Even liberal philanthropy typically reproduces inequality. While I’ve often heard rich white men claim that philanthropy is an adequate substitute for government, that’s hardly true. Americans donated $449 billion in 2019—a substantial sum, to be sure—but that’s still just 2% of U.S. GDP. And a significant portion of those funds are earmarked for universities, hospitals, museums, and other large institutions that predominantly serve the wealthy, especially rich white men.
For example, while many rich white men I know claim that education reform is the best way to advance equal opportunity, 73% of philanthropic giving within education goes to colleges and universities, which half of those who grew up in poverty do not attend. Philanthropists also disproportionately prioritize wealthy universities that serve primarily wealthy students: While UC Berkeley enrolls nearly as many Pell Grant students as the entire Ivy League combined, Ivy League universities received 10 times the donations in 2021. In fact, since the wealthiest 1% get a tax refund worth 29% of their charitable contributions, they actually take more from government coffers with their education donations than they give to K-12 education reform. Focusing on giving totals draws attention away from how little is donated to address poverty.
Even if the entire $449 billion reached those with incomes below the official poverty line—a long way from the current reality—poverty wouldn’t be eliminated. Since 37 million Americans live below this threshold, only $12,000 in philanthropic giving would reach each person. If workers in the 20 states where the minimum wage is $7.25 instead got a bump to $15 per hour, more money would end up their pockets than if they were granted a slice of the philanthropic pie.
While such a view of philanthropy may sound cynical, it’s generous, since the Kochs and other major philanthropists prioritize philanthropic investments that seek to dismantle the social safety net and weaken democracy. After I read Jane Mayer’s 2016 book Dark Money and Nancy MacLean’s 2017 book Democracy in Chains, I concluded that politically conservative philanthropists have been far more successful at gutting public services than liberal philanthropists have been at backfilling those same services via their charitable contributions. Even if many philanthropic initiatives are having a positive impact, the philanthropic sector—on the whole—might be net negative.
There’s another problem. Historically, many of the organizations dedicated to fighting poverty take a paternalistic, “blame the victim” approach. For example, my impression is that KIPP—the nation’s largest network of charter schools—was founded with a presumption that children in poverty need alternative schools that enforce high standards, not communities and schools that are as well resourced as those found in white, affluent communities. Similarly, my impression is that Teach for America, which recruits young teachers into high-poverty communities of color, was founded with a belief that what children in poverty need are teachers with elite pedigrees, not access to community wealth and power. Nonprofits like these do have a positive impact on many children’s lives, but they don’t offer America a way out of extreme inequality.
Within institutions, a common refrain from those in power is that it isn’t possible to achieve equal representation because the problems are “too big.” When I participated in efforts to advance equity at Harvard Business School, I asked administrators why the student population didn’t reflect the demographics of the American population. I was told that wasn’t possible because of a “pipeline problem”: that is, HBS couldn’t achieve equal representation because of widespread systemic factors that HBS couldn’t control, like the quality of our nation’s K-12 system and the hiring practices of influential corporations. If HBS were to achieve equal representation, they argued, these massive systems would need to be transformed first.
There’s an allure to this framing, since significant systemic reforms are indeed needed. However, recategorizing what might very well be a manageable problem into a massive, unaddressable one can be a strategy to defend an inequitable status quo. For Harvard Business School to have equal representation of women and Black students, all the school needs to do is enroll about 50 more women and about 60 more Black students. Enrolling 50 more Black women, who are particularly underrepresented at HBS, would address two needs with one deed.
The whole world doesn’t need to be upended for HBS to increase its appreciation for the value these students would bring. In 1969, the year after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, the number of Black students enrolled at HBS grew tenfold, to about 60 students. Over the past 50 years, Black enrollment has stayed around that same level. Then, after the uprisings following George Floyd’s murder, HBS immediately enrolled more Black students. Neither of these changes occurred because the K-12 system or corporate America was reformed overnight. They happened because those in power—the people who decided which students were worthy—altered their perspectives, or at least felt external pressure to walk back inequitable policies.
On the other hand, when those in power are asked about whether they support significant reforms to society—like changing the tax system so that more resources can be invested in high-poverty communities of color—they often retreat into emphasizing that the answer is fixing a single pipe in the pipeline. For example, when I asked a white male president of an elite university what America could do as a society to foster equity, he stressed that what would make the biggest difference are programs that prepare Black people for their first board seats. Other rich white men have told me that early childhood programs are the highest-leverage solution. Still others have told me that the magical elixir may be programs that help underrepresented students access college, succeed in college, get their first jobs, access graduate school, or climb the corporate ladder.
Fixing individual pipes is a good thing, but such approaches often ignore the reality that every pipe in the pipeline is broken. And unless all of the pipes are fixed—which requires major resources—the pipes will keep leaking.
The Racial Equity Institute discusses these systemic realities through what they call the groundwater approach:
If you have a lake in front of your house and one fish is floating belly-up dead, it makes sense to analyze the fish. What’s wrong with it? Imagine the fish is one student failing in the education system. We’d ask: Did it study hard enough? Is it getting the support it needs at home?
But if you come out to that same lake and half the fish are dead, what should you do? This time, you’ve got to analyze the lake. Imagine the lake is the education system and half the students are failing. This time we’d ask: Might the system itself be causing such consistent, unacceptable outcomes for students? If so, how?
Now . . . picture five lakes around your house, and in every lake half the fish are dead! Now, it’s time to analyze the groundwater. How did the water in all these lakes end up with the same contamination? On the surface, the lakes don’t appear to be connected, but it’s possible—even likely—that they are. In fact, over 95% of the freshwater on the planet is below the surface in the groundwater.
This time we can imagine half the kids in a given region are failing in the education system, half the kids suffer from ill health, half are performing poorly in the criminal justice system, half are struggling in and out of the child welfare system, and it’s often the same kids in each system.
The groundwater metaphor underscores the reality that we live in a racially structured society, and that that’s what causes racial inequity. In the United States, racism is a groundwater issue. So are sexism, classism, and other forms of bigotry. Shielding a few fish from their demise is a good thing, but it’s not sufficient for building an equitable society. Treating the groundwater requires a different set of solutions.
That starts with rich white men taking responsibility for the inequitable structure of our society. One way we can do this is to divest from inequitable structures. In his 2016 book Born on Third Base, Chuck Collins explains why he chose to donate the inheritance he received as an heir to the Oscar Meyer fortune. Chuck wasn’t just motivated to support good causes; he was also divesting from a system that reproduces inequality at other people’s expense.
Yet divesting isn’t enough. We also need to invest in the creation of an equitable America. We can still invest in programs that support individuals—those efforts are crucially needed to create pathways for Gen Z to access opportunity in a vastly unequal America—but we also need to take a longer-run view. To accelerate progress, there needs to be more investment in social movements that are building the people power necessary to challenge plutocracy, such as the Movement for Black Lives, Poor People’s Campaign, and the Sunrise Movement, which has catalyzed momentum for the Green New Deal. Funding efforts like the Movement Voter Project, Way to Win, and The Working Families Party—which build electoral power by investing in local grassroots organizations—are a way to bolster social movements and progressive politics.
How us wealthy people invest is as important as where we invest. Restricted, short-term grants are paternalistic and communicate a lack of trust. When the rich white men I know invest in for-profit entrepreneurs, they typically provide long-term, flexible capital; nonprofits deserve the same. My wife and I tried to model this approach by making an unrestricted, 10-year financial commitment to the Movement for Black Lives, which represented a significant portion of our present assets. Over time, I hope more rich white men will make more major, unrestricted, and long-term commitments to social justice movements.
Within institutions, some organizations are launching “reverse mentoring” programs, which call for junior employees to mentor executive team members on various topics of strategic and cultural relevance.
In their 2019 Harvard Business Review article “Why Reverse Mentoring Works and How to Do It Right,” Jennifer Jordan and Michael Sorell profile some of these efforts. At BNY Mellon and Estée Lauder, millennial staffers mentor executives, which has increased millennial retention and also improved executives’ digital and cultural competencies. At global law firm Linklaters and global accounting firm Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, staffers from marginalized backgrounds mentor partners. These two-way programs enable executives to obtain valuable information and learn new skills while giving younger hires—particularly those from marginalized backgrounds—greater proximity to those who hold power at those institutions.
For centuries, rich white men have blamed the people we’ve oppressed for their circumstances. It’s time that we take responsibility for America’s inequitable system and build deep relationships across differences, relationships that aren’t rooted in paternalism or narcissism but in equality. Only then will we have the foundation necessary to truly learn from one another—and to foster equitable change together.
Excerpted from Rich White Men: What It Takes to Uproot the Old Boys’ Club and Transform America by Garrett Neiman. Copyright © 2023 by Garrett Neiman. Reprinted with permission of Legacy Lit. All rights reserved.
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