This post was originally published on IndigenousX.
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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was surprised by the former Coalition government’s lack of ‘climate commitments’, despite the economic advantages that the energy transition presents to Australia. The world’s seventh wealthiest individual addressed the Lowy Institute on Tuesday, stating “Australia was fairly unique until quite recently at not having a climate commitment… [which] was a little bit…
The post GreenTech opportunity ‘phenomenal’ in Australia: Bill Gates appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.
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When COVID-19, AJWS realized right away that the moment called for a largescale pandemic response strategy. We pivoted and it paid dividends: all 502 of our grantees remained operational over the last two turbulent years. It is now clear that this pivot not only helped during a moment of crisis but remains crucial in supporting …Read More
This post was originally published on American Jewish World Service – AJWS.
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Russian oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin are facing renewed scrutiny and sanctions. These oligarchs have shifted trillions of wealth out of their mother country to offshore tax havens, with holdings in U.K. and U.S. real estate and other investments. But they are also funneling millions into U.S. charities.
Russian oligarch donations, whether intentional or not, cast a rosier glow on the oligarchs’ own reputations; keep them connected to powerful Americans even when their companies are under sanction; and potentially even give them a voice in shaping U.S. attitudes and policy toward Russia.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, it drew heightened attention to the political conduct of both Putin and the ultra-wealthy business leaders who surround and support him. A comprehensive investigation into the charitable giving of these oligarchs by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC), of which the Institute for Policy Studies is part of, now puts their philanthropic conduct under scrutiny as well.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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The Chinese media’s praise for a Han Chinese man as a “model philanthropist” helping minority students in northwestern China’s Xinjiang has outraged Uyghur activists who note that China has jailed numerous Uyghur philanthropists under a mass internment drive that has created many orphans.
Shen Jianjia of Tikes county in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) was lauded for helping 175 Uyghur, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz students live in his home for free during the past 30 years while they completed their schooling in an article published on Tengritagh (Tianshan), the official website of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government.
The article describes Shen arriving back at his home on the evening of Feb. 15, China’s Lantern Festival, after celebrating the Lunar New Year in another part of the country. He and the four students, who live in his home while going to school, along with their parents gathered to celebrate the holiday with him.
With “wholehearted warmth Shen helped the children for many years with no regrets,” the article says.
One student had been living in Shen’s house for seven years from when he began junior high school until he graduated from the local vocational and technical school, according to the report.
“We celebrated a happy Lantern Festival together,” Shen is quoted as saying in the article.
The retired People’s Liberation Army soldier who is now a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official in Tikes county moved to Xinjiang with his parents and five siblings when he was two years old, according to the report.
In the past few years, he has received awards from the Chinese government for being an “ideological and moral building exemplar,” a “model of ethnic unity,” and a “philanthropist.”
Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, vice president of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), expressed disgust at what he said was propaganda about the former soldier in Xinjiang.
“A Chinese colonialist PLA soldier helping native children of East Turkestan has appeared in the Chinese media while millions of native Uyghurs have been imprisoned in camps and prisons, and their children have been deprived of parental care and have become the subjects of Chinese colonial boarding schools which are called ‘kindergartens of angels’ and ‘schools of angels,’” he said.
East Turkestan is Uyghurs’ preferred name for the Xinjiang region.
Kokbore said that the Chinese government needs such propaganda to cover up its colonial policies and genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang in light of accusations of genocide and crimes against humanity by some members of the international community.
“Their goal is very obvious — to cover up the genocide they are committing and to show that the CCP and its government is the savior and helper of the native people and to tell the world that what they are doing is good instead of evil,” he said.
Tragic fate of Uyghur philanthropists
RFA has previously reported that authorities have arrested and imprisoned Uyghur philanthropists who had made significant contributions to education and helped children in Xinjiang, as part of the Chinese government’s campaign to wipe out Uyghur society and culture.
Many of them have been among the 1.8 million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities believed to be held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in Xinjiang.
Kokbore said that the story of Shen Jianjia contrasted wildly with the tragic fate of Uyghur philanthropists such as Nutay Haji and others who focused their work on helping Uyghur children and students.
Nurtay Hajim, a respected businessman who amassed a fortune through an international tourism and a shipping firm, financed the establishment and operations of the Nurtay Iskender School for Orphans in Ghulja. The school offered free accommodation, food, and education for Uyghur children whose parents had died or were imprisoned. He is believed to have received a lengthy prison sentence in 2018.
Another Uyghur philanthropist, Ablimit Hoshur Halis Haji, was taken into custody in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi (Wulumuqi) in 2018 by a unit of the State Security forces known as the Guobao. His detention was said to be directly linked to his establishment in 1994 of the Halis Foundation, a charitable organization whose goal was to help elite Uyghur students attain higher education and financial aid for study abroad.
“Our philanthropists … who opened schools for the orphans, including Chinese orphans, and who had done many times better than this Chinese soldier, were imprisoned and turned into criminals by this Chinese regime,” Kokbore said. “This is all about covering up their crime of genocide.”
Kokbore condemned China’s veneration of Shen Jianjia, because he was a member of the PLA, which has been the “backbone of repression” in Xinjiang since the occupation of the region by the Chinese Communist Party after 1949.
“By choosing and praising a former Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldier, the Chinese colonialist government was trying to justify Chinese PLA’s crimes against Uyghurs,” he said.
Turghunjan Alawudun, director of WUC’s religious affairs committee, said that China’s story about Shen as a form of domestic propaganda aims to undermine Uyghurs’ religious beliefs, customs, and culture on and that the government does not respect the religious freedom of ethnic minority groups as it claims it does.
“This is another lie by the Chinese government by saying that China is helping the native children of the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyz, and the Uyghurs,” he said. “While they are committing genocide against Uyghurs, they are telling this lie of a Chinese soldier being an angel who helps the children.”
“With this propaganda, China is trying hard to speed up the assimilation of native children,” he added.
The example of the Chinese philanthropist “is an open example of the Chinese policy to exterminate the Muslim faith of such children,” he told RFA.
“Uyghur children eating at a home of a Chinese is against our belief system in Islam,” he said. “The average Uyghur parent is against letting their children eat at a non-Muslim Chinese home.”
Translated by the Uyghur service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Mihriban.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The shiver of revulsion that went through much of the nonprofit community recently had surprising and immediate impact. When CBS announced, on September 9, a new reality show pitting activists against one another in the Global Citizen series “The Activist,” they clearly did not expect overwhelmingly negative response. The original plan to have Usher, Priyanka Chopra Jones and Julianne Hough host a five-week competition between six activists working “to bring meaningful change to one of three vitally important world causes: health, education, and environment” was so antithetical to the concept of progressive change that public backlash forced a reassessment.
But the underlying issues leading to such a wrongheaded approach are nothing new. It remains to be seen whether this wakeup call will resonate with others in the philanthropic community, who frequently make extraordinary requests of nonprofits without considering the impact upon understaffed, cash-strapped organizations that would much rather dedicate all resources toward mission-related activities, whether they are direct service, advocacy, or both.
I recall one foundation that invited over 30 nonprofit leaders to spend a day in a hotel conference room, giving representatives of the funder a chance to “get to know us better.” They expected the organizations’ leadership to be available for a full day, with no certainty of application advancement. The intent was to select a smaller number from the group to apply for funds; even fewer would ultimately receive any support.
At one point, they had us all on our hands and knees on the floor, with large sheets of paper and markers, charged with creating a visual representation of our core values. The day culminated with a demand for a spontaneous pitch summarizing our work in a “fresh, new way.” The most well-received were the most skilled at improvisation. They might have also been the most deserving. Hard to know, since nothing of substance was asked or communicated.
Stop and think for a minute: Is there any reliable connection between improvisation and efficacy in the delivery of essential services? Any reason to believe that an activist who can impress us on a reality show will be someone who can affect meaningful change? Do we really want people who are effectively making the world a better place to divert their finite resources to dazzle us on television?
Thanks in large part to the uptick in “popularity-based funding,” both the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors are increasingly conditioned to equate instant gratification with actual impact. Nonprofits — which offline are urged by funders to collaborate with each other whenever possible — are expected to compete to generate the most “likes” for the prize. The resulting short-term enthusiasm rarely translates into sustained support, mainly because these campaigns — much like the originally planned criteria to “win” the competition on “The Activist” — must rely on social media marketing techniques for success rather than content about actual needs and real solutions.
Note that CBS offered “hope” for funding rather than a guarantee. The team that conceived this show found it perfectly reasonable to expect six activists, probably representing existing, hardworking nonprofits, to invest in this competition even if they came out with nothing, or very little. These are worthy causes deserving of an audience, but it is clear that the end game for CBS was never to facilitate targeted, well-funded campaigns for sustainable change.
This lack of respect for the expertise of activists seems like an extension of an increasingly common practice in the corporate-giving sector, where nonprofits must attend “boot camp” to learn a new “pitch” as part of their application process. These corporations cheerfully believe that they are enhancing the expertise of nonprofit professionals, who wearily dedicate thousands of staff hours to create presentations, either live or online, each designed to meet a different set of performative criteria.
Perhaps most infuriating — it’s hard to choose — is the idea that it’s reasonable to measure success of an initiative to improve health, education or the environment through online engagement, social metrics and input from celebrity hosts. It should not be surprising that measuring essential social change in social media metrics didn’t immediately strike everyone as a bad idea. For far too long, those with money, power and visibility have been encouraged to think they know as much or more about everything from education to social justice than those who dedicate their lives to this work.
I am grateful that CBS will reimagine “The Activist.” It remains to be seen whether the newly announced approach — showcasing the work of six activists in a documentary format — will get the same level of promotion. An honest documentation of tireless efforts toward meaningful change might make a lot of people feel inspired and hopeful — but I also hope that CBS and Global Citizen will also consider directing some of the dollars they spend on publicity toward the work of the activists they plan to showcase.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Only public investment will deliver a media that can serve the news needs of our time.
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
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US foreign policy is increasingly promoted by billionaire funded foundations. The neoliberal era has created individuals with incredible wealth and through “philanthropy”, they flex their influence and feel good at the same time. While these philanthropists can be liberal on some issues, they universally support U.S. foreign policy and the “free market”. Because many of these super-rich individuals made their wealth through investments and speculation, most do not like a planned economy, socialized services beyond the private sector or greater government control.
These mega wealthy individuals, and the people who run their foundations, are often intricately connected to the U.S. foreign policy establishment. Grants are given to projects, campaigns and organizations which align with their long-term goals.
The post How Billionaire Foundations Fund NGOs To Advance US Foreign Policy Goals appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
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We are treated each day to multiple stories about billionaire philanthropy and acts of generosity, often with eye-popping figures. Whether we like the donor’s giving strategy or not, we are encouraged to think of these as private actions and choices of beneficent people. Instead we should be thinking, “these are our tax dollars at work.”
In discussions of billionaire philanthropy, we should not lose sight of two fundamental points:
- We as taxpayers subsidize these donations, in the form of lost tax revenue. And the wealthier the donor, the bigger the tax subsidy we provide. For every $1 a billionaire gives to charity, the rest of us chip in as much as 74 cents in lost tax revenue, as we will explain below.
- Philanthropy is not a substitute for a fair tax system, where the wealthy pay their fair share to support an adequately funded public sector at the local, state and national level. Charitable dollars don’t built electric grids or water treatment facilities, or provide medical care for the elderly and people with disabilities. Philanthropy does some things well, but it is insufficient in tackling our biggest shared problems.
As a pluralistic society, we benefit from having an innovative and independent third-sector — an alternative to government programs and private corporate power. But too often we think charity is the answer to major social problems when it is, more appropriately, a laboratory or incubator.
The public has a legitimate and appropriate public interest in the seemingly private charity of the wealthy. And as wealth inequality grows and philanthropy becomes more top heavy — with a growing percent of the charitable giving pie coming from the top 10 percent and top 1 percent — we should pay additional attention.
For example, we should be concerned that some private foundations continue to warehouse substantial charitable dollars, even during a pandemic. And we need to fix the design flaw that enables donors to make substantial donations to donor-advise funds (DAFs) with no requirement for payout. In both cases, donors have already banked their tax deductions so there is a public interest that funds move in a timely way to active charities.
When we think of the value of the tax deduction, we most often consider the income tax. If I’m in the top income tax bracket, currently 37 percent, then my charitable donation reduces my income tax by that percent. For every dollar I donate, the taxpayer chips in 37 cents of my gift in lost revenue.
But when the very wealthy give, the donation not only reduces income taxes, but also lowers their capital gains and estate and gift taxes. If I donate $1 billion to my private foundation, I have reduced my taxable estate by $1 billion. If I donate $20 million in appreciated stock to my donor-advised fund, I get a substantial reduction in capital gains taxes.
As professors Roger Colinvaux and Ray D. Madoff write in Tax Notes, “The federal government has long provided generous tax incentives for charitable donations, with current benefits reaching up to 74 percent of the amount of the gift.” They add:
Although a contribution of cash can save the donor as much as 37 cents for each dollar donated, a contribution of appreciated property can save the donor 57 cents for each dollar donated (taking into account both capital gains taxes and income taxes but not potential estate taxes).
In their detailed notations, Colinvaux and Madoff also observe that:
These savings are possible for a gift of appreciated property which the donor has a zero cost basis. The charitable deduction will save the donor 37 percent of the value of the gift; an additional 20 percent of the value of the contributed property if it is subject to capital gains taxes; and, if the donor is subject to estate taxes, another 17 percent (40 percent of the remaining 43 percent) that would otherwise be remaining in the estate if no gift had been made. The tax benefits can be even more if the property is overvalued, a recurring issue for non-publicly traded assets.
In an article in Nonprofit Quarterly, Madoff writes about the tax advantages of donor-advised funds (DAFs), which are favored for donations of complicated appreciated assets. Madoff writes:
Missing from the conversation regarding DAFs is how these donations may impose significantly greater costs — in terms of foregone tax revenue — than the public receives in terms of charitable benefits. This loss of revenue burdens all American taxpayers, who must pick up the slack. The starting point is that donors get significantly more tax benefits by making contributions of appreciated property rather than cash to a charity.
Indeed, my conversations with several tax accountants suggested scenarios where the tax subsidy is even greater than 74 cents on the dollar.
So next time you hear about a billionaire donation to a university or wing of an art museum, take pride. You paid for that too.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.