The Financial Fallout of COVID-19: Business as Usual?

by Danny Mucinskas, The Good Project researcher

City of Boston

The COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the globe has had detrimental effects on many aspects of modern society. The primary concern is naturally the toll that the virus is having on human life and national healthcare systems, which many governments have attempted to ameliorate by enacting unprecedented lockdown measures and social distancing guidelines. 

In addition, the crisis has also been wreaking havoc on the economy: stock markets have become volatile, businesses have lost revenue, and unemployment claims have hit record highs. The financial instability has caused many people to face dilemmas related to doing excellent, ethical, and engaging work at a time of intense stress. For example, employers have had to lay off valued and loyal employees; essential workers daily weigh the risks to their health as they report to their jobs; and vast numbers of people are now figuring out how to deliver services online that were formerly conducted in-person. Needless to say, these are challenging times for doing “good work.”

In the Boston area, small businesses have been especially hard hit by the loss of customer revenue as Massachusetts has been in a state of quarantine for a month. The Boston Globe reports on April 8 that a group of vendors with leases in the landmark Faneuil Hall marketplace has appealed to the real estate company that acts as its landlord for an extension on their rent payments. Despite the circumstances, the landlord has responded that the tenants are still required to pay their rents on time and should take advantage of government programs if they are unable to do so on their own.

What does it mean to do “good work” in this situation, for both the tenants and the landlord? How can both sides uphold their responsibilities to one another, in formal and informal ways?

In “normal” times, the formal working relationship between tenant and landlord comes along with responsibilities that fall under the umbrella of The Good Project’s concept of the “ethics of roles.” Those in the role of tenants are expected to pay their rents on time and fulfill the terms and conditions of their leases. On the other hand, landlords normally fulfill their role by collecting rent, holding tenants accountable, and maintaining their properties accordingly.

However, as American society faces the first true pandemic in a century, tenants and landlords may have to recalibrate their formal contracts with one another for a period, as others in different working roles have already done. For example, medical professionals who would normally require patients to visit their offices have begun conducting remote appointments; retail operations have instituted new rules about store capacity and hours; and companies like Amazon that pride themselves on fast delivery have prioritized the shipping of crucial materials, resulting in delays on other orders. Despite the set of assumptions under which we usually operate in our work, sometimes adjustments are advisable or necessary, given mass events beyond anyone’s control.

In the case of Faneuil Hall, the tenants, most of whom are small business owners, are not currently able to fulfill their leases by paying rent on time, given the downturn in customers. Yet they have not simply defaulted or refused to pay but instead appealed for a reprieve, asking for the real estate company to temporarily adjust expectations for the period of the crisis.

Unfortunately, the real estate company’s representatives have demonstrated that they are not at all thinking differently about their relations with tenants during this time, expecting the literal terms of their agreements to be respected as they would be during “normal” times. The landlord effectively rejected the tenants’ requests. How can the disconnect be bridged?

One way to broaden perspectives is to think not just about what landlords and tenants should expect of one another during normal times to satisfy their respective “ethics of roles” but also to consider what it means to be a “good citizen” of a community and show “neighborly morality” to others (think of the Golden Rule as one example). 

The Good Project’s rings of responsibility are one tool to guide decision-making in tricky situations. As the rings show, wider responsibility means not only prioritizing oneself, a contract (such as a lease agreement), or one’s institution (such as a real estate company), but ultimately entails a responsibility to the communities and societies in which one participates. 

Given the wider lens, my belief is that the real estate company should not just seek to act in the normal role of landlord, given the disruptions that COVID-19 has wrought on the economy. A better way to approach the dispute would be to demonstrate a responsibility to the tenants as mutual members of a business community and as fellow “good citizens” of the city and country.

For example, the real estate company’s representatives could at least come to the table with more information about why a rent extension is impossible (perhaps they are in dire financial straits themselves or would not be able to carry out other responsibilities to other properties without the income). Instead of outright rejecting the tenants’ proposal, the landlord could have also proposed another solution to assist tenants with their leases.

“Good work” can still be carried out in the era of COVID-19 and in other challenging circumstances in the future, but it requires openness, honesty, and a commitment to making choices that take into account long-term social and community benefits, not just short-term gains or consequences. I hope that the landlord will ultimately make decisions that uphold both “good work” and demonstrate a responsibility and understanding of the circumstances of others, which may help ease the return to “normal” and “business as usual” for all of us.

Purpose and “Good Work” in Brazil: An Interview with Ulisses Araujo and Valeria Arantes

University of São Paulo, Brazil

Over the past decade, our colleagues Ulisses Araujo and Valeria Arantes, professors at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, have been researching the meaning of “purpose” in Brazil. This year, Ulisses and Valeria are visiting scholars at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, further exploring how their work intersects with The Good Project’s theories of “good work” and professionalism.

We spoke with Ulisses and Valeria about the latest developments in their research, their forthcoming book on educator practices, and their continued commitment to helping students and educators discover and explore their purpose.

Below, we have released an edited Q&A based on our conversation.

Q: Please take a moment to introduce and provide an overview of your work.

Ulisses: I am a full Professor at the University of São Paulo. I work at the Schools of Education, and of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities. I think of myself as a pedagogue. I am also President of the Association of Problem-Based Learning and Active Learning Methodologies.

Valeria: I am an Associate Professor at the School of Education at the University of São Paulo. I work more with the role of emotion in purpose, and my students and I investigate the way people relate their purpose to their goals, obstacles, and feelings. We are trying to understand reason, but also how people feel about their purpose.

Ulisses: In the past, we have twice worked in residence at the University of Barcelona in Spain. In 2008, we were in residence at Stanford, where we worked with Bill Damon and Anne Colby on the topic of purpose. We began doing some research in Brazil related to purpose, using previously created instruments on purpose but adapting them to the Brazilian social context, and interviewing over 2000 people across 12 years. We found that participants’ ideas of their “purpose” fell into six categories:

• fragile (lack of concrete direction);

• idealized (aspirational but unrealistic, with no path to achievement);

• family-oriented (connecting ambitions to family outcomes, e.g., “I’m going to become a businessperson to earn money to help my family”);

• work-oriented (focused on professional goals);

• desire for economic stability (focused on money/resources); and

• altruist (selfless acts of help for others).

Q: Tell us about the book you have recently written.

Ulisses: Our book Life Project: Psychological Foundations, Ethics, and Educational Implications will be published May 2020. In this book, we talk about the history of purpose, or “life project” as it is translated in Portuguese, in positive psychology. We describe how a “life project” (or purpose) is internalized by the self, psychologically.

Valeria: We worked with other scholars to explore how values, beliefs, and feelings also guide purpose development. The main goal of the book, though, is to provide insight about how to incorporate what we know about purpose formation into teacher professional development and classroom practice.

Q: How does your book and recent work connect to The Good Project?

Ulisses: For a teacher to support their students and the development of purpose, they must be “good teachers.” We believe that for teachers to be good teachers, they must embody the “three Es” outlined by The Good Project: excellence, ethics, and engagement.

There are three dimensions to purpose: personal, social, and professional. We want teachers to help students develop purpose in these areas, but we also believe teachers need to have their own defined sense of purpose. Teachers need to reflect on their “life project” and decide how their own personal purpose as an educator connects with the social world (or, as Bill Damon puts it, the world beyond the self).

Q: How can educators make sure they are helping students develop purpose in their classrooms?

Ulisses: We utilize active learning methods with teachers with whom we work. Active learning methods place the activity of the student at the center of pedagogy, including strategies like project-based learning, design-thinking, and conflict resolution. Because we want students to build their own “life project” or purpose, we try to help students think through realistic situations where they have the possibility to experience different kinds of perspectives.

Valeria: As a concrete example, we have used conflict resolution in the form of ethical conundrums to help students understand that there are many different ways to resolve a dilemma, and not necessarily one right and one wrong way to do things. The ways we might choose to solve a conundrum relate to our sense of purpose and identity. We also use concept maps to help students reflect on what it means to be “good.” We ask questions like, “What makes a good teacher? What is a good life project?”

Q: Why is having a sense of mission/purpose important?

Valeria: When we interviewed students, we find that they talk about happiness, satisfaction, and self-accomplishment. It’s important to integrate these different dimensions, and we find that purpose plays a role here.

Ulisses: We are also trying to understand how values become part of identity from both a pedagogical perspective and a psychological perspective. Our ultimate goal is to help shape “good” people who do good for others. When we ask the question, “What makes a good person, and how can I be good?”, we need to know how people form and integrate their values and beliefs, and in an ethical manner. We want to encourage “goodness” in personal, social, and professional dimensions, and a truly “good” purpose is one that impacts the world beyond the self in positive ways, which is important for a well-functioning and healthy society.

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You can learn more about the work that Ulisses and Valeria are doing related to The Good Project in Brazil at this website: http://www.thegoodprojectbrasil.org/

Teaching about Genocide and Atrocity Prevention: Challenges faced by Educators

By Anne Burt and Lynn Barendsen

With thanks to our funders: The Argosy Foundation, Eiichiro and Yumi Kuwana, and The Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

January 27, 2020, marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, commemorated in the United States and other nations with national media coverage and events in many cities. Yet despite continued awareness of the Holocaust among many older Americans, a 2018 national survey found that two-thirds of American millennials could not identify what Auschwitz is, and 22 percent had not heard of the Holocaust, or were not sure whether they had heard of it. The study defined millennials as adults ages 18-34, and was commissioned by The Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. As reported in The New York Times, the study involved 1,350 American adults interviewed by phone or online, and millennials were 31 percent of the sample.

This important finding places educators who are trying to tackle the already difficult topics of the Holocaust and atrocity prevention in an especially tough position. In terms that we have been using, teachers who are trying to do Good Work (defined as work that is excellent, ethical and engaging) are facing challenges on multiple fronts. Few have the time or the resources for the professional development opportunities currently offered by institutions such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, or by excellent education organizations such as Echoes and Reflections, Facing History and Ourselves, and the USC Shoah Project. In fact, many institutions don’t even have the capacity to bring students to visit local museums, let alone to national museums requiring travel and lodging. Teachers struggle with ethical challenges in the classroom, trying to tackle these topics but fearful of not doing so well. As a result, some avoid teaching these topics altogether. Those teachers who do try to address these subjects on their own report feeling isolated, wishing they had a network of peers and mentors they could turn to for help. Without time and resources for professional development, these teachers’ options are limited, putting them at risk of abandoning the struggle to teach difficult topics altogether.

For the past year, we have been working with The Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide (CPG) at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Our charge: to research how the Museum might help emerging adults make meaningful links among the Holocaust, contemporary atrocities, and their lives today. Additionally, we are trying to understand not only the challenges teachers face in trying to do good work, but also the challenges encountered when they teach about the models of bad work.

CPG leads the Museum’s genocide prevention efforts through conducting research and documentation in countries where people are at high risk for genocide and other atrocities. Staff members work with policy makers, create exhibitions, public programs, and online resources, and, through CPG’s Early Warning Project, help governments and nonprofits take action before violence escalates. Our specific assignment: to conduct research on secondary school educators’ interest in, and barriers to, teaching their students about contemporary instances of genocide and atrocities alongside teaching about the Holocaust. The long term goal is to help CPG develop a generation of teachers and students who are willing and prepared to view atrocity prevention as a priority. Additionally, CPG hopes to empower this generation with knowledge so that they will be in a position to take action.

For the first stage of this research, we developed a broad educator survey, held in-depth educator interviews, and conducted a landscape analysis of existing programs and resources on contemporary instances of genocide and atrocities for secondary school teachers. In this post we highlight notable issues uncovered thus far.

We began our research with an online survey, sent via email to a combination of educators who have experienced the Museum’s current professional development opportunities, educators who have inquired about the Museum’s professional development, and a broad list of US-based secondary school teachers not known to be connected to the Museum. 366 responses to the survey were received.

In brief, analysis of the survey results shows that teachers identified the following needs as most pressing, in order from most frequently mentioned to least frequently mentioned:

1) resources to teach contemporary genocide and atrocity prevention

2) resources that save time

3) resources that are flexible

4) resources that alleviate isolation and financial constraints

5) resources to combat resistance to teaching these topics

Respondents to the survey who indicated that they would be willing to be interviewed to help the Museum delve deeper into survey findings were selected for telephone interviews. Respondents were chosen to represent a range of demographics: geography, race, ethnicity, subject matter taught, length of time teaching, whether or not they were recipients of the Museum’s professional development. The interviews reinforced the survey findings and allowed us to delve more deeply into key themes.

First, we will discuss the issues presented by those who are currently teaching the Holocaust and contemporary genocide; then we will turn to the themes presented by those who are not currently teaching these topics.

Educators currently teaching the Holocaust and contemporary genocide

Themes that emerged from these interviews focused on why teaching these subjects matter to them. We learned that teachers hope to make historical events real for their students and to help students relate to survivors. Many educators’ goals can be framed within the larger category of creating empathy; by doing so, they are able to help their students make connections, both to history and to those who have survived genocide. Even within our small interview sample, however, teachers grappled with both the positive and negative consequences of trying to create empathy.

Pros and Cons of Creating Empathy

Some educators explained that they want students to believe they can do something to stop these events, that they have power, and that they should try to make a difference. Others explained that they hoped their students would become kinder, more empathetic individuals as a result of studying these events. However, one respondent, a social studies teacher from a public school in Tennessee, voiced concern that a focus on emotion and feeling can be overwhelming: “… we’re trying to have students feel too much…empathy. They can come away with the impression that the world is bad, people are terrible”.

By contrast, another educator who teaches world history in a public school in South Carolina, said he hoped to make students uncomfortable by pointing to the complexities involved in studying historical events, that he hoped they would “come away from this with having more questions than answers.”

Numerous teachers mentioned that they want their students to be able to recognize warning signs in order to help prevent future genocide. A global studies public school teacher based outside of Seattle, Washington, hoped to contextualize current events both around the world and in the U.S. for his students:

We should be progressing as a society and in fact it’s just getting worse. Numbers, statistics, surveys – how little people know about the Holocaust. It feels as though the same attitudes are pervasive again. History repeating itself – I worry that it’s a realistic possibility. Modern atrocities happen. Could it happen in a modern country? Things happen in developing nations; I don’t actually know that it’s going to be exclusive to those….

Another educator– an English Language Arts teacher from Washington, D.C. who has taught in both private and public schools — qualified this notion:

We shouldn’t burden our students with this huge responsibility – [it’s] not just on them and that’s not fair. I want my students to feel that they have agency, their voice matters, absolutely, but I tend to do that more at a local level. True change can happen right in front of you.

Yet another example points to the fact that reactions to studying the Holocaust, or to meeting survivors, vary greatly based on the students’ life experiences. This educator works primarily with public high school students in rural Texas who are in the custody of Child Protective Services (provided to children who are at risk of or are experience physical, sexual or emotional abuse). In relating the experience of inviting a Holocaust survivor to talk with his students, he described a particularly poignant connection, and thereby message, his students received:

[The students] had been through some horrific stuff, abuse, mostly from family. I brought a Holocaust survivor in to speak to them…The way he connected with them – I mean, they heard all the horrible stuff, but it was like, to them, nobody understands the horrible stuff I’ve been through and I’m not going to ever be anything. And here’s someone who’s been through horrible stuff who’s done something with his life, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’

Educators not currently teaching the Holocaust and contemporary genocide

Among those educators who do not teach about the Holocaust, contemporary genocide or atrocities with any depth or regularity, a few themes emerged: resistance from students, families, or administrators, or teachers themselves being concerned about “getting it wrong.” Teachers indicated that they feel isolated and without the support they need to manage these difficult subjects, especially because they do not have time or resources for professional development or even to bring their students to a museum.

Resistance

One educator, a social studies teacher from North Carolina, addressed the resistance to these subjects she encountered from her students:

Particularly in our area, people have come to accept hate. That sounds really harsh, but things that they see on TV, they don’t recognize the people who are being shot, or beaten. They don’t see them as people, almost as though they’ve been demonized already. [I can hear evidence of their] Families’ closemindedness, saying the press is fake, facts aren’t facts.

Lack of Time to Create New Units

An English Language Arts teacher from a public high school in Michigan described the barrier she faced due to diminishing support from schools for teacher professional development:

A unit that could take 12 hours to plan ends up taking 50 hours to plan, and when you have 5 classes to plan, that’s not ideal. There are schools that will give teachers PD time, or days, to create new units. But most of the schools around here won’t do that anymore. So there’s no curriculum time. That’s all on your own time. So if you’re creating from a documentary, or whatever, and you have to start from scratch and try to fill all the holes and tie into something else, it doesn’t always work. It’s not as cohesive.

Getting it wrong

Another teacher from a dense urban area of Texas gave voice to many of his colleagues’ fears of teaching difficult subjects:

As a US History teacher, I’m African American, and we talk about the last section of US history that we cover (Civil War, Reconstruction) there are SO many who don’t cover slavery, reconstruction, civil war with fidelity because “it makes me feel uncomfortable”. I can see this happening as well with the Holocaust…It doesn’t mean that you have all the answers, but you can’t gloss over the hard stuff.

* * *

In our Good Project research, conducted two decades ago, educators were among the “Caring” Professions we investigated. These were individuals who worked directly on behalf of others, including, for example, those involved in the medical professions. We learned that educators were especially vulnerable in terms of burnout. To summarize, without the support of peers or institutions, they often found it difficult to stay engaged. Although many found meaning in their work with students, maintaining their commitment to that work over time became increasingly difficult without a shared mission or sense of purpose.

Using this frame to understand our research involving contemporary educators, we can confirm that many of them feel vulnerable. Of all the survey respondents, 53 percent answered “yes” when asked if their students raise questions about recent or current instances of genocide or atrocities in the classroom. Overall findings from the survey and interviews showed that teachers want to be able to address these questions but either lack resources, awareness of resources, or resources they can realistically integrate into their classrooms based on constraints such as time and requirements.

As much as educators expressed a need for resources, they also expressed real fears about their own lack of knowledge. Many don’t feel ready to search for curricula or for extensive professional development: first, they’re seeking straightforward resources from a trusted source, even before beginning to tackle the creation of lesson plans. Teachers are looking for help with their own basic understanding because they are being asked tough questions by their students about the world today, whether educators teach instances of genocide or not.

While we didn’t survey students directly, we did survey educators about the kinds of student questions they found most challenging. Perhaps not surprisingly, educators reported that they found students’ existential questions about humanity’s capacity for genocide and atrocities difficult to answer. However, we were equally struck by the many teachers who reported that it was difficult for them to answer when students asked questions such as: “What is genocide?” or “Did the Holocaust really happen?” or “Why should I care?”

With the general population’s awareness of the Holocaust lower among millennials than older generations, we cannot simply assume that new teachers, most of whom are themselves millennials, will come to classroom teaching with knowledge of the Holocaust. Without access to broad, basic, introductory opportunities to make these connections themselves they cannot be expected to teach their students how to make meaningful connections to contemporary atrocities. It is our hope that this research will provide a useful foundation for the Center for the Prevention of Genocide to help both teachers and students turn the alienating question of “Why should I care?” into the shared mission of “I want – and need – to know more.”

Anne Burt is a consultant specializing in projects at the intersection of public engagement, communications, education, and the arts & humanities. From 2012-2018, she was Chief Communications Officer, then Chief Creative Officer, for the nonprofit organization Facing History and Ourselves. She teaches graduate courses in communications and marketing for Columbia University’s Nonprofit Management Program.

Lynn Barendsen is a Project Director at Project Zero, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Since 1996, she has been part of the Good Project, an effort to identify individuals and institutions that exemplify good work – work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible, and meaningful to its practitioners – and to determine how best to increase the incidence of good work in our society.

Intertwining "Multiple Intelligences" and "Good Work"

By Howard Gardner

Close to forty years after I first began to write about the concept “Multiple Intelligences,” the topic still dominates my mailbox, with questions arising each day, often from scholars, researchers, or educators in remote corners of the world. And while nearly every question has been posed before, I try when possible to provide a succinct and useful response.

But I am also frustrated. Rarely if ever does a questioner talk about the uses to which the several intelligences are to be put. The assumption: It’s desirable in and of itself to discover what intelligences a person has and/or what intelligences can be cultivated; and that their uses (presumably benign) will take care of themselves.

Alas, that’s not the case. For decades, I have sought to make the point that intelligences are morally and ethically neutral. One can use the same intelligence for benign or malignant ends. The examples are familiar. Both Nelson Mandela and Slobodan Milosevic had plenty of interpersonal intelligence. Mandela used his interpersonal intelligence to inspire his fellow citizens as well as human beings around the world; Milosevic used his interpersonal intelligence to foster ethnic hatred and ultimately genocidal endeavors. 

By the same token, both Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Joseph Goebbels had considerable linguistic intelligence (in German). Goethe used this talent to write great prose and poetry; Goebbels used his linguistic intelligence to create the vilest forms of propaganda. And one could make the same point about each of the remaining intelligences—musical, spatial, bodily, naturalist, logical—though it’s quite difficult to delineate a malignant use of intrapersonal intelligence—perhaps masochism.

I propose a new set of “rules of the road.” From now on, when I am asked about “MI,” I will respond, “To what uses do you propose to put the intelligence or intelligences in which you are interested?” By this “move,” I hope to nudge people towards considering the values that they are seeking to promote (and, at least by implication, those values that they would spurn or work hard to abolish). And perhaps, once they reveal what they would like to achieve with a battery of intelligences—or, for that matter, through activation of a specific intelligence—then we can consider how best to achieve that goal. Or, if the goal seems pointless or destructive, we should engage the correspondent in a discussion of ends and means.

Of course, once one begins to discuss what is good, and what is not, we enter the domains of values—an area which scientists (as well as many non-scientists) are wary of. It’s okay to minimize the issue of values when one is discussing atoms or genes—but that neutrality can be pushed too far. After all, atoms can be split to produce energy—and that energy can be used for benign or malignant purposes. So too, we can now create and manipulate genes—again, for positive or questionable purposes.

And so, as we touch upon these issues, we enter a domain that my colleagues and I have been working on almost as long as the study of intelligences: what it means to be good, and what it means to do good. This is the province of what we now call The Good Project. We have sought to identify the three components (the three Es, represented as a “triple helix”) of good work: good work is technically Excellent; it is personally Engaging; and it is carried out in an Ethical manner.

By the same token, we have identified the three components of good citizenship.  Once again, the good citizen is excellent—he or she knows the laws; is engaged—cares about what happens in the society; and, again tries to carry out duties in an ethical way.

What of the spheres in which “goodness” is manifest? For thousands of  years,. individuals have pondered how to deal with others in their immediate circle—what we have termed “neighborly morality.” The key tenets of neighborly morality are captured in the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and other fundamental sayings, proverbs, tales and, in recent millennia, texts that arise and circulate within an identified community.

But over this period, societies have become more complex, Human relations have become increasingly transactional and are carried out over long distances. In this changed and increasingly global environment, it’s important to delineate a new set of roles—which we call the role of worker/professional and the role of citizen. It becomes important to define the rights, but also the obligations, of those who spend a fair amount of their lives in a community of workers or a community of citizens. To encompass this terrain, and to complement neighborly morality, we have coined the phrase “the ethics of roles.”

Even carrying out neighborly morality can be difficult. And once one contemplates the newer roles of worker and citizen, a determination of what is ethical, and what is not, constitutes a considerable challenge. There is no formula for ascertaining the ethical—in fact, an issue becomes an ethical one precisely because it does not permit of an easy, formulaic solution.  

To make progress on tackling this terrain, on tackling specific ethical issues, we find it useful to delineate—in rough order of activation and application—several Ds:

• Dilemma (recognized as such initially or pointed out by a knowledgeable individual)

• Discussion or debate about the dilemma, how best to articulate and approach is resolution

• Decision (and resulting action or inaction)

• Debriefing, about what happened, and whether the dilemma could have been handled more effectively, and how to handle a similar one when it arises in the future.

It is easiest to think of the deliberative process as involving language. But one can also contemplate ethical dilemmas as they are portrayed in works of art—for example, dramas or documentaries or even scrolls or paintings. And of course, these are matters of the heart, as well as of the head.

Deciding what is good, and then pursuing the good, have never been easy. And in the time of the Internet, digital media, social networks, artificial intelligence, deep learning, and the like, it is harder than ever. Misinformation is more rampant  than ever before, and it is often more widely circulated and more easily accepted than is well-researched, reliable information.

But unless we want to toss a coin, or disregard “the good” altogether, we have no choice but to marshal our strongest resources, seek to delineate and defend what we believe to be good, and then achieve it.

And perhaps—and this is my fondest hope—we can mobilize our several intelligences to determine both what is good and how best to realize it.

© 2020 Howard Gardner

Why I Changed My Mind About Anonymous Donations

By Howard Gardner

In 1990, in Boston, I attended a conference on school reform. At the end of the last session, a courteous gentleman, clearly from out of town, asked in a tentative manner if I could give him a lift to his hotel. As it was convenient, I readily agreed. At the conclusion of the ride, the man said that he represented a foundation that might want to support some of our research on what makes for effective K-12 education.

Needless to say, I was delighted—except for one thing. The gentleman—whose name was Ray Handlan—indicated that the philanthropy was anonymous; and, as a condition of funding, my colleagues and I would have to agree to keep the source of support secret.

At the time, as a fairly inexperienced researcher, I did not know how to react. So I checked with my Dean, who ultimately checked with the University president, and we were told that it was OK to accept the funds, which we happily did—launching a relationship that lasted for over 15 years.

We got a bit of a kick out of this arrangement. We nicknamed the funder “AF”—for “Anonymous Funder.” We christened Ray Handlan as “Rex Harrison” and his helpful colleague Angela Covert (itself a coincidentally apt last name) as “Agatha Christie.” And so things went smoothly for a while.

Then, one day, everything changed. In January 1997, on the front page of The New York Times, we learned the name of both the foundation—the Atlantic Philanthropic Services—and the funder—Charles (Chuck) Feeney, a very wealthy man who, shortly after WWII, had opened the first duty free shops in airports. Feeney had already given away over half a billion dollars and now, over twenty years later, he has given away almost his entire fortune of several billion dollars—and APS is about to sunset.

Once APS and Chuck Feeney had been unmasked, and no scandal ensued, I felt content with my earlier decision to accept anonymous funding.

Anonymous gifts have a charmed history. The great Jewish sage of the 12th century, Moses Maimonides, declared that anonymous charity was the highest form of philanthropy—especially when donor and recipient were not personally known to one another. The anonymous person would receive no kudos, and the recipient would not feel any obligation to the donor. This characterization seemed valid, even praiseworthy. And so, in the ensuing years, when individuals or philanthropies have requested anonymity, as they occasionally do, I have readily granted it.

But recently I have changed my mind—and here is why I will no longer accept anonymous gifts.

I begin with the practical. Until the rise of the free press, and, more recently, the advent of social media, it might have been possible to request and maintain anonymity indefinitely. But now, when everyone with a keyboard or a cell phone in effect has a megaphone, it’s virtually impossible to retain anonymity. (As was learned in the case of Jeffrey Epstein’s gifts to the MIT Media Lab, a lot of people who were knowledgeable about the arrangement had in effect to take an oath of silence.) Even worse, should an anonymous funder be erroneously unmasked (for example, Funder A is wrongly identified as Person B, then Person B has been inappropriately praised or vilified, and the actual donor—Person A—has the unpalatable option of in effect permitting a false story to circulate unchallenged or losing his/her anonymity.)

But over and above this practical consideration, I contend that there are principled reasons for abandoning anonymity. In this era, thousands of organizations—tiny and gigantic—are attempting to survive by raising funds, and many individuals of wealth have motives for supporting such organizations. Sometimes those motives are idealistic (I believe in a free college education, and I want to support deserving youth who can’t afford tuition); sometimes those motives are dubious (I am involved with fossil fuels, and I want to support individuals who cast doubt on the consensus around climate change for personal benefit); but almost always, courtesy of “the human condition,” motives are mixed—as, indeed, are the motives for anonymity.

The same analysis should be applied to the recipient of funds. Nearly all of us engaged in fundraising for putatively worthwhile causes think of ourselves as praiseworthy. But examined more closely, fundraisers, including myself, have a mixture of motives, some more praiseworthy than others. (As an example, should I receive a sizable grant, I get appreciation from many quarters and, perhaps as well, favorable publicity for our work.) Moreover, nearly everyone involved in fundraising feels pressured to achieve the explicit or implicit goals of the donor. Accordingly, the recipient is confronted with a moral dilemma when, for whatever reason, the program or project has not sufficiently fulfilled the funders’ goals.

I think that this calculus should apply not only to individual donors but also to foundations. Foundations typically describe themselves in praiseworthy terms, and sometimes that praise is well merited. (I have been dependent on, and grateful for, the generosity of foundations for decades.) But when one takes a closer look at foundations—for example, the sources of funds (“Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime” -Balzac), the ways in which they are invested, the salaries of top executives, and the composition and mode of operation of the board—a more complex picture typically emerges.

I am not so naïve as to think that any of us—employee, fundraiser, researcher, NGO executive board member, philanthropoid (the allocator of gifts), or philanthropist (the source of gifts)—is beyond sin. Indeed, if we all had to pass a screening—and who would do the screening?—the entire philanthropic sector would likely cease to function altogether.

And so I recommend a different tack: instead of unachievable and often problematic anonymity, complete transparency. Those of us who work in mission-driven organizations—whether scientific, educational, or charitable—should make public all of our funders. And by the same token, those who work in philanthropic organizations should make public the source of our funds, how they are invested, and how they are distributed. In this way, interested parties can render a holistic judgment about the merits, or lack of merits, of the funding arrangements—just as we routinely make holistic judgments about the institutions concerning which we have some knowledge.

You may wonder, “Well, isn’t this already done?” It’s true that the largest foundations in the United States are obliged to fill Form 990, which reveals some of this information. But the vast majority of funders—whether organizations or individuals—operate below the radar screen. I can tell you from personal experience that it is virtually impossible to find out the information that I have just itemized.

To sum up: Since we live in a time when efforts at secrecy almost invariably fail, it’s better to be “up front” about one’s goals and one’s finances, and let the philanthropic chips fall where they may.

So what should I do, in the future, if asked by a potential philanthropist to provide anonymity? I would listen carefully and sympathetically to their rationale. But then I would respond in the following manner: “I have no intention of broadcasting your generosity if you would prefer that I don’t. But on my website, I do list all of those who generously support my work. I hope that you will understand and accept these conditions—and if you do not accept, I respect and will not challenge your decision.”

Note: I thank Lynn Barendsen, Sissela Bok, Wendy Fischman, Kirsten McHugh, Danny Mucinskas, Mal Salter, Dennis Thompson, and Ellen Winner for comments on an earlier draft.

© 2019 Howard Gardner