I wonder how much of the emotion people feel on this issue is coming from feeling let down by other charities and Big Charity in general, and a difficult-to-articulate concern that this purchase could represent the first baby steps down a path many charities have slid down in the past.
I suggest that a decent number of charities have started off pretty effective (at least in comparison to others in their cause area), and have drifted downward over time due to “capture” of the charity (cf. the idea of regulatory capture). Unlike for-profit firms, charities don’t have shareholders who will boot their management or sell the company if the firm loses sight of its reason for existence (for for-profits, to make shareholders money). So there is always a risk that a charity will become unduly influenced by insiders’ desires and interests rather than focused on its intended beneficiaries and objectives. To be clear, I don’t mean that insiders raid the charity to their own financial advantage—I mean just the sort of problems we see in a lot of ineffective charities today. Those problems built up slowly over time.
Charities—and social movements—need explicit guardrails in place to mitigate against the risk of capture. Public reasons-giving is one of those guardrails. Some sort of external accountability is another.
I am undecided on the wisdom of purchasing this property, but I think the use of guardrails could have dampened the “optics” concern people are talking about.
I wonder how much of the emotion people feel on this issue is coming from feeling let down by other charities and Big Charity in general, and a difficult-to-articulate concern that this purchase could represent the first baby steps down a path many charities have slid down in the past.
I suggest that a decent number of charities have started off pretty effective (at least in comparison to others in their cause area), and have drifted downward over time due to “capture” of the charity (cf. the idea of regulatory capture). Unlike for-profit firms, charities don’t have shareholders who will boot their management or sell the company if the firm loses sight of its reason for existence (for for-profits, to make shareholders money). So there is always a risk that a charity will become unduly influenced by insiders’ desires and interests rather than focused on its intended beneficiaries and objectives. To be clear, I don’t mean that insiders raid the charity to their own financial advantage—I mean just the sort of problems we see in a lot of ineffective charities today. Those problems built up slowly over time.
Charities—and social movements—need explicit guardrails in place to mitigate against the risk of capture. Public reasons-giving is one of those guardrails. Some sort of external accountability is another.
I am undecided on the wisdom of purchasing this property, but I think the use of guardrails could have dampened the “optics” concern people are talking about.