Education donations shape public policies
SEATTLE — From Jeff Bezos’ free preschools to Andrew Carnegie’s public libraries, education stands out as a favorite cause among America’s wealthiest people.
And as the rich get richer, and apparently more generous, this legacy of so-called investment philanthropy has shaped government priorities and driven policy changes. But with such high-profile giving fueled by both capitalism and poverty, critics have thrust that dichotomy into the spotlight, challenging how the system that allowed these philanthropists to amass their fortunes ultimately contributes to the social problems they’re trying to address.
Bezos announced this fall he’s dedicating half of his new $2 billion Bezos Day One Fund toward creating free preschools in low-income communities nationwide, which could make him the top philanthropic funder of early education.
It’s unknown if Bezos considers this seed money or a fixed endowment, but the tech titan, newspaper owner and space entrepreneur is clear he wants to disrupt the status quo in the same way his Amazon.com company has changed retail, declaring his preschoolers are “the customer.”
It marks Bezos’ firmest foray into philanthropy so far, though his representatives declined to comment further.
The Amazon founder and CEO in 2018 became the first $100 billion mogul to top Forbes’ annual rankings of the world’s richest people. Forbes’ calculations overall say the world now has more than 2,200 billionaires with a combined fortune of $9.1 trillion, up 18 percent from the previous year.
And that coincides with a record-breaking amount of charitable giving in 2017, according to the annual Giving USA report written by Indiana University. With $410.02 billion in contributions, the total given to education causes across the U.S. was second only to the amount of money given to churches and religious groups.
Larry Lieberman of the nonprofit watchdog Charity Navigator said schools, children and learning have near-universal appeal among the wealthiest philanthropists, who often credit their own success to the opportunities and power of education. And much like faith-based organizations, many wellfunded educational institutions are dependent on, and therefore masterful at, fundraising.
Yet for as long as education philanthropy has existed, so has criticism about one man’s funding priorities and what role capitalism, wealth distribution and poverty play in it.
Fundamentally, philanthropy expert David Callahan said, those philanthropists are also advancing the idea that meritocracy can solve the inequality, without affecting the system of capitalism that produces it.
“It’s the myth of the American Dream. The American Dream is that anyone who can work hard enough and improves themselves will succeed,” Callahan said. “Pretty much everyone buys into it at some level, and a lot of philanthropy reflects it.”