Philanthropy Summer 2014

R E S C U I N G C RA N E S • T U R N I N G U P T H E H E AT O N F RAC K I N G • E L E P H A N T C E N S U S A PUBLICATION OF THE

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2014 ANNUAL MEETING

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

FEATURED SPEAKERS PETER ATTIA President and co-founder, Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI)

ROGER L. BECKETT Executive director, Ashbrook Center at Ashland University

CLINT BOLICK Vice president for litigation, Goldwater Institute

TARREN BRAGDON CEO, Foundation for Government Accountability

JON HUNTSMAN SR. President, The Huntsman Foundation 2014 Recipient of The William E. Simon Prize

CHRISTOPHER BROWN Regional executive director, BUILD

JUBAL GARCIA Director, Outcry in the Barrio

SHAILA ITTYCHERIA Co-founder, Enstitute

WENDY KOPP CEO and co-founder, Teach for All

WILLIAM KRISTOL Co-founder, Foundation for Constitutional Government, and editor, the Weekly Standard

JACK HORNER Curator of paleontology, Museum of the Rockies

JOSEPH G. LEHMAN President, Mackinac Center for Public Policy

STEPHEN MOORE Chief economist, Heritage Foundation

JEFF SANDEFER Co-founder, Acton Academy

LAURA SANDEFER Co-founder, Acton Academy

BRADLEY A. SMITH Chairman and founder, Center for Competitive Politics

THE HONORABLE MIKE LEE Senator (R-UT), United States Senate

JAMES TOOLEY Author, The Beautiful Tree, and professor of education policy, Newcastle University

ROBERT L. WOODSON SR. President and founder, Center for Neighborhood Enterprise

JAKE WOOD Co-founder and CEO, Team Rubicon

STEVEN WOOLF Senior tax policy counsel, The Jewish Federations of North America

ANDREW YANG GEORGE F. WILL Syndicated columnist

Founder and CEO, Venture for America, and author, Smart People Should Build Things

MARTY ZUPAN President, Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University

THE WILLIAM E. SIMON PRIZE For Philanthropic Leadership JON HUNTSMAN SR. The Philanthropy Roundtable is pleased to announce the selection of Jon Huntsman Sr. as the 2014 recipient of the William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership. The Simon Prize honors the ideals and principles that guided Mr. Simon’s giving, including personal responsibility, resourcefulness, volunteerism, scholarship, individual freedom, faith in God, and helping people to help themselves.

Mr. Huntsman founded the Huntsman Container Company in 1970, which took off with the invention of the Styrofoam clamshell container for Big Macs and later led to Huntsman Chemical Corporation and the global enterprise known today as Huntsman Corporation. Mr. Huntsman and his wife, Karen, have been committed to charitable giving throughout their 55-year marriage, contributing generously to causes meeting the criterion of “relief of human suffering.” Their lifetime giving is estimated to exceed $1.4 billion.

Mr. Huntsman will be honored during a special luncheon on Thursday, October 9.

The 2014 Annual Meeting of The Philanthropy Roundtable takes place in the most generous state in our nation—Utah. Government cannot solve the intractable problems diminishing the American dream for so many of our fellow citizens. Strategic and forward-thinking philanthropy can offer new perspectives and hope to the neediest among us.

SESSION TOPICS

JOIN US IN THE BEEHIVE STATE, OCTOBER 9 AND 10

Donor-advised Funds Empowering Self-help through Neighborhood-based Organizations Continuing Service After the Military Force Multiplier: How Medical Philanthropy for Veterans Benefits the Nation General Operating vs. Program Support The Greatest Free-market Policy Achievements in the States K-12 High Fliers and American Competitiveness How American Philanthropy Can Support International Education How Philanthropy Changed My Life Improving Scientific Understanding of Nutrition Online Learning for a Free Society Proposed IRS c(4) Rules and Possible c(3) Implications Strategic Problem Solving through Applied Entrepreneurship Tax Reform and Private Giving Incentives

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY PRECONFERENCE PRIVATE ALTERNATIVES TO THE WELFARE STATE Wednesday, October 8, 12:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

SESSION TOPICS INCLUDE: Alleviating Hunger: Beyond Food Stamps and Food Banks Alternatives to Medicaid Expansion in Providing Health-care Access to the Working Poor Fostering a Free-market Economic Mobility Agenda Lessons from the Mormon Welfare State This event is offered at no additional cost.

REGISTER ONLINE AT www.PhilanthropyRoundtable.org E-MAIL US AT AnnualMeeting@PhilanthropyRoundtable.org CALL US AT (202) 822-8333 HOTEL RESERVATIONS CALL The Grand America Hotel (800) 304-8696 ANNUAL MEETING FULL CONFERENCE ATTENDEE REGISTRATION RATES* Early Registration Rate: Register by August 8, $1,095 per person Regular Registration Rate: Register after August 8 and before September 5, $1,350 per person Late Registration Rate: Register after September 5, $1,550 per person *Full conference registration includes sessions and meals. Please contact us or visit the website to learn more about guest registration rates, which are available for attendees planning to attend meals but not conference sessions.

A $50 group registration discount is applied per participant when three or more attendees register at the same time.

Attendance at our Annual Meeting is limited to donors who make charitable grants or contributions of at least $100,000 per year or who expect to do so in the future.

For more information or assistance, please contact managing director of events Lindsay Miller at (202) 822-8333.

table of contents

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features

departments

12 N ature Philanthropy

4 Briefly Noted

Donated lands have become some of our most beautiful national treasures.

By Evan Sparks

20 G as Heat

A small foundation is deploying focused academic, media, and activist grants to redirect an important policy debate.

By Jon Entine

28 Protecting Animals, and People

Philanthropists are using research, security, and economic incentives to save Africa’s wildlife.

By Caitrin Nicol Keiper

36 W alk the Line

Donors are converting old rail lines into popular recreation trails.

By Kara Runsten

40 L and Law

A court decision protects the future of land preservation.

By Zachary Janowski

Charity rises in China. Disrupting the

textbook market. Flight of the ospreys. A murky future for donor-advised funds.

6 Nonprofit Spotlight Living Lands & Waters is hauling junk out of our grimiest rivers.

Mutual aid lives on in the battle against medical bills.

By Liz Essley Whyte

Adam Meyerson PRE SI D E N T

Karl Zinsmeister

VI C E P R E S ID E N T , P U BL ICA T IO N S

Caitrin Nicol Keiper E X E C U T IV E E D IT O R

Liz Essley Whyte

MA NAG IN G E D IT O R

Andrea Scott

A SSI S TA N T E D IT O R

7 Interview Terry and Mary Kohler Rescuing cranes and swans, counseling couples, painting Wisconsin red.

50 Ideas

Excellence in the Classroom

How donors can help teachers acquire the skills they need.

By Laura Vanderkam

54 Books Benefits of a Gift Gone Wrong The Robertsons’ donation to Princeton has much to teach other philanthropists.

By Jeffrey Cain

School Success Stories A new book puts the human face on scholarships to kids.

By Dustin Petzold

57 Face to Face

44 S haring Health

A P U B L I CATI O N O F THE

Donors convened for Philanthropy Roundtable events on the workforce and education.

Taryn Wolf

A RT D IR E CT O R

Kara Runsten Morgan Sweeney I NTE R N S

Arthur Brooks John Steele Gordon Christopher Levenick Bruno Manno John Miller Tom Riley Naomi Schaefer Riley William Schambra Evan Sparks Justin Torres Scott Walter

C O NT R IBU T IN G E D IT O R S Philanthropy is published quarterly by The Philanthropy Roundtable. The mission of the Roundtable, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational organization, is to foster excellence in philanthropy, to protect philanthropic freedom, to assist donors in achieving their philanthropic intent, and to help donors advance liberty, opportunity, and personal responsibility in America and abroad.

All editorial or business inquiries: Editor@PhilanthropyRoundtable.org Philanthropy 1730 M Street NW, Suite 601 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 822-8333 Copyright © 2014 The Philanthropy Roundtable.

All rights reserved.

Cover: Mandy Disher

SUMMER 2014

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briefly noted

inspired Jack Ma’s environmental gift.

Chopping Textbook Costs College textbooks are notoriously expensive. Students shelled out an average of more than $1,200 each for books and supplies in the 2013-2014 school year, according to the College Board. Texts in many basic subjects like introductory economics, biology, and statistics cost as much as $200. A two-year-old nonprofit is hoping to change that. OpenStax College, 4

PHILANTHROPY

© Atelopus / istockphoto.com

China’s notorious smog seems to have

Eyes on Ospreys Twenty years ago, the river that dissects the District of Columbia was choked with pollution. The Anacostia had few fish and no ospreys—the big, yellow-eyed fishing birds that often thrill waterside observers. But a group of residents pooled their money and time to form the Earth Conservation Corps, a key helper in cleaning the river, and when ospreys began to show up as summer residents in the capital city, the nonprofit decided it would learn more about them, according to a recent account in the Washington Post. Locals funded a $20,000 project to track the creatures when they migrated.

Transmitters, placed on the birds after volunteers netted the ospreys near bridges, revealed that the new avian residents of D.C. wintered in South America. One local osprey traveled 2,900 miles from western Venezuela over a three-week period; another flew about 3,500 miles from its winter home between two tributaries of the Amazon in Brazil. D.C.’s top cop is one of the citizens donating her time to the osprey-tracking cause. Police chief Cathy Lanier climbed to the top of bridge abutments to help catch ospreys for the transmitters. “They’re amazing birds,” she told the Post.

Indeed. Ospreys can sleep and migrate at the same time, using only half their brains for flight. The satellite paths showed they usually travel at 25 or

Ryan Kellett / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Philanthropy’s Toehold in China Last year when he was worth a mere $4 billion or so, Chinese tycoon Jack Ma told the Wall Street Journal he had no intention of signing the Giving Pledge.

“This idea of giving your money out was not created

by Gates and Buffett. It was created by the Communist Party in the 1950s!” he joked. Ma is not the only Chinese businessman skeptical of American-style philanthropy. Though his country is home to an estimated 358 billionaires, exactly none have signed the Giving Pledge. When Bill Gates and Warren Buffett teamed up to promote philanthropy in Beijing in 2010, many wealthy Chinese failed to show up at the meeting. The Chinese have historically kept their money within the family. And if they give to charity, they tend to do so in modest ways. In addition, China’s legal and regulatory climate isn’t philanthropy-friendly, to say the least. The Communist Party did slightly loosen restrictions on charitable organizations in November, however, acknowledging the value of an active civil society.

Meanwhile, as his company Alibaba is about to stage an IPO that could add another $8 billion to his fortune, Jack Ma’s views on philanthropy are evolving. Apparently concerned that China’s rampant pollution contributed to his father-inlaw’s recent death from cancer, he and a company co-founder announced in April that they will pour several billion dollars of their private wealth into a new trust to fund environmental improvements and health care, as well as education, in China. Along with this grant, highly unusual in their country, Ma also agreed to serve as chairman of the Nature Conservancy’s board of directors for China, putting his managerial instincts as well as his money to work in the nascent sector experimenting with non-governmental solutions to public problems in his homeland. —Kara Runsten

established at Rice University with philanthropic funding from the Arnold, Hewlett, Gates, Maxfield, and 20 Million Minds foundations, creates peer-reviewed textbooks covering content of the most popular college classes, and encourages professors to assign them so students can take advantage of the fact that these books are free online and low-cost in print versions.

Each title covers all the topics taught in a standard course, in the usual order, but professors who want to instruct somewhat differently can also customize the text to match their lessons. Thanks to a $6 million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, OpenStax is now in the midst of doubling its offerings, with new textbooks in pre-calculus, chemistry, U.S. history, psychology, and other subjects on the way.

The initial goal is offering free texts for the nation’s 25 most-attended college courses. Disrupting the textbook market isn’t cheap—each one costs more than $500,000 to create. But with strong donor support, and a new distribution deal with the National Association of College Stores, OpenStax is on the way to its goal of supplying 10 million students with free or low-cost textbooks. —Kara Runsten

or 30 miles per hour, several thousand feet in the air.

We have much more to learn about these birds as they rebound in their historic habitat, and thanks to local philanthropy, we’re on our way to doing that.

dation. But legislation recently proposed in Congress could threaten the funds’ appeal. A draft tax-reform bill by Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) requires donor-advised funds to give out contributions within five years of receiving them, or face a 20 percent excise tax. That significantly limits the strategic ability of donors to grow the value of their lifetime gifts before targeting them toward recipients. The rule would “effectively destroy the use of the donor-advised fund as a philanthropic platform and turn it into an enhanced charitable checkbook,” said Jeffrey Zysik of DonorsTrust during a recent webinar hosted by the Alliance for Charitable Reform. ACR, a project of The Philanthropy Roundtable, is currently working to educate lawmakers on the effects of this change. To follow its efforts, visit ACReform.com.

DAFs: Popular Yet Under Pressure Donor-advised funds are mushrooming. In 2012 the funds held more than $45 billion—up 19 percent from the previous year, according to a study from the National Philanthropic Trust. The number of accounts also went up about 7 percent, to 201,631.

Their popularity is easy to understand: Many small donors appreciate having access to professionally managed philanthropic funds that still allow for donor choices, without the hassle and staff of an entire foun-

Q&A ON THE RAINFOREST TRUST When he was eight years old, Paul Salaman met famed naturalist Sir David Attenborough and was hooked on the natural world. He has since led research expeditions across Colombia and described four bird species new to science. He now serves as CEO of the Rainforest Trust.

Q: What surprises people about the rainforest when they go for the first time?

A:

They are cathedrals of biodiversity. There’s so much explosive life. Birds singing and wildlife and ants and insects on the ground, and every tree and plant is different. Rainforests provide the oxygen we breathe, the water that we depend on. They are critical for atmospheric cycles. They provide vast amounts of nutrients for agriculture. They provide aesthetic pleasure and also medical benefits; there are a number of species of plants and animals in the tropics that provide valuable compounds for medical research.

Rainforests are home to countless species.

Q: Tell me about your work in Ecuador with the Paul

© Atelopus / istockphoto.com

Q: Tell us about Rainforest Trust.

A: We were founded in 1988 with a mission to

Ryan Kellett / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

rights, they can’t legally defend their property. Say a rogue logging or mining operation comes into an indigenous community and starts clearing. The people can go to the police, but the police say, “Well, where is the proof that it’s your land?” They don’t have any, so they can’t stop the intrusion. Getting them the title empowers them to protect those areas. In 25 years, we’ve helped protect several million acres across the tropics.

Another way that we’ve often worked is land purchase—similar to the Nature Conservancy model—of a very important area for an endangered frog or bird. We purchase key areas of breeding habitat through local partners—very good organizations with good governance and experienced conservationists and biologists.

Lelis Rivera Chavez of CEDIA, for example, has saved over 20 million acres of rainforest, preserved more than 360 community lands, and established five major protected areas from scratch.

Allen Family Foundation.

A:

From 2010, they have been supporting us for land purchase in Ecuador, just outside of Quito. Half of the water for the capital city comes from the Antisana watershed that was unprotected and covered with cattle. The water pollution from cattle—amoebas and bacteria— meant that the water had to have additional treatment, which is expensive and often not done. And the land was drying up because it was so heavily grazed and damaged.

Working with the water fund of Quito, the Paul Allen Family Foundation, and a number of other donors, we were able to support the purchase of over 270,000 acres from cattle ranchers to secure that resource.

establish new protected areas in the tropics: national parks, nature reserves, sanctuaries. We conserve endangered species by protecting their homes, and we always do it in partnership with local organizations and communities.

For example, we’ve been working with the Center for the Development of an Indigenous Amazon (CEDIA) for almost 20 years to title indigenous community lands across Peru. Governments have finally recognized that clear ownership is a good way to get communities to manage their own land. If the people don’t have land SUMMER 2014

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nonprofit spotlight LIVING LANDS & WATERS

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Chad Pregracke scans a layer of rubbish floating on the Mississippi River during a recent cleanup effort.

million people drink Mississippi River water. Garbage thrown in a storm drain in Minnesota can make its way into the river and travel all the way out to the Gulf of Mexico. (Pregracke has proof: an impressive “message in a bottle” collection, with letters indicating where the bottle entered the river.) Cleaning rivers makes the water easier for communities to filter and drink.

It also helps fish, birds, and the entire ecosystem stay healthy.

Today’s volunteers, who hail from all over the country, convened in Memphis, Tennessee, as part of LL&W’s “alternative spring break,” devoting their vacation time to cleaning up the Mississippi River.

Pregracke tries to make the work as fun as possible. A “disc-jockey boat” with booming speakers blasts popular tunes and karaoke all day to keep morale high. Plastic bags of trash are loaded onto the main barge until a separate sorting day, when volunteers sift through the items and send them either to recycling centers or landfills.

The nonprofit recently launched an effort to educate schoolchildren. “Getting the river cleaned and keeping the river cleaned are two different things,” Pregracke says. Teachers bring their students to the barge’s own classroom for hands-on water experiences. Fishermen show students how to hold fish, and staff lead workshops about PHILANTHROPY

conservation, water sampling, recycling, watersheds, sustainability, and why rivers are important. Pregracke’s ultimate goal is to enhance communities, and not just by cleaning rivers: LL&W also has projects such as MillionTrees, which distributes more than 140,000 tree saplings to local parks and schools each season, and a new venture to remove invasive species. The entire operation costs $2 million per year and is funded by a broad array of corporate donations, foundation grants, and private gifts.

Pregracke and his wife, Tammy Becker, live on the group’s barge with ten other staff about nine months a year. Shipping companies allow the barge to hitchhike with their loads, bringing it to some of the grimiest rivers in America, including the Anacostia in Washington, D.C., the Ohio, the Illinois, and the Mississippi. Brightly painted with land and seascapes, the barge is a floating statement to all who catch a glimpse of it.

A winner of the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the William E. Simon Prize for Social Entrepreneurship, and 2013 CNN Hero of the Year, Pregracke is gaining recognition nationally for what he says is just grunt work. The good news is that no matter how cold and dirty and exhausting the labor, he finds no shortage of people willing to pitch in and help. “No one likes seeing garbage in their drinking water.” —Andrea Scott

Andrea Scott

When Chad Pregracke was a teenager, he spent his summers working as a clammer near his hometown of East Moline, Illinois. Each day he dove down to the Mighty Mississippi’s riverbed and encountered garbage drifting through the muddy water. Disgusted at how poorly treated the river was, he spent months calling state agencies about the problem, with no response. Then one day, while watching NASCAR, he was inspired: If sponsors would back a race-car team, why wouldn’t they support a river-cleanup team?

Turns out, they would. Living Lands & Waters, the nonprofit Pregracke founded in 1998, has marshalled 70,000 volunteers to remove more than 7.5 million pounds of garbage out of 23 of America’s dirtiest waterways, becoming the country’s most successful river cleanup operation.

On a frigid day in early March, Pregracke—dressed in orange waders and a camouflage coat, perched on a pile of garbage—directs a crew of college students as they embark across the icy water, instructing them to retrieve anything they can fit into their shallow-water boats. These boats are crucial to the nonprofit’s success, Pregracke says, as they allow the outfit to go places most other crews cannot access.

Clumps of trash form a solid layer over the water. The volunteers pluck an astonishing number of basketballs, tennis shoes, and cardboard boxes out of the river. They also find rusted cans, oil drums, playground slides, kiddie pools, fire extinguishers, old mattresses, and even a rusty metal bathtub.

Each week’s crew collects an average of about 50,000 pounds of junk. This spring they collectively found more than 300 pairs of abandoned shoes in the waterway.

All that trash is even more appalling, Pregracke says, when you realize 18

interview

surveys, or research jaunts of various sorts. On hundreds of occasions the Kohlers have donated use of their company airplanes and helicopter for crucial transport in endangered-species restoration work. Mary has managed much of their philanthropic giving and directed tens of millions of dollars to conservation, as well as other causes. During their interview with Philanthropy, the couple paused several times to point out wild turkeys, deer, and songbirds in the woods outside their Sheboygan, Wisconsin, home. They split their time between the Badger State, a Florida house located in a bird refuge, and a Chilean fishing camp.

Philanthropy: Tell me about your love for nature. Did you always enjoy being outdoors?

Terry Kohler: I’ve always been a hunter and a fisherman. To that extent, nature has been where I did my thing and had fun. When Mary and I came together, she began to teach me more about it.

Mary Kohler: My father was very interested in birding and wild flowers. We had three bird feeders. I asked my dad one day what bird was singing. He said, “You go find out.” It took me awhile, but it was a veery thrush. Then, as a married young adult with children, I volunteered as a teacher at a nature center.

Mary and Terry Kohler, at home in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

Liz Essley Whyte

TERRY AND MARY KOHLER Terry Kohler is the son and grandson of Wisconsin governors, and descendant of the men who founded both the Kohler and Vollrath manufacturing companies. He joined the Air Force in 1955 and flew B-47 bombers. Later he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and expanded the Vollrath Company from $13 million in annual sales to more than $300 million. An enthusiastic outdoorsman and sailor, he is a lifetime member

of the National Rifle Association and Ducks Unlimited. Terry ran as a Republican for Wisconsin governor in 1982. He lost the race, but won his wife, Mary, who worked as his campaign manager. Mary now divides her life into “BT” and “AT”—“before Terry” and “after Terry.” A passionate birdwatcher, fossil digs participant, and local nature preserve teacher, she learned to fly after meeting Terry, and they have shared the controls over many thousands of miles, often on animal sorties, conservation SUMMER 2014

Philanthropy: How did you get involved in bird conservation?

Terry Kohler: One day in 1987, after we helped elect Tommy Thompson as Wisconsin governor, I got a telephone call from him. He said, “Say, Terry, we’ve got our Department of Natural Resources trying to replace the trumpeter swan in Wisconsin because they were all shot out of existence prior to 1900. I know you’ve got a corporate jet. Can I talk you into flying up to Alaska to get swan eggs and bring them back to Wisconsin?” I said, “When do we leave?” Mary and I jumped into our Cessna Citation business jet.

She’s a pilot as well. We picked up the DNR guys and flew up to Alaska and had fun doing this and that, between looking at the mountains and chasing all over the Minto Flats.

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interview

Philanthropy: Were they able to reintroduce them into the wild?

Mary Kohler: Yes. They developed a system of raising them without human contact.

The people that take care of them are covered with white sheets and their arms are disguised to look like cranes, so that the birds don’t get attached to humans. They raise them until they’re able to go out on their own.

Terry Kohler: We started bringing whooping cranes to Wisconsin because the numbers in the world were very small. It went down to 16 or 17 back in 1941. Since then, there have been serious conservation efforts and the shooting has gone down rapidly. We ship people off to jail for shooting one of those birds. In any event, ICF decided they wanted to establish a migratory flock in the eastern half of the United States. There’s a guy I happened to know, Bill Lishman, who was 8

leading Canadian geese in migration with an ultralight, which is a little tiny airplane with a big, big fan in the back of it. I saw his book Father Goose, which later inspired the movie Fly Away Home.

I bought the book, and I read the darn thing and I said, “Hmm,” and I sent it over to George Archibald. I said, “George, I know you’re going to not take this so seriously but, nonetheless, I think this guy’s got an opportunity for us to go and fly cranes via ultralights.” He laughed. But he got the book and a video that showed how it was being done.

He called me back. He said, “Terry, I’m not laughing anymore.” He then sent this information to the board of directors and to others. They were laughing to begin with, too. But all of a sudden they were saying, “We’re not laughing anymore.” The next thing you know they’re trying it right here in Wisconsin. We’ve been helping to fund that.

Mary Kohler: Our employees have been involved in this as well. In addition to the ultralights, they have small regular airplanes.

Some of the cranes stray, and somebody else will go look to see where they strayed, or chase away eagles.

Terry Kohler: Little by little we were able to increase the number of these cranes we’re leading down to Florida with the ultralights. We’re still taking them down there. You only have to do it once; they return, and repeat the migration on their own after that. There’s also a nonmigrating flock of whooping cranes in Florida which we started many years ago, which unfortunately is being decimated by bobcats. But we have now started moving birds over to Louisiana’s big isolated islands. We’ve now got 30 or 40 birds down there.

Philanthropy: What are some of the ways environmental giving can go wrong?

Mary Kohler: I think one of the chief ways is to have the government take over. Too many rules don’t help, and too much protected land is good in some ways but it has created a lot of problems in other ways. In our opinion, small, privately organized conservation groups, such as ICF, are the best.

Some of the bigger organizations have gotten into spending most of their time trying PHILANTHROPY

to get laws passed and very little of their time researching practical solutions.

ICF is studying a place in China called Poyang Lake, a major wintering site for Siberian cranes. It is threatened by a big dam on the Yangtze River. ICF has been researching what the cranes eat, what the water level has to be like, how it impacts the people that live there, and how those people can get along with the cranes and still support themselves.

One of George Archibald’s major themes is that when you help animals or birds you must not hurt the people in the area where you’re trying to help. In Poyang, the locals are now making very high-end straw products out of reeds that grow naturally in the lake area. That has been a boon because their previous fishing jobs involved a system of damming things up and then letting the water go that was not compatible with what the cranes needed. So if you’re not going to let the people catch fish, you better figure some other way that they can make money.

Philanthropy: Tell me about your work with the Onion River in Wisconsin.

Terry Kohler: It had been turned into a couple of trout farms and some racehorse farms. There were 26 or so dams out there, which had blocked most of the headwaters for trout reproduction, so there was no longer a satisfactory trout stream. The DNR couldn’t buy the property because there were businesses on it. So we bought it, about six properties in total, for three million bucks.

We proceeded to get rid of the businesses that the DNR couldn’t buy, and then little by little the DNR was able to buy it back from us. The lands are now state-owned and they’re available for fishing by anybody with a license. I still hold the state record for tearing up 24 of the dams in one week. Trout are another passion of mine. We like to return wildlife to where it belongs and try to do it without hurting people as a result.

Philanthropy: Tell me about your decision to spend down the $20 million Charlotte and Walter Kohler Charitable Trust, named after Terry’s father and stepmother. Spending down is more and more popular these days,

Operation Migration USA

Philanthropy: You started with the trumpeter swan eggs. How did you get involved in cranes?

Terry Kohler: I got a call from George Archibald, who was the head of the International Crane Foundation, based here in Wisconsin. “Terry,” he said, “I heard from my friends at the DNR that you and Mary flew up and got eggs back with you from Alaska and you’re going to do it again next year. You know, we’ve been trying to put together a program to get whooping crane eggs down from northern Canada, so it would be really neat if you would fly up there and pick up those eggs in spring and fly them back down to ICF, where we could go ahead and hatch them so we have ourselves some whooping cranes here, too.”

I said, “When do we leave?”

Mary Kohler: And we made two trips every spring for six years, one for the cranes and one for the swans. The timing depended on when the eggs were ready to be picked off the nests.

Terry Kohler: Our company that makes food service equipment designed and built an insulated container for the eggs, with heat and temperature-sensing devices. We can bring down 60 eggs at a time. The cranes went to the International Crane Foundation, and the swans went to the Milwaukee Zoo.

Cranes follow an ultralight airplane to learn where to migrate. Terry Kohler suggested the method to the International Crane Foundation after reading about its success with Canadian geese.

Operation Migration USA

but it was rare back when you chose that course, in 1997. Why did you do it?

Mary Kohler: We made the decision quite early on that we weren’t going to be like the Ford Foundation and other places like that. We didn’t want it to go to people who wouldn’t have our opinion of what sort of things are good to give to and what policies you ought to have, which has happened to most of the big foundations. So we decided we would give it all away, which also allowed us to make some quite sizable grants.

Philanthropy: Do you have a philosophy of giving?

Mary Kohler: I like to give to pilot programs because most people won’t. The pilot program may be a complete dud, but then they learn something that way, too. Some things have turned out extremely well. Over the years, we have given FREE, the Foundation for Research in Economics and Environment, a fair amount of money, sev-

eral hundred thousand. One of its projects has been to hold seminars for federal judges with well-respected experts in economics and the environment. Judges must decide cases in which the environmental impact is a feature, yet a lot of them don’t know much about it.

Philanthropy: You’ve given more than $5 million to a number of programs that work to strengthen marriage, locally and nationwide. What does that interest stem from?

Terry Kohler: My divorce in my first marriage and the fact that intact families are most successful for the upbringing of children. There are tons of statistics to bear that out. Anybody that tries to argue that point isn’t reading. I’m not trying to imply that everybody who is getting or has gotten a divorce is bad. I’ve failed in that department myself. But we ought to make it as easy and desirable as possible for people to maintain intact families.

SUMMER 2014

Philanthropy: It seems to many that marriage is a lost cause in America. How do you go about reversing a cultural trend?

Terry Kohler: It’s happening. That reversal has begun. You see it here in Sheboygan.

Mary Kohler: There’s a program called Greater Marriages for Sheboygan County that works with people on two common problems: money and communication.

It’s just the same story over and over. If you can get couples to deal with some of those issues and not to look at it as though they’re alone in facing them, it’s amazing the good results you get.

Terry Kohler: We have had some 24 mentoring couples volunteering. Many of them have come out of the program in years past.

They take on a couple, and they work with them typically for three to six months. Having them all sit down and talk about the problem that both couples have had and one couple has recovered from, that’s the whole system. It’s working incredibly well.

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interview

Trumpeter swans were a rare sight in Wisconsin when the Kohlers began fetching their eggs from Alaska to help the birds make a comeback.

Philanthropy: Tell us about your political involvement in Wisconsin.

Mary Kohler: We have been, to the extent of the law, big givers of money to candidates.

We have also done a lot of hands-on work; Terry has run for office, and I’ve run campaigns. I’ve knocked on doors, distributed literature, made phone calls. I’ve done all the grunt work. We also give to conservative, cultural 501(c)(3)s. Recently we had a party to fundraise for a small, nonprofit magazine 10

put out in Stillwater, Minnesota, that needs to expand its readership. It’s a journal called the St. Croix Review.

Terry Kohler: Let’s face it: The media is largely aimed to benefit the left side of the political spectrum. The average person does not have access to the St. Croix Review, even to the Wall Street Journal. So we’ve done work with (c)(4)s, on issue-based advocacy, to make the real issues more obvious to people.

My aim has been trying to change the character of the institutional base. The unions have been a very dominant force in this state. This was a socialist state.

Back in the ’20s there were 23 socialist operatives on the payroll of the state! My grandfather and later my father were able to move that to a significant extent, but the unions were still dominant.

So with two or three of my associates around the state, we formed a coalition.

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Wisconsin was the fourth state in the country to put in place a Club for Growth, a (c)(4), and I was very active in that. We have also been big givers to Right to Life Wisconsin, which is a (c)(3) and has a (c)(4).

Together, our coalition was responsible for moving some $7 million in the 2012 election. We changed the character of Wisconsin.

Philanthropy: Tell me about WisconsinEye, a project to which you gave $300,000.

It put cameras in the state house so that citizens could watch the legislature’s proceedings online.

Terry Kohler: WisconsinEye is the only video-based organization that looks at what’s going on inside the state government­— the only one in the USA that’s doing it with private money, not government money. It’s not supposed to be

Kevin Wood / CC BY-SA 2.0

Professional marriage counselors have a success ratio of about 28 percent. Greater Marriages for Sheboygan County has an overall success ratio of 87 percent. We got a communication last year from the secretary of the Sheboygan County records section.

She said, “I think you must be having an impact. Our divorces have gone down rather dramatically.”

a traditional news report; it just films the actual operations in the government, which your normal video media doesn’t even have. I supported WisconsinEye because it was unbiased, aimed at transferring information from real proceedings.

Kevin Wood / CC BY-SA 2.0

Philanthropy: What do you consider your greatest philanthropic achievement?

Mary Kohler: I would have to say a pittance of money, somewhere between $5,000 and $25,000, that I gave to a young man whose name was John Lenczowski, who had this notion that he was going to start a graduate school in international relations from the free market perspective. That’s now the Institute of World Politics, a growing organization. I gave him money when he had no money and didn’t know who else to ask.

It ’s the money that comes at an absolute crucial time that helps people most. We once befriended a young Chinese man who had been studying at an American university at the time of Tiananmen Square and was afraid to go back home. He had been videoed in New York City while protesting against the Chinese, and was spotted on TV and identified. He didn’t have any money and needed to get another scholarship to stay in the States. What we gave was a pittance. It was like a couple thousand dollars. Almost anybody could’ve found that much money if they really thought it was important. We gave it to him, and that money kept him here. He’s now a paleontologist with Beijing University.

Terry Kohler: I’m most proud of receiving the Charles Lindbergh Award for our efforts with cranes and swans. Our bird conservation efforts have had the most widespread international impact.

Philanthropy: How has your faith influenced your giving?

Terry Kohler: Well, if you believe in God, believe in Christ, He’s going to take care of you. All you have to do is serve others. It’s a pretty straightforward Biblical position. We haven’t suffered. The good Lord has been extremely generous with me, let’s put it that way. What would we do with the money if we kept it? P

SAVING THE SIBERIAN CRANE WITH AN EGG EXPEDITION ACROSS RUSSIA Terry and Mary Kohler’s adventures in Russia started the same way many of their others did—with an appeal for help from a friend, and Terry’s standard response: “When do we leave?”

The Siberian crane is one of the most beautiful and endangered animals in the world, and in 1994, the International Crane Foundation’s George Archibald, a good friend of the Kohlers, needed to transfer precious eggs produced by captive birds in the U.S. to the wilds of Russia. He couldn’t do it without aviation aid. “So we flew over to the International Crane Foundation and picked up George and his wife and a whole big box of eggs,” says Terry.

Once-vast western and central flocks of Siberian cranes that wintered in Iran and India were reduced to fewer than ten birds. Only a Chinese flock was still prosperous, with more than 2,000 members. Biologists worried that the species’ chance of survival depended on just one group of cranes: What if human development or predators managed to wipe out the Chinese flock? So Archibald and other conservationists conceived a plan to place Siberian crane eggs in the nests of common Eurasian cranes, which scientists hoped would teach their Siberian cousins new migratory patterns that avoided dangerous hunting grounds over Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as less picky eating habits.

The Kohlers’ journey to Siberia, which required a circumnavigation of the northern hemisphere, was challenging. Their incubator, custom-built by a Vollrath employee on the Kohlers’ dime to carry swan eggs from Alaska, overheated its battery whenever it was plugged into European outlets at night, putting the eggs and the team’s entire mission at risk. When the last of the Kohlers’ heavy-duty voltage convertors failed, Mary desperately dug out a tiny convertor she had used for ten years to boil water for tea while traveling. It worked better than all the others, stopped the egg carrier’s system from crashing, and saved the eggs.

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Other problems had to be solved. Overcast skies in Canada required Terry to land using military-style systems he hadn’t used since leaving the Air Force nearly 40 years before. Private jet parts and service would be unavailable in Siberia, so maintenance and fallback plans had to be carefully arranged. Flying a private American plane across Russia just a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall required the team to steer their way through gobs of regulation and red tape, follow strict routes and timetables, pay cash landing fees at every airport, and even take on board a Russian “navigator”—“probably a part-timer with the KGB,” according to Terry.

Finally the group was ready to plant Siberian crane eggs into foster nests. “We flew up to the Siberian north coast that day with a military helicopter planting eggs,” Terry says. The helicopter could not touch down on the boggy land, but hovered just above the water near each Eurasian crane nest. Russian scientists would leap into the water, Terry would open the egg box on his lap, Mary would pluck out an egg, which George Archibald would hand out the open door to the scientists below. Then this delicate game of hot potato would be repeated.

After a 13,000-mile journey taking 13 days, the crane enthusiasts flew home over Alaska, the second group in history to go around the world across the Russian land mass in a private plane. Two weeks later, a scientist in Siberia reported that all the crane eggs planted by the team had hatched.

The first two were named “Mary” and “Terry.”

This is adapted from Philanthropy’s interview with the Kohlers and the book Chasing the Ghost Birds: Saving Swans and Cranes from Extinction by David Sakrison, a superb resource for anyone seeking to learn more about the Kohlers’ crane and swan conservation.

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Š kjschoen / istockphoto.com

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nature philant h PHILANTHROPY

© kjschoen / istockphoto.com

When you think of parks, whether Grand Teton National (pictured here) or your corner playground, you probably think of them as quintessentially public institutions—as the Ken Burns documentary puts it, “America’s best idea.” And while parks are indeed public, a great many owe their existence, growth, and endurance to the generosity of creative private donors.

On these pages, you’ll get a glimpse of the wide variety of American philanthropy on behalf of natural havens and historic sites. Parks large and small; national, state, and local; old and new; landmark and little known— all have benefited from voluntary giving, and in turn benefited their users.

e t hropy SUMMER 2014

By Evan Sparks

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Redwoods soar in Muir Woods, a donated forest.

Landscapes

The grandfather of park philanthropy John D. Rockefeller Jr. was the most prolific donor of American parks, and his most iconic contribution was to help secure Grand Teton National Park. The Teton range itself had been protected in 1929, but Rockefeller recognized that the mountains “are seen at their best from the Jackson Hole Valley,” which is also “the natural and necessary feeding place for the game which inhabits Yellowstone Park and the surrounding region.” So Rockefeller began buying land from willing sellers until he owned 35,000 acres—most of the valley. He eventually donated the land and large alpine lakes at the foot of the mountains to the National Park Service, in 1949, in what historian Robert Righter has called “perhaps the most notable conservation victory of the twentieth century.”

The wild, wild east Mount Katahdin—just shy of a mile high, Maine’s loftiest point, and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail—is the iconic centerpiece of Baxter State Park. One might assume that a park named for former Maine governor Percival Baxter is a product of political patronage, but Katahdin’s preservation is actually a story of private philanthropic initiative. The Portland-born Baxter had spent his boyhood summers fishing and exploring in Maine’s deep woods, and during his time as governor from 1921 to 1925, he tried to persuade legislators to acquire and conserve the land around Katahdin for the people of Maine. But that effort failed. So after leaving office Baxter put his considerable wealth where his mouth was. In 1930, he bought Katahdin and the surrounding land and gave it to the state. Over the next three decades, he pieced together more than 200,000 acres—encompassing 40 separate peaks, hundreds of lakes, streams, and waterfalls, and abundant wildlife— and deeded them all to his Maine neighbors. He also donated a $7 million trust fund to manage the park, and a thoughtful plan designating different sections for various public uses: hunting and trapping here, wildlife sanctuary there, 30,000 acres as a showplace of managed timbering, 215 miles of trails, and ten

Redwoods once filled many California valleys, but it was one of the last remaining stands that the Kents purchased in 1905. The woods became the first federally protected area donated by private individuals.

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© tobiasjo / istockphoto.com

campgrounds. In Baxter’s own words, Katahdin “in of San Francisco to the Department of the Interior, the all its glory forever shall remain the mountain of the Kents asked that President Theodore Roosevelt declare it people of Maine,” thanks to private initiative. a national monument, and name it Muir Woods in homage to naturalist John Muir. Acting on their request in “The name of Kent” 1908, Roosevelt created the first national protected area to Shrouded in fog banks that roll in daily from the Pacific, be donated by private individuals. But the President sugCalifornia redwoods reach hundreds of feet in height and gested the monument should bear the donor family’s name, thousands of years in age. They once filled many north- in recognition of their “generous and public-spirited” act. ern California coastal valleys, but it was one of the last William Kent demurred, saying he and his wife were raising remaining mature stands that William and Elizabeth Kent purchased in 1905. In donating a 300-acre tract north Evan Sparks is a Philanthropy contributing editor.

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“five good husky boys” and “if these boys cannot keep the the local geology (it was a fossilized reef ). In 1959 name of Kent alive, I am willing it should be forgotten.”

Pratt offered his canyon lands to the National Park Service. Several years later the owner of a picturesque Geologist’s getaway sheep ranch that adjoined the canyon did likewise.

In the early twentieth century, geologist Wallace Out of these gifts, Congress created Guadalupe Pratt pioneered scientific techniques for finding oil Mountains National Park in 1972.

Key sites on the Antietam battlefield, including the famous corn field, were donated by the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

deposits, in place of the trial-and-error drilling that had previously dominated the industry. Amid his prospecting, he visited a canyon nestled deep inside the Guadalupe Mountains. In contrast to the high mountains and dry scrub all around, the canyon overflowed with lush, bigtooth maple trees crowding a rushing stream. Pratt thought it the most beautiful spot in Texas, and eventually bought up the land, building a summer retreat for his family, and studying 16

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Historic Sites

Remembering the bloody harvest September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest day in American history, with more than 23,000 dead, wounded, or missing in a daylong battle that raged along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The carnage began at dawn, as Union and Confederate troops hacked and blasted at each other among the tall, unharvested stalks of a cornfield, and then it boiled across the surrounding landscape. Antietam

was set aside as one of the first Civil War memorials in 1890, but it wasn’t until a century later that key sites—the corn field, the west woods, the sunken road—were acquired and donated to the American people by the Richard King Mellon Foundation of Pittsburgh. Started in 1947 by the nephew of longtime Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, the foundation has dedicated tens of millions of dollars to protecting many of the hallowed grounds on which the American Civil War was fought.

A mound of giving South Dakota’s newest state park, established in 2013, preserves one of the region’s oldest human sites: a pre1700 Indian burial-mound complex. Just outside of Sioux Falls, Good Earth State Park is barely developed but has already attracted 20,000 visitors in its first year. Hiking trails and a visitor center are coming soon, the latter courtesy of a $2 million gift from Sioux Falls philanthropists Bob and Rita Elmen. “A state-of-the-art visitor center that would do justice to Good Earth would cost more than the state of South Dakota anticipated,” explained Bob. So he and his wife stepped forth as individuals to make sure the rich Native American history would be interpreted as it should be for visitors.

Cultivated Beauty

nps.gov

“Do you want Wolf Trap?”

“You have many parks for recreation, but you have nothing in the performing arts,” Catherine Filene Shouse told the Secretary of the Interior in the early 1960s. “Do you want Wolf Trap?” Heiress to the Filene’s department-store fortune and a loyal booster of her adopted home in the D.C. area, Shouse offered her northern Virginia farm plus the funds to build a 6,800-seat open-air theater. Congress accepted and the facility opened in 1971, just in time to capitalize on the massive expansion of Washington’s suburbs and become a favorite cultural venue for the growing region.

A garden in a quarry Andrew Hodges had an eye for what could be. A conservation-minded lumberman and landowner in rural western Louisiana, Hodges rallied a new generation of foresters to replant pines across the south, and then manage the woods sustainably. To demonstrate the concept, Hodges acquired an abandoned quarry with a gently flowing creek and used it as a lab forest.

Enchanted by the quarry, he and his wife, Nona, created a manmade lake and ringed it with lush gardens in the stone nooks and terraces. The queen of the garden was that pink southern beauty, the azalea. Operated by a

nonprofit, the gardens opened to the public in 1957.

A half-century later, the Hodges Foundation donated 948 lushly landscaped acres to the state, making it the newest member of Louisiana’s park system: Hodges Gardens State Park.

Urban Respites

Shall we gather at the river?

Tulsa, Oklahoma, offers good examples of how local philanthropy enriches American lives. The community foundation of this small city is endowed with $3.8 billion in assets, and a new park taking shape along the Arkansas River shoreline illustrates how generous donors can enliven a town. Funded principally by oilman and banker George Kaiser, the $200 million, 67-acre project, called “A Gathering Place,” will break ground in 2014. Drawing on suggestions from public meetings, it will connect four riverside sites into a cohesive park with amenities like bike trails, boating, tennis courts, open lawns and gardens, playgrounds, a skate park, water features, and public meeting spaces. “Whatever the Kaiser Foundation has done in the way of development has been done with excellence,” says Matt Meyer, head of the river park authority, whose city looks forward to wearing a fresh green crown.

It’s a jungle in there The Omaha Zoo was a sleepy little city-run affair, like hundreds of others, when in 1963 the widow of the publisher of the local newspaper gave $750,000 to improve the facilities as a memorial to her husband, Henry Doorly. Within two years a nonprofit society had organized itself to plan, expand, operate, and maintain the zoo in the future. The Doorly gift sparked a steady string of additional major donations, and the result is a triumph of philanthropy. Measured as a combination of animals, species, and acreage, the Doorly Zoo has grown into the largest in the world, and, more importantly, one of the most beloved. It features the world’s largest indoor desert, largest indoor swamp, and largest nocturnal exhibit, plus the nation’s largest indoor rainforest—all richly stocked with plants and animals easily accessible to visitors. It also hosts the largest cat complex in North America and dramatic orangutan and gorilla living spaces. Users of the popular TripAdvisor website have rated the Doorly as America’s best zoo.

Fishing is “a constant reminder of the democracy of life, of humility, and of human frailty—for all men are equal before fishes,” wrote the President.

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Acadia National Park’s seascapes were donated by public-minded residents.

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Waters

“Equal before fishes” In 1929, newly inaugurated President Herbert Hoover bought 164 acres in Virginia’s Blue Ridge near the headwaters of the Rapidan River, which tumbles down to the Chesapeake Bay. He and his wife, Lou, built themselves a rustic camp as a Washington getaway. Although they welcomed a few dignitaries—Thomas Edison, Charles and Anne Lindbergh, Winston Churchill—they preferred to use it as a place to unwind with horseback riding (the first lady) and trout fishing (the President). “Fishing seems to be the sole avenue left to Presidents through which they may escape to their own thoughts and may live in their own imaginings and find…refreshment of mind in the babble of rippling brooks,” Hoover wrote.

“Moreover, it is a constant reminder of the democracy of life, of humility, and of human frailty—for all men are equal before fishes. And it is desirable that the President of the United States should be periodically reminded of this fundamental fact.” After leaving office, the Hoovers donated Rapidan Camp to the federal government to become part of the new Shenandoah National Park, stretching 100 miles along the spine of the Blue Ridge.

Adam Matthew Van Kampen / CC 2.0

A family place In 1933, L. R. Stradley built a small family fishing resort on Camano Island in Washington’s Puget Sound region. For decades, the cedar cabins played host to families of modest means, allowing them to return home with enough fish and berries to fill a pantry. Stradley’s granddaughters had grown up there and wanted to see it preserved. “I had the right to sell it, but in some real, moral, bigger-picture way, I really had responsibilities,” says one. The sisters donated the land to become Cama Beach State Park. The cabins were restored with historically appropriate updates, and an outpost of Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats offers boat-building classes, welcoming families anew.

The Maine thing Generous donations of land and money from residents gathered most of Maine’s Mount Desert Island for the first national park in America’s east. Resident George Dorr was the driving force, serving as the park’s first superintendent and spending his entire inheritance on the project. John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated 10,700 acres to the project and spent millions of his own funds to create an immaculate 45-mile network of horse-drawn carriage roads to make the lovely mountain and seascape accessible. Every year, more than 2 million Americans visit what is now Acadia National Park. P SUMMER 2014

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HEAT A small foundation uses focused academic, media, and activist grants to redirect a policy debate

Š AlexKalina / istockphoto.com

By Jon Entine

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© AlexKalina / istockphoto.com

D

an Fitzsimmons remembers that blustery day in March 2011 when he traveled to the offices of the Park Foundation in Ithaca, New York, asking for help.

He was hopeful and a little desperate. The landowners he represented in the Southern Tier were in the grip not only of the Great Recession but of New York state’s long, suffocating economic decline.

There was, however, one reason for new hope, Fitzsimmons and his neighbors believed. For deep underneath the rolling hills of upstate New York lay a massive sheet of untapped wealth in the form of shale gas. They had witnessed their neighbors just over the border in Pennsylvania experience a remarkable economic recovery because of that state’s decision to tap its gas. Vast reserves existed under their property as well, but New York was (and is) in policy gridlock.

Fitzsimmons was hoping to get backing for an education campaign for homeowners interested in responsibly leasing their property, so any extraction could be done in accord with the wishes of the local community. It seemed in line with what he knew Park Foundation founder Roy Hampton Park had always supported—smart conservation that honored private enterprise and respected property values.

Park launched the foundation in 1966 with money he made growing the food company Duncan Hines and later a string of communications firms. The foundation now has an estimated $350 million endowment. Last year it handed out more than $27.5 million in grants for education and environmental outreach and other efforts, mostly in Park’s birth state of North Carolina—particularly at N.C. State University—and near his adopted hometown of Ithaca, where it contributes to both Ithaca College and Cornell University.

Fitzsimmons and Bob Williams, another local landowner, met with Park Foundation president Adelaide Park Gomer, Roy’s daughter, and director Jon Jensen, known to many as her “activist” gatekeeper. Jensen had come to Park after many years at Cleveland’s Gund Foundation and, before that, the Pew Charitable Trusts, where he developed a reputation as a devoted environmentalist with deep suspicion of the energy industry.

The meeting lasted more than two hours, but according to both sides it did not go well. Fitzsimmons and Williams were not aware that Park had quietly begun funding anti-shale gas groups and that the founder’s daughter was steering the trust in a radical new direction, away from classic conservation toward a shriller environmentalism. Gomer and Jensen made it clear that they were fiercely opposed to shale gas and the extraction technique of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking: the high-pressure injection of water, sand, and chemicals into rock to release the oil or gas locked within. Natu-

ral gas was an environmental disaster, they said, and the foundation was committed to leveraging public opinion to ensure that New York’s temporary moratorium on shale-gas extraction would become permanent.

But what about the impact on struggling farmers and other locals facing decades of economic stagnation, rising tax bills, and wrenching population flight? If the locals could not take advantage of the riches underneath their land, so be it, they were told.

In a matter of days, Gomer and Jensen’s quiet campaign would suddenly become a global headline.

An explosive anti-shale-gas study by Cornell oceanographer Robert Howarth—a project funded by the Park Foundation—would be released, transforming the debate over natural gas into a cause célèbre.

The big flip on natural gas It’s hard to believe that natural gas was a favored fuel of leading environmental groups as recently as six years ago. In 2008, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change heralded its promise: “We also need to consider…how to better support natural gas as a bridge fuel to a more climate-friendly energy supply,” said president Eileen Claussen in a widely circulated speech.

This was a common view and had been for years.

In 1997, when shale-gas reserves were beginning to be identified, the progressive D.C.-based Renewable Energy Policy Project waxed optimistic. “Natural gas is inherently cleaner than coal or oil,” the nonprofit wrote. “Since renewables will be unable to meet most energy needs for some time, gas is an essential bridge to a renewable energy era.”

Natural gas used to be seen as a marriage of enlightened capitalism and pragmatic progressivism. It was welcomed as a relatively low-impact fossil fuel, much superior to America’s previous industrial and power-generating workhorse, coal. It was available in reserves of modest size but sufficient to carry us over until the price of alternative energies became competitive.

But over the past few years, the rhetoric has completely changed. Sharp criticism of fracking and shale gas is now a staple of green activism. The online environmental magazine Grist regularly runs articles bashing shale gas, such as the recent “Will Obama allow fracking to endanger his own water supply?”

The Nation launches anti-fracking broadsides conjuring “contaminated water wells, poisoned air, sick and dying animals, industry-related illnesses.” Earth Island Journal raises the specter of “water contamination, air Jon Entine is a senior research fellow at the Center for Health & Risk Communication at George Mason University, and at the Statistical Assessment Service.

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pollution, global warming, and fractured communities,” and mocks Claussen’s “bridge fuel” reference, calling natural gas a “bridge to nowhere.”

The morphing of natural gas from promising next step to “worse than oil and coal,” as some activists now claim, happened almost overnight. What’s behind this abrupt turnaround? For one thing, advances in extraction technology have made gas inexpensive and caused it to be used much more extensively (usually as a substitute for coal). And while most scientists and economists see in shale gas an inexpensive fuel with relatively modest environmental impact compared to coal and oil, some environmentalists view it as a Trojan horse that is giving fossil fuel a new image—clean, abundant, not purchased from overseas autocrats—and thus a new lease on life.

This swing against gas has been spurred by a carefully coordinated outpouring of research, media, and advocacy grants by the Park Foundation, headquartered at the epicenter of one of the most promising shale gas regions in the U.S. and the home of Cornell University, the academic base for the country’s most vehement anti-shale activists.

Publications such as Grist, the Nation, Earth Island Journal, Mother Jones, American Independent News Network, Yes! Magazine, the American Prospect, and numerous other media elements have one thing in common. They have all received donations from Park in recent years to conduct anti-fracking journalism and related environmental reporting. Along with advocacy groups like Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and more than 50 large and small organizations, they were the recipients of anti-fracking grants from the Park Foundation that totaled $3 million in 2013. Park has a plan, and a savvy one, to kill the American shale-gas revolution.

A calculated risk Shale gas has already proven a boon to the U.S. economy. According to the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration report, the United States is the world leader in natural gas reserves—if we can tap them.

“The shale gas revolution is firing up an old-fashioned American industrial revival, breathing life into businesses such as petrochemicals and glass, steel and toys,” the Washington Post wrote recently.

While we are awash in inexpensive natural gas, many loudly trumpeted “energy alternatives” have proven impractical on a mass scale. Vast research, production,

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and operational subsidies for ethanol, solar panels, windmills, and other panaceas have backfired in white elephants and scandal. There are still no practical means on the horizon to make these hoped-for solutions efficient, cost-competitive, or even environmentally friendly.

Ethanol squanders energy and farmland, solar generation fields create eyesores, windmills are hard on wildlife, and all of them survive only with heavy subsidies.

By comparison, cheap, clean, domestically produced natural gas suddenly no longer looks like a short-term bridge to an alternative energy future. It is our energy future.

Like every energy technology, extracting shale gas does raise health and environmental issues. The process can cause mini-quakes. The issue is considered manageable so long as areas with major geological faults are avoided.

Air pollution is another worry. Fracking can release methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, raising climate-change concerns. Wells and pipelines need to be maintained to avoid “fugitive” emissions (which of course are also economically wasteful of a saleable product, which is why market forces are also squeezing out leakage). Regulators are also monitoring the potential for release of various chemicals near compressor stations, although cause and effect has not been established.

Keeping gas wells from mixing with water supplies is important. To avoid problems, drillers and state regulators have put great effort into fail-safe measures to seal well casings. Perhaps the clearest threat, and where sensible regulations are needed, would come from accidental spills at the well site or other discharge of the water used in fracking. According to the General Accounting Office, more than 90 percent of the water involved in fracking in the U.S. is emptied into deep EPA-licensed wells, while less than 10 percent is reused, evaporated, used for irrigation, or discharged to surface streams under varying federal and state guidelines.

Is fracking safe? That depends on one’s risk tolerance. While key opponents promote fears and “not in my backyard” protests, the federal government and most mainstream scientists believe fracking is no less safe than other forms of energy extraction as long as regulations are frequently updated. Scientists at many universities, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Environmental Defense Fund, and other organizations reject a black-and-white view of shale gas.

“At the EDF, we don’t pick fuels. We are realists; we recognize that fossil fuels will be around for a while,” says senior policy adviser Scott Anderson. Noting that most states have considerable experience in regulating well construction and operation, he says, “if wells are constructed right and operated right, hydraulic fracturing will not cause a problem.”

The American Prospect; Fair.org; catskillmountainkeepr.org; Center for Media and Democracy (prwatch.org); Earthjustice.org; Environmental Advocates of New York; mediachannel.org

The Park Foundation targeted anti-fracking grants to publications and activist groups to produce reams of articles, some of which are shown here.

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But the emphatic message coming from the Park Foundation and its beneficiaries is that only a total ban on fracking is acceptable. Opposition to shale gas is being transformed into one of the ideological litmus tests of our time.

Drilling for dissent Over the past four years, a few researchers at Cornell University have emerged in the vanguard of activists challenging shale-gas drilling, and their alarms have found a worldwide megaphone in the New York Times.

The Times helped transform Cornell marine ecologist Robert Howarth into a hero of anti-shale-gas activists.

Within a few days in April 2011, the paper twice promoted stories on an academic brief that Howarth and co-author Anthony Ingraffea had just published in the letters section of Climatic Change.

The authors claimed that the fracking extraction process releases rogue methane gas that generates more greenhouse gas emissions than the production and use of an equivalent amount of coal would entail. Fracking could push the world over a tipping point, sending global temperatures irreversibly higher. Natural gas and fracking, they concluded, were a catastrophe in the making.

“All this talk that it’s a clean fuel, as some say, is not based on any scientific analysis,” Howarth told me. “There is a lot of money invested in shale-gas development. Our research is threatening that, which makes it political.”

Howarth is a longtime environmental activist.

Until his controversial letter he had never published any university-level research on natural gas. The obscure letter was initially ignored by scientists and the media until the Times featured it. It would be difficult to overstate the influence its coverage generated.

It led to thousands of headlines around the world and was debated in the British parliament and the European Union.

How did Howarth come to write what has become a seminal script of the movement against shale gas?

Howarth told me he had been approached by the Park Foundation in 2010 to consider writing an academic article that would make a case that shale gas was a dangerous, polluting fuel. That led to the first of numerous grants from Park. Howarth has also said that his conclusion was not influenced by Park’s request: “$35,000 won’t buy my opinion.”

While the study and subsequent Times coverage generated thousands of media stories, the paper was widely criticized by scientists across the ideological spectrum. The Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory reviewed the same data, concluding that natural gas, even from shale, results in far lower emissions than coal.

“His analysis is based on extremely weak data, and also has a severe methodological flaw (plus some other 24

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questionable decisions), all of which means that his bottom line conclusions shouldn’t carry weight,” wrote Michael Levi, energy and climate-change scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, in a study partly funded by the Sierra Club, subsequently concluded that shale gas has significantly less impact on global warming than coal. “We don’t think they [Howarth et al.] are using credible data and some of the assumptions they’re making are biased,” Paulina Jaramillo, one of the lead researchers, told Politico. The Worldwatch Institute reported that “despite differences in methodology and coverage, all of the recent studies except Howarth et al. estimate that life-cycle emissions from natural gas-fired generation are significantly less than those from coal-fired generation.”

Howarth’s conclusions were sharply challenged even at Cornell. Professors Lawrence Cathles, Larry Brown, and Andrew Hunter combined their expertise in earth and atmospheric sciences and chemical engineering to pen a stinging response, calling the work “seriously flawed.” They wrote, “the assumptions used by Howarth et al. are inappropriate and…their data, which the authors themselves characterize as ‘limited,’ do not support their conclusions.”

When I interviewed Howarth at the time, he insisted that his analysis and conclusions were “solid,” the shale-gas disaster his models predicted was inevitable, and laggard environmental nonprofits like EDF would turn against shale eventually. “They’re still heavily invested in their prior statements that shale gas is a win-win solution,” he said. “It will take them some time to come to grips with the new data and move toward a new position. Science moves slowly.”

Building a movement While science was moving slowly, the Park Foundation moved quickly. By simultaneously funding an interlocking triangle of sympathetic scientists, anti-fracking nonprofits, and media outlets, Park helped move the idea that natural gas is environmentally unfriendly from the activist fringe to the mainstream.

The foundation has continued to provide numerous grants (in the range of $50,000-$60,000) directly to Howarth and his research colleagues. And the Howarth argument, despite its dismissal by scientists of various ideological stripes, has taken on immortal life among many progressive organizations that are supported by Park.

The foundation’s mostly unknown ties to scientists, journalists, and activist groups were on display last September in the brouhaha over a methane gas and fracking study that contradicted Howarth’s claims. Researchers at the University of Texas-Austin released a study done in cooperation with the Environmental Defense Fund that

found the national rate of leakage of methane during natural gas production was equivalent to four tenths of one percent of total U.S. extraction, vastly lower than Howarth’s claims. This was the most comprehensive shale-gas emissions study ever undertaken, covering 190 well pads around the country.

Howarth and his co-authors denounced the UT/EDF findings, and other groups funded by Park joined in the criticism. Media stories quoted a heretofore unknown organization, Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy, portraying the university and the environmental nonprofit as shills. UT was quite open in disclosing that the study received industry support, but few noted that the physicians group, characterized as “independent” in many stories, had been recently founded by one of Howarth’s co-authors, Anthony Ingraffea, with Park Foundation money, specifically to promote an aggressive anti-shale-gas agenda.

This script repeated itself again and again. In 2011, the New York Times began running a new series it called “Drilling Down,” billing it as an exposé of “the risks of natural gas.” Over the next year and a half, the

while they were actually activists linked to organizations funded by Park.

The Times coverage was so widely recognized as blundering and biased that the paper’s public editor, Arthur Brisbane, launched an internal investigation of Urbina’s reporting. In two reports, Brisbane warned that the stories painted a complex issue with “an overly broad brush and didn’t include dissenting views from experts who aren’t entrenched on one side or another of the subject.”

According to e-mails later produced by the Times at the behest of a Senate investigation, Urbina’s stories relied on sources and background fed to him by the Natural Resources Defense Council—a group which has collected more than $350,000 from the Park Foundation for anti-fracking work.

Park-supported groups like the NRDC weigh in on many Park-supported projects. In February of this year, the Center for Public Integrity and InsideClimate News (ICN) teamed up with the Weather Channel to produce a series of reports on the Texan Eagle Ford shale formation.

Times churned out more than a dozen scathing articles, such as a story asserting that many “insiders” in the natural gas industry harbored serious doubts about its long-term viability, but were keeping mum to cash in on the short-term exuberance over rapidly growing shale-gas reserves. The author, Ian Urbina, quoted Deborah Rogers—introduced as a “member of the advisory committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas”—as saying “we have a big problem,” appearing to spill the beans on industry corruption.

Rogers, a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch whose term on the advisory committee had expired, now raises goats and makes artisanal cheeses, and is also a community organizer and outspoken national critic of shale gas. Urbina failed to mention her longstanding involvement with multiple activist organizations, including Earthworks—an anti-fracking group that has received more than $300,000 in Park money in recent years.

A careful review of Urbina’s articles finds no less than a dozen examples of interview subjects in his stories being portrayed as independent, aggrieved citizens

“Their reporting now shows clearly that Texans in the area of Eagle Ford are having trouble breathing, and regulators are having trouble noticing,” said NRDC attorney Kate Sinding.

“People who suffer the effects of oil and gas emissions have few places to turn for help other than to the politicians and regulatory agencies that are often cheerleaders for, and financially beholden to, the industry,” said one ICN story.

The series was supported by a $25,000 Park grant “to report and publish articles on…air and water pollution related to hydraulic fracturing.” Many of the sources in the series, as well as the outlets promoting it (the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthworks, Public Citizen, the NDRC) also received Park funding.

“What they do is have one group write on an issue, another quote them or link to them, and so on,” Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center told the Washington Free Beacon. “It keeps going until they create this perception that there’s real concern over an issue and it bubbles up to top liberal sites like Huffington Post and from there into the traditional media.”

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Here a man in Minnesota ignites the gas that occurs naturally in his tap water, back in 1980. The Gasland movies, funded by the Park Foundation, feature spurious portrayals of gas being introduced into taps by fracking.

Roy Park’s legacy Adelaide Park Gomer, and her daughter, Alicia Park Wittink, who is also on the Park Foundation board, are openly hostile to natural-gas development, and corporations in general. Today’s foundation has a very different profile from the one Roy Hampton Park left to his heirs upon his death in 1993. In his day, funding went mostly to education, religious organizations, public broadcasting, and conservation—all passions of the founder.

“None of the environmental grants were political,” says his son Roy Park Jr. “We focused on animal welfare, rainforests, marine life, oceans—doing what we could to promote environmentalism. We didn’t focus on causes.”

But Roy Hampton Park’s will left no roadmap of his intentions for the foundation. Soon a rift developed between the younger Roy and his sister and niece. They were out to “save the world,” he says.

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Next generation, new approach Both Gomer and Wittink are well known for their acid condemnations of fracking. “Hydrofracking will turn our area into an industrial site,” Gomer stated in a 2010 petition. “It will ruin the ambience, the beauty of the region. But, moreover it will poison our aquifers. We can live without gas, but we cannot live without water. As a cancer survivor, I am especially concerned about the health repercussions! It is obvious that the 600+, as yet undivulged, chemicals that are used to extract the gas will not promote long healthy lives.”

Her view of fracking is “somewhat like how an Iraqi must have felt in reaction to ‘shock and awe,’” she said in a speech before Common Cause, which in 2011 gave her its Civic Advocacy Award for environmental advocacy in the public interest. (A steady stream of Park grants to Common Cause since 2009, including $100,000 in 2013 alone, helped the group churn out a series of reports about energy industry spending.)

“Governor [Andrew] Cuomo might decide to welcome an army of corporate mercenaries to ravage and plunder,” she warned in her speech. “Do we want another Love Canal, on a much vaster scale?” “It’s such a dangerous process,” she told EnergyWire in a later interview. Farmers’ fields “will be a wasteland. Their animals will die.”

Gomer’s foundation regularly sponsors anti-shale-gas shareholder resolutions at the annual meetings of Chevron, ExxonMobil, Ultra Petroleum, and other energy companies. It coordinates with activist groups like As You Sow, which Park supports as part of its belief in “socially

National Geographic / Getty Images

Roy’s mother, Dorothy Park, ultimately sided with Adelaide and Alicia, cleaving the Park Foundation in two in 2003. The bulk of the funds stayed with them, while Roy was given a third to start the Triad Foundation with his two children. Like the Park Foundation, it continues to fund education programs at Cornell, but also supports more traditional conservation efforts and some conservative causes, which he believes are more in line with his father’s wishes.

“My father’s legacy…what he worked for all his life, should not be ignored or refuted,” says Roy, mourning what he sees as the “erosion of his hardworking lifetime ideals” by today’s Park Foundation. “Despite the absence of his intentions for the foundation’s mission in his will, his philanthropic objectives…were evident in the previous 30-year history of its grantmaking.”

The Park Foundation declined requests for an interview, but Gomer has elsewhere said that she believes her father would be proud of what they’re doing. Since he came from farm country in North Carolina, she told EnergyWire, he would never have wanted his home “to be turned into a moonscape, despoiled by hundreds of toxic, unidentified chemicals.”

National Geographic / Getty Images

responsible investing.” Wittink has served on the boards of the Environmental Working Group, Mother Jones magazine, and the Center for a New American Dream, all nonprofits noted for their anti-shale-gas zeal.

Beyond Howarth’s controversial studies, Park’s support for fracking-related research at Cornell includes gifts for “continued evaluation of global warming and other environmental impacts of shale gas.” With more than $100,000 from Park, the university’s department of city and regional planning produced a paper and webinar contending that the benefits of shale drilling are overstated and that its boom-bust cycle will ultimately undermine the economy.

Park also funds fracking research at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Sandra Steingraber, an Ithaca College biologist and activist who has been jailed for civil disobedience and believes shale gas should be the litmus issue for progressives, is another academic recipient of Park money. “I have come to believe that extracting natural gas from shale using the newish technique called hydrofracking is the environmental issue of our time,” Steingraber wrote in Orion magazine, another Park-backed publication.

In terms of splash, among Park’s most successful donations have been those for Gasland, the 2010 Oscar-nominated HBO documentary that incited the backlash against shale gas. The foundation has provided more than a quarter of a million dollars for campaigns to promote the movie and its sequels. They feature what are now iconic images of homeowners setting tapwater ablaze, implying that methane in their wells is the result of fracking.

But flaming faucets and fiery springs caused by leaking methane have existed in gas-rich regions for decades before fracking arrived on the scene. And investigations conducted prior to the films’ release found that the Colorado man whose kitchen faucet lit up Gasland 1 had the misfortune of drilling his water well into a preexisting methane pocket, and the Texas man whose garden hose became a torch in Gasland 2 had knowingly hooked the hose up to a gas vent rather than a water line.

The U.S. Geological Survey and other sources have demonstrated dozens of other misrepresentations in the films, yet the Gasland movies are now staples at anti-fracking organizing meetings and are regularly shown in thousands of public-school classrooms as if they are objective journalism.

Fueling an army Although the Park Foundation has taken the lead in funding anti-fracking groups, it’s not alone among major philanthropies. As the Chronicle of Philanthropy has reported, Google chairman Eric Schmidt has set up a family fund to rally the public against shale gas, and

the Chorus Fund has amassed $40 million for the same purpose. The Heinz Endowments has handed out some $12 million in recent years, mostly to stir opposition in Pennsylvania, where shale-gas extraction has proceeded with bipartisan support.

The 11th Hour Project gives about $3 million in annual grants to feed “grassroots” anti-fracking campaigns, targeting California, Maryland, and New York.

It also supported the Gasland series. Others pouring anti-fracking money into the Marcellus region include the New York Community Trust and the Citizens Campaign Fund for the Environment. A survey in 2012 by the Health & Environmental Funders Network, a grantmakers group opposed to fracking, found its members gave $18 million to block shale-gas development. “The actual dollar figure is probably higher than that,” HEFN director Kathy Sessions told the Chronicle.

Tom Shepstone of Energ y In Depth, an industry-backed group that supports shale-gas extraction, estimates there are about ten environmental “pressure” groups on the ground in upstate New York alone, most funded by Park. (Other donors like Michael Bloomberg and the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation have taken a very different approach to fracking, offering grants to research and promote smarter safety methods and regulations.)

Natural gas supporters, particularly landowners whose property values are frozen as the conflict drags on, say Park money is targeted to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in free media publicity, echoed in cyberspace and social media. Its impact is far more influential, they believe, than traditional lobbying.

Gomer rejects these characterizations as conspiratorial thinking. “In our work to oppose fracking, the Park Foundation has simply helped to fuel an army of courageous individuals and NGOs,” she has said.

Philanthropists have a right to support causes of their choosing. The Park Foundation has been very savvy in getting its funding into the hands of three levels of actors with a capacity to influence the policy debate on natural gas: academics, activist groups, and the media.

For a relatively small investment, strategically distributed, with an appreciation for how bloggers, filmmakers, journalists, college researchers, and local activists can interweave their efforts, the Park Foundation has almost single-handedly derailed shale-gas development in methane-rich New York state, and put its imprint on public opinion and important policy decisions around the country. Whatever one thinks of the cause, the tactics are impressive. And the results of Roy Hampton Park’s failure to stipulate into the future the causes he wanted his money to support ought to be instructive to others. P SUMMER 2014

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Elephants Walking Through Grass, Amboseli 2008 / Nick Brandt

PROTECTING

animalsAND people How donors are using research, security, and economic incentives to save Africa’s wildlife

By Caitrin Nicol Keiper

Elephants Walking Through Grass, Amboseli 2008 / Nick Brandt

F

orty years ago, standing out on the Serengeti, you might have seen a herd of elephant go by—with collars on. A Cessna would purr overhead, tracing their radio signals. In the cockpit, you could glimpse the brash young zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, tracking elephant populations across Africa and shaking up the science as it was then understood. His pan-continental survey, the first and (until now) only of its kind, prepared the way for a new wave of elephant research and conservation.

But in the decade that followed this pioneering count, an explosion in poaching reduced Africa’s elephant

population by half. At the same time, ironically, biologists were making major breakthroughs in understanding elephants: that they form rich and complex societies, that they communicate with language, that they mourn their dead. Just at the moment when the world was learning what incredible creatures they are, they were being wiped out.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) banned new ivory sales in 1990.

For a few years, poaching slowed. The decision is periodically revisited, with the nations that host more elephants Caitrin Nicol Keiper is executive editor of Philanthropy.

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chimpanzee sanctuaries, desert lion conservation, and an elephant corridor.

arguing that trade should be permitted in a limited way.

Meanwhile, China’s burgeoning economy and other growing Asian markets have created a huge new demand for ivory. Poaching is once again out of control.

Amidst all this turmoil, elephant conservationists have to some extent been working in the dark. It’s not certain how big today’s elephant populations are, where they are located, or how they are adapting to their current challenges. So Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen decided last year that it is high time for another elephant census.

Let them be counted Allen and his sister Jody own a reserve in Botswana with two safari camps, one focused on elephants. This and similar private reserves play a major role in Botswanan conservation. Wildlife tourism makes up a large fraction of the country’s gross domestic product, placing an economic premium on keeping the land natural and the 30

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Dan Cooper

In addition to the current elephant census, he has contributed to gorilla and

Vulcan Inc.

Paul Allen owns a reserve where rescued elephants come to be rehabilitated.

animals alive. Private as well as public parks were formerly used for trophy hunting—many of the private ones still are—but over time, more have been moving in the gentler direction of photo safaris. Botswana’s elephant population, estimated at 130,000 or more, is the world’s largest and one of the few that is growing.

Abu Camp, now owned by the Allens, was started in 1980 with a handful of retired elephant movie stars. The herd was later expanded with elephants saved from culls, poaching, and other traumatic circumstances. The camp’s mission is ultimately to reintroduce these rescues to the wild, and several have successfully made that transition.

But in the meantime, it serves as a safe place to live.

Several years ago, the staff were having problems with an especially aggressive bull. In need of an “elephant whisperer,” they called Mike Chase, the first Botswanan with a doctorate in elephant ecology and founder of the nonprofit Elephants Without Borders. Chase charmed not just the bull, but everyone at Abu, and was soon collaborating with camp staff to help other elephants adjust, and conducting research around the reserve.

Allen has supported this and other elephant conservation efforts, including anti-poaching surveillance drones and a protected migratory corridor through Tanzania. But he wanted to do even more to encourage their survival. In 2013, he and Chase teamed up to launch the Great Elephant Census. The survey, paid for entirely by Allen’s $7 million gift, is led by Chase’s group Elephants Without Borders, in partnership with several organizations that have good relationships with the wildlife agencies of other countries.

The aim is to map all the elephants in Africa.

The first flyovers began in February. Out in the field, the day often starts around the campfire at 5 a.m.; by 6 a.m., Chase hops into his Cessna 206 and takes to the sky. He and his dozens of counterparts cover thousands of miles every day, recording each elephant below and analyzing its habitat, sometimes touching down to speak with local leaders about the situation in their area. For select herds, the team is developing new, minimally intrusive tracking devices to learn more about their behavior.

In the first few months of the census, the surveyors have seen their share of bad news, but at least made a couple of encouraging discoveries. In Chad, where elephants endured a string of massacres in recent years, Chase notes that the survivors have banded together in a huge herd—a response to severe stress—but are evidently comfortable enough to reproduce at rates that could begin to bring repopulation. Surveyors have also been delighted to see a few “big tuskers.” Preliminary estimates, Chase says, put the total number of these mighty old bulls at fewer than 50 across Africa, as the selection pressures of poaching skew family structure and the gene pool. “Make no mistake—the situation is

Dan Cooper

Vulcan Inc.

dire—but there are pockets of hope across the continent,” he says.

The census will take two years to complete, with the results available in time for the next CITES conference in 2016. Meanwhile, park managers and conservation nonprofits will be able to use the accruing data to review which of their methods are working and better tailor their programs to their circumstances.

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” says Dune Ives, Allen’s senior director of philanthropic initiatives. Ives compares the survey to the Allen Institute for Brain Science’s atlas project, to which Allen has given $100 million.

The institute’s mouse and human brain maps were created as tools for neurologists to use in experiments. Like the Great Elephant Census, the brain atlases are an example of what their enthusiasts call “big science”—data-intensive, thorough studies of large systems—and “open science”— costly research products made freely available to all. It was the success of the brain atlas project, Ives says, that encouraged Allen to take on the creation of the elephant map as his contribution to their cause.

This programmer’s-eye view of the link between brain science and elephant conservation helps illuminate Allen’s eclectic philanthropy, most of which is concentrated in the Pacific Northwest. In 2010, he gave $26 million to his alma mater Washington State University to establish a School of Global Animal Health, and he has contributed to many conservation projects in the region.

Ives and Chase report that the census is important to Allen at a personal level. “Paul feels very deeply for these animals that can’t protect themselves,” says Ives. But he wants practical solutions. The data crunching and systems analysis spring from Allen’s conviction, according to Chase, “that we can conquer what initially appears to be insurmountable—and do so through science and innovation.”

Saving rhinos as a side effect Howard Buffett has a knack for near escapes. “Everybody says you don’t want to run into a rhino on foot,” he says, “and I did it once by accident.” Having gotten his SUV stuck in the bush, he got out to extricate it, “and boom, right there is a rhino.” Possibly as startled as he was, “it looked at me and then just turned around and ran.” Not so the mother of a baby rhino he was photographing from his vehicle, who “stomped her feet and walked right up close… and I’m thinking here goes the Toyota Land Cruiser right into the junk pile, and me with it!” Another time he turned around to find a hippo practically breathing down his neck.

“And I had an elephant charge me once. Oh my God, talk about scary…. When they’re coming at you, you’re like a little Snickers bar to them,” he sums up, relishing the memory.

W hen it comes to keeping these great creatures alive, however, Buffett focuses on humans and their needs. “You’re not going to have people listen to your

Howard Buffett’s thinking about conflict and conservation was formed by his work in Virunga National Park. Here, he meets one of its gorillas. “[He] touched my face with his black, leathery finger,” Buffett writes. “As I held my breath and grunted as deeply as I could to calm him, his sad eyes pored over me. Then he licked my chin.”

story if all you’re talking about is how to save an animal.

The reason they’re threatened is because of people, and that’s what you need to change.”

In his many trips to Africa over the years, he recalls running across carcasses out on safari. “It’s pretty upsetting,” he says, but he’s learned to have more than an emotional reaction. “Honestly, back then I would have thought first of the animal. Today I think about what’s driving that to happen.”

The poachers on the ground are just the first stage of the supply chain. “If you pay them $500 for a set of tusks,” he says, “that to them is probably two years’ worth of wages.” Then higher-level operators sell the contraband abroad for much more, and often funnel proceeds to paramilitary groups and terrorist networks, including the Lord’s Resistance Army and subsidiaries of al-Qaeda. “It’s so complex, but in a way it’s so simple.

They’re using people who are poor and desperate to carry out criminal activity.”

When he started his foundation in 1999, most of its work was in conservation. Since then, especially with the infusion of $3 billion from his father, Warren, Howard Buffett has turned his focus to hunger and its causes.

People in the developing world can’t worry about animals if their own families are hungry and imperiled.

A large subset of both anti-hunger work and anti-poaching efforts is fighting conflict. The connection between poverty, conflict, and conservation became SUMMER 2014

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People aren’t going to listen to your story if all you’re talking about is how to save an animal. The reason they’re threatened is because of people, and that’s what you need to change.

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A virtuous circle of life Kenya’s Tsavo area is home to that country’s largest population of elephants, as well as many other animals.

And nearby Amboseli National Park is the site of the longest-running research ever done on elephants— Cynthia Moss’s four-decade field study that has produced much of what we know about the species today. But the budget of the Kenya Wildlife Service is small, and the parks’ animals often range past the borders, sometimes straying into Tanzania, a common home base for poaching gangs.

Big Life Foundation, a nonprofit started in 2010 by east African conservationist Richard Bonham and wildlife photographer Nick Brandt, views conservation and

Rhino on Lake, Nakuru 2007 / Nick Brandt

especially apparent to Buffett in his work in Virunga National Park, home to half of the world’s 800 remaining mountain gorillas. The violence that frequently erupts in the surrounding Democratic Republic of Congo endangers both human and animal residents.

It is often financed by poaching of animals and other protected resources. And it cuts off normal tourism revenue that could support the park and enrich the human communities adjoining it.

Now Buffett is trying to break a similar cycle that is endangering rhinos. In March he announced a $24 million gift to create an “intensive protection zone” around South Africa’s Kruger National Park, home to nearly half of the 22,000 rhinos alive today. Hundreds are killed inside the park every year; a recently exposed poaching ring included Kruger’s own veterinarian. Buffett’s threeyear project, led by retired South African major general Johan Jooste, aims to interrupt the funding streams of poachers and allied armed groups, and to experiment with techniques that others can learn from. “Conservation of animals is a side benefit,” says foundation president Ann Kelly.

Like elephant ivory, rhino horn is sometimes used for ornamental carvings, but it is far more valuable for its supposed medicinal properties. A single large horn can be worth up to a quarter million dollars. Even when rangers safely saw off a rhino’s horn for its own protection, poachers may still kill the animal for the residual stump.

Buffett compares the commodity to the trade in heroin and cocaine (pound for pound, the horn is more valuable). He draws other parallels between poaching and drug trafficking: the illegal but irrepressible demand, the violence funded by the product, the way cartels pressure very poor people to play along, the destabilizing effects on entire communities.

Several pieces of Buffett’s strategy are drawn from the Drug Enforcement Agency playbook, including

canine units and aerostats (low-flying blimps used for surveillance on the U.S.-Mexican border). Improving intelligence is a major component. There are technical aspects to this, like building reliable communications systems, and also human ones—investing in trustworthy leadership, well-trained and uncorrupted rangers, and a network of eyes and ears on the ground.

But in the end, Buffett believes, it comes down to human incentives. And, though the rhino project is based on law and order, he recognizes that enforcement will never be enough.

Back home in the American Midwest, Buffett can often be found out on patrol as a volunteer sheriff. “You see what goes on in a world you wouldn’t typically be exposed to. People are just struggling to get along.” Often he deals with cases related to poverty and dysfunction, in which he must question whether full-blast law enforcement is really the solution.

The dilemma between defending order and understanding the origins of desperate acts is only aggravated when the question is how to deal with a poor African who shot an elephant or rhino for $500.

At bottom, more economic opportunity is the obvious answer. In conversations he has had with ex-poachers now working on a farm in Zambia, Buffett says they all state that they used to poach because they didn’t have any other way to support their families.

Buffett cautions, though, that economic development at the scale that would make a difference is a hard thing to gin up. Markets have to be built on many preconditions: peace, property rights, decent government. There are vicious circles where violence, poverty, and vulnerability all feed on each other. Buffett and his team are working to break some of them. But some of this is generations-long work. In the meantime, a species can vanish.

Rhino on Lake, Nakuru 2007 / Nick Brandt

The name rhinoceros means “nose horn.� Rhino horn is made of keratin, the same substance as human hair and fingernails. On the black market, it is worth more than heroin, cocaine, and gold. In China and Vietnam, it is believed to cure fever, cancer, poisoning, hallucinations, gout, hangover, demonic possession, and many other ailments.

economic opportunity as interlocking challenges. The organization works with the Maasai and other local tribes to run eight schools, protect crops and livestock from wildlife, and support a security team and intelligence net-

work that operate in tandem with the park rangers. On a budget approaching $1 million a year, Big Life covers an area of more than 2 million acres and has become the biggest employer in the region. Many of its recruits are SUMMER 2014

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Nick Brandt spent 17 days with this lion, watching it sleep under a “boring cloudless blue sky.” On the evening of the eighteenth day, he writes, “a monumental storm rolled in. Just ahead of the storm came an incredibly powerful wind. The moment that the

former poachers, bringing a wealth of insider knowledge to the job. Like Buffett, Big Life has found that although the ex-poachers’ salaries are a fraction of what they could occasionally make with a big kill, they agree that steady, predictable, and lawful work is more appealing.

“I am convinced that Amboseli would have lost many, many elephants over the last three years if Big Life had not come in to save the day,” Cynthia Moss has said. Brandt’s aspiration is to help Kenya and other countries become more like Botswana, with its hundreds of thousands of elephants and thriving ecotourism trade. He first went to Africa in 1995 to produce Michael Jackson’s music video “Earth Song” 34

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in Tanzania. He was instantly enchanted with the wildlife, to which he has since devoted his career.

Brandt describes his haunting photos—featured in this story, and collected in the trilogy On This Earth / A Shadow Falls / Across the Ravaged Land—as “an elegy to a world that is disappearing.” As he traveled through east Africa over the past few years, he was dismayed to find so many of the subjects he had come to love gunned down or poisoned from one trip to the next.

One time he learned that an elephant family he was photographing just the day before had been found dead. Their faces, so full of spirit and vitality in his intimate portraits, were hacked off.

Lion Before Storm – Sitting Profile, Maasai Mara 2006 / Nick Brandt

wind hit the lion, like a freight train, he sat up, facing into the wind, smelling the game on the air.”

Lion Before Storm – Sitting Profile, Maasai Mara 2006 / Nick Brandt

No longer content to stay behind the lens, he leapt into action. At the suggestion of the Kenya Wildlife Service he called Richard Bonham—bush pilot, safari guide, legend of the travelogues Sand Rivers and African Rainbow, honorary Maasai. Bonham’s community development and conservation group was well respected locally but had little connection to outside support. The two men each had exactly what the other needed.

Brandt’s first supporters were avid collectors of his photography: hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller and his wife Fiona in New York, and investment firm co-founder Stanley Baty and his wife Kristine in Seattle. The couples quickly donated a combined $700,000 to get Big Life started.

“When I look at Nick’s photographs, I can feel the soul of the animal,” says Kristine Baty. “I will never forget the day we learned that our favorite elephants had been killed.” (One of them, Marianna, is the matriarch leading the herd pictured on page 28.) In addition to donating to Big Life herself, Baty has become an active fundraiser for the nonprofit, and is exploring more ways to get involved. Though she and her husband give to many charities, including other conservation groups, she has made this one her cause.

“People often ask why they should save an elephant when there are so many other pressing human needs to be addressed,” she says. Big Life’s inclusion of the interests of the animals’ human neighbors makes this a moot choice. It is critical to the organization’s success, and to her support.

Big Life is not just for elephants. One of its signature programs, the brainchild of Bonham and Tom Hill, offers a system of direct incentives to preserve another endangered, and dangerous, species. Texan entrepreneur and venture capitalist Hill packed up and moved to rural Kenya in 2000, where he and Bonham launched a plan to save the local lions.

By some estimates, fewer than 20,000 lions remain in the world, down from 100,000 just 20 years ago. While they are often poached and sold for parts on the black market, the bigger threat to their existence comes from habitat loss and increasing human conflict. Wandering through settled areas and preying on the livestock, they are hunted down by herdsmen trying to protect their livelihoods.

But not so much in Big Life’s region. A predator compensation fund started in 2003 that is now part of Big Life has nearly halted lion killings in the area.

The premise is simple: Livestock owners are paid for each animal taken by wildlife, so long as the predator is spared. The program, similar to the incentives used to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the U.S., was conceived of independently by the Maasai when Bonham and Hill asked them what it

would take to stop killing lions. In its first decade, the fund reduced lion kills from a probable 200 to just six in the range it covered, without impoverishing or harming local residents.

Big Life offers a number of complementary services to help protect local livestock, including better fencing and husbandry training. Immediate compensation for occasional losses, however, is the overwhelmingly popular centerpiece of the initiative—the “core of the onion,” according to Bonham, without which the other “layers” wouldn’t hold. Program managers explain it as a basic economic equation, a fairer way to balance the benefits that “citizens of Kenya and the world at large” receive from the existence of majestic lions with the burdens of living near them.

The Maasai say they like the program because it replaces their livestock quickly and feels just. The payment goes to them individually and cannot be co-opted by their leaders (as government spending often is in Africa). And it represents the first time local residents have ever received a benefit directly from sharing their land with wildlife. “[We] listened to what they had to say,” Hill told the Daily Telegraph.

Expanding programs that combine economic incentives with conservation, and that attend to the needs and priorities of the human community, will be essential to further protecting endangered species.

Philanthropists who want to conserve these magnificent animals should work with African authorities to give the local people a direct economic stake— and perhaps even some forms of shared ownership rights—in the wild herds that surround them.

Only a tangible ability to share in the economic and spiritual benefits of teeming wildlife will make the creatures next door an asset to be guarded, rather than a problem. When equipped with such an outlook, as well as the type of knowledge about animals’ needs that donors like Paul Allen are collecting, philanthropists will have much better chances of aiding the species they admire. P

The Maasai came up with the predator compensation fund as a fair way to balance the benefits of wildlife with the burdens of living near it.

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Š Iwan Baan, 2011

In New York City, philanthropists converted an old railway into a linear park called the High Line.

walk

THE LINE Donors convert old rail lines into popular recreation trails

By Kara Runsten

© Iwan Baan, 2011

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hilanthropist Steve Baird remembers a time when Chicago’s deserted, elevated rail line was not a welcoming environment. But even then, many of the Windy City’s residents saw potential for the space.

“People would jump fences and get out there and run,” he says. “There was a lot of broken glass. There were safety issues, and they still got up there. They were on this thing before we were.”

Baird is among the visionaries who decided to turn a neglected railroad line into the 606, a trail and park system designed to be a major asset to the urban neighborhoods surrounding it. Thanks in part to donors, this former industrial discard will soon join the ranks of many similar corridors across the country, affectionately known as “rail trails.” The philanthropically funded Rails-to-Trails Conservancy estimates that more than 1,600 abandoned railroad lines have been turned into modern recreational trails, with more on the way.

Rail trails are generating public enthusiasm as rural paths, as creators of green space in tight urban quarters, as ways of boosting health and wellness, as canvases for appealing landscape design and outdoor art, as connectors of communities, and as spurs to city redevelopment.

What started as relatively simple recycling projects in places like rural Michigan have also become beacons of unification in cities like New York, Chicago, and Atlanta.

In nearly all of these projects, private donors have been crucial instigators.

Country trails By the 1970s, a quarter of railroad lines were bankrupt because of expensive regulations, difficulty competing with trucking companies, and soaring energy costs.

The question of what to do with the increasing number of abandoned lines was answered by the budding rails-to-trails movement, and one of the first hot spots was the American Midwest.

The late Fred Meijer was a rail-trail pioneer.

Having joined his parents’ new grocery business at age 14, he started building, in 1962, what would become known as superstores. By the time Meijer was finished, he had 200 retail outlets and the 15th-largest private company in the nation. As he became a major donor in his home state of Michigan, one of his interests was to get Americans outdoors more often.

In 1994, Meijer purchased a 42-mile stretch of abandoned CSX railroad corridor for the first railto-trail conversion in Michigan. The Fred Meijer Heartland Trail, completed in 2011, will eventually Kara Runsten is a former intern at Philanthropy.

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be part of a larger path stretching 125 miles—making it the fifth-largest continuous rail trail in the nation.

These linear parks catch the eye and draw hikers and bikers through a sequence of landscapes, creating a kind of narrative. The narrow route of the Heartland Trail takes voyagers through fields, woods, and small towns. Meijer grew up on a dairy farm in the region, and he saw these trails as a way for city-dwellers to appreciate the agricultural richness of western Michigan and enjoy the beauty of a rural setting.

In addition to buying land, Meijer provided funds for trail building, and endowments for future maintenance. During his lifetime, he donated about $10 million to rails-to-trails work, and his Meijer Foundation remains an important funder of land acquisitions and construction costs today. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, which has grown to 150,000 members with a hand in 20,000 miles of pathways nationwide, has honored Fred Meijer as one of the pioneers of the rail trail movement.

Friends of the High Line raised more than $100 million of private money to design, create, and run the park.

Husband and wife Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg donated more than $35 million, and many other foundations, individuals, and corporations have also made large gifts. The philanthropically funded nonprofit has a contract with the city giving it responsibility for maintenance and operation of the facility—which already attracts 4.4 million visitors per year in its unfinished state, sparking an estimated $2 billion of private development in formerly industrial sections of New York.

Closely resembling the High Line is the 606 in Chicago. Named after the first three digits of Chicago zip codes, the 2.7-mile former railway, now a walking path, is scheduled to open this fall. In addition to its elevated path, called the Bloomingdale Trail, the 606 will also include five ground-level parks, an observatory, and plenty of art. It will create green space for the 80,000 people who live within a ten-minute walk, and planners hope it will unite four disparate neighborhoods.

“It’s a large, ambitious, complicated project, and that’s actually what I like about it,” says funder Baird.

He has been involved since the beginning of the project, roughly eight years ago. The fifth-generation leader of family-owned real-estate firm Baird & Warner, he also serves on the board of the Trust for Public Land, the leading private partner of the 606. He oversees the project’s fundraising efforts and has personally donated what he refers to as “a significant amount,” with another big family gift in the works. He credits his interest in the outdoors to childhood vacations spent exploring nature.

Baird sees many positive results for the community.

“You’re taking something that was an eyesore and physical barrier and making it into something beautiful and a transportation corridor. It’s kind of a double win, and it’s going to have huge impacts on the real estate values and be a wonderful amenity.”

Linear parks create a different experience from other parks, Baird notes. “You can see parts of the downtown skyline, and you then can turn around and talk to somebody on the street corner. So it’s just a really interesting juxtaposition—a way to move through the city that didn’t exist before.”

City trails After Meijer’s success at creating rambling trails where people could escape from urban pressures, other donors realized that they could intermingle urban and pastoral settings in refreshing and intriguing ways, using old rail lines.

On the first spring-like day of 2014, New York’s High Line is packed. Locals and tourists alike are excited to get outdoors after a particularly brutal winter. Those who look down see old railroad tracks preserved beneath their feet, as homage to an earlier industrial New York. Visitors who gaze forward encounter colorful modern artwork, and many surprising views of the surrounding city.

During the 1930s, engineers elevated a freight-rail line several stories up into the air on trestles to eliminate the dangers of trains running through the busy streets of lower Manhattan. The boxcars stopped coming into New York in 1980, leaving the elevated path to grow up in weed trees and native grasses. Fence-hoppers discovered an urban oasis, hidden in plain sight, and when plans were made to tear down the elevated path, neighbors quickly formed a nonprofit to save it. After a decade of fundraising and planning a conversion of the elevated route into a mile-and-a-half skyway for walkers, the first of three sections opened to a rapturous public. The second phase debuted in 2011, and Paths to community renewal the third portion is due to open later this year.

An even more complex rail trail in the works is the Atlanta BeltLine, perhaps better described as a rail with trail. This ambitious project aims to rejuvenate a 22-mile historic railroad corridor that helped make Atlanta a regional hub after the Civil War. The idea was born in a 1999 Georgia Tech master’s thesis, and includes both a recreational trail and light rail system circling all of Atlanta. Planners say it will ultimately connect 45 neighborhoods and cost billions, funded through a combination of public and private dollars.

You’re taking something that was an eyesore and a barrier and making it into something beautiful and a transportation corridor. It’s a double win.

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Many see the project as an urban renewal initiative, but Jim Kennedy, Atlanta resident and chairman of media conglomerate Cox Enterprises, prefers the term “community renewal.” As a former world cycling champion, he is “interested in anything that gets people outdoors and moving in a safe environment.” He believes the BeltLine offers a prime opportunity to do just that, and he is using his personal donations and contacts with other rail-trail enthusiasts to get the project underway.

While the project won’t be finished until 2030, pieces are already in place, including the 2.25-mile-long Eastside Trail—which is open largely due to Kennedy. He and his wife, Sarah, donated $2.5 million to create this part of the BeltLine, giving through the PATH Foundation, a nonprofit that has been building trails in the Atlanta area for more than 22 years, and of which Kennedy is an original board member. He describes the donation as “good seed money to get that trail built.”

To maintain the project’s momentum, Kennedy donated $5 million more in April 2014. These funds will develop the Westside Trail, and they make him the largest private donor to the BeltLine project at $12 million. Total contributions to the capital campaign, which Kennedy co-chairs, are now at $45 million. Early private donations like Kennedy’s have been used to implement pieces of the overall plan. Supporters say these local successes serve as testaments to the project’s potential and build public understanding and support that will be needed to complete the ambitious plan.

“We can’t expect the government to do everything for everybody, and so the private sector, the philanthropic side, has to step up. By doing so, private citizens declare what is important,” says Kennedy, who has given a total of about $30 million to various trail projects. “Often the private money is the venture capital that gets things going.”

Trails as tribute Enthusiasts are now planning perhaps the most remarkable use of rail trails so far—the September 11th National Memorial Trail, which proposes to span 1,140 miles and connect all three of the 9/11 crash sites. The growth of converted railroad corridors has helped this project gain traction, allowing creators to piece together existing trails in many places, instead of having to carve out new ones.

About 600 of the miles planned for the memorial are on former railroad corridors or converted canal towpaths.

“When we can use certain parts of trails that are already existing, we use them. For other areas, such as in Pennsylvania primarily, we are developing the actual route itself,” explains David Brickley, president and CEO of the September 11th National Memorial Trail Alliance. The visionary behind this endeavor, Brickley is no stranger to linear parks—he has hiked all 2,180 miles of the Appalachian Trail, and served on the boards of many rail-trail and

conservation groups. He also co-founded Virginia’s commuter rail system, and advocated for trails as the director of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Brickley also gives generously to the rail-trail cause. In 2008, he made a spur-of-the-moment decision to spend half a million of his own dollars to purchase a 16-mile abandoned railroad corridor in Virginia to save it from being broken up. “Talk to my wife and she’ll tell you how unplanned it was,” he quips. For his efforts, Brickley has been honored as one of the 25 Rail-Trail Champions celebrated by the Rails-to-Trail Conservancy. He is in good company—Fred Meijer and the High Line’s founders, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, are also on the list.

Brickley’s interest in a 9/11 memorial trail dates back to a multistate trail conference held a few days after the terrorist attacks. Then the director of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Brickley says they decided to hold the conference, despite the bad timing, “as a sign of our own resilience.” At the end of the conference, Brickley suggested the attendees find a way to honor the victims and heroes of the terrorist attack. The September 11th National Memorial Trail Alliance, “dedicated to perseverance in the name of freedom” and “liberty that can never be broken,” was born.

The group operates on a modest budget of $150,000 per year. But since it is staffed by volunteers, all funds go directly to crucial tasks. Other groups, like the various Appalachian Trail clubs, have relied on a similar mix of volunteer talent, passion, and modest private financing to accomplish great things.

The group hopes to map out the entire route within the next three years, but linking the lands and opening usable recreation paths “will be a work in progress for many years thereafter,” according to Brickley. He emphasizes the need to take advantage of new opportunities as they come along. One such opportunity appeared in the form of an abandoned railroad corridor connecting the town of Berlin, Pennsylvania (near the Flight 93 crash site), with the Great Allegheny Passage—an existing 150-mile rail trail now open for biking and hiking between Pittsburgh and Cumberland, Maryland.

The organization hopes to use the memorial trail as a “teaching opportunity,” incorporating historical sites along the path wherever possible. “It will be a trail steeped in history. Not just for 9/11, but also of sites that are important to the fabric of America’s heritage going back to the days of our independence,” Brickley says.

The trail is a fitting tribute, he says, because “a trail will be here forever, and it will show the resilience of our country forever. It’s going to be an unbroken trail connecting these three sites. A sign of our ability to stay together, to hold together, to be together. To be unbroken.” P SUMMER 2014

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Bri Hermanson

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Land Law A new court decision preserves a popular and important form of nature philanthropy

By Zachary Janowski

I

Bri Hermanson

t was only a $173 tax bill. But it led to a landmark ruling in May that could have nationwide consequences for the future of American conservation.

The property-tax bill, issued by the town of Hawley, Massachusetts, to the New England Forestry Foundation, examined key questions about the laws behind land trusts and nature conservancies—the most popular forms of nature philanthropy today. What exactly does it mean to conserve land? What must a charity do with the property to benefit the public? What organizations—and what types of land—deserve favorable tax treatment?

small property-tax bill—reduced 90 percent under a program to preserve forestland. In 2009, at the conclusion of a ten-year forest-management plan on the property, NEFF applied to the town for a charitable tax exemption to reduce the tax bill to zero.

But Hawley officials denied the exemption, so NEFF appealed to the courts, prompting a multi-part legal battle: New England Forestry Foundation Inc. v.

Board of Assessors of Hawley.

In Massachusetts, the charitable property-tax exemption has two requirements: that a charitable organization own the property, and that it “occupy” Wrangling over woods the property according to its mission. For example, a Not quite 350 people live in Hawley, a sleepy Massa- charitable organization that runs a museum wouldn’t chusetts town about 13 miles south of the Vermont have to pay property taxes on its galleries, since they border. The town has no gas station, but it does have the 134-acre Stetson-Phelps Memorial Forest.

Zachary Janowski is an investigative reporter for the Yankee The New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) Institute for Public Policy and a visiting member of the bought the land in 1999. For a decade, NEFF paid its Hartford Courant editorial board.

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help fulfill its mission, but it would have to pay up for its gift shop. Similarly, a university that builds a casino on campus wouldn’t qualify for a property-tax exemption for that land.

The fundamental question in the case: Does preserving land count as “occupying” it for charitable purposes? Is conservation action? Hawley officials had no doubt that NEFF owned the land, but was the nonprofit using it accordingly?

Similar disputes have popped up across the country, threatening the charitable status of land conservation. In New Mexico, an appellate court in 2013 upheld a charitable exemption for conservation in a case that pitted San Miguel County against Pecos River Open Spaces. Maine’s highest court heard oral arguments in another case, Francis Small Heritage Trust Inc. v. Town of Limington, in May, and a decision is expected later this year. Losing charitable property-tax exemptions “could significantly reduce capacity” of conservation groups, says Bob Wilber, director of land protection for Mass Audubon.

invite respectful public visits” at the woods, officials in Hawley complained they didn’t do enough to encourage public use.

On May 15, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously that the foundation should not have to pay the tax bill. NEFF allowed hiking and hunting in the woods, and made the land available to a snowmobile club. And private conservation produces other public benefits, the court ruled. “By holding land in its natural pristine condition and thereby protecting wildlife habitats, filtering the air and water supply, and absorbing carbon emissions, combined with engaging in sustainable harvests to ensure the longevity of the forest, NEFF engages in charitable activities of a type that may benefit the general public,” wrote Justice Francis Spina.

Spina further argued that the lack of “affirmative steps to exclude the public from the land, such as through physical barriers, ‘no trespassing’ signs, or actively patrolling the land” separate conservancy lands from truly private lands that pay taxes and thus have

The fundamental question in the case: Does preserving land count as “occupying” it for tax purposes? Similar disputes have popped up across America, threatening the charitable status of land conservation.

Does private preservation benefit the public?

Founded in 1944, the New England Forestry Foundation supports sustainable forestry by owning 23,000 acres, including 7,500 in Massachusetts. It also educates other landowners on keeping lands healthy, and monitors more than a million acres of conservation easements.

But the Hawley town tax assessors, and later the state’s appellate tax board, found that NEFF’s limited activity at the community forest didn’t count as occupying the property. The appellate board said the group should do more to make the woods available to the public if it wanted a charitable tax exemption. For example, the nonprofit could post signs welcoming people to the forest.

Public availability is key to justifying charitable tax breaks. Without requirements for it, groups of neighbors could form a nonprofit to preserve land in their neighborhood and then limit access to themselves, without paying property taxes. Though the Forestry Foundation posted a small sign that read “We 42

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a right to exclude other users. Leslie Ratley-Beach of the Land Trust Alliance says this decision will influence others, because it is one of only a few state high-court opinions on the subject, and because it went so far in enumerating the benefits of conservation and defining legitimate charitable conservation.

Land trusts—the private nonprofits that protect land directly by owning it—have grown rapidly in recent decades. As of the last count in 2010, there were 1,723 different land trusts scattered across the country, most of them all-volunteer and wholly local in their focus. They now have more than 5 million dues-paying members, and thousands of other donors who offer land or substantial funds to purchase it.

They draw on the love of a particular local patch and the generosity of donors rather than state regulation or ownership to do their work. They currently take care of 47 million acres in the U.S. With this latest ruling, their quiet growth is likely to continue. P

SOME OF THE LAST GENERATION’S GREATEST

CONSERVATION

TRIUMPHS…

beloved national parks • endangered animals recovered • 47 million acres in land trusts • 120 million acres in nature conservancies • most popular new green spaces in U.S. cities • most promising strategies for reviving fisheries • top research in paleontology, oceanography, astronomy, etc.

…ARE PRODUCTS OF PRIVATE

PHILANTHROPY Learn more at PhilanthropyRoundtable.org/almanac/nature

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PHILANTHROPY

Shannon Odell Photography

Strangers paid every penny of Autumn Forti’s medical care after doctors tried test after test to diagnose her frequent seizures.

Mutual aid lives on in the

battle against medical bills

the Fortis wound up paying nothing. Fellow Samaritan members covered every penny of Autumn’s care.

Samaritan is one of four major health-care sharing even-year-old Autumn Forti was shopping with her mother, Ann, at Hobby Lobby in March 2012 when ministries in the U.S. These organizations help more her small body started spinning around and dropped to than 260,000 Americans share the cost of each other’s the floor. A neurologist later told Ann that her daughter medical needs, without the commercial mechanisms of was having seizures. In just a few weeks, Autumn was insurance. They are a rare remaining example of “mutual having more and more of them, faster and faster, until aid”—groups of citizens voluntarily binding themselves they came every four minutes. She was rushed from the to help one another. Once a staple of American society, Fortis’ local Indiana hospital to the Cleveland Clinic, this form of charity is alive and well in health ministries, where she received countless tests and drugs. Doctors which are now expanding their membership rolls thanks said that if they couldn’t heal her, they would have to to an unlikely helper: the Affordable Care Act. put her into an induced coma: Her body could not get Bearing others’ burdens needed rest with attacks so frequent.

Ann was desperate to find Autumn a cure. But in Today’s health-care sharing organizations have been operthe midst of her heartbreak over her daughter’s illness, ating since the late 1980s and early ’90s, for the most part another fear arose: What about the mounting cost of founded by people who wanted to pool medical bills with these expensive treatments? like-minded religious believers, putting their trust in faith “I’m thinking: ‘Is this really going to work? Are we communities rather than government or insurance comgoing to drown here?’ I’m seeing test after test and think- panies. At the largest ministry, Samaritan, members like ing, ‘Cha-ching, cha-ching, the money’s adding up. Are the Fortis write checks directly to each other, guided by we going to be buried in medical bills?’” she says. the nonprofit to send the money to people with medical The Fortis did not have insurance. Instead, they needs. In other groups, members’ payments go to a central belonged to Samaritan Ministries International, which bank account for distribution, or are shared from person is what’s known as a “health-care sharing ministry.” So to person online. All four nonprofits examine the medical Ann called Samaritan, where a representative told her bills that members submit, make sure the bills meet their words she has not yet forgotten: “I think you are going requirements, and in some cases negotiate with health-care to be O.K.” providers to bring the total down.

It was O.K. Autumn’s seizures stopped, thanks to a special diet. And of the nearly $200,000 in medical bills, Liz Essley Whyte is managing editor of Philanthropy.

By Liz Essley Whyte

Shannon Odell Photography

S

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Several health-care sharing groups have explicit spiritual missions: to help Christian believers share each other’s burdens.

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our people are choosing not to participate in riskier lifestyles,” says Tony Meggs, president of the nonprofit that operates Medi-Share. “Some people are going to see [these rules] as being restrictive, but they’re not unusual to being disciples of Christ.” And having groups of people mutually dedicated to healthy living does offer a promising way to cut health-care costs nationwide. “A lot of health economic textbooks say 60 percent or more of medical expenditures are related to lifestyle choices—heart disease, diabetes,” says Devon Herrick, a health economist at the National Center for Policy Analysis. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have a group that pursues a healthier lifestyle getting together and sharing costs…. As an economist, I kind of like that. It’s all about incentives and rewarding good behavior.”

One ministry, Liberty HealthShare, is designed to appeal to a broader swath of the population, though it currently has far fewer members than the other three ministries. “Our Christian faith compels us to assist and care for and do benevolence to everyone,” says Liberty president Dale Bellis. Liberty members have to agree to fewer points of doctrine, instead only attesting to “shared principles,” such as that “our personal rights and liberties originate from God,” and that “every individual has a fundamental religious right to worship the God of the Bible in his or her own way.” Members also promise not to smoke, drink alcohol in excess, or abuse drugs, and to exercise regularly. Liberty’s marketing is unabashedly patriotic. “There is an impulse in the American spirit of support, of helpfulness, and I believe health-cost sharing taps into that element that is uniquely characteristic of our nation as a people,” says Bellis. But, like the other ministries, Liberty also won’t help share bills for things like abortion.

Philosophy and economics These philosophical requirements—and the need to trust others in a system that is not insurance, is not regulated as such, and doesn’t come with the same guarantees— are what make health-care sharing ministries not simply equal to “cheap Christian insurance,” in Hopp’s words.

Yet they are cheap. Kyle Forti pays $320 per month for his family to be Samaritan members—a steal compared to the $800 he was paying for high-deductible insurance earlier. That membership includes a $300 deductible and payment for medical bills up to $250,000. Those low membership costs are helpful for ministry participants on tight budgets—the median income of Samaritan’s members is $40,000.

Lynn Howard, a Virginia father of seven children, has been a Medi-Share member since 1996. He carefully kept track of his medical costs from when his family joined until 2010—including the things he paid for out of pocket, such

Shannon Odell Photography

Three of the groups—Samaritan, Medi-Share, and Christian Healthcare Ministries—have explicit spiritual missions: to help Christian believers share each other’s burdens. In addition to distributing monetary aid, they encourage members to pray for each other in times of medical trial. Samaritan members often add notes or even gifts to the checks they send each other in the mail. “I love the personal touch of Samaritan,” says Kyle Forti, Autumn’s 24-year-old brother, who joined the ministry with his wife after he saw how it helped his parents and sister. Samaritan members paid for his infant son’s time in an intensive care unit shortly after birth. “You’re getting all these notes, with checks in them, from all these different folks around the country, saying, ‘Best wishes,’ and ‘Praying for you guys,’” he says. The personal touch is one reason Samaritan hasn’t moved to an all-electronic payment system.

“When somebody has a really large need…what they talk about is all of that support and the community they received. You would think they would say, ‘I can’t believe some strangers sent me $100,000,’ but that’s not it. It’s the cards and the notes. That’s what members rave about,” says Anthony Hopp, Samaritan’s director of membership development. Samaritan advertises in Christian publications like World magazine, but most of its new members sign up after hearing a friend recommend the ministry.

The spiritual missions also define who can participate. People who want to join Medi-Share must “attest to a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ” and agree to a detailed statement of faith.

Those who want to join Samaritan must sign a similar statement and also send a letter from their pastor. This builds the unity and mutual commitment which makes these organizations work. The groups, for the most part, refuse to cover needs they deem incompatible with faithful Christian living, such as treatment for drug abuse, or medical bills from an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Members of all four ministries must promise not to smoke or abuse alcohol. When a problem does arise, such as a need for drug rehab, “we work closely with the member’s church to encourage counseling, repentance, and help (spiritually, emotionally, and financially),” says Samaritan’s Hopp.

The lifestyle commitments also contain costs for other members. The “code of conduct quite honestly helps us keep our share rates down in the sense that

Kyle Forti and his bride, Hope (center), moved up their wedding date when Kyle’s little sister Autumn (pictured here holding flowers)

Shannon Odell Photography

became ill, worried she might not make it. Kyle and Hope are now also members of the health-care sharing ministry that helped his sister.

as bandages and eyeglasses—and concluded that, compared to what he would have paid for insurance, the ministry had saved him $25,000. He now pays $535 per month for Medi-Share for himself, his wife, and two children still at home, under a plan with a $1,000 deductible and payment for $1 million of medical bills per person per year after that.

“I believe it could be twice as much and it would still be a good deal,” Howard says.

In health-care sharing, patients are paying attention to how much they’re spending on medical treatment—more attention than they likely would if they were expecting insurance to cover everything.

That’s because many feel a duty not to pass on unnecessary bills to the people they are sharing with. “I go out of my way to save money in order to make it more cost-effective for the organization,” Howard says. “In this kind of organization, even if it weren’t costing me a dime, I would still be conscious of cost.” Health-care sharers also have an incentive to keep overall costs low, if only so their monthly payments won’t need to go up.

And Samaritan members have their $300 deductible waived if they can show they got a discount worth more than $300 from the health-care provider. “You advocate when you go in. I could send a bill to Samari-

tan without trying to get a discount, but you know you don’t want your own shares to go up, so you’re going to advocate and get your bills reduced,” Ann Forti says. “Everybody is focused on keeping costs down.”

Health-care sharers are billed by hospitals and doctors as cash-pay patients, a practice which itself can come with discounts.

There are downsides to health-care sharing ministries. Consumer Reports and Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms warn that ministries, unlike insurance, can’t guarantee coverage, and are not regulated under state insurance laws designed to protect patients. The ministries don’t help pay for some commonplace accidents, such as breaking a tooth while eating, or many pre-existing conditions.

(For example, Samaritan members will not share bills from a pre-existing cancer unless the patient had gone seven years without symptoms or treatment; it won’t share any bills related to a pre-existing heart condition or diabetes. Needs that aren’t covered can still be communicated to other members, who are then able to contribute voluntarily to those bills.) And ministries have an upper limit on how much care they can pay for: At Samaritan, it’s $250,000, though members SUMMER 2014

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pay for nearly $200,000 worth of medical care she received while suffering from frequent seizures.

can also sign up for another program, called “Save to Share,” which costs more per month but which will help cover bills over the $250,000 mark.

The nonprofits also don’t cover routine doctor or dentist visits, or other preventive care, which members admit can make them less likely to pursue treatments or appointments they don’t think they need. Some, like Kyle Forti, don’t see that as a bad thing. “I think it helps us become a little more independent and not rely and [get] caught up in this drug and health-care system. If we’re really in pain or really have a need, sure, of course we’ll go in. But if we get a cold, we’ll buy stuff over the counter and rest up. I think it’s nice.”

An American heritage Health-care sharing ministries are one of the last remnants of a type of philanthropy—mutual aid—that was common at the dawn of the twentieth century in America. About one-third of adult men belonged to fraternal societies in 1910, historian David Beito has estimated. These societies offered members education, encouragement, lessons in civility, morality, and patriotism, as well as assistance in crises of all types, including 48

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medical ones. The arrival of widespread government welfare programs and other factors contributed to the demise of such groups.

Early fraternal societies in the colonies and new American states at first offered cash help to members rather haphazardly, and for more diverse causes than just medical needs. They paid for things like “ship passage, prison bail, and an old-age pension,” according to Beito’s research. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which had 465,000 members in 1877, refined its aid process and referred to the gifts as “benefits” or “rights” for its members. Sick fellows received weekly stipends, usually between $3 to $6, to compensate for lost work days. The IOOF spent more than $69 million on aid between 1830 and 1877, most of it going to help sick members or pay for funerals. These early mutual-aid societies, like modern health-care sharing ministries, also penalized what they considered immoral behavior, refusing to supply aid to the habitually drunk and profane, or otherwise vice-ridden.

Members of fraternal societies preached self-reliance and brotherhood, and preferred their form of mutual aid to handouts, either from the government or even private donors. Indeed, they thought of their aid as something completely different from philanthropy. Bina West told the National Fraternal Congress in 1901 that fraternity was “absolutely distinct from charity or philanthropy. It is liberalizing, self-sustaining, elevating, gives mutual rights and preserves independence of character.” The manual of the Knights of the Pythias wrote that the “sick among our brethren are not left to the cold hand of public charity; they are visited, and their wants provided for out of the funds they themselves have contributed to raise.” (For more details, see Beito’s book, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967.) But the rise of governmental welfare and insurance companies, along with other transformations, diminished the appeal of these fraternal societies over time. Their membership started dropping in the 1930s and never stopped.

Mutual aid still exists today, and health-care sharing ministries are not the only remnants. Many churches and synagogues operate some sort of benevolence fund.

The Amish have long paid for expensive medical bills by seeking help from their churches and banding together to auction off handmade goods. Immigrant lending circles—common in Asian, Mexican, and Caribbean communities—ask members to contribute a set amount of money each month; and every month a different member takes home the total, giving these newcomers access to capital and allowing them to start businesses or pay for large expenses. All these forms of mutual aid, including health-care sharing, depend on trust.

Shannon Odell Photography

Mutual aid helped Autumn Forti’s parents

Shannon Odell Photography

Ministry leaders can tick off a list of theories about But recent events made some wonder if trust would be why people are attracted to health-care sharing. For some enough to keep health-care sharing alive. whose incomes aren’t low enough to qualify for federal insurance subsidies, sharing can be a cheaper option.

The end of mutual aid?

At two points in recent history, anyone betting on the But health-care sharing also has an explicitly religious end of health-care sharing in America would have appeal. “If we [share bills], we will reflect to the world enjoyed pretty good odds. In 2009 the Affordable Care this authentic Christian community that displays the Act was being written, and its proponents were insisting love of Christ,” says Medi-Share’s Meggs. Patients may it needed to include a mandate that everyone purchase also like that their payments aren’t going to companies insurance. Where would that leave members of health- that pay for treatments they find morally objectionable, care sharing ministries, who were technically uninsured? such as abortion or birth control. Others are just eager “We obviously were praying that our members would be not to depend on government aid, or don’t want to be able to continue what we’ve been doing,” says Hopp. “It tied to an insurance network. “People like the freedom of being able to choose their own doctors and hospitals. We was an uncertain time.”

Samaritan teamed up with Medi-Share to hire believe health care should be consumer-driven, and our lobbyists to educate Congress about what the ministries members are attracted to that,” says Samaritan’s Hopp.

If health-care sharing is gaining in popularity, were and why they needed lawmakers to carve out a special place for them in the bill. Congress listened, creating an could it be expanded on a much broader scale? The exemption to the individual mandate for members of exemption in the ACA that health-care sharing nonexisting health-care sharing ministries. Leaders in the profits won applied only to ministries started before nonprofits still speak of that as a small miracle. “The Senate 1999 and organized around “a common set of ethical version of the bill ended up being the one that stuck, and or religious beliefs.” But if the law were changed, or if the exemptive language for health-care sharing ministries current groups could create a spin-off, a popular, secuwas in that version. By God’s grace it’s there,” says Hopp. lar health-care sharing group would be a possibility, as So ministry members could keep sharing their bills, long as it had some kind of fraternal bond tying memwithout being fined for not having insurance. But as bers together (such as a trade association) and offered the ACA’s insurance marketplaces began to take shape, competitive rates, says health economist Herrick. And observers saw another potential pitfall for the minis- as nonprofits, current health-care sharing ministries tries: Why would people stick with health-care sharing could also accept donations for expansion, though curwhen they could pay less for insurance subsidized by the rently they receive few gifts that aren’t from members. government? If even a minority of members withdrew, The arrival of the ACA certainly brought a demand monthly prices could go up, leading to a “death spiral” for alternate forms of health care: Kyle Forti says he for the groups, argued Jim Epstein in Reason magazine wouldn’t sign up for subsidized insurance under the online in October 2013. Samaritan’s board recognized ACA, even if he qualified for it. “Look, if I don’t have the threat as well, and started making preparations for to take it from the government, I wouldn’t. And quite three membership scenarios: a precipitous drop, a steady honestly I trust a private ministry more than I would equilibrium, or—more optimistically—an increase, per- the bureaucratic government,” he says.

Kyle’s sister Autumn is now happy and healthy, haps due to people looking for alternatives to insurance thanks to a diet promoted by another manifestation on the ACA exchanges.

So far, the optimists are winning. Samaritan has of philanthropy, the Charlie Foundation, which helps seen a jump in memberships, going from serving about epileptic kids learn to eat food that seems to reduce sei72,000 individuals in January 2013 to more than 118,000 zures. And her parents are grateful for the old-fashioned in June 2014. It experienced record enrollment in Janu- mutual aid that helped them care for her. Ann says she ary 2014, when more than 2,700 households signed up; no longer fears the “cha-ching” of medical bills adding the norm before the ACA passed was about 250 house- up: “You send your share, and you wonder, ‘Wow, I wonder if this is going to work for me.’ Well, I can tell you, holds each month.

And the growing interest isn’t limited to Samari- $200,000 later, yes, it works for people.” P tan. In August 2013, Medi-Share had 62,194 individual members. Eight months later, it had 82,492 members.

Christian Healthcare Ministries likewise now serves more than 68,000 people—about 30,000 more than it did in August 2013. Liberty HealthShare saw about a 40 percent jump in membership over the same period, Bellis says, and now serves about 5,000 people.

Where would the Affordable Care Act leave health-care sharers, who were technically uninsured?

It was an uncertain time.

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49

ideas

Excellence in the Classroom How donors can help teachers acquire the skills they need

BY LAURA VANDERKAM

There’s nothing particularly striking about Brett Pangburn’s sixth-grade English class at Excel Academy in east Boston. But linger in the back of the classroom for a minute, and you soon start to see extraordinary things.

On a mid-September morning, just a few weeks into the school year, none of these preteens stare out the window at the surrounding row houses. Instead, the sixth graders track their English teacher as he moves around the classroom—the whole classroom—gliding between desks as if he owns the place.

Pangburn asks one child for the answer to a multiple-choice question. The child answers correctly. Pangburn nods—and then pivots to another child to ask a follow-up question on why the other multiple-choice options weren’t right. The girl’s hand wasn’t raised, but it doesn’t matter, because in Pangburn’s class, everyone will be called on.

Everyone has to think. That’s what great teaching ensures.

After transitioning from a legal career to teaching, Pangburn says he “humbly accepted that I didn’t know what I was doing. I tried to figure out who’s good and go watch them.” After observing expert teachers, he’d try their techniques. Then he’d have these expert teachers come watch his class. “I’m hungry for feedback,” he says. If something doesn’t go well, he wants to fix it.

Excel students show up with various disadvantages. More than half speak a language other than English at home.

Only 16 percent of their parents have pursued any education beyond high school. About a quarter of the children receive special-education services. More than two thirds of Excel’s fifth graders arrive reading three or more years below grade level.

Yet by seventh grade—the year after many of these students have had Pang50

burn—100 percent will score proficient ened or eliminated. Teachers are beginning or advanced on the English-language to be mentored and scored to encourage section of the Massachusetts state test. them to improve, and sometimes their salaThis is all the more remarkable given ries are adjusted accordingly. that Massachusetts has one of the hardest achievement exams in the country. Excel Today’s sadly ineffective profession students’ advanced and proficient ratings America’s need for better teachers stands mean they can truly compete with the rest out in sharp relief in cities like Chicago. In 2011, only 21 percent of Chicago eighth of the world.

A growing research consensus finds graders were proficient or better on national that teacher quality is the most important reading standards, and only 20 percent were school variable in student achievement. proficient or better at math. Yet under their Great teachers can close achievement longstanding evaluation system, 93 pergaps. Great teaching is more important cent of Chicago teachers earned “superior” than other things that school authorities or “excellent” ratings. This defies common obsess over—and pour huge amounts of sense. “If students are not learning in class, money into—such as class size. As Sid W. that teacher can’t be considered a great Richardson Foundation president Pete teacher,” says Howard Paley, chief operating Geren puts it: “The three most import- officer of the Rodel Foundation of Arizona. ant factors in quality education today are As a former educator himself, he notes that number one, teachers; number two, teach- the job is not just about showing up and delivering material. “Our job is to ensure ers; and number three, teachers.”

So how can we get great teachers? students learn.”

The conventional methods of defining How can philanthropic investment help bring about a world where every child has and rewarding teaching quality, however, a string of good teachers—not an occa- don’t consider whether students are learnsional lucky assignment, but a dependable ing. Instead, districts generally look at input, relay of excellent instruction every year, such as certification, graduating from an with each teacher building on the work official school of education, getting a master’s degree. These are easy to see and cite, of the last?

Thanks to philanthropic backing, new and they are what almost all states lean on. organizations are offering fresh approaches Unfortunately a teacher’s performance, not to the processes of training, evaluating, to mention the performance of his or her and compensating teachers, with an eye students, turns out to have little connection to improving all practitioners and keep- to these kinds of credentials.

The teacher colleges that churn out ing good ones on the job. New channels are pulling non-traditional teachers like most of today’s public-school instructors ex-lawyer Brett Pangburn into classrooms.

Existing instructors are being offered Laura Vanderkam is the chances to learn from masters, to be videoauthor of The Philanthropy taped and critiqued, to be drilled in practical Roundtable’s new guidebook, methods like the roaming and questioning Excellent Educators: A techniques Pangburn employs. Some novel Wise Giver’s Guide to graduate schools and online offerings are Cultivating Great Teachers popping up to hone instructional skills. In and Principals, from which some states, automatic tenure is being tight- this article is adapted.

PHILANTHROPY

often offer training in educational theory rather than subject knowledge, and much of the coursework covers topics such as the role of public education in society that, however fascinating, have nothing to do with the practical matter of successfully imparting information to wiggling fourth graders. Teacher colleges “don’t believe it is their job to train,” says Kate Walsh of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “If teachers need a tool kit to manage a classroom, that’s frowned upon. It’s frowned upon that the institution would teach an approach to reading”—as opposed to guiding teachers to develop their own philosophy of reading instruction.

Meanwhile, student teaching tends to be much less helpful than it could be.

Few colleges provide much oversight of the feedback and technique-training that student teachers get, and few programs ensure that students will be assigned to master teachers who get results. One former principal recounts an instructor asking for a student teacher because she had so little control of her class that she needed a second adult present to mitigate the chaos.

Because teacher-college training and student teaching are generally so unproductive, most starting teachers are not effective. For students, “the learning loss under first-year teachers is striking and measurable,” says Walsh. “We’ve come to accept a system in the U.S. that says the first year is trial by fire. We don’t think that’s necessary. We think we’ve settled for far less than we could expect.”

Once teachers are on the job, incentives and training to become better are also scant.

Districts generally compensate teachers based on years of experience. This is easy to measure, and most teachers improve during their first few years on the job. But then many level off—yet continue to earn pay increases as they age. Veteran teachers can easily be earning twice as much as entry-level teachers (well into six figures, in larger districts), though there’s no evidence that they achieve twice the results.

Many school districts also define a high-quality teacher as one who has a

master’s degree. Districts in the U.S. spent about $15 billion in additional compensation for master’s degrees in the 2007-2008 school year, though in most subjects there’s no link between a graduate degree and student achievement.

The reality is that most current systems for accrediting and paying teachers make no meaningful distinctions between good instructors and poor ones. An important 2009 report called “The Widget Effect,” published

by TNTP (formerly known as The New Teacher Project), used data to illustrate how teachers are essentially treated as interchangeable units by school districts today, rather than as individual talents.

Today’s rating systems rank almost all teachers good or great. Fewer than 1 percent of teachers, the report showed, receive unsatisfactory ratings—even in schools where students fail to meet basic academic standards year after year.

As a result, schools neither recognize nor encourage excellence. In this environment, few teachers develop as professionals as fully as they should. In their last evaluation, almost three out of four U.S. teachers received no specific feedback on improving their performance. Low expectations across the board, a toothless tenure process, no connection between merit and pay, and the near impossibility of being dismissed mean that teachers receive neither the support nor the prods that other professions use to lift practitioners toward excellence.

So the need is great. But if certification, master’s degrees, and school compensation systems don’t help teachers teach better, what can?

approaches let them take children from all walks of life and help them absorb rigorous lessons? Can experts and philanthropists team up to expose poor and mediocre teachers to these techniques and help them improve?

Doug Lemov and Uncommon Schools have become famous in education circles over the last few years for their study of this question. Uncommon Schools—a network of high-performing charter schools in Newark, Boston, Brooklyn, and elsewhere—systematically evaluated its best-performing teachers to study their methods. Lemov’s team analyzed hours of videotape, as football coaches might do, to see how teachers kept students engaged, on task, and thinking hard. The resulting book, Teach Like a Champion, identified 49 specific skills that excellent teachers use.

Among them: •T hey “cold call” on students. The old tradition of hand-raising is ingrained in schools, but why should only children who want to be called on get engaged?

•T hey circulate. Moving around the room forces children to pay attention, and keeps people in the back from daydreaming.

•T hey narrate positive behavior. (“I see Daniel thinking. Carlos made a reasonable guess…”)

•T hey make maximum use of classroom time.

Losing just five minutes a day in paper shuffling or cajoling children to gather in a circle wastes 15 hours in the course of a school year.

•T hey push students to add depth to their Teaching teachers answers. Requiring students to take their What do superior teachers do differ- thoughts one step further strengthens ently? What common techniques and and extends understanding.

Today’s official rating systems rank almost all teachers good or great. Schools neither recognize nor encourage true excellence.

Low expectations are the norm.

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51

ideas •R ather than presenting predigested information, they pull kids into the process of instruction. Great teachers avoid straight lectures and make their kids do much of the cognitive work in class.

• They plan lessons intensively—not only what they’ll do, but what the students will do. Teachers prepared for things that could come up can make interesting diversions while meeting the original objectives.

Lemov found that these techniques and dozens of others he observed correspond with student gains. He and Uncommon Schools have now instructed more than 10,000 teachers on how to use them. They will train the teacher-trainers of any interested district. In about a dozen workshops per year, Lemov reports, “we

factors. They combined these findings to create an overall measure of effectiveness for each teacher.

Then researchers assigned the teachers to new classrooms to see if their MET scores predicted how effective they would be with a different, randomly assigned group of students. They did. The study concluded that “it is possible to identify great teaching by combining three types of measures: classroom observations, student surveys, and student achievement gains.”

Schools serious about improving their teaching should be using these now-proven methods. The Gates Foundation is focusing many of its grants around MET principles. “It’s a big thing for us,” says program officer Ebony Lee. “Everything we do over the next couple of years will look at what systems can do to accelerate implementation.” How

the skills that yield effective teaching can be learned and practiced. Constructive reformers are acting on that discovery and creating new programs that help instructors hone their abilities.

Putting it into practice Because most education schools have proven so resistant to change, many funders have concentrated on creating alternate ways of giving teachers the practical knowledge they need to succeed in the classroom. The most well-known of these groups, Teach For America, is the direct product of philanthropic support, built on major and sustained donations from stalwarts like the Doris and Donald Fisher Fund, the Walton Family Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and many others. TFA trains new teachers at its summer institute and then offers addi-

Effective teaching is built on skills that can be learned. Reformers are now acting on that discovery. do a two-day overview…classroom culture, reading, high academic expectations, pacing…Then they step back and reflect on how to use and adapt these things in their setting. They leave with 50-75 videos and an electronic binder of ready-to-use materials so they can lead workshops for teachers in their own districts.” Funders have given grants to school districts and charter operators so they can go through this program.

Another important effort to bring research rigor to the question of what good teaching looks like is the Measures of Effective Teaching project spearheaded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Researchers studied 3,000 teachers in cities including Charlotte, Memphis, and Pittsburgh. They used student surveys and student gains on achievement tests.

They employed multiple trained observers to assess educators on how they managed behavior, created a culture of respect, engaged students in learning, and other 52

can districts get hiring and compensation right? How can their professional development help instructors improve?

“Some places are more hostile to change than others,” says Lee. And most schools are just beginning to “hold teachers accountable and give them data that has consequences.”

It should be encouraging to see that the crucial elements of effective teaching are, for the most part, skills that can be learned.

If teachers were “good” or “bad” based on some inherent qualities of personality, then options for improving performance would be limited. Ineffective teachers would be reduced to keeping their heads down and just hanging on until retirement. School leaders could only try to fire poor teachers, which can be almost impossible in districts governed by union agreements. But if good teaching is a skill, more positive prospects open up—provided parties will commit to making necessary improvements. Even if you’ve already been on the job for a while, PHILANTHROPY

tional instruction throughout the two-year commitment of each TFA participant.

As TFA studies its most effective corps members, its summer institutes are constantly evolving. One change involves zeroing in on subject content.

“Five years ago, very few corps members were trained in the specific content areas they’d be teaching in in the fall,” says Michael Aronson, TFA’s vice president.

TFA mostly offered general teaching techniques. But the new thinking is that “teachers need to know their content. So we’re invested heavily in content-specific training, from early-childhood information for our pre-K folks to mathematics instruction for secondary-school teachers.

We’re going to continue to invest in content pedagogy. It’s critical.”

TFA has also made its training more hands-on. “We’re continuing to invest and put energy into making sure that the teaching experience in the summer is authentic and resembles the type of experience corps

members will have in the fall,” Aronson says. The bulk of a corps member’s time at the institute is devoted to student teaching, and TFA is making a point of inviting more kids into the summer-school classes where its teachers practice, so teachers can gain experience with both the subject and the grade level they’ll handle later.

Finally, TFA is gradually rolling out a powerful in-class system for critiquing and advising members as they instruct children. TFA and the Center for Transformative Teacher Training have collaborated on what is called the Real Time Teacher Coaching model.

It allows new teachers to receive steady individual feedback from master coaches (sometimes immediately via earbud) on how they can improve their performance. Together, these elements offer an intense learning experience to TFA’s rookie teachers.

Another well-established teacher training program, TNTP, gets high marks and heavy support from donors seeking to bring its high-quality instruction to their homes, such as the Joyce Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and the Sid W. Richardson Foundation. Founded

by Michelle Rhee in 1997, TNTP has recruited, trained, and placed tens of thousands of new teachers in multiple states. TNTP runs high-powered summer training programs for its fellows, typically in partnership with a university that can credential the graduates. In Indianapolis, for instance, students train from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Marian University during June and July. Then TNTP provides coaching during the graduates’ first years in the classroom, while these new teachers simultaneously complete master’s degrees through Marian.

In other regions, like Washington, D.C., the organization operates a TNTP Academy—its own instructing and certifying entity. Students do coursework and training directly through these academies, under the guidance of master teachers. In all cases, final certification requires evidence of effective classroom practice.

As at T FA, T NT P ’s training is hands-on. “ We take a skills-first approach,” says president Tim Daly.

Teachers practice skills until they are second nature. “How you have kids enter the classroom. How you collect papers.

Do stuff without kids present over and over again until they’re fluent. That is almost never done in schools of education.” These skills give TNTP teachers firm control of their classrooms, so they can focus each day’s energy on instruction rather than restoring order. The results are impressive. A study of TNTP teachers in Louisiana over several years found that, on average, students in their classes advanced five percentage points higher in math than those taught by other teachers.

Something from nothing Since rigorous training programs like TFA and TNTP create fewer new teachers than many would like, some organizations feeling pinched for welltrained instructors are creating their own teacher colleges from scratch—like the Relay Graduate School of Education, profiled in the Fall 2013 issue of Philanthropy. Founding an institution is not a minor undertaking, but when sharp school reformers form alliances with motivated donors, it can be done.

High Tech High, a very successful charter-school network in southern California that needed more math and science teachers, established its own state-approved degree-granting teachers college, supported by the Amar Foundation, the Simon Foundation for Housing and Education, and the James Irvine Foundation. Match Education, which operates a string of superb charter schools in the Boston area, has done likewise. At both Match’s graduate school and Relay, teachers will receive their master’s degrees only after test results demonstrate that their students have made good yearly progress.

Match gives its graduate students rigorous training in classroom perforSUMMER 2014

mance and management. “We believe strongly that what’s required for entrylevel teachers is how to teach a basic lesson, how to control the environment.

They need to develop automaticity about basic teaching techniques,” says Match CEO Stig Leschly. The goal is to help rookie teachers quickly become competent “in real challenges they will face,” he says. “That differs drastically from conventional graduate schools of education, where you ask noble questions, but not in our view the ones that matter in the first 12 to 18 months.”

To hone automatic problem-solving classroom responses, degree candidates go through “north of 500 teaching simulations through their first year,” says Leschly. To make these lifelike, the test students will sometimes “randomly misbehave. They’ll walk out unannounced.”

These things happen in real classrooms, and teachers need to be prepared.

But Match’s graduate school teaches much more than how to keep order. “We spend a lot of time coaching our teachers how to check for understanding,” says Leschly. They learn techniques for engaging students throughout a whole class, and for steadily increasing the rigor of the subjects discussed. Prospective teachers go through a natural progression: “They practice moves, they scrimmage, then they get their own classrooms.”

Funding teacher improvement is some of the most influential work that philanthropists can accomplish today. Children need excellent schools because those from impoverished circumstances often deal with bleak conditions at home. If schools don’t set high expectations, train students in habits of study and discipline, and help them dream of a bigger life, many children will grow up without these things. Teachers can open up new worlds of possibilities in a way that few others can. But the system needs stimulation and pressure from outside the educational establishment— and the most successful examples of that happening in recent years have almost all been driven by dedicated donors. P 53

books Benefits of a Gift Gone Wrong

The Robertsons’ donation to Princeton has much to teach other philanthropists

BY J E FFREY CA I N

Charles and Marie Robertson made a gift of $35 million to Princeton University in 1961. The largest gift at the time to benefit a single university, it was directed to the Woodrow Wilson School for Public Policy and International Affairs “to strengthen the government of the United States and increase its ability and determination to defend and extend freedom throughout the world by improving the facilities for the training and education of young men and women for government service.”

That never happened.

Ironically, the university’s failure led the Robertsons’ son Bill and his siblings to make an even greater gift—to the whole country. By engaging in six years of hard-fought litigation at stiff personal and financial cost, the Robertson children held Princeton University accountable to the agreement that the school had voluntarily made with their parents. Doug White’s Abusing Donor Intent: The Robertson Family’s Epic Lawsuit Against Princeton University demonstrates the value of the Robertson heirs’ persistence, while plumbing the complex problem of donor intent, and the limits of philanthropy’s ability to change institutions, much less the world.

Robertson v. Princeton settled out of court for $100 million. Though but a fraction of the current value of the gift (which reached $900 million in the year of the settlement), that’s a remarkable sum. With the proceeds, the Robertson children established a new foundation to carry out the intent of their parents’ original gift, and Princeton moved on, maintaining that it never veered from the intent of Charles and Marie Robertson’s gift, and that it was wronged by the Robertson heirs.

All of that is fairly well known. What is less well known is how and why the Robertsons’ donation, made and received with the best of intentions, went so miserably wrong. White’s analysis of the 54

Abusing Donor Intent: The Robertson Family’s Epic Lawsuit Against Princeton University

By Doug White

PHILANTHROPY

personalities, institutional dynamics, and grievances involved skillfully dissects the sources of discord. The value of White’s book, however, is less his careful blow-by-blow recounting of the conflict than his thematic and practical reflections about how philanthropists and charities might avoid similar problems in the future.

For example, White emphasizes the necessity of trust in philanthropy, especially in preserving donor intent. This may sound trivial, but it’s not.

In the absence of trust, as White shows, there is no rule, no law, no reporting regime, and no metric that will satisfy discontented parties. A culture of trust is a precondition for a satisfactory working relationship. Without trust, verification—regardless of its rigor—never quells suspicion.

“Charles Robertson knew better,” White reports. “Despite his lifelong love for the university—it had given the middle-class boy many opportunities—he harbored doubts from the beginning about whether Princeton would honor its commitments.” Robertson shopped the project to other schools, but he was under pressure to make the gift quickly: “He didn’t want to wait too long after the family trust dissolved because he thought the stock’s value would decrease. Time was of the essence.”

White writes that the Robertsons’ relationship with Princeton started going sour quite soon.

A mere five years into the association, “Robertson was unhappy. He didn’t like the direction of the Woodrow Wilson School or the results.” An absence of trust complicated the partnership at every turn. Soon the question became, as White puts it, “not only whether Princeton should have accepted the gift, but whether the Robertsons should have offered it.”

This lack of trust was exacerbated by the chasm that separated the Robertson family’s expectations and Princeton University’s practices.

Their disparate worlds merged around an unprecedented gift, but did not coalesce, causing friction rather than harmony. The conventions of unbending academic freedom, fierce faculty autonomy, and fungible finances make university business practices seem byzantine to outsiders. This is further complicated by the fact that those cultivating and accepting gifts on behalf of schools are not the

ones who determine the direction of the university. Presidents, deans, and development officers come and go; faculty endure. Even when things are going well, academia seems uniquely designed to foster suspicion. Princeton still maintains it honored the donors’ original intent better than the Robertson children did: Marie Robertson wanted the funds to be for Princeton and controlled by Princeton, and that’s how things unfolded, the university argues.

The Robertsons imagined a very specific outcome for their gift: more Princeton graduates in government service. Princeton did not deliver, and may never have intended to. Just 14 percent of alumni of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School who received their master’s degrees in public affairs between 1973 and 2006 went to work for the federal government in international affairs.

Here is where the Robertsons’ expectations were catastrophically misaligned with the school’s mission and abilities. No university can guarantee definite outcomes for its graduates. Unfortunately, Princeton was willing to let unrealistic expectations flower. Simple truth was suppressed.

White’s book is timely. Today, there are at least 42 college capital campaigns underway with goals of $1 billion or more. Unthinkable just 20 years ago, the $1 billion fundraiser has become commonplace. Yet for all the money that has been and will be donated to higher education, the exotic conventions and practices of academia frequently still remain at odds—often wildly so—with the expectations of donors. Numerous post-Robertson higher-education gifts gone wrong show that philanthropists continue to betray a collective ignorance on practices of the academy and fail to take measures to protect their donor intent (see “Summa Cum Philanthropy,” in the Spring 2012 issue of Philanthropy). The Robertsons’ legacy to American philanthropy is their fight to hold one university accountable. Doug White’s book makes that legacy accessible to every philanthropist and charity. It should be read widely.

School Magic

Donors give children the scholarships they need to excel in school and beyond B Y DU ST IN P E TZO LD

Opportunity and Hope: Transforming Children’s Lives through Scholarships

By Naomi Schaefer Riley

Jeffrey Cain is a founding partner at American Philanthropic, president of the Arthur Rupe Foundation, and author of The Philanthropy Roundtable’s guidebook Protecting Donor Intent: How to Define and Safeguard Your Philanthropic Principles.

SUMMER 2014

Discussions of education reform more often center on policy than philanthropy. But these days, philanthropy is leading national improvements in schooling, and showing that better education is as much about empowering families to make choices as it is about empowering legislators to make new laws. Since 1998, for example, 139,000 students have had their life courses altered by the Children’s Scholarship Fund, a program created by donors Ted Forstmann and John Walton after they tired of waiting for Congress to act. They gave $6 million to a local scholarship fund, and then $100 million to take the program nationwide. In her new book Opportunity and Hope, Naomi Schaefer Riley brings us the stories of ten of the students who benefited from this effort.

Meet Nyawuor Paljor, a Sudanese refugee in Omaha whose scholarship to All Saints Catholic School helped her and her siblings escape the violence and chaos in their local public school and thrive in their new American life. And Mira Martinez, a pediatric nurse in training whose education at a Cristo Rey school, sponsored by a CSF partner program in Denver, included work experience in a variety of professions, giving her a broader sense of her options and the means to reach them. And Silas Farley, a talented dancer from a large, working-class family in North Carolina, whose early support from CSF prepared him for a career in the New York City Ballet. These case studies show how dedicated educators and generous financial sponsors can join forces to help fragile students reach otherwise unattainable heights.

The Children’s Scholarship Fund now provides more than 25,000 scholarships a year, mostly to K-8 students. The program sometimes continues to support recipients through high school, and it has had great success at springboarding its beneficiaries into other high-school and college scholarships, because it paves the path to a quality education early on. (“High-school graduation,” 55

Riley notes, “can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by a child’s reading skill at the end of third grade. A person who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by that time is unlikely to graduate from high school.”)

The fund succeeds partly by inspiring extra parental effort. While the average income of a CSF family in many cities is in the range of $20,000 per year, they are required to contribute at least $500 a year to tuition to demonstrate their commitment to the child’s education. The book describes parents who go to great lengths to set aside these sums.

Starting with that shared investment and commitment, many families persevere to overcome previous inadequate schooling and other disadvantages.

Opportunity and Hope’s first and perhaps most remarkable chapter is a portrait of Jason Tejada, a CSF recipient who attended the Incarnation School in Manhattan. Tejada is not shy in talking about the “drug life” that engulfed many of his friends and family members. But Incarnation offered alternatives to this all-too-common path: Tejada participated in student council and math club. He became a tutor to other students. He worked on the stage crew during his four years at the school. Incarnation provides these opportunities with tuition set at $4,000 per student, while New York City public schools spend about $20,000 per student.

A work ethic and academic striving were expected of all Incarnation School enrollees, and Tejada did his part on the way to a stellar highschool career. His original goal was to attend a City University of New York program close to his home, but his guidance counselors encouraged him to set his sights on schools like Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia.

Even as Tejada was beating the odds academically, he was facing a tougher test during his middle-school and high-school years: cancer. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma during the final months of his time at the Incarnation School. Tejada’s teachers worked hard to prevent this setback from stalling his academic progress, adding individual support and spiritual attention to their education offerings.

Tejada continued to college at Columbia, where he studied business, then chose to pursue a career with JPMorgan Chase. Riley catches up with 56

Jason Tejada beat the odds and cancer, graduating from Columbia University.

Danielle Stone hopes one day to contribute to the scholarship that gave her a head start.

him just as he is about to enter the high-pressure, high-reward world of finance. Despite his change in scenery and the demands on his time, he has not forgotten those who helped him reach his potential.

He returns to Incarnation to spend time with his teachers and their classes, where students are full of questions about his career and what they can do to follow in his footsteps.

In addition to putting a human face on the work that CSF and other private scholarship funds do to benefit low-income students, Riley wields a combination of statistics and stories to dispel myths about private academies and charter schools. She deflates the notions that these alternatives to district schools are fanatically religious, profit-driven, “boutique” institutions that cater to the rich, or are otherwise unwelcoming to disadvantaged students.

It ’s clear from Riley’s accounts that the schools attended by CSF recipients are motivated by a deep concern for the academic and personal well-being of their charges. It’s equally clear that the students and their families are grateful for what the schools offer them. Many graduates return to mentor younger students at their old schools. In 2013, the Philadelphia branch of the Children’s Scholarship Fund received a $10,000 check from a family whose children had been part of the program for nearly 15 years. Administrators were puzzled about how the low-income household could make such a generous donation.

It turned out that the children’s father was part of a 48-person group of transit workers who won a $112 million lottery jackpot together. A letter attached to the check included these words of thanks: “We’ve got the ability to give now rather than receive and we want to give back to this program that has meant so much to our family.

Because of what you’ve done for us, we want to do for others.”

This is one of the rare books about education that is more personal than polemic. The most rewarding aspect of charitable giving is seeing grateful beneficiaries improve their lives as a result of assistance they receive. Opportunity and Hope shows the human effects of smart philanthropy in action.

Dustin Petzold is a writer in Washington, D.C.

PHILANTHROPY

Children's Scholarship Fund; The Stone Family

books

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Getting America Back to Work

Donors gathered in Houston in April for the Roundtable’s Economic Opportunity event, “Getting America Back to Work,” to discuss how private giving can help people become employable, find jobs, and live stable lives. Leading thinkers in demography and policy outlined the country’s challenges in employment. Weinberg Foundation trustee Donn Weinberg led a spirited conversation among leaders of the effort to develop workforce skills among the poor, and donors Bill Butler and Doug Foshee shared their giving priorities. Nonprofit leaders discussed job training for ex-offenders, at-risk youth, and the long-term unemployed.

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left to right: 1. Heather Higgins, Randolph Foundation

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2. Bill Butler, Butler Foundation; Carolyn Watson, JPMorgan Chase 3. Doug Foshee, Sallyport Investments 4. John Arnold, Laura and John Arnold Foundation; Richard Loewenstern, Herzstein Foundation 5. Marci Hunn, Donn Weinberg, Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation

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Israel Thompson of UmbraCor Arts

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SUMMER 2014

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2014 National Forum on K-12 Philanthropy

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More than 300 donors met in Boston in May to discuss the best of K-12 philanthropy. Keynote speakers included Barbara Hyde of the Hyde Family Foundations, Marc Sternberg of the Walton Family Foundation, Eva Moskowitz of Success Academy Charter Schools, Tom Carroll of the Foundation for Opportunity in Education, and journalist and education advocate Campbell Brown. Conversations centered on how donors can fuel a high-quality charter sector, turn around failing schools, and train capable new teachers. Attendees visited Match High School and Edward Brooke Charter School in Boston, as well as UP Academy Leonard Middle School and Guilmette Elementary School in Lawrence.

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left to right: 1. Campbell Brown; Eva Moskowitz, Success Academy Charter Schools; Tom Carroll,

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Foundation for Opportunity in Education 2. Susan Chamberlin, Chamberlin Family Foundation 3. Pitt Hyde, Hyde Family Foundations; Mark Gleason, Philadelphia School Partnership 4. Marc Sternberg, Walton Family Foundation; Barbara Hyde, Hyde Family Foundations

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5. B. J. Cassin, Cassin Educational Initiative

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Noah Zinsmeister

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left to right: 6. Chris Eyre, Legacy Venture 7. Janice Riddell, William E. Simon

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Foundation 8 .Jon Sackler, Bouncer Foundation;

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Katie Everett, Lynch Foundation; Jim Peyser, NewSchools Venture Fund; Stig Leschly, Match Education; Doug Foshee, Foshee Family Charitable Fund; Lisa Daggs, Fisher Fund 9. Jeff Raikes, Raikes Foundation 10. Brian Spector, Baupost Group; Carolyn Lynch, Peter Lynch, Lynch Foundation; John Fish,

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Suffolk Construction 11. Sara Fay Snider,

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William E. Simon

Noah Zinsmeister

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rAndy e. BArneTT

dArcy oLSen President, The Goldwater Institute

Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory, Georgetown University Law Center

KImBerLey A. STrASSeL

Terry TeAcHouT Drama Critic, The Wall Street Journal and Critic-at-Large, Commentary

Editorial Board Member and Columnist, The Wall Street Journal Photo by: Ken Howard, 2009

The Bradley Prizes were PresenTed on wednesday, June 18 aT The John F. Kennedy CenTer For The PerForming arTs in washingTon, d.C. The Bradley Prizes recognize outstanding achievements that are consistent with the Foundation’s mission statement. Founded in 1985, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is devoted to strengthening American democratic capitalism and the institutions, principles and values that sustain and nurture it. Its programs support limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, intellectual and cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas and institutions. Learn more at www.bradleyfdn.org.

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