The Immorality of Giving.

Giving is a potentially immoral act. Its danger lies in the assumption of virtue by the agent, of the virtue of agentry, with an accompanying train of other unvirtuous assumptions. The relatively innocent desire to help is so thinly distinguished from wanting to be the helper. But the latter is capable of all sorts of distortions; wanting to be widely known as the helper, wanting to make some decisions for the helpee, wanting to dictate, to paternalize, to manipulate. It is not likely that a foundation, any more than a person, will escape these faults by thoughtlessness or accident. Only by being conscious of the danger is there a chance to escape. In other words, a foundation must believe in the potential immorality of giving.

Merrimon Cuninggim while President of the Danforth Foundation. Quotation is from Robert Greenleaf’s parable “Teacher As Servant” from the book THE SERVANT-LEADER WITHIN.

Robert Greenleaf wrote the parable “Teacher as Servant” based on his observations from an actual university dormitory that was designed to bring out the natural servant leadership tendencies of the students who lived there. The quote above comes from the retelling of the character Melissa’s experiences while on a summer internship to Africa. Melissa spent two months working with a foundation that conducted aid projects in developing countries. The projects included: agriculture, family planning, education, national planning, and health service.

After her return from Africa, she comes across Merrimon Cunninggim’s warning above on the office wall of the foundation’s president. The president had placed the quote on his wall as a reminder of the challenge he faced in his role as president of the foundation in managing the moral dilemma of basically giving away money. She went on to describe the problems she had observed with the foundations work. One problem she noted was related to the aid that was being provided by nations and foundations “as a lever to build influence for the aid giver” and not because of an interest in really helping the people of the country. Other problems included the lack of skills in the people that came over to do the work, and importing “solutions” that worked in America, but failed in Africa.

As I noted in my recent posts, I spent about three weeks in Africa this past May, working with some university students from a non-profit group that was involved with aid related projects similar to those described in the parable. I had started reading THE SERVANT-LEADER WITHIN while I was on the trip, but did not come across the parable’s discussion of Africa until I returned from the trip. Based on my own experiences, it was evident to me that many of the same fictional problems are still occurring with the real aid process. It is too bad that Merrimon Cuninggim’s advice that “a foundation must believe in the potential immorality of giving”, is not being heeded.

This section of the parable closed with the president lamenting the challenge he faced to Melissa, “The choice I face in this job every day, and it is a painful one, is: shall I stay here and do the best I can with these trustees and this staff, and maybe make a little progress, but not nearly enough? Or shall I quit this post and join those on the outside who denounce the institution in the hope that someone else will emerge inside who will do better than I do?”

Mellisa hoped he would stay where he was and keep trying.