Foreign Aid & Civil Society

Catalytic Philanthropy and the Delegation of Public Responsibility

By Dweep Chanana ⋅ October 16, 2009 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Writing for the Fall 2009 issue of the SSIR, Mark Kramer talks about a new kind of philanthropist – the “catalytic philanthropist.” This philanthropist, in Kramer’s opinion, distinguishes himself from both the “traditional” philanthropist (the check writing kind), and the “venture” philanthropist (the investor) by having “the ambition to change the world and the courage to accept responsibility for achieving the results they seek.”

How different is this philanthropist? And what does it say about philanthropy and society?

The first question is answered by Kramer himself, who sees this as a new approach that brings together four elements – taking responsibility for the change they seek, engaging others to build coalitions, using structures and partners from outside the non-profit sector, and creating knowledge to influence the behavior of others.

It would appear from this that what venture philanthropy did at the level of the institution, catalytic philanthropy does at the level of society. Venture philanthropy focuses on addressing the fundamental challenges facing institutions – lack of long-term funding, organizational limitations in expertise, etc. Similarly, the common thread amongst catalytic philanthropists seems to be that they are addressing a single societal challenge (such as meth addiction in the example used by Kramer).

Seen in this light the catalytic philanthropist is not new, but is still rare. Carnegie’s initiatives to address education, the Rockefeller Foundation’s support of research into high-yielding varieties of seeds, and the Gates Foundation’s efforts to address fundamental shortcomings in public healthcare in the developing world all follow that same trend to varying degrees. If that is the case the catalytic philanthropist is not that different from the subject of the book Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich can Save the World.

The rise of such a philanthropist may be heralded as a good thing. But is it?

As Kramer says, traditional donors “delegate to nonprofits all responsibility for devising and implementing solutions to social problems.” But by putting faith in catalytic philanthropists, society also delegates responsibility for improving its lot to wealthy individuals, rather than to the elected representatives in government that are usually mandated that task of ensuring societal progress. That, certainly, cannot be a good thing for it implies that either governments have been unsuccessful in meeting society’s demands or that the ambitions of wealthy individuals exceed the capabilities of government.

The real reason for the rise of the catalytic philanthrocapitalist (to combine terms) is probably a mix of those two. But the correct response to a failure in governance is not to delegate the responsibility to another unaccountable individual. And the ambitions of individuals can just as easily do harm as good.

This is not to say that such philanthropy is bad. The basic premise that meaningful, long-term social change cannot happen via check-book philanthropy is correct. But when philanthropists engage in transforming society to match their visions, they must critically ask themselves if changing society is indeed their responsibility? And if they conclude that it is they must still be careful and understand there is a fine dividing line between visions and mirages.