The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs

Chapter Fifteen

The Ethics of Grantmaking

Henry David Thoreau no doubt would be amused by the irony of seeing his words hanging in full calligraphic glory on the walls of many grantmakers: “Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind” ([1854] 1973). Program officers frame the words and bask in Thoreau's approval, but a closer reading suggests that the sage of Walden was offering a tart criticism to the do-good tribe. Other virtues are underappreciated; they are better than they are generally understood to be. Philanthropy is almost the only one that is no better than it is perceived to be.

If Thoreau was right, there are many reasons for it. First of all, there is the simple fact that philanthropy does ...