Global Breaking News - Monday, December 23, 2024

Are Charities More Effective Than Government?

In this most generous season of the year, Americans consider donations to nonprofit groups. But as budget negotiators in Washington consider major cuts in various programs, can charity efficiently and fairly take the place of government in important areas? Or does the power of wealthy patrons let them set funding priorities in the face of government cutbacks?
* charity = 자선(구호)단체; 자선; 너그러움/ take the place of ~ = ~을 대신(대리)하다/ patron = 후원자; 홍보 대사; 고객/ in the face of ~ = ~에도 불구하고(~에 직면하여)/ philanthropy = 독지(자선) 활동

 자선단체가 효과적이고 공정하게 정부를 대신하여 중요한 영역을 맡을 수 있나요?

1. Voters, Not Tycoons, Should Set Priorities
Collectively, democratically, we raise money and spend it. How else would we pay for unglamorous services that charities overlook?

2. More Independence, Greater Results
Philanthropy can adapt to local conditions and be led by local champions who must show results, even with less financing.

3. A Crucial Complement, Not a Replacement
Philanthropy is especially important for people with ideas that may be unpopular, innovative, or directed at a minority of the population.

4. Vital Needs Don’t Always Attract Donations
Philanthropists view their priorities as more important than those democratically selected. Rich ones can also lobby for those priorities.

Sample Essay

A Crucial Complement, Not a Replacement

The idea that charity can take the place of government spending is absurd on its face. The federal government alone spends far more than the $300 billion Americans donated to nonprofit groups last year. Moreover, much of that giving goes for purposes that would be low on any government’s priority list.
 
But that is exactly why philanthropy is valuable and deserves encouragement through tax and other public policies.

The basic debates in any type of government are always over what is in the public’s interest. In the United States, one way we answer that question is by electing people to represent all of us and reach agreement – if they can -- on what government should do about issues of general concern, like helping the poor or the elderly.
 
But another way is by allowing each of us to give money or time – often collaborating with others -- to try out what we think will address particular aspects of the public interest. That is the domain of philanthropy. It is especially important for people with ideas that may be unpopular, innovative, or directed at a minority of the population.

Through philanthropy, they can have a chance to show if their approach offers a more effective or efficient way of serving the public’s interest. (It may not; charity bureaucracies can be as clumsy as government ones.) Or they can do something the public values, but that government is unwilling or unable to pay for, like supporting religion. As a result, philanthropy can increase the sum of public happiness in ways that politics cannot, or does inadequately.

Those with more money and time can, of course, have more influence in philanthropy. But they can have more influence in politics as well. And in philanthropy, because its focus is on the particular, not the general, a little giving can go a long way. You don’t have to be rich to be a successful donor.

Philanthropy, in short, is an expression of pluralism. Its goals differ from those of politics and the standards applicable to government actions, such as fairness, do not fit what it does.

Because we know that our political decisions can be wrong, short-sighted, or incomplete, we have come to value – and encourage – philanthropy, both in its own right and as an essential safeguard for the manifold interests of the public.