Why Philanthropy Can’t Keep Hoarding Assets in the Pandemic

Illustration by Maria Mottola

Editor’s Note: This is Lisa’s fourth piece in a Chronicle of Philanthropy series on grantmaking in the coronavirus era. You may view the original piece here.

Talking in public about toilet paper ranks right up there with jokes about “quarantinis” and Zoom Brady Bunch references on my list of pandemic pet peeves. But it is hard to talk about what we use now vs. what we keep for later without thinking about the way toilet paper has become central in national conversation about survival during Covid-19.

I am guilty of stockpiling. Before the lockdown started in New York City, I went to the grocery store and bought way more toilet paper than my family needed. I hid rolls in the front hall closet and under my bed because there was no more room in the bathroom. Although I hoped I wasn’t depriving anyone else, it mattered more to me in the moment that in the days or weeks or months to come, my family would be provided for.

As I doled out the TP, roll by roll, I exhorted my family to be frugal — use just a few squares because who knew what was coming next. Not only was this impractical (and sort of gross), it was illogical. I had tons of toilet paper, and there was more at the store, but my fear of what was coming next was getting in the way of seeing what was needed in the moment. And of course, this isn’t true just about toilet paper, but about how we manage other resources.

To use a real cliché — if we have been “saving for a rainy day” — this is that day. The foundation where I work, like most foundations, currently spends about 5 percent of our endowment each year and keeps the rest in the market so that we can exist forever and go on spending at this same rate. But as we move deeper into crisis, I am questioning that premise.

Some foundation leaders and wealthy donors have proposed that in response to this unprecedented emergency, Congress change the federal law to require that for the next three years, grant makers award (at least) double the 5 percent a year mandatory payout rate, as well as instituting the same 10 percent payout rate for donor-advised funds. Many of my foundation colleagues immediately reacted negatively against a requirement like this — but I have to say that to me it feels exciting, freeing, and right.

I was lucky enough to hear Farhad Ebrahimi, founder and president of the Chorus Foundation, which is in the process of spending all its assets, speak last month at a session held by the Solidaire Network about the concept of stockpiling: “My daughter will not inherit a foundation,” he said. “She won’t inherit the resources that should never have been extracted and consolidated by my family in the first place. She gets to live a life that is hopefully debt free, but we are not just about what we do in my family, but about the ways we engage in larger systemic work. … So if we believe another world is possible, that has implications for everything about our lives, including the way the philanthropic sector works, and particularly private philanthropy.”

It is easy for me to scoff at Jeff Bezos getting even wealthier in the pandemic, or at millionaires buying themselves “back-up yachts” when so many people go hungry, but I am not sure that is so different than me having 105 rolls of toilet paper hidden in my front hall closet, or from the foundation where I work keeping 95 percent of our resources in the market instead of spending it to fulfill our mission.

As we sit in our homes, looking out at the devastation in our neighborhoods, states, country, and world — it seems pretty clear that the way we have been operating as a society, including how we have been operating in philanthropy, is not working. Spending as we do, to protect the ability of our foundations to operate in perpetuity, doesn’t seem to recognize the reality of the moment we are in: urgent and scary — full of danger and also holding the possibility for change if we act decisively.

In the past, when I have given something away, I have generally thought of it as a loss. Today, I am feeling that giving money and other resources away allows for gains that move us toward change and justice. Getting to be a part of creating change and moving to justice seems like a rare and precious opportunity for each of us, and for philanthropy. I, for one, would like to go in big.

Lisa Pilar Cowan is the vice president of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. This is the fourth article  in her series on grant making in the coronavirus era.