US Philanthropists are no longer content to work quietly

It is hard to mistake Peter G. Peterson, a Wall Street billionaire and commerce secretary in the Nixon administration, for Michael Moore, the wise-cracking anti-establishment filmmaker.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is perhaps the only philanthropic organization in the U.S seeking to address the issue of taxes, deficits and fiscal responsibility. But as one of the nation’s newest mega-philanthropists, Mr. Peterson has taken a page from Mr. Moore’s playbook, financing the documentary “I.O.U.S.A.,” a searing look at the country’s addiction to debt.
“We just think that when you’re worried and concerned about something so important, you have to speak out,” said Mr. Peterson, a co-founder of the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm.
He is one of a growing number of philanthropists whose foundations are spending increasing amounts and raising their voices to influence public policy — a marked shift from their traditional position.

Among those speaking out to advance causes are George Soros, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, Warren E. Buffett, Jeff Skoll and Bill Gates. Even established foundations are behaving more boldly.

Take, for example, the efforts by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to persuade Exxon Mobil, the oil company and descendant of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust, to increase its investments in alternative energy. Rather than simply trying to sway corporate executives behind the scenes, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund courted news media coverage, and Rockefeller family members spoke out against Exxon Mobil’s leadership, as did the foundation’s president, Stephen B. Heintz.

Joel L. Fleishman, author of “The Foundation: A Great American Secret,” cited three reasons for foundations’ interest in influencing public policy: greater ambition to tackle big and seemingly intractable problems; growing frustration over government gridlock caused by partisanship; and an increasing number of foundations that plan to spend down their assets by a specific date, making them eager to make a mark upon the world. “Many foundation donors and trustees are just avid about the issues they care about and willing to push limits as far as they can to get things done,” Mr. Fleishman said. “They’re frustrated and want to show they have an impact.”

Last January, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation named Geoffrey Lamb, a former World Bank executive, as its managing director for public policy, and it has a staff of “advocates” who inform the news media, policy makers and others about the foundation’s work.

The Atlantic Philanthropies, which for years operated behind unmarked doors in a Manhattan office building and made its gifts anonymously, recently published a report urging greater foundation support for advocacy, the word many foundations use to describe their public policy efforts. This fall, it hired a director of advocacy.

And the two largest grants ever made by the James Irvine Foundation went to separate efforts to persuade the California Legislature to overhaul the state’s vocational education programs and to reform its fiscal policies and budgeting processes.
The foundation’s president and chief executive, James E. Canales, said: “Our grant in 2006 toward building multiple pathways to success after high school was $6 million out of roughly $60 million in total that we spent that year. We had never made such a big investment in what is essentially an advocacy effort, but the following year, we made another one that was just as large and also for advocacy.”

Another sign of the change in foundation attitudes was Atlantic’s choice last year of a new leader, Gara LaMarche. Mr. LaMarche had been director of United States programs at Mr. Soros’s Open Society Institute, which focuses on influencing public policy. Atlantic’s chairman, Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., said the foundation’s change of heart had to do with its founder’s decision to be an “apostle” for “giving while living,” or doing all one’s philanthropic giving while alive.

“You can’t be an apostle for anything if nobody knows who you are and what you’re doing,” Mr. Schwarz said.

One example of Atlantic’s influence on public policy is the Older and Bolder Campaign it helped create in Ireland. The program mobilized the elderly, ran advertisements highlighting age-related issues and lobbied policy makers. Those efforts resulted in a new cabinet-level position, minister of state for older people, to represent the interests of Ireland’s elderly. When the government recently announced plans to cut programs for the elderly, Older and Bolder helped force an almost immediate reversal.

The Gates Foundation spends roughly 10 percent of the more than $1 billion it gives away each year on advocacy efforts like increasing public awareness of issues; helping nonprofits reach policy makers and the public; and working with policy makers to provide information, expertise and ideas.

Patty Stonesifer, the Gates Foundation’s former chief executive, said
“The issues we care about,” Ms. Stonesifer said, “are issues that require public engagement, so advocacy is kind of baked into the way we do things.”

The foundation selectively deploys Bill Gates, a reluctant celebrity, as its chief advocate — and to good effect. Take, for example, his speech in 2005 at the annual meeting of the National Governors Association, where he called for a national standard for measuring graduation rates, among other things.At that time, each state calculated such statistics differently, making it impossible to get a true picture of graduation rates for the nation as a whole. Today, all 50 states have agreed to use the same standard.

Ms. Stonesifer cautioned, however, that it was difficult to link changes in public policy to a foundation’s investments in advocacy. The Gates Foundation is often credited with helping increase government aid to combat AIDS internationally, but, Ms. Stonesifer said, “you don’t really know what did cause it to rise, though we do feel like we were part of the range of voices and provided some of the evidence that led to it.”

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation will not face a similar challenge, as it is perhaps the only philanthropic organization seeking to address the issue of taxes, deficits and fiscal responsibility.

In addition to its involvement with “I.O.U.S.A.,” Mr. Peterson’s foundation is using advertising and public appearances by foundation experts to educate the public and increase engagement in those issues. Its Web site offers op-ed articles and letters to public officials and editors, some of which have appeared in newspapers.

All members of Congress received a copy of a report by the foundation, “The State of the Union’s Finances,” and Mr. Peterson and David M. Walker, the foundation’s chief executive, have met with members of both parties to discuss the nation’s deficit. “Each foundation has to make up its own mind about its mission and how best to accomplish that mission,” Mr. Walker said. “I do believe, however, that foundations have been very cautious and somewhat conservative about whether and to what extent they want to get involved in advocacy.”

Source The New York Times