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The typical ultra-high net worth (UHNW) philanthropist&nbsp;donates some US$25 million to sundry good causes&nbsp;over the course of their lifetime. While it’s a huge sum,&nbsp;for the vast majority, it’s often way less than 10 percent&nbsp;of their total assets. Even so, it’s an act of altruism, a&nbsp;worthy disinterested gesture in a world where such acts&nbsp;of kindness are rare indeed, right? Well…
At a time when everything from the media (social&nbsp;and otherwise) to celebrity and from fashion to ethnic&nbsp;faction has been weaponised, co-opted by causes of&nbsp;various worth and retooled in line with what reality&nbsp;really isn’t (or shouldn’t be), is it perhaps folly to think&nbsp;philanthropy could remain immune?&nbsp;
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-46152" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Berkeley-IGI-2.jpg" alt="philanthropy" width="700" height="466" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Berkeley-IGI-2.jpg 700w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Berkeley-IGI-2-200x133.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Berkeley-IGI-2-421x280.jpg 421w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Berkeley-IGI-2-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Berkeley-IGI-2-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Berkeley-IGI-2-400x266.jpg 400w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Berkeley-IGI-2-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h4>Pinpoint Philanthropy</h4>
Gone are the days of laissez-faire largesse. Today’s more&nbsp;diligent dosh-dispensers want to know exactly where what&nbsp;they are giving is going. In line with this, corporations&nbsp;are far less inclined to sprinkle strings-free sums across&nbsp;the communities in their immediate vicinity, topping up&nbsp;the funds of local schools or making the bank balances of &nbsp;proximate hospices a little healthier. Instead,&nbsp;such funding is being funnelled towards&nbsp;foundations dedicated to facilitating said&nbsp;corporation’s long-term goals.
In the case of Microsoft and Toyota, for&nbsp;instance, this has seen the two high-tech&nbsp;behemoths steer all their corporate social&nbsp;responsibility (CSR) cash towards backing the&nbsp;kind of science, technology, engineering and&nbsp;mathematics (STEM) educational programmes&nbsp;set to churn out would-be workers with just the&nbsp;right skills to staff their future production lines.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-46156" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bill-and-melinda-gates-image-1_eff.jpg" alt="philanthropy" width="700" height="466" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bill-and-melinda-gates-image-1_eff.jpg 700w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bill-and-melinda-gates-image-1_eff-200x133.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bill-and-melinda-gates-image-1_eff-421x280.jpg 421w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bill-and-melinda-gates-image-1_eff-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bill-and-melinda-gates-image-1_eff-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bill-and-melinda-gates-image-1_eff-400x266.jpg 400w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bill-and-melinda-gates-image-1_eff-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h4 class="p1">The Charity Vote</h4>
Not so long ago, Capitalism with a Conscience was&nbsp;seen as likely to end all the world’s ills, with the wealth&nbsp;trickling down from the globally most-haves to the&nbsp;far more frequently-found most-needs set to Make&nbsp;Poverty History, while leaving no super-richee with an&nbsp;unsalved conscience. That’s what it pretty much said&nbsp;on the press release anyway.
In practice, under the guise of giving, many of the&nbsp;world’s most well-heeled have actually diverted their&nbsp;divestibles towards steering the ship of state in the&nbsp;direction that best suits their longterm&nbsp;personal profitability.&nbsp;Hence, it’s lobbyists,&nbsp;candidates and oftopaque&nbsp;‘think&nbsp;tanks’ that find&nbsp;themselves&nbsp;in receipt&nbsp;of million-dollar donations rather than Nepal’s least-well resourced&nbsp;leprosy alleviation facility or the West&nbsp;Minsk Home for the Physically Challenged and The&nbsp;Terminally Crotchety.
One of the issues here is that, where once think&nbsp;tanks were funded to identify and solve the world’s&nbsp;most pressing problems, now they’re more likely&nbsp;to be bankrolled to churn out bogus studies, which&nbsp;either align with the aims of their benefactors or&nbsp;counter the claims of those that don’t. No doubt, a&nbsp;few quid also goes to keeping “wealth disparity” off&nbsp;the must-resolve list of legislators everywhere.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-46154" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VCG111174917264_duotone.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="466" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VCG111174917264_duotone.jpg 700w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VCG111174917264_duotone-200x133.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VCG111174917264_duotone-421x280.jpg 421w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VCG111174917264_duotone-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VCG111174917264_duotone-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VCG111174917264_duotone-400x266.jpg 400w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VCG111174917264_duotone-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h4 class="p4">Benefishy</h4>
Back in 2015, the infamous Panama Papers became&nbsp;inexplicably public, giving the wider world an&nbsp;unexpected insight into how one Central American&nbsp;legal firm – Mossack Fonseca – had done way&nbsp;more than most when it came to fabricating bogus&nbsp;bestowals on the part of the fabulously wealthy.&nbsp;With the ultimate self-serving beneficiaries buried&nbsp;within a labyrinthine legalish structure, not only&nbsp;could the mega-rich have their cakes and eat them,&nbsp;they could render all such analogous comestibles&nbsp;wholly tax-deductible.
Fast forward four years, 23 jurisdictions have&nbsp;jointly recovered some US$1.2 billion in sneakily&nbsp;sequestered taxes, while many money-laundering&nbsp;miscreants are now settling into serious stretches&nbsp;of penal servitude and Mossack Fonesca is no more.&nbsp;A practice curtailed? The little smart money still in&nbsp;circulation is not being wagered on that, with the&nbsp;publication of the British Virgin Island Volumes, the&nbsp;Luxembourg Letters or the Guernsey Grimoires&nbsp;almost daily anticipated.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-46153" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg_duotone.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="466" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg_duotone.jpg 700w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg_duotone-200x133.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg_duotone-421x280.jpg 421w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg_duotone-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg_duotone-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg_duotone-400x266.jpg 400w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg_duotone-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h4 class="p2">Ego-nomics</h4>
So, is all philanthropy really nothing but fancily packaged&nbsp;fraud, with the donor and the beneficiary, if&nbsp;not as one, in all likelihood joined at the metaphorical&nbsp;hip? Despite the old adage, can money actually buy&nbsp;you everything – respect, gratitude, your own way&nbsp;and even redemption – you could possibly crave?&nbsp;Well, as perhaps a tiny hint of consolation, when&nbsp;it comes to redemption, at least, the tide may be&nbsp;turning, even if only by a trickle.
Just recently, for instance, a charity dedicated&nbsp;to providing free education to impoverished Haitians&nbsp;sent back a US$100,000 cheque to Robert Kraft,&nbsp;the 77-year-old owner of the New England Patriots&nbsp;football team, who is currently facing trial on two&nbsp;charges of soliciting prostitution. Clearly not wanting&nbsp;to be tainted by the funds nor to play any part in&nbsp;restoring Kraft’s respectability, the head of the&nbsp;charity admonished: “We cannot do good by doing&nbsp;bad. The end cannot justify the means.”
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-46155" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Wiki_Education_attends_Dr._Amin_Azzams_spring_2018_UCSF_class_duotone.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="466" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Wiki_Education_attends_Dr._Amin_Azzams_spring_2018_UCSF_class_duotone.jpg 700w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Wiki_Education_attends_Dr._Amin_Azzams_spring_2018_UCSF_class_duotone-200x133.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Wiki_Education_attends_Dr._Amin_Azzams_spring_2018_UCSF_class_duotone-421x280.jpg 421w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Wiki_Education_attends_Dr._Amin_Azzams_spring_2018_UCSF_class_duotone-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Wiki_Education_attends_Dr._Amin_Azzams_spring_2018_UCSF_class_duotone-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Wiki_Education_attends_Dr._Amin_Azzams_spring_2018_UCSF_class_duotone-400x266.jpg 400w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Wiki_Education_attends_Dr._Amin_Azzams_spring_2018_UCSF_class_duotone-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
Despite such small victories, though, the world of philanthropy is&nbsp;far murkier than it might first appear. It is, of course, possible to argue&nbsp;that, no matter what the true motive, doing good is still doing good,&nbsp;and should the donor and the beneficiary both benefit, well that’s hardly&nbsp;the end of the world. But it’s harder to find a plus, when the supposed&nbsp;recipient is either mythical or merely the cheque-signer themselves with&nbsp;a curly wig and big glasses.
While we can all nod at the home-spun wisdom that “charity begins&nbsp;at home”, it’s an axiom that becomes all the less palatable when that&nbsp;home turns out to actually be a second or even third home, with a&nbsp;swimming pool, a helipad and a taxman kept very much in the dark.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
Text: <a href="bailey@itotalmedia.com">Bailey Atkinson</a>
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Big Give-Aways: What are the tell-tale signs that even philanthropy doesn’t come free?