will benefit from private foundations that there was less government regulation. the institute for american values in new york city host the hour 20 minute event. >> okay, hello, everybody. my name is david blankenhorn, president of the institute for american values and i want to welcome you to this conversation with claire gaudiani. dr. claire gaudiani is a professor at the wagner school at new york university. she is a senior fellow here at the institute for american values. she is also a fellow at demos, an excellent think tank also based here in new york. she served on many numerous corporate and not-for-profit boards. she served her 12 years as the president of connecticut college. she writes prolifically and

lectures widely enter random truck, which we will be talking about tonight is called "genersity unbound," how american philanthropy has strengthened the economy and we built the american middle class. so, claire, welcome. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> you have an argument to make. you have a story to tell. take a few minutes. just put the ideas on the table. >> before i do that, can i thank you for this beautiful center for public conversation? i think all the guests present tonight understand what an important place that says amit

democracy is a discussion and this is the place that starts from that position and then invites the anchors and the raiders and the authors together to engage in democratic action, which begins with thinking and speaking together at brantford where we came from, where we are and where we are going because they are all connected. in the church or what is happening now, which is the 24/7 television news, wonderful, we can get so focused on the present and we forget the importance of the past to the future. i want to thank david and i like to also thank rena blankenhorn for the work she's done to make this possible is to make this room possible. i also want to thank the staff at the institute that is just done an outstanding job making a very tight assignment to write

this book within a year actually possible. so thanks to all the institute staff. in the last and among the most important people or what to think before i begin my remarks is john jackson. john had an idea that somebody ought to be thought thought importune century and to the future of philanthropy. and he had the courage to look around and see how that could come true to figure out how to make such these upper cabin. so i'm deeply grateful to john at it like to ask you all to thank him. thank you, guys. [applause] these are ideals a lot of it can't come a really compelling idea that we go have lunch and get over it without making it

happen. but david blankenhorn and john based in print that kind of people in were all very much for the better, so great thanks. the arguments in this book are precisely the importance of freedom to the future of philanthropy. before that statement means anything, you have to think about how important philanthropy has come to future of democracy. and you think that outcome you have to say how important has been? if they tell you way out there that no one here present and if bill gates were here, he'd be included, no one here present has not been a recipient of american philanthropy. now you may tell you country me he didn't have a scholarship and you may tell me that you never needed the soup kitchen when you

were a little kid or a married person, but i would tell you that all through your life, you have shown up in that yourself is, lawyers offices. you have shown up in all sorts of professional settings and some of them pastoral and religious setting, with a person who brought you what you needed the person who seemed to just have a name tag, but the name tag should have said so and so, brought to you by and the list of people who contributed to that person's education and in a book that person to grow to be the doctor who attended to you or one of her children. or the lawyer who would help you figure out the perpetrated problem or advance an importune idea. you get my drift. i matter what field you're in, you have been surrounded by people whose human capital was

developed by donors whose names aren't on their name tag. but from now on, whenever you see a name tag, i want you to see the rest of the ribbon that says the brought to you by. whenever you enter a hospital, most buildings of the art and entertainment and aesthetics have those students were brought to you by. and by the way, would you just walk down the street and most of you can do that other than i can. that's okay. that's partially because none of you had polio. and you didn't give that to yourself and that didn't happen from the pharmaceutical industry by both. that happened from hundreds of millions of americans citizens who join together to collect

money, a diamond of time and i could only happen because this is a country where everybody takes philanthropy seriously. if people had an idea. first time in human history. may be people get together and decide to fund science, it would be possible to actually get after the disease and knock it out. imagine people thinking in 1833 that individual gifts really offered by individual people who are just stepping out fairly and 33 from the great depression would just give it time. and they did. collected from our fellow citizens for our well-being today in 2,104,000,000,000 times

. the big foundations giving away huge amounts of money. the government didn't put any money for that effort. and that's why we and our children, mike. children, that's why they and you and i didn't get polio. so when i say that we're a recipient of philanthropy, if you ever took an antibiotic, first research was done by a philanthropist. if you ever had an imaging routine or an mri, all of the initial research on that crazy field was done by these crazy people who decide they are going to give their own money to make something amazing happened. child labor? i could go on and on. you see i teach this and i'm grateful for my students are here. what i want to say to you is this country and its

entrepreneurial energy, its idealism and the top two men some are grounded in the asset of american philanthropy, freely expressed by donors who have all sorts of ideas. one of the great stories of american philanthropy is diversity. people are coming out kinds of things. they are funny things that seem crazy at the time. but that's only because everybody else couldn't see the future the same way as the philanthropy could, who could get with the match but miller and save really? you think it's possible that if we gave you some money you could do a prototype and make a machine that would see better than the next very? and those three young scientist that came here from germany told mr. rockefeller.

he didn't understand the physics frankly they were trying to explain to him, but he gave them the initial investment. they produced within a year and a half the electron by chris hope. and that transformation of seeing is deceit about the imaging technology and the last of those three fellows in the late 80s of last year. so philanthropy is at the core of our industrial productivity. it's at the core of our house and is that the core of who we are as a people. we invest in each other. in human capital, although scholarships, also new schools k-12 and in physical capital, all the buildings i referred to and intellectual capital is, imaging machines. an attack on a virus.

so that the first thing to tell you. the second thing to tell you at this american philanthropy can't exist in a framework of core shown or loss of autonomy. foundations and individuals need to be free to follow their dreams. we note that what is best for our economy. if each company can try to make it work, to see if the marketplace of ideas can approve them successful or not quiet, which in case it doesn't work. so that great investment of our forefathers made, our founders made in designing a government that would challenge the descendent, just like people we know, to invest in each other, that's what we are teens.

we are respecting not pass, understanding its impact on us right now, the fact that we are not that, we have antibiotics and understanding the impact for grandchildren and great-grandchildren. that's what we're contesting when we say we don't need legislative encouragement on philanthropic freedom. it's america's great asset. no other country in the world has this kind of enough that that is grown so so big and powerful is called the earth victor. the third structure in society. there's government, commerce, industry and corporation and a nonprofit sector, which is funded by philanthropy to develop a whole new structure within our country. so philanthropy unbound as the

title you've heard he figured out the meaning of. what i've done in the last couple chapters as challenges to think with this amount of freedom, but his philanthropy in good respecting all this diversity in all of the diversity and donor intent decided that this might be a moment when we could do two things. one, really look at what it needs to be attended to and american society. what if philanthropy could change society so we could really address childhood poverty and in addressing childhood poverty and ridding the nation of the most devastating element of childhood poverty, we could return half a trillion dollars a year to the economy. wouldn't we want to do that?

there are lots of different ways people have proposed to do with the deficit, but what if we were to say we would all get a bit more and we did a lot for people to give more middle income and upper middle income people who may be doing as much as we wish they were and get that to be focused on the marketplace of ideas to attend to it as a third world situation for the bottom 15% of our population. we could make a big difference. the second idea is how could we engage in even larger percentage of the population and creative philanthropy? we need people to have more options. i won't talk a lot about that, but we can create more options than simply making a check. there's a whole group i'm working with the will be trying

to make that happen, which i don't think they've done yet. the philanthropic center has a whole role to bring the economy. it's been bringing the gift of the economy, but there's much more we can do. but we cannot do it if government about whether the state state level or federal level are tangling the legs of the fast runner. that is american philanthropy. an american philanthropy as we know it expresses the core of our culture that we are committed to equality or justice and to all men are created equal and endowed the rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and we are all responsible and have little cocoons to go around making it better. we need to be free to do that as we see it and philanthropy unbound et cetera can't and

might give you some quotes when you want to go out against other people. so thank you, david. >> so i have three -- three main components to the argument. one is some appreciation and description of american filling p., its role in the economy, its role in innovation and appreciation and description of the third sector. i am hearing a plea to keep it to not overregulated. and then hearing kind of a call to action challenge to philanthropy to mobilize around the creative approach to address at the bottom 2%. that the argument. the night that we were getting a

big expense trained and if we could fix that, imagine people 30 or 40 years from now would say you know, the people who focus on the power of philanthropy figured out how to solve the problem and the whole national budget changed. and suddenly we were in a different place. >> i just want to go back to the first part for a minute. it seems to be the main argument against your idea probably could be called a social justice arguments and it would go something like this. it would say that if we are helping each other as a society through freely giving of our resources and time to one another, citizen to citizen giving, on the power in the

discussion in the hands of the donors. a person who decided to give her to give to, what conditions and so forth. but other societies do and what has been argued that we should do is cut citizen to government citizen. he taxed the donor and therefore a broader policy is more democratic. the people receiving the benefits that are not receiving charity. they are receiving and entitlement are receiving something good to write. so there is a social justice arguments outside charity is not as good as justice. giving is not as good as being entitled. and free giving is not as good as political decision-making that's democratic. what do you say to that?

>> let's look at the pieces of it. you know, in a practicing roman catholic, so i can't be social justice and certainly am not charity here for to set up, i can accept the fact of church on sunday. however, what we have seen is the importance of investment in fellow citizens by fellow citizens and the fact that 89% of americans give on an annual basis, means that it's not just some little group of 150 wealthy people who are making this justice happen. it's really everybody. and what we'd like to see is more of everybody, more deeply engaged in this giving. now it's true that in the last let's say 20, 25 years. so it's not a political issue, america has fallen a bit off its

mission of the top of the heap and graduates from his goal and literacy levels by age nine and a whole set of statistics. infant mortality worth 26 out of 30 developed countries. that's not great. so that's why in a sense people who were on the you're talking about, which are calling for social justice side are gaining momentarily on the side of the freedom lovers. but that's why i'm thinking i was so important because we have time to put this around to alert people to the importance of fellow citizens whose he been in the best and from fellow citizens in the community. their sense of engagement with each other, the sense of expectation that i have been a see you in your family and other

people want me to do better and you are willing to see to it that i can. and perhaps not only by checks, but they seem involved with helping me. as was done in her early history. the very first society that did philanthropy understood the difference between getting a government check or having the government deal with it, which in 1820 was called a poorhouse and he did not want me to spend time telling how awful those circumstances are. if you want to know, we'll talk about it at q&a. but instead what societies did, mostly societies of women said we're going to set up house in history. and these widows with their children will each have a small set of rooms in the house and they'll be on the main floor. there will be a room with looms and weaving and sewing material

and will bring, we who are still women in our family situation will bring the cost of the material you need and will come and babysit so that you don't have to worry, you who are widows, about the children's video be able to earn money and inappropriate and protected sending and will go out and sell what you make and bring the money back. >> these were the women. alternative to the public. >> and so, people in our culture, right after the fun of the declaration, they begin to operate on behalf of fellow citizens. we never considered the government the place to go over the place we had to go. but the people who would be coming to the conclusions you are coming to our people who

haven't got to the difference between the subject and the citizen. if you have forever been a part, you are a subject in some setting. you are also called a search. and in those settings, each of you individually frightened by the leader, whoever that person was because that was happening in some places still in this world. the leader person would send in the police and do anything he wants in your household. >> as opposed to -- so you have more diversity. and so people don't feel connected to each other because if i say anything about what the police to two last night, we'll do it to me tonight, so i'm going to stay quiet. within a democracy, the kind of government the founding fathers had up, what we had instead was

citizens engaged with each other as antiguerrilla spirit began to does the industrial revolution that the self-interest rightly understood. that is the principle is, that doesn't mean everybody fulfilled it properly, but it means the principles of self interest of rightly understood mean that i have a relationship to you by the my cmt well-being of the best way to assure my own well-being. while that means that i'm a citizen and not a subject. we the people control the government and we the people are going to watch out for each other's well-being. now i have to say, if we follow the market and stop doing that would let the society fall apart, a small number of wealthy, wealthy people and not

wrecking what the founders set up. so in a way, this book wants to ring a bell and get everybody's attention, not just the attention of foundation and people of wealth, but everybody can say we have to understand our relationship to each other and to make sure that we are making investments in each other through our freely expressed contributions. >> already. i'm going to take another run at this by making -- here's a recent article from "the wall street journal" by kimberly dennis. and she is basically saying, you know, philanthropy -- was so good about philanthropy? >> i'm glad she didn't see the other word. >> while businesses need two more for the public good than ackerman credit for, philanthropies me to last.

think about it for a moment. can you point to a single accomplishment that's been as transformative as the cell phone for the birth control pill. to the contrary, the literature of philanthropy is for both with failure including where philanthropic efforts have actually led beneficiaries to be worse off. now she actually works for a philanthropy. she says they don't mean to belittle philanthropy, but she goes on to say, my point is simply there is nothing inherently better than using one resource is than for any number of others. if anything, the marketplace does a better job of channeling resources toward where they are most valued. >> while in fact, that's actually not true. philanthropists put money in when an idea is way too wacky foreign investment, when a

company or investor has an expectation of return on invested funds in your approach them and say i think i can produce something better than a microscope. and they say, you know, not likely. this doesn't make sense. who's ever heard of anything like this? what do you mean antibiotic? what is biotic? i can't invest in that. in fact, it invented penicillin and then tried to get money from the marketplace, private tour. >> philanthropists have a higher tolerance for risk. would that be at? >> well, the philanthropists looks at you differently. he says, as rockefeller did when he funded that.your with

penicillin, he says there is a one in three with trillion chance that this bug would actually be something people could take as a medicine and do it kill infections in your body. because anything that killed the cop accomplice in the petri dish would kill you if you feed it, right? so while the industry in no way has the government had no way. but rockefeller had the money to say that the one and 3 trillion chance, but look at the one. if it hit would be the end of infectious disease on the planet. it would be a total change in the lifespan of human beings. and he made a few other things that you can figure out. anything i'm going to go for it.

you see what i mean? the 3 trillion was widely outpaced the possible outcomes. >> up on the commercial -- of foam at market pays allocates resources, you miss a start level of upside with the risk-taking that only the philanthropists is going to make. >> right, because that person is willing to say as many people like mr. carnegie and sages say i have the money being sent by god's grace or however they want to put it and i can make this investment. whereas when you are a financial investor, you've got responsibilities to other investors. you've got other places that are more sure where you should put the money. it's a whole different thing. look at how many people are funding scholarships, particularly k-12. you look at some little kid then you say what are the chances that this little person is going

to -- i don't think so. because you are looking in that tiny little faith instead of saying what the proper opportunities, this person could and not the eye of. so i think she is running short on good ideas when she says that. >> i got this from the book i would talk about what the real meaning in a lot of senses that at the threshold for the marketplace is going to not permit the maximum innovation, similarly with politics because with a political bar, you have to build a broad consensus. there has to be a wi-fi in from a majoritarian view. so the longshot, the thing that might fail but if it exceeds to be a great crew is unlikely to pass that threshold.

so you have a marketplace that is -- to put a different way, and if you have this third factor, you're going to have the seabed for generations for innovations that could not be possible if all you have to see there a political consent is on turn on investment. >> absolutely. that's why america's economy is so innovative because we have this pool of not money. i mean, you have to be realistic. at the end of the first world war, the young man came back and it seemed the airplanes in the first world war research. he came back inside to his father, dad, there ought to be a commercial aviation industry. his father new president coolidge and they together went to see him and they said the

government should be developing commercial aviation. calvin coolidge said the idea of commercial aviation is intellectual exhibitionism. it'll never work. now those of you would've invested in airlines probably think you might've had a point, but nonetheless -- nonetheless, most of us have been on a commercial airline. and that young man was absolutely right. what did the father do? the father was a philanthropists in the father said, even if the government isn't going to do it for exactly the reasons that david just said, all funds the first stage. they set up six universe these with aeronautical engineering. no one had heard of before. those six are still in place and they are among the premier is

the tuition in the aerospace. they set up fares that would permit people to experiment going up in an airplane in america's county fairs to familiarize people with type. and then they paid for human capital. they thought your intellectual asset to the person you on no, robert goddard who went off and got funded to do aeronautics and aerospace engineering and rockets. the 300 of his pats continue to be in every airplane that you and i travel on. >> there's lots of articles. you couldn't have invitation.

>> to american philanthropies under served the poor? >> yes. >> therefore, if they under served the poor, well, my understanding of the legislative initiatives as the grey mining national committee want to have a rule that would require either directly or indirectly that the money be spent in a certain way or coach people for certain kinds of groups. it is true that the american philanthropies are under serving the poor, why wouldn't it be a good idea to require them to correct that imbalance? >> because that is the medicine that kills the pharmaceutical industry that is creating it. american philanthropy just

doesn't work like that. they want the medicine to be coerced philanthropy, then philanthropy died. we are not set up for philanthropy to be a psychic kind of taxation. we pay taxes, thank you very much. you can argue about whether we should pay more or less. but another argument. but now we are talking about citizenship and citizen action and the call for citizens to be engaged with each other. that's a whole different cultural and financial framework. and if you suddenly decide to impose regulation on not come you basically -- if that's the pharmaceutical house that create a medicine for the poor, you just put it out of significant business, which is why i take a position that we need to simply look up the lamp if he and look at each other, right, left and

center and say, can we engage more people to give more money to continue acting the diversity in american philanthropy and look at this issue just of the third world bubble poverty we have? and could we say that by july 4, 2026, america's 250th birth day we could have fulfilled founders intent. well, what if we give ourselves 16 years? and what if we mobilized all the amazing work that's gone on across this country with evidence-based, highly successful programs that individual foundations have been going on in 12 places? what if we have penicillin going

in 12 or 13 stock its offices and the rest of us for children with strep throat with the hyundai. no way. we get a solution like penicillin and then we say everybody is going to have it. nobody is going to die. crazy idea. but we're not scaling up what works. we know how to address infant mortality. what if we created a marketplace of ideas and we let the competition go on for poor communities to decide what they wanted to address in which kind of program they want to invite into their community and what if we challenged them to put in the first 5% of the necessary funding to raise it the way carnegie did, the way

mr. rosenthal did develop 3537 goals. >> when they send me one good idea. how about all the libraries over america. >> stain stuff like that gets published. anyway, you really want to propose things that could work. we have the mechanisms from a commercial site her, like a competitive marketplace of successful ideas. people used to say the want that to our community and will raise over the next however long it takes the first 5% and other communities around them within the low-income communities. dr. rosenwald said here that the carnegie day. and respects the dignity of people. it doesn't say will come in at

exit. you live right there and will dwell over knee with a solution. >> keep out thousands of them, but the community had to show a clear plan to sustain them over time. >> rosenwald went into communities where sharecroppers about 30 years since the end of the civil war. and he said when he realized that 80% of the black children in the south were not being taught to read. he said no one will be able to engage in buying my product unless they have a job -- unless they can read. this was american enterprise, and firing american philanthropy. >> in the face of complete and total abdication of responsibility by state government. >> and the national government. let's not even talk about the

level of injustice. but here he walks in as a philanthropist in the major corporate leader. and he said, if you collect funds from each other and whatever you want to do to raise money, i will match it and get the money we need. >> you know, the southern ymca, they did the same thing. >> and they were funded by him. >> right through the jewish land to paris all over the south was just great. >> this is who we are sick people. if the current generation doesn't know this, you know, i say to my students, who was your mom a quiet you don't know where you come from and who is your daddy, then you don't know what you are carrying on or not carrying on. we have this great tradition. we took on it, we need to preserve it. we don't need to triple cripple

it. it has never worked at the european system. it worked for them because they came out of monarchy in and they also came out of huge labor unrest in those transitions. we have a different culture. we have to energize and make it work. and that means a lot of us are going to have to look at what we're doing and say i have to do more. i have to do it in a different way. i have to help other people get as invested as i am. i have to want real outcomes. >> i know you are someone who doesn't just write about it. you are actually working on some ideas to actually convene the people in the discussions to make this happen. i mean, the argument i hear is that it is a call to this philanthropic tradition to rise up and meet this need within its

own sphere. just calling the best of what it is rather than try to turn it to something else. >> that's it back rewrite. if i can take a moment to say that as the book has been passed around, it has been amazing to me how many people at major foundation has said this would be an opportunity for the philanthropic world to get itself focused on an outcome that would change its profile and help it to fulfill its future for america. we need to have, expecting all the diversity and on her intent, if we had a slice of what we do that we were all thinking of having input on, such as the

declaration initiative that by 2026 the bottom 15% will have well-being statistics that matched statistics of the middle class. they are going to need fewer services. they are going to be healthier. they're going to be able to work at her and participate bettering society. what an asset we will though. talk about investing in human capital. and it's something that philanthropy could lead. so even though they didn't speak out against legislative incursions, when they are looking at the beginning of the book in and of the book, they say will sign on. this is where we should be going. this is how we should be focusing the nation on some then we can all have some input on and imagine the celebration of 2026 if we could say the founders thank you for what we

have all benefited from and we have made sure that i'm benefiting ourselves we have fulfilled your aspirations for a country where all citizens are created equal and endowed by their creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and will be able to remember that the last words of that declaration that those extraordinary individuals find that to achieve this and, create this kind of a country, we pledged each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. we are just saying gosh, folks, hope it works. or let's do around being. they wrote it up and they said, we are here together. this kind of the country. and who is responsible for what happened?

we are. and we need the freedom they fought and died for in order to make that kind of a community exists. and maybe in this last 15 years of the 250, we could just push up our efforts to finish this sort together right, left and center. >> you've done a great job in bringing together across the multiple site yours. we're going to open it up for discussion and i think what you're collecting your thoughts, i think the camera guys have to move, but let's have a question. first question from someone. sheldon garin. >> thank you very much.

[inaudible] let me start off by saying thank you and also i hardly agree with you. i than a tremendous beneficiary of private philanthropy being at a private university, maybe even got rich in the process, so i certainly would be the last person to run down philanthropy. i think it's a wonderful institution for a lot of reasons as he said, particularly in terms of feeling higher education and when you go around the world and talk to my colleagues around the world, every one of them feels her university structure. the problem however that i sensed in your topic is i wasn't quite sure who you're arguing against. the market place to be sure and i share your skepticism in these things. philanthropy is wonderful in that respect. but as david pointed out, there is government. i wasn't quite sure where you

post everything in terms of either or. one would see them in the real world there are significant partnerships between government social poverty and philanthropic efforts. said bye to hear little bit more about that. and let me just raise the mundane point that i'm sure you've been asked several times to talk about infant mortality. he talked about philanthropy to come up with creative solutions, but we are 26th i believe in and didn't mortality. and probably if you look at 25 who are better than us, most of them probably have national health insurance. in mundane point, but i think significant. maybe it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure all this out. but that may be the welfare has legitimacy in partnership and philanthropy it does. >> thanks, thanks very much. the role of government is very

important. we haven't talked about the role of government. i was talking about the role of government as the legislative force to insist on taxing or otherwise to private philanthropy of its economy. and now is the generator of the discussion on government. the role of government as responsible under a constitution to promote the general welfare is actually the line from the constitution is an important role. and that is the role that there's no reason we cannot you're shouldn't be shared with private enterprise. for other reasons -- some of the reasons we talked about, that is government can certainly provide large amounts of fun, which the private or can't. i mean, foundations raised somewhere under 50 billion a

year, just foundations. not talking about the full amount raised i individuals. and that is, i think i calculated 133rd of the amount of money spent on social well-being issues in the country. so the 800-pound gorilla in this discussion is government and were not going to replace that with private philanthropy like that. but a great deal of the innovation, as the current president innovation fund does come from private enterprise, not from government program. so there needs to be a partnership and to a great extent, if we have more of us involved in creating more dynamic opportunity to address issues like infant mortality, it is something we haven't tried yet. and i guess i want to try it

before i fork over the energy to a welfare state. the nurse family partnership has been in place for 30 years. there are dreams of evidence-based proof that a work is the way to stabilize infant mortality rate among the poor at the same level as middle income families. but the clark foundation has only so much money, so they find additional places and they have to make sure the one they did stay strong. what if, you know, the turn philanthropy had an opportunity to enable them to really grow. we have a sense this that tells us the zip code. so it's not as though we can't find them. and where those people are,

that's where the infant mortality rate are had. we have a couple programs but that kind of success. so i don't think it's either or in partnership, but it's a very, very important role for philanthropy in. >> there's also examples where you would have something that is born in a philanthropic -- given birth by philanthropy that then proves to be a successful in durable enough that it picked up a government. it becomes -- it's able to build up political support. so it's not an either/or. but what i'm hearing is the philanthropic sector is the kind of laboratory for experimentation, innovation and citizen to citizen getting that has the quality to it that you don't want to give up.

>> right, changing certain habit. a great deal of difficulty is particularly fairport people experience is they don't know how to handle certain things and they haven't been in a framework where they were able to learn not. and when the learning could go on over time, you actually get a change. there isn't an american program that i've been able to find that this had the cases of blindness and amputation suffered by diabetics have extremely low income. and there's the foundation has developed a program with the migrant worker had but is actually achieved enemies to be scaled up until now. could we have formed community by community to actually do that nationwide clicks maybe if we

decided to. maybe it has to be part of a broader health program that the government funded. but to kill the energy and the innovation in american society by saying the government will do it with beef and enormous fatality to our culture. and i share your impatience with the rate of change, particularly for the poorest, so i think this is an important moment where we say we get it and were going to make a change because we think our culture is so important. >> let's go to tom. >> tonsil vester. we were talking about the way the government and the proposals that would cripple it. if you could speak about that a little bit more and if we in

government could promote philanthropy with the estate taxes or other changes. we did talk in the beginning about the ncrp endocrine mining proposals that are in various ways potentially very injurious to foundations. i didn't say that even the process of writing the book fair where foundations that is said to me, you know, if any of this stuff continues, we are going to take the foundation offshore. or conversely, we are going to close down. i'm not going to spend my time fighting with lawyers and accountants and the government over how to run the foundation, so we're just going to close. so those things are absolutely true. i think frankly in the deep issues of disaster that have

occurred to the economy since the ncrp inquiry mining activity, there's been much less ferment about the issues. but that doesn't mean the secondary think it's better than not going to all you fellow site. my point is those of us who care about america and understand that american philanthropy in its freedom is the core of our culture, we've got a breather to change the focus and get us operating the way we had to be operating and we have to use this time. >> government changes to promote, to help? >> well, some things can be easily undertaken and they've been taught to bow. we cannot additional tax relief for philanthropic gift. they talk about higher tax deduction for filling the p. to

disadvantaged communities. all of those would be very helpful and it would show that the government honored to work a philanthropy and wanted to encourage it. and i would say particularly among young people, as you know, all of you have developed a social innovation fund that is somewhat controversial and it's trying to find the best of the highly project to programs that have worked, so he's given money to fund the harlem children's zone models in a bunch of cities. good. that is a good and innovative thing for government to do publicly. it's a little bit scary, but there is and how much money in it. other features including nurse family partnership is going to

get a bit of a let's see how many programs we can start in government money. i am just crazy enough to think. the rest of us who defend a local program as carnegie did. and that's the best program when. if it turns out it's better for the government to do to, okay, fine. let's do a 10 year study to see what happens. if it's better for some of us to go into communities and say here's what you can do, here's how you can raise the money. here's how well matcher funds. here's how we can work with you to make the community you want and work with them citizen to citizen. that might respect people's dignity and really work and we will discover that unless it's a competitive marketplace.

a must see. >> let's go back to mark berner. [inaudible] adrianna >> mark, do you just want to take one minute to say that greenline proposal. >> the green line is an effort in california and around the country for the governments who proposed a requirement on the foundations of a certain size among the certain point must be invented with the percentage of their employees has to reflect

the communities in which they live and operate. they make different approaches and i was quite successful in what some people regard to shake down notes the major foundation like patrick's tool and others who collapsed and cut a deal. >> to avoid the legislation, they clear the funds to get to these organizations. >> whether it was the donor intent, they oblige them to answer. >> i think the biggest problem is in the states. you know, some of the biggest states are going to get with worse. the federal government currently taxes private foundations by two-point pipers of the income on the corporate. i can well imagine the state government has just a future of

federal law and organized in the state. and you take it resource is. you have tax benefit. you can accumulate income with investments. and you are not really providing anything to the public field has your money might go someplace else. so we want to impose on you attack the way the federal government does because you are a creature of state law in some anon the franchise tax to renew your state not-for-profit went the year. they were going to impose a 1% tax say there's how many billions of dollars of debt money where you can raise your taxes are imposed attacks of 1% or 1.5% on these foundations over a certain side. it is very difficult politically to fight that. and so, what would you -- i believe that's going to happen

in california, new york, boston. it will be 1%, 2%, 3%, 1.5% and it will be incremental. .. >> i don't think it's an impossibility, but i think we need to educate a larger

percentage of the population, not just the professionals, but for everybody to understand what my lain trough pi does, and we need to help everybody understand that it's my -- they leave the country, incoming just offshore, that local communities will be at a big disadvantage. they will lose jobs. they will lose small businesses and stay in business based on that commerce. they will lose the occupancy of real estate in their downtown. in that commercial loss to communities that appear to be imposing unfair restrictions on the workings of foundations, but

all of that rests on people understanding that a foundation that does something good for people who have a certain disease or people who are seeking education in american art or in asia and we don't all do that here in lubbock, that's a way of saying that the foundation's elsewhere that do attend to things that affect us here in lubbock are going to find their communities unfriendly, and the whole system starts to come down and shrink, and that kind of shrinking not only harms the foundation sector as it is, but imagine young entrepreneurs who are saying i've gotten to a certain point. i don't want to just keep doing this. i'm going to let the business

work, hire people to do it, and i'm going to become a philanthropist. part of that is because it seems fulfills, as though they'll be appreciated, and sudden by if they're not appreciated and they are harassed, they may decide not to do the philanthropic efforts, and, you know, teaching young people who are interested in philanthropy, some of them very wealthy from families who want to see what it looks like from the academic standpoint. they've been part of their family foundations for a long time. if they start to see that this is the bad guys' trade, why would they want to do that? they won't have the same interest, and what we'll see is over time a shrinking and a weakening of the whole sector, and this is all part of my

concern that we take where we are and strengthen it and give it focus and backbone while giving it maximum running room which is called freedom, and making sure that we make good on some promises. i think we're close to the founders' promises. >> going to chuck stenson. >> thinking about it, and there's a couple issues that i think come up that to me are a little bit troubling in the philanthropy world and the government world. in the philanthropy world, we have the symptoms, but we don't go after the problem. there's $1 billion corporation that focuses on the kids from birth to 8, and yet, they feel good about dealing with all these problems that have been created, but they don't cut out

the upstream which is the problem and that is on the marriage stuff where they have these families that break up, and they got all these problems, but they don't go up to solve the problem. if we ever cut off the stuff upstream. how do we focus on that? we have the government doing crazy things like here in new york state who is the last hold out on them and hurting children and pushing kids into poverty. we have 59% of the kids, of the families where kids under 6, 55% are with single mothers. we only have less than 8% with married couples. we're pushing people. we've government pushing people in poverty. how can we do this? we can't get involved in public

policy because the government won't let us have public policy because they say that's not the role of philanthropy, but i think it is. >> thank you, thank you. >> there's huge two issues that have to be part of the problem that you're trying to address. >> right. chuck, i couldn't agree more that dealing just with the symptoms and not with the problem generation is crazy, and people work at this all the time. where do you intervene, you know? the problems are so massive. it's just like disease. you have to pick a point and decide you're going to start working on the genetic end of it or on the microbial end of the it or on the disease transfer end of it, or you pick a position and start to work. first of all, we need public education. we are insufficiently engageed

-- engagessed and whether it's at the poverty level or any other level. i hate to get off on this, but the founders knew that the most important element in continuing a democracy was virtue. virtue in the people. the most popular book read by the founders according to peter gay, and he focused on the importance of the virtue of people in order to maintain a democracy. greed and adverse and with the kind of selfishness and ignorance that people think they

can maintain in a democracy doesn't work. we have insertion that's not conveyed to people -- we have information that's not conveyed to people. they are finding it easier because of public policy and not helping people appreciate the responsibilities of parenthood. they doom themselves and their children, and then that creates larger doom in society. we have to speak about generosity and self-discipline, industry, thrift, i mean, these were the actual issues that the founders talked about. no one tells us about that. who wants to tell anyone about thrift? well, like you should buy as much stuff as possible. [laughter] but that's like some crazy

philanthropist. they take fliers on crazy subjects. we have a real public education. we have changes in personal behavior that we have to be willing to speak up about, and we have to approach government with an intense focus on the long range plan which is the same thing as with what's happening now. >> on this point, i think that the issue you raise of family structure is something that is much more amenable to the work of philanthropy than it would be to government policy because there isn't a consensus within government that this is a legitimate issue, and i was involved with this for years in

the previous administration and also the current administration, there is no willingness to say anything about this, but there would be and could be and is within parts of the philanthropic world, and my idea rather than trying to think of the government department of family strengthening, it would be finding good efforts that are working that can be funded by foundations and private gifts that show that this is a way to promote thriving and reduce child poverty, and then maybe it will be scaled up by government, but i don't think, i don't think -- it hasn't reached that level of acceptance to be made into government policy. >> right, right. >> peter wood. >> thanks. president of the national association of scholars, and interested in your partly as the

president of college. >> thank you. >> there's a component to your book which is a pitch for the continuing importance of generosity and the trust that comes from pretty much without outside things that are undercutting the motives to be generous in this particular philanthropic way. i was wondering if you had something to say about the threat within the philanthropic community and by that, i'm referring back to what goes on in higher education a lot. we've had numerous instances of donors who found their funds misspent or spent in a fashion that they did not intend. there's famous instances of foundations that have subfunded themselves because they are afraid to be captured by the professional fund givers who want to nudge the organizations

towards purposes that the founders didn't inten, and there is this broad problem of those both individuals and foundations that want to give finding that the spirit of philanthropy somehow gets corrupted or gets undercut or channeled away from the purposes of people intended. that would seem to me to be one the things which those of us both depend on philanthropy as i do, and all of those of us who care about philanthropy as a basic dynamic of society would want to worry about. what do we do to make this spirit of freedom thrive and not have fill lain throe pi become a -- philanthropy that -- >> there's a number of good points. it is easy for people who have a focus on running an organization

to want the money to come in like this instead of, perhaps like this and fulfill something that a donor has in mind, and it certainly has happened that that kind of transformation happens over time and over different administrations. i think for the most part academic institutions try hard to fulfill donor intent. sometimes the donors can't possibly intend what's needed 50 years later because, you know, it didn't exist, and so within the best framework they can. a president will decide we had a scholarship at connecticut college that was designated for a methodist female from southwestern kentucky. >> you couldn't find one?

[laughter] >> let me tell you how hard, how needy, she has to be needy and good enough to get in. my point is the admission office says, we can't spend anymore looking for her. [laughter] this year we're not going to spend it, and we acquired quite a substantial dominance that there wasn't being used when i was turning away people from whom that family would have loved, but they with respect from right -- weren't from right there or were not christians. it was something else. you get the drift. there's times you go back to a family, and we all know this, but mainly it's their good intent and most academic institutions, i think mostly there are notorious cases where donors, you know, like the basses went back to yale saying, you know, this isn't working the way we wanted, but for the most part i think when you think of the billions of dollars that get

transferred to higher education, i think our relatively staff of our profile of achievement. on the other hand, donor intent is very complicated. maintaining it over time is very complicated, and i think part of what i wish higher education would do would be to teach philanthropy to undergraduates. it's a great interdisciplinary field. you do history, philosophy. you do finance, therefore mathematics, economics, and just as we have latin america studies and we have early roman studies and all else, why not philanthropic studies? part of what we need to do is offer courses and at least minors in this field so that people become familiar with donor intent and with how philanthropy has changed our

country, and how we have become who we are because of the power of philanthropy. here, people who never would have had an eyelash of a chance get to be major contributors because somebody invested in them, and many of those people are our faculty, our students, our graduate students, and many of the people at the national association of scholars, so we have to keep that going, and part of the work i'd love to see the association do is to begin to press for philanthropic studies and premier all kinds of higher education opportunities. >> you know, there's a big ongoing debate about american exceptionalism among the historians and political philosophers, but i -- especially after reading your book -- i think that to the

degree that domestically we can be called exceptionallists, it's rooted in our system of my lain philanthropy. >> right. >> that if you -- there are few places where you go to a philanthropist to try something new. you usually go to the -- you go to some official. >> right. >> i do -- i mean, would you agree with that? in other words, you could argue that we're -- you could argue the question of american exceptionalism generally, but on this specific issue of philanthropy to the degree that we are -- to the degree that it feels different here, i think a lot of it is rooted in the distinctive philanthropic traditions that is just separate from the way other countries organized themselves. >> sure. we have to be sure that's

brought to the next following generations. when we say american exceptionalism, we don't have to mean that we are best in everything because statistically that's just not true, but we are profoundly different. >> this this respect. >> in the way citizens engage with each other. >> that has draw backs and assets that it's different. >> right, and that emerges from the three items that i mentioned right in the beginning. that is our on the mitch, our -- optimism, idealism, and entrepreneurism, and they are all deeply connected. they are very powerfully what makes our commercial sector so successful. we tried all kinds of things that no one has thought of before, and they end up transforming a field; right? so then creating a market and on the nonprofit side we have that

same energy that creates all kinds of possibilities and innovations for connections to the future that is very much powered by philanthropy, and that makes us exceptional. that's why people all over the world want their children to be raised here. they feel as though they'll have a different kind of opportunity, and that's true, and if you look at nations across the world that have invested in boys and girls and see which one of them -- which ones of them have actually contributed to the well being of the largest proportion of their citizens, the ones who've invested in both, the ones who just invested in male children are not doing as well, and the way females have to go to

school, not because the government said let's start school for girls. it is said we'll start schools for young ladies, and we'll start universities and colleges for young ladies, and suddenly it was for both young ladies and young men, and then more recently, imagine the crazy idea that graduates of ill leet institutions -- elite institutions would be funded to go back and teach in low-income schools. what a crazy idea. only americans. nowhere else would that have flown. you have to have the idea, an undergraduate has an idea like that, and then she got investors. that's truly only an american idea. if you just decided to take one

day a week to notice the only in a america things, the people when they tell you how they got to be here and you say only in america, that's what we have to be sure is free to run hard and to run better because there are lots of improvements that need to be made in the philanthropic world as we mentioned. one more. >> thank you, claire gaudiani. thank you for coming out this evening and being a part of the conversation, and we'll see you next time. [applause] >> claire gaudiani is an adjunct professor at new york university. she's the author of the greater good and generosity rules. for more information visit claire gaudiani.com. >> joining us now on book tv to

discuss the impact of bankruptcy, is car ri weimman. how did they declare bankruptcy? >> well, it's been a long time coming. certainly the last three years in particular as quarter after quarter, borders has been losing money. they have gone through a number of management changes, especially at the top. they've gone through i think something like four ceo's in the past four years, but this story can also date back to the beginning of the 21st century i suppose. things like obsoleting their website to amazon in 2001, and they didn't reclaim it until 2008. their e-book strategy was never at the same level of the kindle or the nook. it seemed that borders was operating a few steps behind

every other retailers, and combining all the additional factors that has been, i guess, impacting the publishing industry on the print side in combination with various manager mismanagement, it really didn't come as a particular surprise they declared chapter 11. >> host: you mentioned the amazon connection. what exactly did borders do with amazon, and in your view, what kind of mistake was that? >> guest: well, back in 2001 when borders had had its own website, but instead of running their own e-commerce selling books directly themselves, they passed that job to amazon, so they were giving up revenue to their competitor in order to essentially make certain things easier, but in doing that, it was something of the devil's bargain because they didn't own their own online property. by the time that they changed directions, they had, i think, a

new ceo who said this is not a very good idea, but in reclaiming it in 2008, by then, amazon had already introduced the kindle. barns and noble's nook was already in the works. it wouldn't be introduced until 2009. when borders did develop their own e-book strategy in selling some additional e-readerrers they just -- readers, they were just never able to catch up in appropriate market share. >> host: what happens to the e-book reader, kobo? >> guest: they say any books bought through border's website they say are perfectly safe, and signs point it's interesting that kobo's other partner in australia which incidentally franchises the borders name also declared bankruptcy over there. i'm hopeful the assertions are true, but i think it will be interesting to see if, in fact,

the e-books that people bought through border's sites are indeed safe and people can reclaim them and read them and so on and so forth. >> host: borders has about 742 -- 642 big box stores across the country. how many are they closing? >> guest: they are closing 200, and the going out of business sales are, in fact, starting tomorrow. i believe that the liquid dation sales will be between 20%-40% off, and those are already going to be in the works. they've already actually i believe started shutting down the cafes at the superstores, and it will be very apparent walking into those 200 stores designated for close sure all around the country that you'll see the going out of business sale signs and be able to get the books, cds, dvds and other merchandise at the appropriate prices. >> host: why has banse --

barnes & noble maintained their strategy? >> guest: it may come down to this which is that barnes & noble certainly most recently, they are run at the top my people who value books more than anything else. with respect to borders, especially since there's a tremendous turn of management changes, they brought in people from outside companies who had experience in general retail, who may not have realized that their experience did not necessarily translate into what is appropriate for the book business. the book business is very quirky, and it's not always the best fit with respect to what public companies in particular need. for example, expecting and demanding higher and higher profits. the book business operates on a tight margin. 1% is about average, lucky to get up to 3%. as a result, this sort of uncomfortable fit operated by people who weren't as

experienced with how the book business works probably added to border's troubles. >> host: when you look at the bricks and mortar business of book sellers, what do you see in the future given what happened to borders? >> guest: interesting you say that. i'm starting to believe more and more we may be witnessing the natural end of the chain bookstore business which essentially started in the late 80s and early 90s when borders expanded, when barnes & noble expanded and started seeing superstores that stood alone. some were part of malls, but most were entities that you could drive your car, park, and go in, and sit in comfy chairs. i wonder if we fooled ourselves in thinking this would last as long as it did. maybe 20 years was the natural

life cycle for such thing. as digital sales grow, perhaps we'll see a greater per pond rains of greater independent stores. they face many of the pressures that have been debated over the last decade, but the ones that have opened and have a certain business accummen and want to develop a small e-book strategy have the best chance for survival. the ecosystem is going to change. it will impact how publishers, perhaps sign up browsers and what sort of advances they pay and what books will be most visible, but to say that the shrinking of the chain bookstore business means that the book industry is dead is a connection i would be deeply uncomfortable in making because there are too many signs pointing towards