Sep 18, 2009
Mourning the Passing of Irving Kristol
ACR mourns the loss of one of The Philanthropy Roundtable’s Founding Fathers
In 1980 Irving delivered a remarkable talk at the Council on Foundations, entitled “Foundations and the Sin of Pride: The Myth of the Third Sector.” Irving challenged the ideas that philanthropy constitutes a separate “third sector,” that foundations are on the “cutting edge” of social change, and that foundation money is public money. He even challenged the “passion for doing good” that is so central to philanthropy as being dangerous - like all passions - if not controlled.
Irving’s words on philanthropy still ring as true today as they did over twenty years ago when he said “Foundations are part and parcel of the private sector. They are flesh of the flesh, bone of the bone, blood of the blood of the private sector. The notion that foundations in some way constitute a sector of their own, different from, above, and superior to the other two sectors [private and public] is an act of pride which will only go before a fall.”