Madeira Consorcio

128 Madeira Consorcio Meeting 18.6.2022

Jun 20, 2022 at 11:00 am | Posted in Posts | Leave a comment

We met in the Gallery again, the Topic was Philanthropy. (“PH”)

Here is the video we saw:

http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/world-changed-100-years-philanthropy

Karen found one more video (long):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvpFRXkujXQ&t=644s

And she found a good definition: What is the difference between philanthropy and charity?

Philanthropy is more long-term and strategic and often involves making multiple gifts to help people over a number of years. While charity is focused on providing immediate relief to people and is often driven by emotions, philanthropy is focused on helping people and solving their problems over the long-term.

 (We also have

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObvKlsZMuCQ  Jim Hodge 2016 17:07

https://www.ted.com/talks/katherine_fulton_you_are_the_future_of_philanthropy Katherien Fulton  2007  12:00 )

The notes:

Cl. said that PH did not and does not exist under communism because the state believes that every need is covered. People accept oppression to have all their basic needs met.

Cl. has a problem with philanthropists like Bill Gates because such people have earned their money in devious ways and donate it to be loved, to redeem themselves. The foundations of such people are receiving tax benefits for their work, not paying taxes on profit. The Left hand is giving to the Right hand.

U. sad that these foundations are not trading or providing services, so the money which is circulation should not be taxed again, Still, to have PH is better than not having it, in situations where there is a need not covered by the state.

Casa Misericordia is a PH foundation by the state, a lottery, but the proceeds go to Charity.

PH fought a fight against Smallpox and won it, by sending nurses to 1 Mio households in India alone, to vaccinate the kids. Smallpox is almost extinct in the world now. Mosquito nets are also acquired and donated on a large scale by PH foundations. In the Video, a combined vaccine for 5 different childhood diseases was mentioned, saving thousands of lives.

Sweden has a very good social support system; it is expensive but the citizens accept the cost. PH is not essential in such a state. The advantage is that the state has elected representatives who can be held accountable. On the other hand, the Civil Service managers are not thrown out of office by elections if they work badly.

A private Foundation has no such control.

The benefits of PF foundations are great even if the motivation of the founders is not based on selfless service.

Lendwithcare is a foundation that does a lot of good, it is part of the CARE International Foundation (recently, they added Nigeria to their roster.)

U. said that asking for donations for CASA 2 x per year in the Pingo Doce supermarkets is easy, the volunteers do not ask for anything for themselves, but for the poor. So there is no hindrance to be bold. (The CZ Foundation is more laid back , asking for their “own” children.)

Altruism costs money.

With inflation, it will be more difficult to obtain donations from the working class. Bill Gates hasn’t got this problem; his Foundation is gaining more just by leaving money in the pot. Once a money pot is big enough, it grows exponentially, never running out.

Jeff Bezos ex-wife Mackenzie Bezos is managing her foundation to give all of her money away, this is a big job. She needs staff to vet requests from all over the world, choose them and monitor their behaviour. It is practical for such people to use a private plane.

PHs cannot be compared to e.g., Mother Teresa’s work, she did her work out of Goodness. We were reminded of a story (fiction) Dennis mentioned long time ago: The man who planted trees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees

Natural disasters and health are the big fields of PH where they are useful because they can send money more quickly than a state.

We also spoke a bit about the oncoming food crisis (three trading empires control most of the world food trade), supply chains and dependencies in Russia and China, and on the efforts to stem Global Warming.

The mood was pessimistic that we will tackle these problems in time.

The future will not be easy.

Other stuff:

U.gave a brochure on the Gamma camera (for better breast cancer screening) to Dra. Rafaela from IASaude on Tuesday, at the blood donors’ reunion.

We should have the next meeting in July