Black Philanthropy During Times...
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In the last 10 years, there has been a vast rise in philanthropic foundations in the Bay Area, in numbers and wealth. Within a few years these foundations may dominate the national foundation community. Within the Bay Area of approximately six to eight million people, there are over 500 foundations and other legal entities that function in the same way. The assets of those foundations are upwards of $50 billion.  

It was only a few years ago that the Packard Foundation in Mountain View received an additional $3-4 billion. It was then poised to become the number one or two largest foundations in the world. Then entered Bill Gates  and endowed his foundation with an additional $5 billion to eclipse everyone else. However, the Packard Foundation is still poised to receive more billions within a year or two. No doubt Bill Gates will simply add an additional $5 billion or so to ensure that his foundation is the richest, since he is the richest among us. This is just a new field of competition for him. 

In this new proliferation of foundations, an interesting phenomenon is occurred.  Many of the newly wealthy are creating foundations as they once purchased cars and houses--as status symbols. One couple inherited a sum from their deceased parents and set up a foundation in their name. This foundation  had two purposes: controlling this inheritance without the tax bite and the prestige associated with having a foundation in their name. A local attorney received a $250,000 inheritance and set up a foundation he heads. Yearly, he gives small sums of money, never more than $1,000.00. These are the new status symbols-- a foundation in one's name. It may be that the tune has changed from "being like mike" to "being like Bill Gates."  

There is also an element that has historic characteristics about this new foundation-creation movement. It is white driven, controlled, and focused. 

Historically, blacks have always been philanthropic. But their philanthropy has not been organized into a credible community that has built meaningful philanthropic infrastructures. Currently, in the black community there are no significant black built, administered, or focused foundations--significant as measured by dollars. Instead, blacks  have built churches that have functioned in many different ways and on many different levels, but philanthropic infrastructures, they have not built.  As a result of the all-purpose nature of the churches, and the absence of philanthropic institutions, the black minister is usually the most powerful political leader in black  communities. (See the need for Black Foundations)

Nationally, the black community has a population of 35-40 million citizens and  spends a half trillion dollars yearly. There are many music and movie millionaires, publishing millionaires, there are technology millionaires, real estate millionaires, legal millionaires, and millionaires in all fields of human endeavor. The financial structure is in place to build meaningful black philanthropic infrastructures.  Yet, across this nation, there are no more than 10 philanthropic foundations that are either started, administered, controlled, or focused on the black community. Yet these are times of plenty when many millionaires exist in the black community. (See Developing Black Foundations)

Why aren't there meaningful philanthropic institutions in the black community? Clearly, it is not for lack of resources. There are a number of prominent reasons why the black community has failed to develop a philanthropic community.

During antebellum times, blacks were allowed to assemble only for purposes of religious teaching--the Christian religion. As a result, the church became a school for black leadership development, and it became the black community's focus. The church had legitimacy, acceptance, and respectability within the larger community, therefore, within the black community.  It is no wonder that the majority of black leaders, even today, come from the church. Malcolm X realized that those leaders not coming out of a church background were/are suspect and often demeaned by the larger society, even by many blacks. Malcolm X found greater acceptance dead than he did alive. 

That sense of church-acceptable leadership still emanates from the pulpits of black America. Ministers are the voices of reason, moderation, intelligence, and God. The problem is, however, that one only need to proclaim that her/she has been called by God as the sole qualifications to start a church. Consequently, there is an over-abundance of churches in black communities and an under-abundance of philanthropic institutions. And there is an unstated realization that the churches would have to compete for financial resources, were there a significant black foundation community. No corporation wants competition for resources. 

Also, many of the black churches are unauthorized by any denomination or organization--they are started by individuals who are self proclaimed as having been called by God to do a work that is unregulated by the state. And a number of these types of ministers see the church as an open market with no supervision, and they have the ability and free hand to speak as the voice of God, reaching into the pockets of their parishioners for a tenth of their weekly incomes from any source. So these types of institutions and individuals would not, by their very nature and the nature of their leadership, generate or preach the creation of philanthropic infrastructures in the black community.

Concomitant to the above concept is the fact that since the black community has for so long been accustomed to giving exclusively to the church, unless other agencies or causes are sanctioned by the church, they have been conditioned into a sort of church-only-giving reflex. The church community, having the largest pool of black citizens inside of it,  sees its giving as complete once parishioners have given to the church or an otherwise sanctioned group. 

To change this pattern requires education of the community, and it requires that an educational program begin that will effectively reach those who possess the minds and hearts of the black masses--the ministers. 
Gibbs
5.7.05 Republished

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