I woke up this morning thinking about two scandals in philanthropy of the last two months (I wish there were only two, but these are the ones I’m most upset about) – the Michael Steinhardt story and the Morris Dees story. Both are disturbing, both still lack true transparency, and neither bodes well for the future of giving.
The first is the Michael Steinhardt story. (Steinhardt being one of the largest donors in the US today – witness his wings at the Met, hundreds of millions put into Birthright Israel, and his school at NYU, just to name a few…) As offensive as it is to suggest that a fundraiser is told to not come back asking for money until she has a husband and child, or that a young Rabbi should be a donor’s “concubine”, it’s even more creepy to have other leaders in Jewish philanthropy suggest that it’s actually okay to do bad things — as long as it’s offset by giving generously to charitable organizations. All I can say is “ew” and how disgusting and wrong that is.
On the first reading of the story, it’s safe to say that some people might have thought “oh, well, this happy elder gentleman probably is just caught in a past decade when this kind of talk was funny and he just isn’t aware that times have changed”. Unfortunately, that sentiment doesn’t work when you see in the article that he was actually sued several years ago by two women in an art gallery because of his “harmless talk”. He was clearly fully aware that times have changed. He just didn’t care.
To their credit, many organizations immediately stepped up and voiced their support for the brave women who spoke out on Steinhardt. But many remain mum to this day, two months later -– which says a lot. It would be interesting to correlate the names of the organizations who responded (or not) with the amounts of money Steinhardt contributes to them.
In addition, as the chatter continues, at least one of the women who came forward was told as recently as last week that she should be “ashamed” for stepping forward and letting this information get “out”. And Birthright has thousands of kids going to Israel this summer, happily accepting free trips courtesy, in part, of Steinhardt, who seems to have made it even more clear that nothing will make him happier than arranging a flurry of “hookups” (in the name of creating lots of Jewish babies, of course) while the young adults are partying in the Desert. Go get’em, boys!
There is some good happening to counteract and diffuse the actions of the Steinhardts of the world. I say “awesome!” to the National Council of Jewish Women, who hired Steinhardt victim/accuser Sheila Katz as their CEO within a week of the article’s publishing, and to the other dozens of women who have come forward with their own problematic Steinhardt stories. For those who haven’t come forward because they’re worried that they “won’t work in this town again!”, I say you no longer need to worry.
The bad guys, and/or the guys who “just talk that way” will keep doing what they’re doing, and many charities will put aside their good judgement in order to get those charitable dollars. But the word is out that this has to stop, and slowly, slowly, slowly, some of the charitable institutions in our country have not only taken notice, but they, like me and others I know, have become keenly aware of this issue — and if you’re one of the many victims of this institutionally-sanctioned sexual abuse, we’re paying attention.
Watch out, non-profits who look the other way when bad guys give you money. A new band of good guys (men and women) have your backs, and we’re all about getting this information “out”.
Issue #4 of Philanthropy 451 is about Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Look for it next week.
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