How to give away $9bn

as green energy, may be largely benign, others such as aerospace and materials science have military applications.

In response, the doj launched its “China Initiative” in November 2018, a campaign to prosecute cases of Chinese economic espionage. As Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University, explains, this was an unprecedented effort to target crimes in connection to one country and to focus on “nontraditional” sources of intelligence, such as academics.

The prosecution of Mr Lieber might look like evidence of the China Initiative’s success, but that is not necessarily the case. Investigators admitted in court that they chose to pursue Mr Lieber in part because of the presence of ethnic Chinese researchers in his lab, which raises the risk of surveillance of people on the basis of their race—a violation of the doj’s own guidelines. “This plays directly into Beijing’s narrative of antiChinese racism,” says Emily Weinstein of the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology, a thinktank.

Another worry is the government’s heavyhanded approach. Proving economic espionage is difficult: prosecutors must show that any knowledge transferred was indeed a trade secret, and persuade a jury that the defendant acted with the intent to benefit a foreign government. As a result, the doj has focused on zealously prosecuting disclosure issues at universities—all its universityrelated convictions thus far have centred on researchsecurity and taxfraud cases, not espionage. The government argues, not unreasonably, that contacts with Chinese universities will, by definition, pass on scientific expertise to the Chinese government. But the doj may not fully grasp the grantmaking process and the specific technologies at issue. Its case against Anming Hu, a professor at the University of Tennessee, ended in an acquittal based on lack of evidence.

When the fbi came to arrest Mr Lieber in January 2020, he admitted that he “wasn’t completely transparent by any stretch of the imagination…I was scared of being arrested, like I am now.” Academics watching his case will no doubt take greater care, including by vetting their associates. The suspicion that now clouds any association with China could have a chilling effect. As geopolitical rivalry intensifies, the government rightfully worries that a growing range of technologies could provide China with an economic or military edge. But not delineating which technologies pose risks may lead researchers to shun any collaboration with China at all, even in mutually beneficial areas. American scientists may also refrain from hiring researchers with family ties to China. For a country whose greatest strength is attracting the world’s best and brightest, this could prove damaging. n

Philanthropy The charityindustrial complex

Bridgespan Group: the most powerful consultants you’ve never heard of

Over the past 18 months, the world has heard a lot about MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist formerly married to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. She has given generously to charities on the front line of the pandemic, including food banks, schools and children’s health programmes. Relatively unknown, however, is the consultancy that has helped distribute almost $9bn on Ms Scott’s behalf: the Bridgespan Group.

A nonprofit consultancy, Bridgespan was spun out of Bain & Company, a management consultancy, around 20 years ago by three people, including a former managing partner. What began as a handful of smart people toiling in a small office above the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston is now a 329person global operation with $59m in operating revenues in 2020.

It has advised some of the world’s biggest donors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies. The list of nonprofit groups it works with is no less impressive, including cuttingedge research centres such as the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and bigname charities like the ymca.

Bridgespan has two main lines of business. It advises wealthy donors, learning their interests and helping them create a donation strategy, then researching and doing due diligence on prospective organisations they might donate to. It also helps nonprofit groups operate more efficiently. Beyond that, Bridgespan is shrouded in mystery. The only public information on the firm is contained in tax forms and the odd comment from former clients. In December Ms Scott announced plans for a new website with a “searchable database” of her gifts and more detail on her decisionmaking process. But many wealthy people like their privacy and Bridgespanners know how to keep quiet.

Bridgespan’s story is, in part, the story of philanthrocapitalism, a movement that began around the turn of the millennium, as billionaires started applying business principles to their giving. It is now the norm for philanthropists to treat donations like investments, setting up vast foundations, monitoring the projects they fund and quantifying the return on their money. An entire industry has emerged to support this “venture philanthropy”, including consultancies, such as Bridgespan, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Arabella Advisors, as well as researchers, donor networks and data providers, such as Candid and the National Centre for Family Philanthropy (ncfp).

Ms Scott has upended that model. She has held off setting up a foundation, instead outsourcing the entire process of picking grantees, contacting them and dishing out cash. “That signals something dramatically new, which is deploying billions of dollars through intermediaries,” says Nick Tedesco, head of the ncfp. For Bridgespan, with great power and bumper contracts comes great responsibility.

The first challenge for any organisation trying to decide who deserves a multimilliondollar grant is to make sure it has a full picture of all the nonprofit groups doing good work in poor communities. Bridgespan trumpets its offices in India and South Africa, filled with local staff. It hires almost twice as many women as men and less than half its staff are white. Nidhi Sahni, who heads Bridgespan’s American advisory business, says the firm makes sure it doesn’t just settle on the “usual suspects”. She is adamant, for instance, that proficiency in English should not determine whether a potential grantee makes it onto the firm’s radar.

The next hurdle is dealing with potential conflicts of interest. Consultants that advise rich people on how to donate their money often also work with nonprofit groups jostling for funding. William Schambra of the Hudson Institute, a thinktank, worries leaders of such organisations might feel compelled to hire Bridgespan for advice so they might come to mind when the consultancy recommends potential grantees. News that it is advising Ms Scott, who says she plans to give away her fortune of nearly $60bn “until the safe is empty”, only adds to that pressure. “If I had