April 4, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
With the current economic downturn hurting California, grant makers in the state should be required to allocate more money to help needy people, writes John C. Gamboa, executive director of the Greenlining Institute, in an opinion article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
“We have written Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to request that half of the annual income of the state’s foundations be devoted to helping low-income victims of the recession for the next two years. In a time of recession, we hope that foundations will be vocal supporters of this idea,” he writes.
Greenlining, an advocacy group in Berkeley, backs California legislation that would require grant makers in the state to disclose the composition of their boards and employees by race, gender, and sexual orientation, as well as information about the grants and business contracts they award to organizations that help specific minority groups. The controversial proposal, which was approved by the California Assembly in January, has drawn criticism from the foundation world.
In an opinion article last month in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jeffrey A. Farber, chief executive of the Koret Foundation, in San Francisco, writes that the Greenlining bill would force philanthropies to spend millions of dollars on tracking diversity — money, he says, that would be better spent on programs.
“Especially now, as California faces a record budget shortfall, nonprofit resources are best spent on improving people’s lives, not intruding on them,” he writes.
Read the Chronicle article about the legislation, an opinion article by two representatives of Greenlining Institute, and an opinion article opposing it by Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, in Menlo Park, Calif.
What do you think? Should foundations be required to spend more money in grants during a recession? Do philanthropies need to do a better job giving to a diverse population? Click on the “comment” link below to share your thoughts.
