Cross-posted at bobgiloth.com.

"A new movement is afoot that promises to save the world by revolutionizing philanthropy, making non-profit organizations operate like business,and creating new markets for goods and services that benefit society. Nick-named "philanthrocapitalism,"...[i]t sees business methods as the answer to social problems, but offers little rigorous evidence or analysis to support this claim, and ignores strong evidence pointing in the opposite direction."

Today and probably for the rest of his life, I will envy Bill Gates.  Do I envy his cunning?  No - like all dilettantes with no real record of accomplishment, I'm certain my cleverness more than matches the best.  Do I envy his wealth?  Not exactly - beyond the ability to go anywhere and never have to work another day in one's life in order to live in luxury (somewhere around $5 million), money is just an abstraction.  Do I envy his technical achievements?  LOL!  Let me know when he has any.  What I envy is that he gets to give away fifty billion dollars, the largest philanthropic endeavor in the history of the word, and all I can do is fantasize about how I would give it away if it were mine.  What would you do with a foundation that big?  Hell, what would you do with a foundation twice or four times that size?  

Stewart Mott -- of the "Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust" -- has died.  It's not the shock that Tim Russert's death has been: he was 70 and has had cancer for a while.  But it's still incredibly sad.  For the 40 years that our country has been wandering in the desert since the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, he was one of the leading prominent philanthropists in progressive politics.  Think of George Soros, but with a VW Bug-driving hippie's irreverent style and sensibility.

While we are spending much of this afternoon attending to Tim Russert's death, I hope that we can take some time out to salute someone who contributed so much to keeping the progressive flame burning all these years.  These were often lonely years for those of us on the Left.  Those relative few who kept our causes financed are an important part of our story.

This has been such a terrible week here on Earth.  The numbers of people who need help are staggering, and if you're like me, you tend to wave your arms and dither and then go find something absorbing to read.  You just don't feel like there's anything you can do.

Most of the diaries published in recent months have been about the elections--the various state primaries and the approaching national election.  My diary may deal with struggles with poverty--mine and those of other Kossacks, as I always see in comments--but this diary is about the elections and the candidates, every bit as much as diaries written specifically about the elections.

Because I write books on citizen movements, people have often asked me what social change groups I personally support. I'm not a wealthy donor and have often had to fundraise for different projects. But as I've moved from an situation where I barely get by to one where I have a bit of extra resources, I've valued the chance to donate to causes I believe in, with the hope that often-small donations will matched by those of others.

People have replied to my second diary asking that I include a link from my first diary.  I'm trying to navigate the "link" option, but I'm not sure what to enter into the "label" field to enter a link from a previous diary into my text.  I'm not finding answers in FAQ.  Could anyone help?

In this diary I'm going to give a little bit of background about my personal history.  From what I'm reading of the demographics of Daily Kos viewers, I'm in a small minority as far as my socio-economics go.  I'm in the same company that I usually find myself in, in real life, namely, I'm struggling financially but most of those around me are affluent or wealthy.  I'm not making a judgment about that, just an observation.

Tom Tancredo is being hailed as a saint for his visionary mercy when he created the wall that spared the lives of millions of Mexicans from the fiery Katrina that is engulfing much of their northern neighbor.

When asked about his being compared to Mother Teresa and James Lee Witt, Mister Tancredo, ever the shy cosmopolite, whisked it away with a gentle flick of his polished hand. "It is nothing any other shy cosmopolite would do."

As I am reading a story in the SF Chronicle about the Haas family, I am struck not just by the generosity of this family, but also by who they support through their foundation and how they go about it.

This is a short diary about family values... the right kind of values.

(more)

Liz Claiborne passed away yesterday, and from the national news reports, you would know little more than she was a famous fashion designer. But she did more than just design nice clothes; she tried to design the future as well, at least for this portion of the world called Montana.

Maybe you saw the headline: "Americans Set Record For Giving".  This would be good news, after all, for the tenuous argument that tax cuts for the wealthy are working.  Moreover, in the "You're on Your Ownership Society" that Conservatives want to create, private philanthropy has to pick up the slack that slashed government programs leaves.  

The scary truth about what is going on in the world of nonprofits, and what it means for the country, below the fold.

American Idol is running a charity event called Idol Gives Back to benefit "young people in need." Don't get me wrong, I'm all for charity, but this event is just throwing money at the problem and fails to ask people to get off their couches and actually do something. American Idol is destroying both music and philanthropy. How greedy!

Cross posted at The Seminal. Head over there for some in-post music!

Dear fellow Kossacks,

In what follows, I have elected to reveal my identity for what I hope all will agree is a good cause.  I am a scientist studying Alzheimer's disease at Scripps Florida, a new branch of The Scripps Research Institute, the largest non-profit biomedical research institute in the world.  

I can't tell you how excited I was to land this job.  Here at Scripps Florida, we have the same resources as major pharmaceutical companies, absent the profit motive.  We can literally develop new treatments for Alzheimer's disease within our four walls, and I was lucky enough to enter the field at a particularly exciting time, when a whole new aspect of Alzheimer's disease was unveiled.

Unfortunately, as many of us can appreciate, times are exceptionally tough for those of us who depend on NIH grants.   There is literally no short-term alternative to my lab's survival than to appeal to your generosity to help sustain our noble objectives.  

In what follows, I'm pasting an e-mail I sent to my father hoping that it might reach people with the means to help us out.  I include links that I encourage you to check out, that prove the sincerity and hope behind our mission.  

Let the cards fall as they may....

History can and should be an instrument of change, not simply a repository of things that have come before.  In that vein, I'd like to offer up a piece I did for presentation at the 2005 Delegate Assembly of the Colorado Education Association, an organization of which I remain a proud member.  It's the sort of call to arms I don't generally trumpet - after all, it's not often that teachers call upon other teachers to reject $1000 gifts - but TocqueDeville’s excellent diary got me to thinking that it might be nice to take another look at the legacies the wealthy, the powerful, and the obtuse try to buy themselves when all other attempts at being perceived as humane fail.

So join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight your resident historiorantologist will talk of what can only be described as a Gilded Age - replete with self-indulgent corporate overlords, vicious, labor-hating goons, and some truly cynical bastards.  A century ago, such people defined how and why the wealthy should donate to the public good - I'll ask the Walton Foundation if the same spirit holds true today...

Two news items today mark paradigm shifts worth noting in the translation of health research into practice.

I was reading another DailyKos diary entry which led me off to a list of famous "Athiests, Agnostics and Ambiguous" people.

http://www.celebatheists.com/...

Anyhow, while reviewing the names I see the two men who give away more than anybody else in the WORLD (I think, and I know the two are in America) and guess what.....?

For those who are able, the week before New Year's can be a perfect time to contribute to charitable, public service, and arts organizations. It's the holiday season, and for those who are on vacation, there is time to focus. I ask all of you to please tell us about, and preferably link, your favorite non-profits. I'm particularly interested in lesser known, local organizations. Large and small, and mostly in their own words, these are some of my favorites:

Could we have a more appropriate follow up to yesterday’s piece on poverty than this piece from today’s NY Time titled Gilded Paychecks

Lure of Great Wealth Affects Career Choices

By LOUIS UCHITELLE  Published: November 27, 2006
A decade into the practice of medicine, still striving to become “a well regarded physician-scientist,” Robert H. Glassman concluded that he was not making enough money. So he answered an ad in the New England Journal of Medicine from a business consulting firm hiring doctors.