Gates Foundation: Villain of the Week?
By Jim Hubbard | January 12, 2007
The good and evil of the foundation, nonprofit, corporate and even individual worlds was exposed in a hard hitting two-part investigative story on January 7th and 8th with the front page first part stating "Dark Cloud Over Good Works of the Gates Foundation" and the second installment warning "Money Clashes with Mission." This story did its damage exclusively with the headlines as most people probably did not read the entire exhaustive piece of journalism. Plus, the issues addressed, as is true when dealing with astronomical sums of money, were complicated.
The Los Angeles Times, one of the nation's reputed best papers, linked the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with death, destruction and mayhem - not to mention greed. Months earlier every paper in the country reported on the Gates Foundation and its collective wealth growing with the generosity of Warren Buffet. What happened?
The fear for many in the nonprofit community trying to do good is that the story could prevent other philanthropists from giving as they might be held under the microscope of a media giant like the Los Angeles Times. Most nonprofits, which are also desperate for funding from foundations, don't normally ask a funder where their money comes from or want to know how the foundations have their assets invested. They just want the money so they can attempt to help other people.
Let me offer a few examples about tax-exempt money. An extremely large nonprofit, the Catholic Church, historically has not told its parishioners who it seeks donations from that some of the funding will be used to meet the payroll of priests who molest children. When a nonprofit solicits money from the Ford Foundation they don't want to know all the gory details of where the money came from even though the Ford Motor Company has a history of polluting rivers and lakes and the air we breathe - and that's in the United States. They employ thousands, but when necessary they put thousands of people out of work.
I worked for a small nonprofit that worked with low income, at-risk youth. The organization accepted a substantial grant from an Indian gaming company. Gambling on reservations takes a high human toll on many levels - while at the same time some gaming money is used to build schools, hospitals, and cultural centers and makes some previously poor Indians rich Indians.
Could Bill and Melinda do more? Are they in a position to make significant changes in the ways some corporations do business? Of course they can on both counts. The fact is they are contributing to the health of the world with significant sums of money and every grant recipient is grateful, I am sure. Then, and more importantly, we can all do more. We in the United States are all complicit in some of the suffering of other humans including even some people within our borders.
Within three days of the story appearing, the Gates Foundation announced it would review its investments to determine whether its holdings were socially responsible. That is a good thing and something they said has long been a priority for them. There were several reactions from readers on the internet's LA Times.com, none printed in the newspaper, that expressed essentially two points of view.
Some indicated that Gates is now a fallen hero, while others berated the Los Angeles Times for slinging mud at a philanthropic hero. One writer indicated that the story may dissuade other philanthropists from generosity.
It is possible that this story may have done as much harm as good. Business is about the bottom line and has often engaged in practices, both evil and good, that wants to insure the line being black rather than red.
I really don't understand the point of the story except that the Los Angeles Times has made the Gates the "villains of the week." Would the controllers of this fine paper who approved the story prefer that the Gates do nothing and give nothing until their hands are totally clean? Dream on because humans don't come that clean.
******
RELATED: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation responded to the Los Angeles Times story by clarifying information about their investments and processes for making decisions about them. Read the statement.