Good morning, folks! I’m still thinking about the TIME magazine article and all the buzz surrounding the Facebook CEO’s $100 million donation to the Newark schools. First, the buzz is impossible to escape — just type “mark zuckerberg newark” into Google News. Second, no matter how you consider the issue, this is a serious gift with the potential to be a serious game-changer — not just in Newark, but on the whole. So I thought that I’d add a couple more voices to the mix. Definitely jump into the comment thread with your thoughts. (If you’re reading this on the Catalogue homepage, click BLOG to comment.)
NPR – CEO’S Gift: Philanthropy of Image Control? “Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Friday to announce a $100 million donation to public schools in Newark, N.J. But the timing of the gift has raised questions about the social networking wunderkind’s motivation…”
The Star Ledger/NJ.com (blog) – Newark schools by the numbers: “Grousing seems like checking the teeth of a gift horse. A hundred million is not chump change, even for a wealthy entrepreneur. But let’s look at the bigger picture [...] if Newark schools cannot produce quality education at $23,500 per student, it seems hard to believe that that they will do much better with an additional $2500 per pupil.”
What do you think?
There is something about big (read, huge) gifts, especially, perhaps, from new, young, philanthropists, that makes everyone feel as though they should jump in and instruct the youngster on how to do it right. My view is that there are many ways to do it right, and not too many ways to do it wrong. Some philanthropists want to dig in, roll up their sleeves, and get to work on a project. Others want to give and step away. Still others, like Zuckerburg, seem to want that middle ground: assign the oversight to someone you trust. The thing about philanthropy is that it isn’t a requirement (like paying taxes) and you can choose the way you want to do it. That doesn’t mean that discussions about “best practices” are out of line, but it does mean that there are often more ways than one to do philanthropy well. So I, too, particularly object to the “go big or go home” concept which, besides being snarky and bossy, would seem to discourage most philanthropy since there aren’t too many of us who can give gifts of this size. There are an awful lot of smaller scale programs that are having a huge impact on kids right now, and I would definitely like to say “Go small and stay home” and you can do an enormous amount of good.