00:02:41.400and I've been a consultant in philanthropy and fundraising for about 15 years.
00:02:45.220Okay, so the ostensible theme of this episode is celebrity philanthropy, but we're going to get into like lots of things about celebrity and lots of things about philanthropy. But what sort of tropes did you see or hallmarks of fundraising did you see in this ad? This is from the Red Campaign and it aired originally in April of 2010.
00:03:04.860Okay, what a good find. I can't believe I didn't find this. So two big ones. One is the equivalency of like, the value of what 40 cents buys. That gets us straight into almost like a consumer reports, like, where am I going to get the best value for the same sum of money?
00:03:28.300yep and then of course you have the glamour of the celebrities themselves like just the sheer
00:03:37.320the star power of it like there's actually very little about aids the cause the what
00:03:46.360approach is being taken like the there's very little content about the cause it's just pure
00:03:53.100pure dazzlement of like look at all these celebrities like the imagine video that came
00:03:57.720out at the beginning of the pandemic yeah it's very much the same vibes and like so many celebrities
00:04:04.780it's like bono's rolodex don't you think he was just like will you i don't know show up in la or
00:04:11.940new york for literally one second yeah and be part of this video for this like the lazarus effect i
00:04:21.400mean what what is that what does it mean like does it do we need to know or do we just trust
00:04:26.760the fact that all these celebrities are raising money for it so it must be good exactly like that's
00:04:30.960that seems to be the presumption here right and like also i think there's like this weird
00:04:36.720sort of like can you believe that all all that it takes is 40 cents like you could save the world
00:04:43.040if you take the change out of your pocket kind of situation right that's what i call the exchange
00:04:47.960rate for generosity of like oh you just need to know the minimal dollar amount the minimal sort
00:04:55.280of unit of money to do something heroic. You know what I mean? Like the, just the minimum increment.
00:05:04.200So this episode is like the companion to the Q and a that Amy and I did in the culture study
00:05:10.280newsletter back in December. So if you like this episode, definitely go back and read that. Cause
00:05:15.800we get a lot more wonky and detailed in some ways, but today we're going to talk more about
00:05:21.800a certain corner of philanthropy which relates to celebrity and then we'll expand out to talk
00:05:30.000a little bit more about philanthropy in general so how did philanthropy become your beat for lack
00:05:35.880of a better term it's a perfect term um i always say like i kind of took the side door
00:05:41.660not into philanthropy per se but into the intellectualizing of philanthropy yep um i
00:05:48.980started my career. I did fundraising for a political campaign. I'm from Ohio. So I went
00:05:55.540back to Cleveland and worked for a Democratic candidate who won, the last Democratic governor
00:06:00.220that Ohio has had, maybe ever. And hopefully not, probably. And from there, went on to work for a
00:06:09.740firm in New York. And just as a sidebar, I was hired to work for this consulting firm at 22,
00:06:15.400which is so young. It was so early. I felt like I was clomping around in my mother's heels. Like,
00:06:21.900yes, I am a consultant. I know what this is. I very performatively read the Wall Street Journal
00:06:28.060sitting in the waiting room. Like this is what grownups do. Wow. Learned so much in the about
00:06:35.940five years that I was at that firm full time in the thick of nonprofits, like top nonprofits
00:06:43.580in New York, major medical centers, major universities, major cultural institutions.
00:06:49.440The first event that I went to was for Alvin Ailey Dance Company, like just jumping right
00:06:54.960into the deep end of like what philanthropy does in a city where it's so powerful and
00:07:00.480it creates so much for better or worse and learning how that operates.
00:07:05.800And maybe the most important thing that happened was talking directly to people for whom philanthropy
00:07:11.340be as a large and conscious part of their life. And hearing how they talked about why they were
00:07:18.060giving, how they made giving decisions, what made something a priority. And in that, noticing a
00:07:24.260shift in their language that really intrigued me. It really intrigued me that it was going from
00:07:31.860a very subjective, values-based, identity-based sense of, this is my community, I'm giving back,
00:07:41.340to one that was much more detached and analytical and a kind of extent rather than for either being
00:07:48.640a counterpoint to their like identities in the in the economic sphere it was an extension of them
00:07:55.580it's like i'm going to analyze my giving the same way i analyze my investments um yeah and figure
00:08:01.020out where i can where my my their equivalent of 40 cents would be like where can my million dollars
00:08:06.020have the greatest impact right it was very sovereign focus to use this little academic
00:08:12.180term there of like very much about like individual agency power leverage like how can i ensure that i
00:08:18.840personally do the best job like to have the most success um so that led me to productivity culture
00:08:26.360applied to philanthropy absolutely it's like how can like maximize my value my dollar's value right
00:08:34.320and and make sure make sure that I'm not it's not going into like any bogus philanthropy like you0.91
00:08:40.080don't want to be a chump big time if you're giving away this money of course right what0.69
00:08:44.080me a hedge fund manager a chump no um nothing's ever gone wrong for me there before um so I just0.99
00:08:54.460was so intrigued and it's actually exactly right what you said that it felt to me like instead of
00:09:04.200philanthropy, and this may well be a very romantic notion that I have, but instead of
00:09:08.740philanthropy in its ideal role being this sort of sanctuary or this bulwark against that neoliberal
00:09:15.960mentality where you could use money in different ways for different reasons based on different
00:09:21.440value systems, it just was getting swept up in the same framework. And that made me very sad and
00:09:29.980very nervous that we were losing parts of ourselves that were like, I can use money
00:09:35.000just because I want something to exist, just so they want people to have something nice and
00:09:39.200uplifting, just because I feel that something is important. No, it needed to still fulfill the same
00:09:45.280framework and metrics as your more economic analysis. So anyway, that's a very long way
00:09:52.180of saying it became my B because it's how I started my career. And then I realized there
00:09:56.300was more to the story and I explored that through my doctoral work and now through my book you know
00:10:03.260it makes me think of how a lot of us were probably first exposed to philanthropy especially if you
00:10:08.160grew up in a smaller town which was like very local stuff mine was like at school you would
00:10:14.060raise money for like the world wildlife fund by selling chocolate bars so that was very
00:10:18.800alienated from any sort of like I don't know action that you could see but then also a lot
00:10:25.920of the fundraising that took place in my little town in Idaho was like, for the Valley Boys and
00:10:30.360Girls Club. And because you fundraised for the Valley Boys and Girls Club, then you saw the
00:10:35.320ramifications of that, like, in the programs that you were able to attend, or tithing at church,
00:10:42.200which is, you know, part of philanthropy in an interesting way. And you would see the effects
00:10:48.860of that in different ways in your daily life. And then to be exposed to those larger things,
00:10:54.960The first time that I really understood anything about like the scale of philanthropic giving was when some friends of mine in Seattle worked for like different nonprofits where you have to like manage donors and like prepare for the ask that's like a million dollars, just unthinkable amounts of money.
00:11:16.040And you have to figure out how to talk to people about, okay, so we're doing this fundraising campaign.
00:11:22.420What is the appropriate ask for this season?
00:11:24.960that sort of thing. As I've talked to more people who are in nonprofits, and then also
00:11:29.200reading your book, which just put a lot of things in place for me, right, like gave me language to
00:11:33.680describe some discomforts that I've had. And I think that a lot of people have had, and especially
00:11:37.680people who are in the field, and still in the field, like are still doing this work and feel
00:11:42.840very uncomfortable about a lot of the different tropes, intentions, and the way that it like
00:11:48.000nonprofits have to appeal to the donor. Like there's something about your q&a. And I really
00:11:53.360encourage people to read that, but especially the book. It spoke to, I think, a discomfort
00:11:58.920that has been there for some time. Well, that's, first of all, the best thing I could possibly
00:12:04.040hear that actually, like I tapped into something real. And yeah, your examples of that early
00:12:10.660philanthropy, it used to be that, and, you know, I write about this, that we kind of had a model
00:12:18.980similar there has been a model in operation similar to what happened in ancient greece where
00:12:24.740the ancient nobles were responsible for the civic life of the city right like things that actually
00:12:31.220brought people together banquets libraries parades celebrations you know they could be
00:12:37.540spaces they could be events whatever and there's definitely limits to that model it's certainly not
00:12:44.440like a model for justice or restitution no right but right it's like it depends on there being rich
00:12:52.360people right which means that it depends on an equitable society absolutely and like you know
00:12:57.700in a grace we're also talking about like slaves being normalized right slavery so like right
00:13:02.280there's huge huge asterisks and caveats to all this but that is your what you are describing
00:13:09.240is a kind of descendant of that tradition of like, this is localized, this is community driven,
00:13:16.580this is about quality of life. And I'm in relationship with the people who my giving
00:13:21.480is benefiting. I'm one of the people who's benefiting from that ecosystem, that civic
00:13:27.280ecosystem. And the detachment is maybe the most concerning element of all of this, the removal
00:13:35.060from any interdependent context is, to me, the thing that I'm trying to push back against the
00:13:42.620strongest. We could just talk about like the philosophy of philanthropy for literally seven
00:13:47.540hours. So instead, we're going to use some of our listener questions about celebrity philanthropy
00:13:53.620to get at those larger questions. So this first one is about like the whole reason why celebrities
00:13:59.520get involved with philanthropy. Let's hear from Stevie. When I was teaching college writing,
00:14:03.960my students one semester all became interested in writing about sex trafficking because Ashton
00:14:08.600Kutcher had given congressional testimony about it as a way to promote Thorne, his anti-trafficking
00:14:13.280software. His perspective, trafficking equals bad, all trafficked people equal victims,
00:14:19.840trafficking is only about sex, etc., became the dominant mode of thought that my students simply
00:14:24.680wrote toward rather than researching the nuances of the issue. I'm curious about the historical
00:14:30.580and cultural impact of celebrity causes on public thought. Why do we lend so much credence to an
00:14:36.980issue when a famous person, even someone famous for playing doofuses and bullying pranks like
00:14:42.040Ashton Kutcher, speaks on the subject? There's so much here. So much. I mean, first, I think,
00:14:47.980let's very quickly just address the fact that, well, I personally think that Ashton Kutcher's
00:14:53.460philanthropy is bad. I mean, yeah. I think Ashton Kutcher seems to be an ethically compromised
00:15:01.920person. I think we can safely say that. For many reasons. Many reasons. Which, you know,
00:15:10.340not to get too armchair psychologists about it, is one of the reasons why celebrities find a cause
00:15:17.060to attach themselves to as a means of misdirection and a means of kind of reputation washing or
00:15:23.440or rebranding, you might even say. Yeah. In this case, though, there's a couple of things that
00:15:29.520are really interesting. And one is like, when we say, why did we give so much credence to Ashton
00:15:34.980Kutcher? Let's just pause at the fact that he gave congressional testimony, meaning he had a
00:15:40.520platform. Congress gave him a platform. This committee gave him a platform. So there was a
00:15:45.520certain cross pollination there that I think benefits Kutcher much more than it does Congress
00:15:51.520that says, oh, well, if he's giving congressional testimony, he's a more serious guy than just a0.72
00:15:57.860doofus who plays pranks. So already there's a strategy there. This isn't just him writing
00:16:03.820an Instagram post about why sex trafficking is bad. There was clearly an effort to present him
00:16:11.160as this serious, thoughtful citizen, expert leader, what have you, that begins with the
00:16:17.600fact that he's even like giving congressional testimony yeah yeah the question though points
00:16:23.020to something so relevant and so important about how flattened the issue becomes um i think for
00:16:31.340celebrities they're looking for something that is like unequivocally praiseworthy they are not
00:16:38.720going to get into something controversial they are not going to get into something
00:16:42.580that is confrontational in a way that would risk any of their economic interests so it's not going
00:16:51.640to be about typically right it's not going to be about like labor politics for example like that's
00:16:58.140not going to be where they go so what sex trafficking offers is this opportunity to talk
00:17:05.360about these like perfect victims in a way because they are yeah like not seen they're not heard
00:17:11.480most often there's a narrative that you can spin that says basically like they are there there's
00:17:17.100victimhood and they need rescuing and we are here to do it that is very attractive because if you're
00:17:23.640looking for something that's again unambiguously heroic or praiseworthy that's a great opportunity
00:17:30.280to exploit in the most cynical way possible like your stature and say like i the celebrity i'm
00:17:36.880coming in to rescue these women that's a great narrative that totally erases any of the complexity
00:17:42.620that the that the questioner stevie wrote in about yeah no and i think we have to remember that
00:17:48.680celebrities are like normal people in some capacity so the way that ashton kutcher like i
00:17:54.720haven't done my research here on how he got into philanthropy that addresses sex trafficking but
00:18:00.660he probably like watched a ted talk or like someone started talking to him at a dinner
00:18:05.900right like someone made this into something that was unignorable to him
00:18:11.160and then we should also point out the very obvious that like in addition to their reputation
00:18:16.960washing philanthropy is a way for rich people to get tax breaks as well of course there's a reason
00:18:24.480there's a reason why so many celebrities so many football players so many anyone with any like a
00:18:31.360modicum of money, they have a foundation. And it is because it is a structural means
00:18:37.080of decreasing your tax load. Yeah, absolutely true. And in, you know,
00:18:43.800one of the biggest problems with how we structure that is that the incentives that we have for
00:18:48.500giving are very like more is more. If you give a larger sum of money away, you can deduct that
00:18:54.160larger sum of money from your taxes. It's very regressive in that way, instead of kind of
00:18:59.480flipping the incentives to incentivize and reward smaller dollar giving that may or may not be like
00:19:05.820a more proportionally higher version of um percentage of what people can give so huge
00:19:12.900problems with that what you have here is like he could do stuff on the low right he could have a
00:19:20.080foundation that was just writing checks the fact that it's part of his public persona that he
00:19:26.780wanted to like be a face of something that's something else that's really a and i think
00:19:32.860celebrities very often and kutcher's a great example of this what do rich people want um people
00:19:38.400who have succeeded in one realm of life they often want the pinnacle of success that is less that's
00:19:44.300more elusive to them so kutcher has conquered you know he's got fame he's got money he's got looks
00:19:51.060what doesn't he have he doesn't have renown for being smart he doesn't have renown for being
00:19:56.220like a good person or leadership like that's or a serious person a serious person a serious person
00:20:02.520so that's that's what you're trying to convert is like my stature as a celebrity I'm trying
00:20:08.760to convert that into this more elusive form of renown absolutely I mean that is such a good
00:20:14.780point in terms of like what someone who you know like the question asker was like this is just like
00:20:20.640he's a doofy guy like why are people looking at him for this I would also point out that I think
00:20:25.820that oftentimes there's a certain point where someone becomes more known for their philanthropy
00:20:30.820than that whatever became like whatever was the cause of their celebrity so for college students
00:20:37.760right now like do they know punk to ashton kutcher no right like to them there is not necessarily that
00:20:44.900dissonance right they're just like ashton kutcher is a famous person right he's a person whose name
00:20:50.940I know. And he has testified before Congress and he has a big set of knowledge. I mean,
00:20:58.880he's been briefed by people who have a lot of knowledge and who have a point of view, right?
00:21:02.780And so he's giving this testimony. And as is often the case, I think that we're not doing
00:21:09.360the critical thinking of like, okay, why is he doing this? You know, doing all the things that
00:21:13.240we're talking about right here. He is just a prominent person doing a thing that we have
00:21:18.520legitimized yeah as like you know it's like a serious thing honestly bill gates is the consummate
00:21:25.100example of this right people think of bill gates for his philanthropy he has very successfully
00:21:31.980i mean the tale is yet to be you know fully told but he has so far sort of successfully
00:21:37.760rebranded from monopolist slash like potentially other troubling allegations right like he
00:21:47.520absolutely transformed his persona, his public persona, into world citizen philanthropist
00:21:57.140over the last 20, 25 years. 100%. Oh, this is an opportunity for me to tell my
00:22:03.900most amazing story from the early 90s, which is my mom had this book that had the email accounts
00:22:09.600of famous people. And on her work account, I emailed Bill Gates and Kurt Loder and said,
00:22:17.520because this was still when bill gates was like oh he's just made of money yeah and i said this
00:22:23.620is amazing early 90s why don't you give away more of your money bill gates wow i must have been 11
00:22:30.02012 he wrote me back how has this not come up between us before he wrote me back or someone
00:22:39.400on his team wrote back but i like signed bill gates and it like pointed to all of his philanthropic0.86
00:22:44.980giving my mom was mortified because it was coming from like her work account as an academic and
00:22:50.700but also I just I love that my like early self like in the early 90s did not perceive him as
00:22:59.760a philanthropist yet right like that hadn't become the valance of his image it was just he is so
00:23:06.240rich and you know one of my favorite things about the book and about the Q&A that we did is that you
00:23:11.580point to the way that like tech philanthropists they think I'm so smart at fixing problems like
00:23:17.920really what malaria needs is a disruptor yeah to come in and do this yeah and then I can also
00:23:25.280expand others understanding of me of like I'm not just a genius at I don't know creating an app that
00:23:31.900makes like cars come to me I am also a genius at like solving the world's problems like all you
00:23:38.260need is tech brain to solve everything right 100 and if you use tech brain the right way you haven't
00:23:43.740just like made a ton of money you save the world right like you're it's all for good absolve you
00:23:49.500yeah can absolve you of like turning an entire class of people into contractors instead of
00:23:54.940employees right i'm still sitting with you the chaotic good of you emailing phil gates from your
00:24:02.200moms that is just think of yourself as like an early academic you have this like work email
00:24:10.600that's one of like the first work emails wow and i just wow dinking around it's like a black and
00:24:16.900white laptop like no color i wow we stand we have to stand 11 year old incredible
00:24:23.500hi everyone okay just a quick note mid episode here if you like the show if it makes you think
00:24:32.740if you've been listening to it for the last few weeks and are like yeah i want to listen to more
00:24:37.240of this we need your help to make this show sustainable just go to culturestudypod.substack.com
00:24:43.500and you'll see how to subscribe it's five dollars a month or fifty dollars a year and if you're a
00:24:48.880current newsletter subscriber, you get a great deal. All right, now back to the show. Okay,
00:24:55.300our next question is about a specific charity and how celebs are rallying around it. This is
00:24:59.940from Ellen, and it's very specific, so we're going to go with it. I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan,
00:25:05.100and I've been hearing a lot about the Eagles Autism Foundation on Game Broadcast, the New
00:25:09.280Heights podcast, and through the buzz about the Kylie Kelsey sign jacket. A few different questions
00:25:14.260for you. What are the consequences of portraying autism as a charitable cause for acceptance
00:25:20.140of neurodivergence or disability rights activism? What are the markers of this kind of capital B,
00:25:27.820capital C, big charity? I think that legitimizing this kind of conspicuous consumption,
00:25:33.700like with the jacket or the celebrity events, is one potential marker, but I'm really curious to
00:25:39.260hear what you think. Thank you. All right. So this is such a good opportunity to talk about how
00:25:44.760charities objectify people, like actually turn something that is your identity into an object
00:25:50.440that you can fund or unfund or that sort of thing. So where does this take you? Where does this
00:25:54.560question take you? So I think that autism goes in very much the same category as sex trafficking
00:26:02.520in that there's a narrative to be spun about people who may or may not be able to define
00:26:10.500themselves. And it is exactly as you said, and very much objectifying, flattening. There's a
00:26:17.060need for perfect victimhood. There's a need for sentimentalizing something rather than actually
00:26:23.620grappling with some level of mutual responsibility as a sense of like, oh, this is this is a
00:26:37.280That doesn't really threaten my power.
00:26:39.700It doesn't really require any sacrifice or like adjustment on my part.
00:26:46.720It just, you know, you push the right emotional button and like I give the right amount of
00:26:51.140money and that's and now I've done the right thing.
00:26:53.620So I totally agree that presenting neurodivergence is a charitable cause and especially kids. I have to add that like, you know, the won't somebody think of the children card is evergreen, you know, and you can get away with a lot of objectification and self aggrandizement when you're talking about kids and looking like such a responsible, thoughtful person.
00:27:23.620Because again, these are not necessarily people who can define themselves and kind of defy your expectations with their agency, or at least not in ways that you would, you know, openly allow or display. So that's definitely going on.
00:27:39.860as far as the conspicuous consumption, you know, I do, it's totally in the same line as
00:27:47.860creating like products, cause branded products. Um, in this case, I'm, you know, I don't think
00:27:54.500this is the most egregious example of that, uh, simply because like silent auctions are
00:28:00.000like just kind of a fact of how fundraising happens. Like there's a, I'm, I'm not as
00:28:07.020troubled by that but i do absolutely see where it sits on this continuum of sort of flattening
00:28:12.820giving into shopping it's like a more i think it's a more sort of familiar innocuous version
00:28:19.460of what has sort of become way out of control and way more harmful i think of it as like a spur
00:28:26.160yeah right that's like oh i was gonna give 500 to this anyways but now i also get something for me
00:28:32.600right like i also get someone's cabin in the berkshires for a weekend like when we're talking
00:28:37.800about um silent auction type things but it does strike me as a different in a different realm than
00:28:45.360five percent of proceeds from this purchase go to saving the brazilian rainforest right which is
00:28:50.840yes like a way of making yourself feel better the order the order there is important like you just
00:28:56.140say like okay i'm already going to give money to this cause this is just gonna get me to give a
00:29:01.760little bit more than I had originally thought like this is another incentive versus like
00:29:05.680the purchases on the front end like the point is to buy something that then as an add-on effect
00:29:12.080also gives something back to charity like I agree with you that the the sequencing matters
00:29:17.000you know and the part about like getting access to star players like a meet and greet kind of thing
00:29:22.320it reminds me of how that structure is part of philanthropy in so many ways like whether it's
00:29:30.920a big gala in new york or in my town it was the boys and girls club auction which was like the
00:29:39.520dress-up event of the year and it was how you intermingled with power whether you were in a
00:29:44.640small town or a large town and so i think that like that understanding that like your access
00:29:51.120to power and privilege is also an opportunity to like give to those less fortunate and the whole
00:29:56.860like, narrativizing of that is so, so, I already said the word dissonant, but it's so, like,
00:30:02.900there's just, there's a lot going on there. It's a rich text. It's a rich text. I have been
00:30:09.820obsessed, obviously, with The Gilded Age. I don't know if you've been watching The Gilded Age on
00:30:14.480HBO this season, but it makes such a meal out of all of this about the way that philanthropy
00:30:20.820is and i believe in a very early episode um christine bransky's character agnes says like
00:30:27.960there's two purposes for charity and one is to actually help the poor which is noble admirable
00:30:33.220and the other is to allow people into society who might otherwise not qualify for that stature
00:30:40.520right and then the whole second season is all about that and it is all about bertha russell0.99
00:30:47.220building this opera house to assert her wealth, her power, her stature. That is her great victory.
00:30:54.460Now, what's the downstream effect of that? And whether or not it's worth it is absolutely an
00:31:00.260open question, but the downstream effect of that is we still have the Met Opera today.
00:31:05.420You know, there's still, there was some, there's something interesting about, you know, having built
00:31:11.120all of this cultural infrastructure that does have some level of benefit to the you know the
00:31:19.020populace whether again whether or not it's enough is absolutely an open question but
00:31:23.320the motives are always always always mixed and it's fascinating when you see that actually
00:31:28.440openly narrated instead of as it usually is sort of tacitly um sort of obscured well and i think
00:31:36.780always about the fact like are you the person who gives a donation to like I don't know a university
00:31:42.860a hospital whatever it is do you want your name on that wing or are you the person who is on the
00:31:48.380wall with the 17 other anonymouses you know I think that underlines something right like what
00:31:54.180is how do you give how do you think of your giving is it something that you think of as like
00:31:58.780oh this is my legacy right that people should like understand that I am a person who gives
00:32:04.440but isn't that also complicated? Very, very complicated. I don't know how much time
00:32:11.020we can like dwell on this, but I have, I have a lot of stories and some of which are,
00:32:18.480I think there's a way to do named things that are really meaningful in proportion.
00:32:25.320So a story that I've told, um, I actually wrote about it in my dissertation is that there's a brick
00:32:30.840outside of the stadium where the Cleveland baseball team plays, the Guardians. Thank you
00:32:35.900very much. The Guardians. Thank you. And it has my name and my brother's name on it. And it's in
00:32:44.160a plaza full of other bricks with other people's names on them. And my dad sent in $100, which we
00:32:51.620could do as a family. I'm not saying this is freely accessible for everyone, but he did that
00:32:56.720because he wanted us to feel like we were a part of building something larger part of this communal
00:33:01.320space um and i think there's a way that people may want to you when you name a bench in central park
00:33:09.980or wherever your park is or you name us a brick at the walkway to your high school there's totally
00:33:16.060a way to do it that is collective it's when it becomes like your one person's name over everything
00:33:22.940that you get into a really distorted reflection of like who matters yeah yeah yeah yeah no that's
00:33:29.480such a great point I love any place that has like all of like the bricks or the names and that sort
00:33:36.660of thing like you always can find people's dogs you can find inside jokes you can find a really
00:33:41.440loving and brief because it's on a brick a really loving dedication to like a member of a family
00:33:47.040like all of those things that makes me feel like oh this was the result of an entire community
00:33:52.140coming together to raise money for something that would benefit all of us instead of this is one
00:33:57.500rich person's beneficence yeah that they have decided to bestow upon us you know like it's just
00:34:04.680it's a different structure 100 and right that stuff is so moving it's it makes you feel like
00:34:10.900you're you are part of something larger than yourself as opposed to like alienated and you
00:34:16.720So this next question is like a second level. It's about a second level celebrity.
00:34:23.500All right. I'll explain more after we read the question. This is from Lisa.
00:34:29.260Grant Love, Alexandra Grant's art philanthropy project, seems to be a very unusual approach to charitable donation by a branded merchandise promotion.
00:34:39.880Grant runs it as a for-profit business under her personal LLC,
00:34:44.140but unlike a business that designates a percentage of their profit from sales to a cause,
00:34:49.340all the prints and merchandise sold or donated by Grant Love
00:34:52.480are branded with her registered trademark love symbol
00:34:58.020It appears to give Grant maximum reputational benefit
00:35:01.760while operating in a totally non-transparent manner.
00:35:05.120At the end of the day, this is Grant pledging to donate the profits or proceeds of her sales, or a percentage of them, of items produced by her for-profit LLC, with zero minimum donation amounts or reporting requirements.
00:35:21.960She announces beneficiaries, but rarely if ever announces the amount raised through sales or donated, nor do the organizations selected generally promote the donation amount.
00:35:33.820She touts this as a model for other artists of modest means, but why would anyone else try this?
00:35:40.320I am mystified that first Fulcrum Arts and now the Entertainment Industry Foundation
00:35:44.680have been willing to serve as fiscal sponsors for what appears to be a vanity project,
00:35:50.760particularly one that has raised so little in the 15 years or so it has operated.
00:35:55.380This would be trivial if Grant's association since 2019 with actor Keanu Reeves
00:40:43.080And then I also use separate cognitive energy to figure out where I'm giving my money.
00:40:48.120if you can merge the two more is the better that allure of convenience that allure when we're all
00:40:54.980so overwhelmed that's that's the selling point really yeah well and i see you know there are
00:41:02.740like databases that rate philanthropies and stuff like that and i think a lot of people my age our
00:41:09.680age really i rely on those a little bit and some of it i feel like you could write a piece about
00:41:14.860this is connected to like coney 2012 right i actually have a whole essay about coney 2012
00:41:21.740because i think that there's this idea that like it's so easy to be duped i don't want to give to
00:41:28.680anything that is somehow or like even all of the disaster relief which i think has become
00:41:34.040much more prominent and visible in the wake of climate disasters more climate disasters and
00:41:39.740also social media like there will be things that say like you need here are the reliable charities
00:41:46.100that you can give to don't give to the red cross right like and probably that's the wrong that's
00:41:53.140the wrong lesson from kony 2012 kony 2012 is also in that category of needing to flatten a complex
00:42:03.140situation with multiple actors and multiple motives into a very um reductive narrative that
00:42:10.700makes you the giver like her central and heroic very main character right like i'm i am rescuing
00:42:17.740these children never mind the actual political situation on the ground the status of the various
00:42:25.060armies of child soldiers we've found something that we can latch on to and we can sell as a story
00:42:29.140that really positions the heroism of the giver so that's that's the it's more the messaging
00:42:35.340than the fact that some things are scams like yes some things are scams let's go a little deeper
00:42:42.020and like don't just rely on an app right like one of the things right that that was the other
00:42:47.920problem is like you're right the the lesson was supposed to be think critically not like not find
00:42:54.420the thing that's right but you don't have to think critically about yeah no and i think there's some
00:42:59.580lines to be drawn between that fear of like being duped and effective altruism right because it's
00:43:07.660like here is an objective way of donating yeah an objective way of donating that just happens to
00:43:15.560align perfectly with my systems of thought and worldview right and what a coincidence perfectly
00:43:23.700aligns with my power position in society gosh wow you're telling me a white man in stem that
00:43:31.140i uniquely can save the world great sign me up for pennies a day remember pennies a day that's0.99
00:43:38.900right that's right i found the most efficient way all you other dumb dumbs just missed it0.99
00:43:43.820because you didn't have the right algorithms it's like all of this millennial shit it's just like0.99
00:43:48.680productivity culture and like uh like well we should not let we should not let not very0.97
00:43:55.560non-millennial peter singer off the hook for that one yes yes no but like i think like the
00:44:02.820some of the susceptibility is like a a mysterious slew of of a lot of things that collide around
00:44:09.040coming of age in the 2000s agreed no that fetishization of efficiency is like right there
00:44:16.980in the stream i will say this is like me going a little bit into our next subject but like one of
00:44:22.560the ways that i've grappled with those feelings is by trying to donate to a lot of organizations
00:44:27.400that are local to me and then it feels like i see this work and it's important um and i'm not just
00:44:33.360talking about like local as in like hyper local i'm talking about like oh the food bank in my
00:44:38.440community right exactly that sort of thing um okay so i want to zoom out because i think
00:44:45.860that this will allow us to talk a little bit like wrap up in some way and then also give some
00:44:52.180practical advice because i think one of the things that i was most struck by in the comments
00:44:55.820to our q a was people being like this all makes sense and it also kind of makes me feel like
00:45:01.540shit right that like they're they're just trying to give money and like and help and all of the
00:45:08.380ideologies that have consolidated around it are really toxic but like what else can you do so0.74
00:45:15.400this question comes from page and again it's a it's a little bit of a way for us to wrap up
00:45:21.180what are some ways to engage in philanthropic activities without falling into the trap of
00:45:25.720giving becoming shopping and this also brings us full circle to the red campaign right like it's
00:45:30.920not so you can like very easily say okay my philanthropic giving is not going to be
00:45:37.380uniquely vis-a-vis purchasing an iphone but this larger idea because i think one of the things we
00:45:44.180discussed in our q a was even the idea that like donors choose falls into this rubric in some way
00:45:50.620or when someone has a gofundme that like the appeal has to be written in a certain way and
00:45:57.220you have to emphasize these certain things and like that is a way of of us all becoming consumers
00:46:03.000of other people's trauma and pain yeah so how do we avoid that well first thing I want to say is
00:46:10.100that there are examples they're in the Q&A they're in the book that say it doesn't have to just be
00:46:18.120this neoliberal rot like I'm pointing out a flaw but I think one of the things that I'm really
00:46:24.060proudest of having thought about deeply and written about is what are the other models?
00:46:29.360And so that's where, for example, the LeBron James comes in. But also I wrote about libraries,
00:46:36.120I wrote about parks, I wrote about lots of spaces and places that exemplify what philanthropy can do
00:46:44.420to resist this collapse into a kind of like techno efficiency, exclusively only aligned
00:46:53.780with neoliberalism world. So the precise version of that is starting where you did, Anne, of
00:47:00.560giving locally, and I think giving to a balance of things that address crises. So a food bank is
00:47:09.240totally right on because we do not have policy that adequately addresses food security. So it's
00:47:15.720a bit of a rule of third situation, like definitely address urgent needs and urgent crises. Like it
00:47:22.440would be irresponsible to, you know, sweep all that away. I think the problem is when that becomes
00:47:27.680our exclusive focus. Right. So the second bucket is what are good advocacy organizations,
00:47:36.900grassroots, national, what have you, that are actually pushing back on the actual policies
00:47:44.640and structural framework and trying to create more just policies that could be on the local level.
00:47:49.080And some of that may not be your philanthropy. Some of that may be your activism. Some of that may be other civic work that you do. But that is sort of another lane of this. But then the third bucket is really important. The third lane is things that actually improve people's quality of life.
00:48:06.900And that might be a community theater troupe. That might be playground maintenance. That might be the bikes, right? That can be small things, music programs, things that are getting slashed because they don't meet that rubric of efficiency, but are really important that we really need to have exist for our lives to feel like they have meaning for us to feel like we have connection.
00:48:29.940So there are going to be things that are local that fulfill that, where you can have relationships with people and actually see over time how those programs benefit people. It's not a silver bullet kind of thing. I gave $1 and I got like five music lessons and that's what it was. Like you're going to see the subjectivity of that person emerge in a different way.
00:48:52.960The last thing I would say is to address more civically giving that's not shopping is giving unrestricted money. So if you are in a position to give money that like you could designate, or if you're offered that option, don't do it. Don't line item restrict things.
00:49:11.120I will say one small anecdote about this, which is a fundraiser friend of mine had a donor who
00:49:18.000said, well, I want to help the women in this shelter, but I don't want to just pay for the
00:49:23.720elevator. And I looked at her and I couldn't even pause before I said this. And I was like,
00:49:29.440the elevator is the women. They're the same thing. The women need the elevator. Everyone1.00
00:49:37.220needs the elevator. You have to let go of that part of yourself that's like, well,
00:49:41.120I only want to give to like the nice thing, the people, the stuff that makes me feel good.