popular culture, um this became you know quite a cause celebre, and particularly satirists, I think, made hay with it. Um so there's a couple of of great examples here. So there was um in 1905, um Mark Twain, it it subsequently turned out, uh wrote a letter to the editor of Harper's Weekly in the guise of Satan. So it was called A Humane Word from Satan, and he he wrote as if it was Satan writing to the magazine. He said, Dear sir and kinsman, let us have done with this frivolous talk. The American board accepts contributions from me every year. Then why shouldn't it from Mr. Rockefeller? So he goes on to write this. So he's basically saying, you know, they take money from the devil himself, so why shouldn't they take it from Rockefeller? Um and perhaps even more wonderfully, um, GK Chesterton wrote uh an article in the same year called The Gifts of the Millionaire, which again I will put a link to somewhere you can find it uh in full uh in the show notes because it's uh it's absolutely one of the best things that's ever been written about about philanthropy from a critical point of view, and it's hugely entertaining. Um but the key bit for the here, I think, um is is this. He says, uh philanthropy, as far as I can see, is rapidly becoming the recognizable mark of a wicked man. We've often sneered at the superstition and cowardice of the medieval barons who thought that giving lands to the church would wipe out the memory of their raids or robberies, but modern capitalists seem to have exactly the same notion, with this not in unimportant addition. In the case of capitalists, the memory of the robberies is really wiped out. This, after all, seems to be the chief difference between the monks who took land and gave pardons and the charity organizers who take money and give praise. The difference is that the monks wrote down in their books and chronicles, received three hundred acres from a bad baron, whereas the modern experts and editors record the three hundred acres and call him a good baron. So, you know, he's really stinging critique here from Chr from Chesterton saying when it comes to tainted donations, the difference between, you know, the the medieval uh church and the monks who were kind of hand-wringing about whether or not it was okay to take problematic money was at least they took the money and said that it was problematic. He's arguing that actually organizations like the American Board and others, the problem is they're taking money from you know the robber baron capitalists, but also then praising them and saying thank you and telling them how wonderful they are and telling the world how wonderful they are. And and to Chesterton's mind, that is, you know, that's a step beyond and a problematic one. So I think you know, it it should be apparent from that that the whole question of tainted donations is one that has been around for a long, long time. You know, and I could talk more about the history as we go further into the 20th century. But what I want to do at this point is shift on to think about, you know, what does that history and what's going on today tell us about uh what organizations faced with donations that may be tainted do about it, and also what do donors do and and what that should they be thinking about some of these issues. So stay tuned for that.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

At Meeting of Industrial Leaders in Washington, here's Julius Rosenwald. Most people are of the opinion that because a man has made a fortune, that his opinions on any subject are valuable. Don't be fooled by believing because a man is rich. And he is necessarily right. There is ample proof to the contrary.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Okay, so we're back. So I'll I'll try and keep this relatively sort of you know compact rather than sprawling, because I took quite a long time going through the history there. Um but essentially I kind of want to outline some questions that I think off the basis of this history and also just in terms of the debates that I've been aware of um you know around these issues for a number of years, I think we should be asking. Almost these are almost you kind of like a framework, I think, for thinking through if as an organization you are faced with you know a potentially problematic donation, what questions should you be asking yourself? So I think the first question that we need to address is not specific to an individual organization necessarily, but more broadly about tainted donations, which is what what is it that makes a donation tainted? Because we've been assuming in all this that there is such a thing as a tainted donation. But I do think that we need to unpick a few different things here because I think they have quite different implications for the direction we go. So I think one is obviously, you know, the nature of the wealth creation itself. So the this is where the the concern is that the specific business practice or industry in which the money has been uh made is problematic. Um and this is where, you know, this is the concern certainly about the settlers. Um, so it's partly about their business practices, but it's more sort of fundamentally about the product that they were making. And I think that's also true about something like you know, arms manufacturing. I think we we need to distinguish a little bit between that and uh those where the concern is less about specifically how the money has been made and more about the individual who has made the money because of some other associations that they have. So I think here there are examples like um you know the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who um is you know problematic and tied up in the ongoing uh questions around Prince Andrew and others and the sort of procuring of of young women for sex uh illegally and this kind of thing. But a lot of the concerns about his donations are about that side of him, uh, and as far as I know, less about his, you know, the specifics of of uh his kind of business interests within finance. And so whether in that case there's a sort of qualitative difference in terms of you know, does the taint attach to the money in quite the same way? Uh and I think also there's an interesting example here. There was a Ferrari a few months back, six months or or so ago, about um a donation that had been made to an Oxford college, an Oxford University College, from the family foundation of um Max Mosley. Uh, and he was um i in honour of his son who had who had sort of tragically died earlier, and it was named for for his son, who'd had all sorts of issues, I think, with with addiction and and other things. But the the concern was that obviously the family money had essentially come in some way from Oswald Mosley, who was the leader of the British Fascist Party uh in the 1930s, um, and Max Mosley himself was you know a sort of problematic figure, although he ended up kind of battling through the courts to try and keep his name clear. But lots of people were concerned that you know this money was tainted because of that association. And again, this kind of raised an interesting question in that it was, you know, the name was only attached to the the grandson, uh, who you know nobody had really accused of of being problematic in any other way than than having uh led this slightly tragic life and died young. And you know, whether the money, you know, can the the taint associated with Oswald Mosley be said to have transmitted down the generations in some sense, you know, two times? And does that mean that that the money should still be seen as problematic? And we'll we'll sort of see in a moment that this probably goes more to the questions of on what grounds is it that you would be turning down the money. I think the other thing is to say that actually that question of whether or not the money is tainted, so let's assume that we're we're talking about some direct concern about tainting here, it you know, that is not something that is fixed in time either. I think there are changes in ethical standards over time that make it sort of difficult sometimes to to to know. Um so if we think here about things like you know, tobacco or fossil fuels, well, 50 years or so ago, or slightly more, tobacco was very much not seen as problematic, and large amounts of money were being given by the tobacco industry to to charity. Now, again, there's a point at which you know it's it's certainly clear with hindsight that the tobacco industry itself was very well aware that of the problematic nature of tobacco and the you know the links to cancer and other diseases, and was actively engaging in lobbying and public relations work to hide that link. And so there's there's an analogue there, and I think, in a way, with with kind of the Sackler families at a at a kind of industry-wide level, you know, but before that, i is it possible you know to say that that the money given by the tobacco industry in the 1940s or whatever should subsequently be seen as tainted money? And also, I guess thinking forward, you know, what what industries today are we kind of happy to accept are are able to be the sources of wealth generation for philanthropy that in 30 or 40 years we'll look back on as this generation's tobacco. You know, arguably some of the the um uh companies within the tech industry perhaps might find themselves in that position if the concerns that we currently have about the addictive nature of social media or the impact that it's had on you know public discourse or democratic norms or that kind of thing turn out to get much worse. I think it's also worth just throwing in here that that it's obviously there's there's money that is you know actively illegal and overtly illegal and you know either subject to the the law. Of a particular country or to things like economic sanctions. And that actually is relatively straightforward, I think. And in some ways, when it comes to something like the question of uh sanctions on Russian oligarchs, it always seems to me that's less difficult than some of this grey area. Because if somebody, if a government or another body has said that person is persona non grata and you know their money and assets have to be seized, yes, there are practical issues about how you do that when it comes to money that might have been given to charity. But in terms of the ethical question about whether or not it's okay to take money from that person, well, no, it clearly isn't because it's been decided by somebody else that it that it isn't. And you know, maybe there are arguments about whether or not that decision was the right one, but in a way it's been taken out of the hands of you know the charity or recipient organization. The bit that's more difficult is is the grey area. And again, maybe this takes us all the way back to Thomas Aquinas's difference between uh filthy lucre and ill-gotten gains, and you know, the filthy lucre bit is easy, the ill-gotten gains bit's where it's much more difficult. And then I think in terms of what makes a donation tainted, you know, we we've sort of touched on this, but I think one particular aspect of it that is fascinating but makes it, you know, adds another dimension, is where the money is tainted in a sense historically, but it it's then further down the line, maybe at this point in time, that we're starting to ask questions about that tainted nature. So this is very much the situation around you know, money that is argued, you know, fortunes or wealth that's argued in some way to rest on the proceeds of slavery. Because I think this raises interesting questions about, I mean, one, whether there's any sort of statute of limitations on tainted money, and whether actually, even if we acknowledge that obviously slavery was, you know, hugely problematic and that money amassed through that um is itself ethically questionable and it's tainted, whether actually just the period of time that's elapsed in between then and now means that we kind of have to say, in practical terms, it's not possible to do anything about that. Or if we do think that it's possible to do anything about that, what form that takes? Because I think there's a whole spectrum from recognition of the problem, uh, and that might be just kind of putting out statements saying, yes, we think you know slavery is bad. It might be something more proactive for you know institutions or organizations that have overt links to money that is now seen to be problematic, and they might want to reverse those links. So some organizations have you know taken names off galleries or even off the the whole of their institution because um it's subsequently thought that you know individuals associated with uh with those institutions are no longer ones that they they want to have their names kind of emblazoned all over things, or do we go even further and push for um you know active reparations and what form does that take? Uh and kind of how far does that argument spread across different institutions? Again, going to that question of how directly do you have to have benefited from uh the proceeds of slavery for somebody to feel as though you as an organization need to make reparation? Because arguably these things diffuse over time, and so it would be very difficult, you know, at this point of time, 200 or 300 years later, not you know, for most institutions, one way or another, I'd imagine you could trace back some link to the proceeds of slavery or some sort of indirect links to the proceeds of slavery. So, where where do you kind of draw the lines around that? Which is not to say, you know, this is not supposed to be a whataboutism argument and say, oh, well, it's all impossible, but I just think in terms of that question of how you actually would make reparation if that's the route you choose to go down, I think it there are all kinds of you know questions that that need to be addressed. I think another question that this throws up when you're thinking about the nature of the taint, and and the thinking about sort of slavery almost brings us there, is I think there is a there's a spectrum again between tainted money as a concern about individual instances of wealth creation or specific instant specific industries or companies or business practices, and a sort of broader critique of the whole notion of wealth or capitalism, which is more of a kind of systemic concern. And in a way that starts to become a slightly different concern to my mind, because it can't necessarily be answered in the same way, because there's one which is you've made money in a bad way, you know. Can you use philanthropy as a way of uh kind of making up for that, or is it acceptable for organizations in certain circumstances to take that money away from you and try and do good with it? And then at the other end of the spectrum, you've essentially got all money, you know, all wealth creation is bad, or all wealth creation within the current systems of capitalism we have is bad. It seems less likely that you can argue it's ever okay to try and make up for that through giving, because that seems to my mind to kind of require a more fundamentally kind of structural solution. So if you err towards that side of the spectrum, chances are you're probably going to be pretty critical of philanthropy per se, uh, and unlikely to be sort of thinking that that it can make up for for any of the sort of deficiencies in terms of the ways in which wealth is made. And then moving on to sort of more practical questions for an organization, assume that you've kind of grappled with some of us and decided that you think for whatever reason a particular individual or source of wealth is tainted in some way or problematic. I guess the check on that is from an organizational point of view, who gets to decide that and on what basis? Because again, as an individual, I can sit here and say, oh, well, I think you know this is terrible. I think, you know, say I'm extremely concerned about the environment and about climate concerns. I personally think that, you know, extractive industries and fossil fuels are hugely problematic and will become, you know, will come to be seen increasingly so in future years. But if I'm a trustee of an organization, on what basis am I making that decision? Is it as an individual on the basis of my personal beliefs, or is it in my uh role as a trustee of the organization? Now, if the organization itself has environmental uh motivations or kind of is uh has an environmental charitable cause, then maybe that's relatively straightforward because I think then there's a very clear argument that that accepting the money would be kind of in contravention or contradictory to uh to that cause. But but what if the organization has a sort of entirely different mission, but I still have that concern as an individual? On what basis am I bringing that concern to the table? And I think there's an interesting analogy here to the question of ethical investment and whether charities should invest ethically, because in terms of how those decisions are made, from a governance point of view, again, I think often the demand is that an argument is made on the basis of what is in the best interest of the organization and not just on the basis of what a particular individual feels uh about a certain environmental or social issue. And so I think there for people to to think, you know, as a as a trustee of this organization or as a leader of this organization, you know, what is in the best interest of this organization when it comes to whether or not to take the money, you know, I think that's the question that needs to be asked. And we'll we'll see in a moment what some of the sort of practical uh issues that stem from that are. And then I guess the the sort of the fundamental question that brings us to is if you've decided, you know, that the m the money's tainted and you're comfortable with the basis on which you've made that decision, the the basic question is, well, should you take the money and try and do good with it, or should you steer clear? And as we've seen, that's kind of the fundamental question um that that has you know kind of been at the heart of all this debate about tainted donations over the years. So to my mind, I think this is where you get some some questions that you need to ask that almost function as kind of tests here. So I think the first one is, well, pretty basically, can you support a claim that good is being done with the money? And you'd assume most charities or nonprofit institutions can because they believe in what they're doing and in their mission. Um, and so they could at least say, if we take this money, yes, some good will be done with it. I think it's perhaps more difficult sometimes to make that case in a way that's universally accepted for institutions like you know higher education higher education institutions, universities, or you know, museums and art galleries, because some people would say, you know, you know, actually, if you as a very rich university are taking this money, well yes, you can make an argument that some good will be done with it in a very broad sense of it's going towards the coffers of of you know education uh and and kind of uh you know increasing the overall sum of human knowledge, but people might be relatively sceptical about that as a strong enough argument in terms of you know proactive good being done with the money. And I think that also brings us on to another question that's related to this is it enough to argue that just generic good would have would be done with the money if it was accepted? Or does the the good that is done with the money in some way need to relate to the nature of the taint? So is it that you know the money can be seen as a direct form of reparation? So in the case of you know um uh the SACLAS or something like that, would it be okay if their philanthropy had been focused on addressing the um you know the issues caused by the opioid epidemic? And this this is an argument that Peter Singer, um the sort of utilitarian moral philosopher, uh, made in relation to the SACLAS, uh, interestingly. So he says whether a non-profit should accept donations from Sackler family members who did benefit from selling a drug that led to hundreds of thousands of users becoming addicts is a separate question from whether an institution should bear their names. Those members should apologise to the victims and to the families of those who died and pledge to use their billions not to promote the arts but to reduce suffering, if possible on the same scale as the suffering brought about by the accumulation of their wealth. That would require donating to non-profits that are most effectively reducing suffering anywhere in the world. The recipients would be justified in accepting the Sackler's money for that purpose. So I think it's an interesting point of view. I I think the counter to that point of view is it almost, you know, it takes back to a quite an old model of, you know, charity, the role of charity being, you know, actively to embrace that idea that it's there to cleanse money that is ethically impure. Um and I think that's an uncomfortable one because again, you know, actually it sort of puts that idea that uh that that charity is a way of uh kind of cleansing money, but also reputation at the forefront. And I know the point that Singer's making is that actually if you separate that out from the reputational bit and say they're not getting their names on it or anything like that, then they should just take the money. I think that's an interesting point, and we'll bring us on to a question uh in a moment about sort of whether it's some in some cases it would be better if this stuff was done not anonymously. Um but I think in terms of that question of recognition, this is a really important one. So that's another test is you know, in terms of tainted money, is the donor getting recognition for this gift and thereby, you know, presumably some form of reputational benefit? So I guess you know, there we need to split that out. Is there is there a overt thanks in the form of naming? Now, when it came to the Sacklers, that was one of the big problems. You know, they very much were hot on you know plastering their names all over everything. Um and having just read uh Patrick Rudd and Keith's Empire of Pain, um, I'm certainly aware more than I was before that this wasn't accidental. You know, the Sacklers were were very clear from the outset that they about where they wanted their name and how they wanted it, and they had very, very sort of you know firm contractual agreements in place about gifts that they made. I think we've also seen you know other examples of this, and this is often something that brings questions of tainted donations to light is this sort of naming issue. So there was another story about um uh an Oxford college, it was Lineker College, um, a few months ago, maybe six months to a year ago. And this might might have been caught anyway, but it was particularly caught because the college received a 155 million pound donation from a a woman called Ngoyen T. Uh Fong Tao, who is uh a Vietnamese airline owner and she owns a number of other companies as well. Uh and it's a big donation, so it probably would have got some headlines anyway. But the the thing that really got people talking was that Lineka College um agreed to change their name seemingly off the back of this this donation, and there were all sorts of questions about you know whether that had been a stipulation on the part of the donor or whether it's just something the college itself had decided to do to show thanks. And I think uh you know this this is that kind of a thing that really kind of brings this to light because it's it's a very tangible version of that that suspicion that you know a donor is getting reputational benefit for their gift, if they're literally getting you know their name attached to an Oxford College or kind of put on a museum wing, that's a that's a very kind of clear argument that they are getting that reputational benefit. Uh just to touch on that question we we mentioned before, you know, actually in terms of those sorts of concerns, would it be therefore be better if gifts were made anonymously? And would that mean that we wouldn't have any of these kinds of concerns? I think there is an argument that, you know, counterintuitively in some ways, anonymous gifts might actually be less ethically problematic. Um often, you know, we're sort of in the world of philanthropy, we're always pushing for more and more transparency and openness and sort of more information about who donors are and where their money comes from. But actually, you know, there's an argument that if if a donor gives entirely anonymously, and as we'll see in a moment, with no strings attached, even if the money is problematic in some ways, is it therefore more acceptable for an organization to receive it and try and do some good with it? I think the you know the counter to that is it's sort of there is there is some reason for skepticism about whether that would genuinely overcome the problems of reputational benefit, because even if if a donation is given, you know, quote unquote, anonymously, if that person, you know, within the circles that matter is known to have given that money and that is therefore able to be kind of parlayed into future connections and reputation and social capital, you know, even if they've sort of done it uh anonymously, have they still covertly got the same benefits? Uh and that's essentially the the point of the wonderful episode of Kirby or Enthusiasm with Larry David, where uh it's called Anonymous Donor. And again, I'll put a link to you know a clip um in the show notes. Uh but Larry sort of gives some money to a museum to and they name you know a wing of the gallery after him, and he's there at the sort of unveiling of this, and and it they unveil it and it's kind of called a you know, Larry David wing or whatever, and there's a smattering of applause, and everybody's sort of looking a little bit as if this is slightly distasteful, and Larry's looking around confused. And then another at the same time, you know, another gallery has been unveiled, and it just says, you know, thanks to anonymous donor. Um, and Ted Danson is in the room, and everybody clearly knows that anonymous donor is Ted Danson, is going around, you know, sort of saying, Oh wow, Ted, this is so wonderful that you know, not only did you give this money, but uh, you know, you did so anonymously. And Larry gets increasingly annoyed about the fact that you know that he is uh he's not getting he's not only not getting you know the the the gratitude and and thanks and praise for his donation, but that somebody who who went out of the way to do it anonymously is actually getting you know even more of that reputational benefit. Uh he thinks this is hugely unfair. Um and then I guess the the other two questions uh about whether or not it's okay to accept those donations. I mean, one is linked to that question of reputational benefit and whether you have naming rights and and things like that, which is does the gift uh does acceptance of a gift imply condoning a donor's business principles? Um I think it's easy to claim not, and this was the argument as we saw that the American Board of Foreign Missions uh had when it came to the Rockefeller gift. But I do think in reality, you know, we shouldn't be naive. I think any charity that thinks they can just take the money and then without saying anything, say, oh, we weren't actively condoning the donor. You know, the donor might might claim that that that is condoning of you know their wealth creation and their business practices, or other people will sort of draw those links for them. Um worth chucking in that there there are interesting examples, and only a handful so far, but of organizations where they have taken money uh on the basis that it you know is better that they have it and they do some good with it, and at the same time actively criticize the donor. Um, and the example that that came to light a few months ago um was interesting. So it's that Frida, the Young Feminist Fund, was one of the organizations that got given money in the latest tranche of donations from Mackenzie Scott. Uh now McKenzie Scott is you know not in herself a hugely problematic donor, and I don't think anybody would call her a poster child for tainted money philanthropy. Um, but Frida put out this this this statement saying, yes, we will accept this $10 million and do good with it. They didn't really express gratitude because their argument was, you know, this this is just a matter of justice, you know, this money should be with us, should have been with us anyway in the first place, and also saying, you know, it's good that Mackenzie Scott has decided to give this money to us and other organizations, but you know, her money fundamentally comes from Amazon, and Amazon is problematic and you know, itself and reflective of sort of problematic uh capitalist inequality with uh capitalist society with great inequality in it, and and so calling all of that stuff out at the same time. Now, I guess in a way, maybe it's an argument that Mackenzie Scott herself is a particularly enlightened donor if she's okay with giving $10 million to an organization that's also then going to say that about her. But I wonder if you know we will see more organisations in the future trying to sort of have their cake and eat it in that way and kind of take the money, but at the same time make it clear that they they definitely don't condone where the money has come from, um, or whether that's always going to be impractical because people just wouldn't give the money in the first place, or at least most, you know, 99.9% of people wouldn't do that. And then the final question, I think, about whether or not to take the money is you know, has the donor attached any strings to the gift, or are they retaining power over how the gift's being used? And I think this is an important one as well, because I think it's much more problematic for an organisation to take the money if if it is true that the donor has either stipulated something up front about you know restrictions on how it's to be used or how it's to be spent, or is actively remaining involved in in that process. And I think that's where you know the the response of the the American board to Rockefeller again is a really interesting historical example because their argument was if you know if he if that had been the case and there were all sorts of stipulations, then yes, this would have been problematic. But it was a you know no strings attached gift. And actually this ties into uh the focus that we've got a lot at the moment on kind of core cost donations and uh the fact that it would be better if people gave core cost donations. And and in most cases, that's a sort of practical thing, that it that's a difficult kind of income for organizations to raise, and it's the best kind of income because it gives flexibility to organizations and also it reflects a shifting of power and a greater display of trust in the recipient organizations, but it also has the knock-on effect that maybe it makes it easier to accept money from slightly iffy sources if you're very clearly able to say, Well, look, they gave it no strings attached as core funding, we're not happy with where it's come from, but once we take the gift, that donor has no say whatsoever in how the money's spent. We might even spend it on you know campaigning about, you know, against the very practices that led to that wealth creation in the first place. Uh, and if that's the case, maybe the pragmatic argument then for the organization taking the money works. So I think if you have a situation in which an organization is faced with a tainted donation, but um, you know, they're clearly able to evidence that some money is going to some good is going to be done with the money. Um, you know, the donor is definitely not getting any recognition for the gift and might even be getting some criticism as a result. You know, the organization is able to very clearly say that this doesn't mean that they condone the donor or their wealth creation or their business practices, and there are no strings attached to the gift. If all of those conditions have been met, then you know, it to my mind as a reasonably good argument for considering taking the money. Although, again, I think this stuff is quite complex, so it's always going to have to happen on a case-by-case basis. So that that sort of takes us through some of those considerations. I'm just going to come back very briefly in a moment for a final section just to look at what some of the key stories at the moment are and where some of this stuff might go in the future. So stay tuned for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:30

Genius billionaire, playboy philanthropist, genius billionaire, playboy philanthropist, genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. Genius billionaire playbook, Playboy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Okay, so we're back just for a brief section at the end. Um, and I kind of I don't want to overlabour this because I had talked about it right up front, but I think the the basic point is, I mean, as should be apparent, I find this stuff absolutely fascinating. Um, and I think, you know, it is a story that keeps coming around around again in slightly different guises. And I I guess the questions to my mind are have we moved on at all from you know the views of the Venerable Bede back in the 8th century or whatever, uh, or you know, the views of of Frederick Douglass or George Cadbury or the American Board for foreign missions in the 19th or 20th century, or are we still kind of rolling through those same debates again because they are fundamentally quite difficult debates about you know what we think the nature of property is and wealth and and kind of systemic inequality and injustice and all these sorts of things? Or have things shifted a little bit? And I do wonder on this this front whether actually part of the reason that we're seeing this story crop up again, I think with greater frequency than ever before, is that actually maybe that that sort of old paradigm of you can make money with the right hand over here and then give it away with the left hand over here in the form of philanthropy, doesn't really hold water anymore. And I I think fewer and fewer people think that you can disentangle things in that way, and that actually, you know, as as Cadbury said, the making money and giving it away has to be seen as a sort of coherent whole, and you know, if no amount of of philanthropy can can outweigh uh money that's been made in a way that's sort of sufficiently ethically problematic. Um, you know, that being said, if if you think the problem is not the specific example of money being made, but the you know the very idea of making money in capitalism, uh are you making it impossible for any amount of philanthropy to take place because you're always gonna say, yes, but the fact you know is that you've made money in the first place, so that has to be problematic. Well, yes, some people are going to level that argument, but that's maybe a sort of a different argument about the the fundamental nature of of wealth and how you want society to be structured and whether or not you know we need absolute equality or whether there's gonna be you know some degree of of inequality because there are always gonna be people who have slightly more and slightly less, and that maybe even if we think that society at the moment has far too high a degree of inequality, you know, the we're never going to get to a point where we have absolute equality and what we need is a better balance somewhere in the middle. But again, as I say, those are slightly different arguments that take us away from the specific question of tainted donations. I think the the other question is, you know, does the fact that these stories are coming around more and more also it reflects a difference of views about you know the nature of wealth creation and its and its relationship to philanthropy and the legitimacy of that philanthropy? But does it also just reflect the fact that we have more transparency and scrutiny these days? And so people are kind of more aware of where money has come from and how people have made their money. And so that's maybe a good thing. The fact that we're talking about this more doesn't necessarily mean that there's more tainted money out there, it just means that we are more able to call it out and to have some of these debates and discussions, and if so, I think that's broadly a good thing. I think it's an interesting question about you know w why there is a kind of particular skewing towards arts and culture and and higher education institutions when it comes to tainted donations. I do think they seem to sort of disproportionately be part of uh of the conversation, and a lot of the examples that you see coming up are around universities or art galleries and museums. You know, uh that might just be that you know, in practical terms, they tend to attract bigger donors, uh, and also they're probably more obvious and appealing to argument targets if you are trying to uh you know burnish your own halo or launder your reputation or or kind of increase your social standing. I think also there are certainly when it comes to higher education, in terms of the the relationship between the donor and the recipient organisation and the nature of the gift and how much control is exerted. I think there are some interesting and quite thorny specific questions around uh grant conditions and academic freedom, because again, that's an another dimension of and that sort of general question of is are any restrictions being placed on the gift that kind of bind the hands of the recipient organisation? When it comes to universities, that is particularly pertinent because I think that idea that they they need to have academic freedom is is absolutely sacrosanct, certainly for many, and that becomes quite an issue when when the general question of philanthropic funding for higher education comes up. I think academics are often, you know, uh automatically quite resistant or skeptical skeptical because they are concerned that um you know money from those sources not only has ethical issues uh attached to it, but more practically, you know, if they end up having to uh accept money themselves from it or benefit in some ways, that will limit their own ability, for instance, to do work that is seen to be critical of that donor or their beliefs or you know the ways in which they've made their money. Um, and you know, that would be problematic, I think, in the same way that it would be problematic for any other recipient organization, but I think it's just felt that much more keenly. Um and then the other thing I just wanted to throw in is I think there's there's an interesting host of ways in which new technology is kind of opening up new dimensions in the question of tainted money. Um so one that came to light, or it's still rumbling on at the moment, but came to light in the last few weeks, um, there was a story about the social goods, tech, and cloud software provider Blackboard, which is a very big provider of software to the non-profit sector. Um, and there was a concern because the story came to light that Blackboard is also has as one of its customers the National Rifle Association or the NRA, and not just as a customer, but as one of their kind of you know platinum tier most favoured customers. So they're not just providing them with software, but they've got a very close relationship and they're doing kind of reputation management and all these sorts of things for them. And lots of people said, well, this is an issue for other charities and organizations that are either receiving money in the form of donations or sponsorship from Blackboard or just using Blackboard services. And I think this is an interesting one. I mean, I won't go into a huge amount of detail here because we've run long already, but I think there are questions here about, you know, what what is the nature of the taint in this case? I mean, firstly, it's not necessarily that people are saying that Blackboard themselves are doing anything ethically questionable other than taking money from an organization that lots of people feel is ethically questionable, the NRA, um, because of all their lobbying that they do around um Second Amendment freedoms and and you know the role that people I think uh justifiably feel that they play in perpetuating issues of gun violence in the US. But then also the question is actually it's more complicated because it's not the the the tainting question here is you know attached to an organization that is not the organization that most of the uh concerned parties have a direct relationship with. We're not talking about most charities worrying about whether or not they should take money from the NRA, because most of them clearly wouldn't and aren't in that position anyway. But then also, you know, the NRA, I agree, is is ethically problematic, but it is also a legal organization and arguably part of civil society. So this brings in another dimension, which is about more to do with the question of where you draw the acceptable boundaries within civil society, which is you know the topic for a whole other podcast. But if you believe in sort of civil society plurality, and one of the things that is important, you know, is that we're allowed to have organizations representing a wide different range of viewpoints, you know, actually I think we've talked about this before in the podcast, but is one of the prices that you have to pay for that an acceptance that there will be people and organizations holding views that you yourself don't like and are uncomfortable with, and actually in the case of the NRA, is that that is that how organizations should be interpreting this, that they're not very happy about the fact that Blackboard does business with the NRA, but that you know they have to accept that the NRA is just an a legitimate at the moment organization that holds very different views to their own and different, you know, ethical values. I think also the thing that the other thing that this throws up is the relationship for a lot of organizations with Blackboard is one where they are customers essentially. So this is less about tainted donations in a way than it is about consumer ethics, which again raises a question that is very pertinent but is another topic entirely for a different podcast about whether uh non-profit organizations and charities, particularly as we're seeing more and more uh organizations offering services in a sort of platform form, whether they need to question the ethics of those platforms and what the moral responsibilities of those platforms are in terms of who they accept money from and where they allow money to go to. Um, and we obviously did a whole episode of this podcast on the platformization of philanthropy where we covered some of these issues, which I'll put links in the show notes to. Um, and then the final thing that I will just throw in, because we really are going very long here, um, is that you know, another dimension potentially opened up in Tainted Donations comes when new technology, you know, changes the parameters around things like anonymity. Um so I'm thinking here of uh cryptocurrency, and again, we you know in a recent episode we talked quite a lot about crypto philanthropy. One of the things about cryptocurrency is it's not entirely anonymous, but it is pseudonymous. So unless you happen to know which real-world individual is associated with a particular crypto wallet address, it it's very hard to tell you where money may have come from. And the the you know, the kind of the paradigm example here is a concern that if you just set up a crypto wallet yourself as a charity and then just allowed people to make donations into it, how would you know where that money had come from? There are obviously sort of know-year customer requirements and due diligence requirements on donors uh already, when it, you know, in terms of other forms of donations, but those might be quite difficult to perform uh when it comes to crypto. Uh and this, you know, this is something that some charities have already found, even when they're using intermediaries. And so there was a story a year or two ago about the Water Project and Children International uh accepting some money via uh an intermediary that that had come in the form of crypto and then be turned into fiat currency. But then it subsequently turned out that this had come from a hacker group who had stolen the money as a sort of part of a Robin Hood attack, and the hacker group had then kind of publicly um claimed responsibility for this. And that puts the recipient organizations in a difficult position because what do you then do with that money? You can't really give it back, but you know it's come from the proceeds of a criminal act. But then I think apart from the anonymity question, the other thing that crypto throws up as an issue is that there are kind of concerns uh not just about the anonymity and what that means for individual donations, but even if the donations are not anonymous, the the the whole environmental impact of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, um particularly those of them that rely on a uh proof of work consensus protocol, and just the general kind of ideological background of the whole thing and the idea that it's about kind of you know circumventing uh established norms and institutions. I think for a lot of recipient organizations, this makes them wary of any donation that might come in the form of crypto, because it's seen as tainted in the sense that it's not it's not just the source of the money, it's the very nature of the money itself that is the problem. I think that's really interesting because you know that's a seems like a different dimension to me. It's it it kind of is is is not the you know tainted donation in the source of like we need to question how the money was made. We just need to question the nature of the money. And in the future, I think as we get new forms of money potentially emerging, you know, alongside crypto or new iterations of crypto, um, I think that that question might come to be one that charities themselves you know have to grapple with more, which is like not just where does the money come from, but what kind of asset or money is it that somebody is suggesting they will give to you? And are you happy with accepting that kind of uh that kind of uh wealth okay? So I think that brings us to the end of a relatively long podcast, but as you can probably tell, it is a subject that I really like thinking and talking about. So I hope uh you have enjoyed it too. Um I will put links in the show notes to lots of the things that I've mentioned, particularly you know some of the papers that I have referenced, which I definitely recommend that you check out. Um if you want to check out any back issues of the podcast, or you want a place where you can find an email to get in touch with us, check out philanthropisms.com. If you want to follow me on Twitter, uh at Rodri underscore H underscore Davis or at for literacy, if you want stuff that's more about sort of history and that kind of thing. Other than that, just like, subscribe, uh, do tell all your friends about it. Um if you found it interesting, share on social media or you know, uh say what you found interesting or say what you thought was terrible. Uh in fact, second thoughts, don't do that. Um, but other than that, uh, I will see you next time. Bye.