Pearl River      As the divide between the rich and rest of us widens by the day, it’s a fair question to ask what is happening to charity?  Philanthropy at major league levels is based on favorable tax treatment, so why don’t we see money, money, money everywhere for nonprofits? Going through a spate of calls with foundation program officers in recent months, mostly the conversations are immensely positive, until the rubber hits the road, and the handwringing begins that among progressive foundations most of their money seems committed to keeping existing grantees alive, offsetting government cutbacks, and hunkering down in hopes that Trump forgets that they exist.  At the same time, one publication after another, notes that with AI companies and more tech going public, there’s a modern-day gold rush in Silicon Valley.  Then, why is it so hard to raise money?

There’s premature certainty at work here.  The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, made a barrel full on SpaceX, but in his case, “charity begins at home,” literally.  He keeps it.  What he does stow away in his foundation, he mainly doesn’t give away.  It’s for taxes, stupid.  Other reports talk about all of the AI tech mavens who will cash out when OpenAI, Anthropic and the rest go public.  OpenAI, formally a nonprofit, in order to go for the big bucks, agreed to fund what was left of the nonprofit to create a foundation that could have as much as $260 billion in its coffers to give away, an endowment that The Economist notes would be “worth 25 Ford Foundations.”  Anthropic founder, Dario Amodei, has pledged to give away 80% of his wealth and the corporation says it will match donations from employees adding up to $110 billion with another $60 billion ending up in employees’ donor advised funds (DAFs).  That’s so much money that it’s hard not to think that even the crumbs would be more than enough to fund all of our wildest organizing dreams, if we could wave our hands high enough to yell, “throw me something, mister.”

Many of the tech sort are still aligned with the “effective altruism” movement, which isn’t exactly fringe, but it certainly is eccentric.  The vaunted premise of putting money where it would do the best for the most people should be a boon for mass-based organizing, because of the huge benefits such organizations produce for millions, but, thus far, it hasn’t worked out that way.  Perhaps the vision is too constrained?  Others when looking at cost-benefit and levels of change are pouring money into politics pumping up big races in the cycles by billions without realizing that without building the organizational infrastructures those contributions evaporate quickly once the election is over.  Donor advised funds are a problem in and of themselves because, unlike foundations, there is no minimum annual giving requirement making many DAFs are often simply money holding tanks.

I hope I’m wrong.  Maybe there will be a break in the dam and some of this money will flow out to fund organizing and more development of organizations and campaigns that benefit low- and moderate-income families, but there’s no sign of that yet.