A Cry Against the Rich Getting Richer

You might find it hard to quibble with a $100 million donation to education, but you’re not the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. David Rockefeller’s massive gift last week to fund study-abroad programs and the arts at Harvard University drew a pointed letter to the editor from Aaron Dorfman in yesterday’s New York Times:

His gift will have very little effect on the world; Harvard already has $35 billion in its endowment, and only a tiny percentage of its endowment income is used in pursuit of its mission. … I’m sure that Mr. Rockefeller is aware that there are thousands of small and mid-sized nonprofits where a gift of even $1 million would have a tremendous effect on their communities.

Dorfman is entirely correct, of course, but who wants to be told what to do with their own money? A better strategy is to reach out to the wealthy with concrete examples of smaller nonprofits for whom donations would make a transformative difference. Lecturing and educating, after all, aren’t the same thing. | 501(c)