By: Shannon Foy, BBA 2018
This week in class we are knee deep in research on our issues while also doing a lot of inward group analysis of what we are looking to accomplish in this class. This inward research was encouraged and developed through various readings and podcasts, but the two that stuck out to me were “Four Gifts” in We Make A Life By What We Give and the podcast by Malcolm Gladwell called “My Little Hundred Million.” These were essential in changing my thinking about what philanthropy should really be looking to achieve: a transformational impact. In the Gunderman reading, he discusses that liberal giving is the only type of giving that will truly “[liberate] the human aspiration to give.” Giving and ultimately philanthropy should not be about solving wicked problems or resolving issues, but rather to transform humanity into eternal givers. By using philanthropy to liberate people from the temporary things that are restraining them, they are given the freedom, opportunity, and desire to then give themselves. This endless cycle will prove transformational for society, if philanthropies approach the idea of liberal giving as their end goal.
This goal of “transformational giving” might be easy to discuss and establish in theory, but implementing it seems to be the real task. The podcast by Gladwell was able to give us a tangible example of how this is put into practice. His theme was the idea that we should push to “secure the floor” instead of “raising the ceiling.” He tells the story of a philanthropist who decided to give to a local college that served primarily low-income students, instead of prestigious MIT, which he attended. He described this type of giving through the analogy of a soccer team, how studies have been shown that increasing the success and skill of the worst player on the team will help the team more than simply training or gaining a new star of the team. This analogy runs parallel with the trend Gladwell observed of the massive amounts of funds that are given to firmly established and prestigious universities instead of those colleges or schools which hold the majority of the student population. If those least privileged are never shared with, then the best will only keep getting better. This idea coincides with Gunderman’s idea of liberal giving as freeing not just one section of society, but all of humankind with the freedom and desire to give. We must all rise together, from the ground up, or we will not be able to rise at all.
At the conclusion of this week, I realized that the goal of philanthropy is not something that is necessarily quantifiable. I really identified with what Andy said in class this week, “People are far more complex than the sum of their needs.” Therefore, the needs of humanity cannot be solved by any means of quantifiable dollars, programs, or service hours. Our goal as philanthropists should be the pursuit of impacting and transforming humanity into a society focusing on sharing and giving.