Achieving Results | Good Giving
Jul 7, 2010
New Publication Challenges “Public Money” Argument of Philanthropic Dollars
Chicago-Kent Law Review
The newly released article Respecting Foundation and Charity Autonomy: How Public is Private Philanthropy? in the Chicago Kent Law Review, Number 85, Volume 2 reexamines the “public money” argument. It was published as one of several articles included in the “Symposium on the Law of Philanthropy in the Twenty-First Century”.
This recent law review article is built upon the research and study that John Tyler, of the Ewing & Marion Kauffman Foundation, and Evelyn Brody, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, conducted in penning The Philanthropy Roundtable’s 2009 monograph How Public is Private Philanthropy: Separating Fact from Myth. Tyler and Brody have joined forces again to review the underlying framework and the legal authority of the government and the public to impose restrictions on the governance, mission, and decision-making of private foundations and other charities.
Here’s an excerpt:
Recent years have seen a disturbing increase in legal proposals by the public and government officials to interfere with the governance, missions, strategies, and decision-making of foundations and other charities. Underlying much of these debates is the premise—stated or merely presumed—that foundation and charity assets are “public money” and that such entities therefore are subject to various public mandates or standards about their structure, operations, and policies…
[T]he deceptively simple yet admittedly ambitious goal of this article is to examine the validity of the claim sometimes made—or even just assumed—that intrusions on philanthropic autonomy and independence are justified on the ground that charitable assets are “public money.” In general, this article does not claim on behalf of foundations and other charities, “You can’t do this to us,” but rather, more modestly, “You can’t do this to us on the basis that we are public agencies or that our assets are public.”
Download a copy of the law review article here.
The Roundtable’s monograph How Public is Private Philanthropy: Separating Fact from Myth can be found here. If you would like a printed copy of the monograph, please contact Patrice Lee at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 202-822-8333.