4/4/11 - Lorie Slutsky on charitable giving in New York Times
The Trust's president is quoted in the following piece by Paul Sullivan for The New York Times.
This is a season of fiscal austerity for governments, and state and
local officials across the country are threatening to cut programs that
aim to help the less fortunate. With tax revenue down and budgets
constrained, they say they have little choice.
Now, a new book “Give Smart” (Public Affairs), written by two
philanthropy experts, Thomas Tierney and Joel Fleishman, argues that the
wealthier philanthropists around the world can focus on solving
problems that government cannot undertake while also paying for research
into new ideas that may be adopted later.
“Philanthropists can innovate, but the government must sustain,” said
Mr. Tierney, chairman of the Bridgespan Group, which advises nonprofits.
“This innovation can be accompanied by scaling up. It’s very different
from providing shelter to the homeless or food to the hungry.”
He categorized what he and Mr. Fleishman, a professor of law and public policy sciences at Duke University,
were advocating as “a shift from not just serving to solving.” Mr.
Fleishman, described their approach as a how-to guide to strategic or
venture philanthropy.
But their strategy is not without its detractors. “Philanthropy needs to
be looked at as a continuum,” said
Lorie Slutsky, president of the New
York Community Trust, which manages about 2,000 charitable funds. “This
is one important piece on the continuum. But you couldn’t do strategic
philanthropy in a settlement house without individual donors who provide
support or government contractors.”
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