How Modern Philanthropists Are Changing Public Policy

This is KPBS Midday Edition I am Maureen Cavanaugh. In San Diego we are surrounded by places that only exist because rich people decided to donate them. Think about the city Hall. The school of engineering at UCSD or the cardiovascular Institute at Scripps health. KPBS has been supported by several major philanthropists. A new book finds that is also a dark side to philanthropic giving which is increasing and becoming more widespread now that the richest Americans are richer than ever. It seems that many of today's philanthropists do not simply want to found a hospital or homeless a shelter. They want to use their money to shape public discourse. During the -- joining the is the author of the givers. Wealth power and philanthropy in a new gilded age. Welcome to the program. It is great to be here. We are all familiar with the old gilded age philanthropists the Rockefellers the Carnegie's, what is the main difference that you find between them and modern-day philanthropists? The main thing is we need more philanthropists because there's many more rich people in America than ever before. We now have over 500 billionaires in this country compared to just 13 back in the 1980s. That is a huge amount of money that has piled up in the hands of these wealthy people. It is usual in the past that a very wealthy person with donate money after they died. Are very close to the time in their life was getting into the golden years. Is that the condition now? Is it still the same now? More of these donors want to give while they are still living especially these younger donors. I talk about Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan who are in their early 30s and are sitting on a $60 billion fortune from Facebook. They want to try to give away all of that money during their lifetime. A number of younger donors feel the same way. But is one reason why we are seeing a real take in philanthropy right now because these people are not waiting until the end of their lives. They are giving now. Is there a specific turning point where these donors started is more on policy than just good works. Donors have always had the ambition to make systemic changes in society. Andrew Carnegie John D Rockefeller both of those philanthropists thought this way. They did not want to give money to universities they really wanted to affect larger change. Many more philanthropists today are interested in this. They are getting more sophisticated whether it is a issues like chronic change where they have something like that Copeland would give them a lot of money to shut down coal-fired power plants or LGBT rights or criminal justice reform our healthcare.. It's the contributions they are making at the same time. You are not altogether crazy but the trend in this book. There are ways that money could be tracked and perhaps even put a bit of a damper on this flow of money coming from the philanthropists of today. Why should we be putting up roadblocks for well-intentioned donors. Just to be clear there's a lot of great things that the new philanthropists are doing the vaccinating children around the world the new hospital symphonies like what you have seen in San Diego. My concern is really about and domestic to get involved in public policy and his tactic ducks -- tax-deductible charitable donations that we are helping to subsidize further on ideological agenda. I do think that we certainly need to have more transparency around that money. So we know who is doing what. I also think we should try to discourage giving of that kind and get money channeled more toward reading things -- toward things that really help people in concrete ways. Whether it is poverty or disease away happy. One of your critiques is that government and not all of these donors should be the driver of the kind of change we want to see in the United States. Do you think the amount of money that is coming in from philanthropists is putting a damper on the push for the United States to perhaps get attacked to get it in that way.. It has been struggling for many reasons but an aging population and a cost of the retention programs and entitlement programs the government just does not have the resources it used to have and private philanthropy is increasingly stepping forward as the government steps back. I think that is a concerning trend because the government is the vehicle that we used to stop collectively in a democratic fashion and I do not want to see that problem being replaced by private donors who make their own decisions unaccountable to anybody about how problems should be solved. That is just a powershift that we are seeing in our society that is troubling. My book really tries to draw attention to that powershift. David will be speaking about his book in a new gilded age at Warwick's in La Jolla tonight at 730. Thank you.