Do foundations and corporate giving programs sufficiently respect the autonomy and integrity of the relationship with grantseekers?
The very act of helping is an expression of power and it is often difficult to determine when the exercise of that power shifts from reasonable negotiation of a grant to unreasonable manipulation of a grantee. How do you resist the temptation to dictate and direct when you may have access to a wider arena of knowledge about what works and what fails and, of course, significant experience about how others have maximized the impact of limited dollars? As president of the Council, I often warned new staff that arrogance is both the original sin and the enduring threat to the soul of the philanthropic professional. 2) Do we pay as much attention to how we give as we do to what and to whom we give? Giving and caring are not only public values that need to be tempered with humility, they should also give rise to an ethic in which how you give matters as much as what you give. Responsible philanthropy requires consideration for the humanity of the recipient, who remains no different from the
