No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy

"Linsey McGoey is a female academic, Canadian, but based in the UK. She wrote her critique of philanthropy before all the men did but, as is often the case, it’s the male voices that get heard first. I make sure my students read her book because it came out a few years before Rob Reich’s Just Giving and Anand Giridharadas’s Winners Take All and so on. And because it’s scholarly, it’s more robust than some of the more populist critiques. The book is trying to understand what’s happening with the Gates Foundation but also some other big foundations. The argument she’s making is one that chimes with a lot of people, which is that there’s something in it for the donor: giving is self-interest dressed up as selflessness. As the title suggests, that there is no such thing as a free gift. What she argues is that, actually, the donor benefit is far more significant than observers might have thought. Now, personally, I think the longstanding scholarship on gift-giving has always noted the existence—indeed the necessity of—donor benefit, because that’s what propels reciprocity. Mixed motives are the norm—it’s tricky to give without getting something back. I think we need to be realistic about the fact that reciprocity is a rare universal norm, as anthropologists and sociologists have long demonstrated. Even if you didn’t want the reputational kickback, you often can’t avoid it. But I understand the argument that people think something that is viewed as altruistic should be entirely selfless, entirely disinterested. McGoey does a good job of detailing what kind of benefits you can get if you have a profile and a reputation of being a big giver. That’s why I like the book. It’s a really good entry into contemporary criticisms of big, white male American philanthropy. The main one would be reputation laundering. If you are in the news for your business practices, or people think of you as accumulating too much wealth, philanthropy can change people’s view of you, so that they see you as somebody more selfless. She talks about the PR moments of crowds of school kids waving ‘hurray for Gates’-type banners. Those things do happen. Now, whether they’re orchestrated—or even welcomed—by the donor is a different issue. Often they’re organised by the fundraisers who understand how reciprocity works and want to show thanks. Now, there are certainly arguments that if a donor gets an uplift in their reputation, that’s a small price to pay socially for those millions of lives saved and the amount of money going in. Nonetheless, it’s completely legitimate to point out that if you are a high-profile philanthropist, that may help your reputation. I think I would say there’s always a tradeoff. When I give blood, I get to wear a little sticker afterwards saying, ‘I gave blood today.’ If I donate some coins, I get to wear a poppy or a yellow daffodil. Reputation-enhancement happens at every level of charity donation, it’s not just mega-philanthropy that has this. It’s a completely legitimate question to ask whether we are giving too much back to big donors. What kind of problems has that donor or their company caused in society? The same debates happen around Andrew Carnegie. Was he a good employer? Should he have put more money into wages rather than giving it away afterwards? Get the weekly Five Books newsletter That’s why I like Linsey’s book, because it raises these questions very well. She gives very detailed examples, rather than just a general claim that giving leads to reputation uplift. She’s much more specific. You get that when you have a case study. If you make very general claims—even within that incredibly small niche of mega-philanthropy in the US—you still get incredibly different characters, from the right-wing Koch brothers to the left-wing George Soros and everything in between. So just to pick one, to focus on one case study of the Gates Foundation, is, to my mind, better scholarship because it really helps to unpack the issues. Whether or not I agree with her take on the tradeoff is a different matter, but there is a tradeoff, and we have to acknowledge that. I don’t want to criticise other people for generalising and then generalise myself. But in many cases, the donor benefits are pretty insubstantial, and well worth encouraging rather than discouraging big giving. As Ben Whitaker wrote back in 1974: “Even if philanthropy is about trying to buy honour and prestige, it may well be the most constructive outlet that snobbery can take.” If lives are being saved and communities are being enhanced, does it really matter if the donors get to hang out with pop stars or a member of the royal family? Some people say, ‘well, give anonymously, then’. There is a strong tradition of anonymous giving, but then that can cause problems itself. People ask why they are doing it secretly, why they are not being transparent. It’s one of many lose-lose scenarios in philanthropy: if you give publicly, people think you’re only doing it for publicity, if you give anonymously, people think there’s something dodgy going on. We should engage with these texts. I disagree with them, and I argue back against them, but I don’t think that means they shouldn’t be read and thought about. I do find the populist critiques more problematic and devoid of value than the academic critiques, so I wouldn’t recommend them. Often, it’s cheap shots. Like all populism, it’s very simple ways of explaining very complex phenomena. Then they get talked about on social media. It really affects the students I teach. They ask, ‘aren’t all philanthropists idiots?’. Young inheritees will say, ‘I don’t believe in philanthropy anymore,’ and fundraisers will ask, ‘am I in the wrong job? I thought I was making the world a better place.’ That’s the problem I’m concerned with—that simplistic criticism discourages giving, demoralises those working in philanthropy, and ultimately harms beneficiaries when funding is inadequate. “I felt there was a need to bridge the worlds of those immersed in philanthropy and those shouting uninformed criticisms from the outside” The populist books don’t make you think about issues like whether there is a big reputational benefit to being a philanthropist, or whether it undermines democracy and political equality. My conclusion is that overall philanthropy is a net benefit. Other people writing thoughtful critiques might come to different conclusions but at least we’ve got some facts and figures and ideas to work with. I don’t think the populist books help take you on that journey, they just mock and encourage scorn and derision of big givers."