March 5, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a foundation watchdog group, is drawing fire from an unlikely source: a donor.
This week the committee, in Washington, released a set of benchmarks for good grant making, including one that urges foundations to give at least half of their grant dollars to help the poor, minorities, people with disabilities, and other “marginalized communities.”
Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which has given grants to the committee in the past, praises the watchdog’s mission to improve the effectiveness of philanthropies and focus their giving on disadvantaged people, but the new recommendations are a poor prescription for foundations.
“Even for someone who shares NCRP’s concerns about marginalized communities, its hierarchy of ends is breathtakingly arrogant,” he writes on The Huffington Post.
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy does not want its standards to be made law, but Mr. Brest is uneasy with its goal to use them to educate lawmakers about issues facing philanthropy.
He writes that the tactic is similar to the Greenlining Institute, in Berkeley, Calif., which helped persuade state legislators to pressure wealthy California foundations, including Hewlett, to provide more money to support grass-root charities led by minorities and ones that work in low-income neighborhoods.
“NCRP has just concealed Greenlining’s fist in a velveteen glove,” he writes.
Read The Chronicle’s articles about the committee’s recommendations and about the debate over grant making in California.
What do you think of Mr. Brest’s criticism? What do you think of the committee’s recommendations? Click on the comment button below to share your views.
