Born OTD in 1922, legendary American writer Kurt Vonnegut.

His scathingly satirical 1965 novel "God Bless You Mr Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine" centres on the battle for control of the Rosewater foundation.

Safe to say it doesn't paint elite philanthropy in a great light... In the novel, Eliot Rosewater inherits a fortune and develops a social conscience, so establishes the Rosewater Foundation.

A member of a competing branch of the family, with help from a lawyer, then tries to get him certified as insane so he can claim the money instead.

Today is #WorldPhilosophyDay!

And to celebrate, I thought I’d make a BIG THREAD taking a little look at what philosophers have seen as the big questions relevant to philanthropy and what they have had to say about them…. Qn 1: Is egoism (i.e. self-interest) or altruism (i.e. concern for others) fundamental to human nature?

In the red corner here we have Thomas Hobbes, arguing that we are all basically bastards. (I’m paraphrasing here, but it’s close enough):

Have you ever wondered where the structures we use in civil society come from?

What is their history? And what might this tell us about their strengths and limitations?

No?

Never mind- since it’s one of my favourite topics, it’s still time for a VERY!
BIG!
THREAD! So strap in for a 2000-year long tale of:

Power!
Greed!
Lust!*
and Public Benefit Legal Forms!

(*I may be over-selling the amount of lust tbh)

Ever wanted a brief (or maybe surprisingly long) history of social investment & the idea of combining doing good with getting a financial return?

Well, aren't you in luck then, because I declare ... A THREAD.

WHO'S WITH ME?! In my head, the narrative always goes a bit like this:

OVERLY-CONFIDENT MODERN COMMENTATOR: "A desire to combine social & financial return is a unique feature of a new, modern approach to philanthropy.”

<RECORD NEEDLE SCRATCH>

ACTUAL HISTORY: Uh, hi babe. Can we talk... ?

Here we go with Part 2 of our thread on the history of disaster relief funds.

This time looking at some of the key themes highlighted by the way funds were distributed. The first common theme is complaints about the pace of distribution being too slow in relation to the pace of collecting money in the first place & in relation to immediate need.

E.g. After the Great Fire of London, 1666:

I’ve been reading a bunch of absolutely fascinating stuff about the history of disaster relief funds lately, so I thought I’d share some of what I have learned, in a THREAD.

Or, in fact, two THREADS.

As I think even by my standards this would be overly long to do in one.... If you like tales of
DONOR MOTIVATIONS!
POWER DYNAMICS!
MODERN RELEVANCE!
CHARITY HISTORY!

Then strap in…

(And if you don’t, TBH you should consider unfollowing me).

If you're anything like me, this detail on the breakdown of the "admin costs" of delivering the disaster relief fund for victims of the 1666 Great Fire of London will be like absolute catnip. These admin costs don't appear to have been very high as percentage of the overall expenditure, but I do particularly love the fact that £114.76 was spent on lobbying.

So, last night I finished the book that I have been clogging up all your twitter feeds with snippets from👇

I'll offer some more thoughts on the book as a whole in due course (spoiler alert: I frickin' loved it), but here's one last thread of great material in the meantime. 1/ Firstly, this absolutely killer skewering of 'philanthro-jargon', which resonates just as much in 2020 as in 1974 IMHO.

"In our world, you have to leverage even to get out of bed in the morning".

Bloody genius. 2/