Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Dean Presents For-Revenue Philanthropy Right this moment At UC-Hastings
Steven Dean (Brooklyn) presents a chapter from For-Revenue Philanthropy: Elite Energy & the Menace of Restricted Legal responsibility Corporations, Donor-Suggested Funds, & Strategic Company Giving (Jan. 2023) (with Dana Brakman Reiser (Brooklyn; Google Scholar)) at UC-Hastings as we speak as a part of its Tax Speaker Sequence hosted by Heather Subject and Manoj Viswanathan:
Introduction
That is the way in which the world ends
Not with a bang however a whimper.
— The Hole Males by T.S. Eliot
The dimensions of the US philanthropic sector hints on the pivotal function it has lengthy performed in American society. Individuals gave nearly $485 billion to charities in 2021 alone, a record-breaking outpouring of generosity sparked by the worldwide pandemic however not out of step with typical annual totals. The nonprofit sector employs properly over 10 % of US personal employees, and grantmaking foundations maintain greater than $1 trillion in belongings, with billions extra held by working charities.
Disasters just like the COVID-19 pandemic carry the contributions of this sector—to analysis, public well being, job coaching, and group assist—into sharp aid. Philanthropic establishments have the ability to vary lives and form coverage, fueled by a mix of personal funding, authorities subsidies, and public goodwill. It has been an indicator of American society since Alexis de Tocqueville recognized it as distinctive within the 1830s. But, for all its energy, a disaster now looms over the way forward for the philanthropic sector itself.
Practices, gamers, and norms native to the enterprise sector are migrating into philanthropy, muddying the excellence between commerce and charity and eliding the regulatory framework designed to maintain them separate. Philanthropies organized as restricted legal responsibility firms (LLCs) just like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), donor-advised funds sponsored by funding firm giants just like the practically $50 billion Constancy Charitable, and strategic company philanthropy packages that align charitable giving by multinationals as numerous as Citigroup, Google, and Basic Motors to their enterprise goals reveal a change of this cornerstone of American society. Their for-profit philanthropy shatters the long- standing divide regulation has maintained between enterprise and charitable actions.
For-profit philanthropy represents a risk the size of which has, till now, gone unrecognized. Consultants have unearthed compelling proof of its broad impression however have failed to understand that they’ve described one conflagration moderately than many. Accordingly, they’ve tailor-made options to what they see as discrete regulatory failures, not realizing that every merely represents an remoted entrance in a broader battle. All of the whereas, the unraveling of a pact between elites and the general public that fueled half a century of philanthropic achievement has accelerated unnoticed.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2022/10/dean-presents-for-profit-philanthropy-today-at-uc-hastings.html
