Perplexed about philanthropy | Public Finance Opinion | Top ...

For many years we admired such people but were grateful that we no longer had to depend solely upon whether they decided to do good or not, nor what strings they might attach to it (be that religious strings or stipulations on what schools taught).

So rich people, giving away money is sort of good, and we love the fact that Bill Gates does it so much; but it is a little peculiar.

That is a problem given that as the state pulls back we are going to have to depend much more on the voluntary and charity sector, whether we call it the Big Society or not. One aspect of this will be much more reliance on volunteers keeping services going allowing some public services to be run on a shoestring as either charities that rely on volunteering undercut other contract bidders who do not, or where the community itself either has to run its library or community centre for free or just does not have one.

As the state withdraws, the relative importance too of the rich cutely and coyly known as high net worth individuals in the philanthropy and charity fundraising world does rise. We need their money if we are to fund the arts and historic buildings that government has less money for but even more in areas like adult mental health, new approaches to isolation of older people, looking after and trying to solve the problems of homelessness and drug addiction all areas where cuts are biting hard.

So how do we persuade these well off people to put the money into charity rather than to spend it on yet another home or a new yacht? We are giving tax breaks to very rich people to encourage them to give because the state has cut back its spending and there are more needy people as a consequence of a recession caused to at least some extent by very rich bankers.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2012/08/perplexed-about-philanthropy/&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARgAIAIoATAAOABAu8CWgQVIAlgAYgVlbi1VUw&cd=oi5vgw7SL8Q&usg=AFQjCNEHaDOqBknIn5dygZAyeyPJ4lqkHg

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2012 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Community Foundations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Source: http://www.topfoundationgrants.com/discussion/2012/08/09/perplexed-about-philanthropy-public-finance-opinion/

idaho potato bowl cagayan de oro cagayan de oro bowl schedule 2011 bowl schedule barry bonds hazing