Absurdity, Allegory and China

I have an email subscription to the Philanthropy News Digest and receive daily updates concerning philanthropic news, usually three/four times per day. It is difficult to watch as the money continues to dry up. Many foundations have lost major capital over the past year, and especially over the last few months in the wake of the Bernard Madoff scandal. Madoff will forever be known as a one-man philanthropic holocaust. He has clearly earned the reputation, and we have still not yet seen how deeply his felonious greed will burrow. Where much of this is being played out – and will continue to play out most – is in the lack of funds available to programs and individuals who are trying to improve the world at the grassroots level of social, cultural and economic development, those organizations who, on the best of days, fly headlong against the winds of overwhelming odds. Madoff and the gangs of shameless thieves – many of whom still roam loose, in packs – have upped the odds in favor of chaos and despair. In China they’d drag a Madoff out and put a bullet in his head, a solution I am not in favor off, though I don’t get too excited about some of the ones they choose to weed.

How the economic crisis will influence funding for NGOs in China is still not clear, though it’s an easy and a safe bet to speculate that it will not be good. To see the devastation caused by Madoff (as well as seeing the poor investment strategies made by people who should have known better than to place their eggs all in one basket), have a look at this pdf, courtesy of the NYT, a list of orgs who have been hammered by the Madoff scam. (h/t to David Weinstock)

What is equally disturbing in this crisis is where many of the cuts are being made. Arts are, too often, the first places the bean counters look, since their lives and educations seem to be devoid of such things, and they lack a basic appreciation of not only the beauty but the social and cultural value of the arts. The argument usually goes something along the lines of “You can’t eat a Picasso, but you can pawn it off to pay the rent,” a way out of a mess that eventually elicits a Homer Simpsonesque “Doh!” though only after everything is lost. Recently Brandeis University announced the closing of the Rose Art Museum and the selling off of the collection, estimated in 2006 at $350 million, though, I imagine, worth considerably less today. This sort of reactionary response will, more likely than not, come back to haunt Brandeis in the future. And one can only hope that it will.

I recall a story from back in the mid-80s concerning the infamous Wall St. inside trader, Ivan Boesky. While walking through the Paris evening with his wife, she spotted the beauty of the rising Moon above the city skyline and said something along the lines of, “Look at the Moon!” to which he replied, “Why bother, I can’t make any money from it.” Obviously we haven’t made much progress in building a sustainable, self-correcting market place over the last quarter century (so much for the blinkered views of Alan Greenspan), as we also have not been able to adequately develop a sustainable vision of the fundamental human benefits of living with natural beauty and art. There are places other than the arts to look when belts need to be tightened, though it seems all too apparent that imagination is in short supply in the boardrooms – such as the one at Brandeis University – where what makes us both human and humane are the first things offered up to the auction block. Look for an epidemic of unimaginative solutions to continue, mirroring the dullness of the BU board. (Unfortunately, still developing.)