A. Chuck wrote:
I see our main agenda as discussion of two topics.
B. Bob writes:
I agree that some Trustees think that we should be more intentional in our choices of causes to support. I don’t know what is meant by a consensus in this context. I am not persuaded that we need to be more intentional in our choices of causes to support or in setting priorities. I have no objection to discussing “good purposes”. However, at this time, I don’t like the idea of having selected purposes restrict us from contributing to good causes that may not be consistent with the good purposes.
At present, the Bylaws require that a particular “good cause” have been evaluated and found eligible at a previous meeting before we authorize a contribution. If we precede the selection of good causes with a selection of good purposes, the selection of good purposes can either be non-constraining or constraining. Non-constraining selection would not preclude contributions to other good causes. Constraining selection would limit contributions to good causes that fell within selected good purposes.
I don’t have any objection to non-constraining selection of purposes. A non-constraining selection of purposes would ask Trustees to identify and evaluate specific good causes satisfying the purpose; but we could choose to contribute to out-of-purpose causes, especially if we didn’t have any qualifying in-purpose causes.
I would be very concerned about constraining selection of purposes. In the years since I stopped the practice of handing out envelopes to request evaluation of organizations (causes), I have had difficulty in getting Trustees either to re-evaluate existing organizations (whose eligibility had expired) or in identifying and evaluating new organizations. If we decide to identify purposes in advance, and to limit causes to which we contribute to those that we have already identified as in-purpose, we have fewer organizations to choose from.
An alternative might be proposed as a major revision of the Bylaws, to eliminate constraining evaluation of causes or organizations, and instead first identify and constrain purposes, and then contribute to causes or organizations that appear to satisfy the purposes. Such a change would deeply concern me, because I have sometimes recently, in re-evaluating previously approved organizations, had concerns about whether the organization was still an effective recipient of our money for a purpose. That is, I don’t think it is enough just to choose purposes; we also have to evaluate organizations or causes. However, I don’t think that a decision to support a purpose, or class of organizations, guarantees that we will have suitable recipients.
As a result, I see four possible options with regard to choosing “good purposes” before or instead of choosing “good causes”:
1. The present system. Evaluate organizations, without selecting purposes or classes of organizations. Contribute to eligible organizations.
2. Choose purposes or classes of organizations, but without constraining contributions. Evaluate organizations. Contribute to eligible organizations, preferring those within classes, but without restriction.
3. Choose purposes or classes of organizations, as a binding or constraining choice. Evaluate organizations. Contribute only to eligible organizations within selected classes.
4. Choose purposes or classes of organizations. Eliminate the evaluation of organizations, or make it optional. Contribute only to organizations, not necessarily evaluated, within the selected classes.
I find options 3 and 4 both troublesome. Option 3 is troublesome because it might leave us with few or no recipients. Option 4 is troublesome because it would be likely to result in our contributing money to ineffective organizations (but we wouldn’t know that they were ineffective if we didn’t evaluate them). If we want to be “more intentional” in our choice of purposes, are we talking about option 2, which is workable, or options 3 or 4, which are problematic?
Robert McClenon
4 June 2015
C. Carol wrote:
Option 2 is the one I think we have been moving
towards. It would tend to make the contribution selection process a
little less arbitrary without any downside that I can think of.
D. Chuck wrote:
Right. I think we’ve mostly
been tending toward #2, at least as a starting point. At one point
several years ago, I had sketched out a proposal more toward #3, with some
intent to be constraining.
If I
were to restate it today (I’m not necessarily arguing
for this), it could work something like this: board selects a couple of
purposes, let’s say for example, (1) rehabilitation of ex-convicts, and (2)
promotion of community-based mediation services. Board agrees that we
should give $2500 to each of these purposes. Over the next year, board
members are obligated to identify suitable recipient organizations. No
grants may be made to organizations which do not serve these purposes until the
allocated dollars have been given to the selected purposes. Or else, six
months or nine months out, when we haven’t found any organizations we like,
board repeals its intent to give to that purpose, and names other purposes. The
process for naming purposes and enqueuing them could be set formally in Bylaws, or it could be just an
honor system among trustees.
But
at this point I’m less concerned with the mechanism for grants than with the
dynamic for agreeing on causes.
E. David wrote:
My
input which has been previously voiced, is that
a) the fund needs an objective. Bob I am sure disagrees,
but there are hundreds, maybe thousands of organizations that meet the basic
requirements set forth by Walter. By requiring an individual analysis, we
tend to give money based on the interest of individual members.
b)
Relative to effective giving. To what degree does an organization that we
may donate to achieve their stated objective. This is more complex that
just noting how much is spent to raise funds. But if 98% is put to use and
after five years nothing has changed, what is the point?
c)
To what degree does the McClenon Fund make an impact.
Possibly we do not care if the organization is "doing that which we
support", but Walter seemed to want to make an impact on society.
F. Kathy wrote:
I
would agree that option 2 is the right direction to head, at least for now.
Here are a few of my personal thoughts about the Fund:
I
think that however Clara decides we should continue this discussion online is
great and we should perhaps set a goal to have an agreement on some of the
basics by the next quarterly meeting.
As
for tomorrow’s meeting, I will try to participate. We are now at the northwest
corner of the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas and
may be underway tomorrow for the Exuma Islands with
only satellite phone for communication. While it generally works for phone
calls, I have had problems getting into conference calls. So I apologize in
advance if I am not on the call tomorrow!
BTW,
I am sending this from my Primary email address which is the best one to use –
some previous emails were sent to an alternate address which I check less
frequently when we are out here!
G. David wrote:
I
concur with Kathy's comments.
H. Bob writes:
On
the one hand, I prefer the current system where individual organizations are
evaluated, and where there is no overall plan as to how to give away the
income. I think that it has a “quirky
charm”, allowing individual Trustees to be eccentric. I know that some Trustees disagree with me.
On
the other hand, although I am essentially neutral to Option 2 and opposed to
Option 3, it occurs to me that the disadvantages of Option 3 can be avoided by
a simple rule. That is that no purpose
or class of organization may be proposed as an objective unless at least one
organization is already considered eligible.
This will mean that Trustees who have a particular purpose in mind
should find an organization that advances it when they advocate to plan for that purpose.
Alternatively, if they have an organization in mind, they can advocate
for its purpose, knowing that it is available.
David
says that there may be hundreds or thousands of organizations that satisfy the
original requirements of the Fund imposed by Walter McClenon. I agree, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t require us to look at hundreds or
thousands of organizations. There are 26
organizations that are currently approved for contributions from the Fund. Maybe a different report listing those 26
organizations and nothing else would be useful. Comments? However, I don’t think that the existence of
hundreds or thousands of organizations in the world that qualify according to
Article Three is a problem. We have a
qualification procedure, and there are 26 organizations that qualify. I don’t think that means that we need to
change our rules, but rather that our rules work. However, I will listen to alternate
arguments.
I
think that a rule requiring that any particular “cause” have a particular “organization”
will help, and will also tell the Trustee who has a cause to go and find an
organization. I have had an
extraordinary amount of difficulty in getting Trustees to report on
organizations with which they were not personally involved. Maybe I was too optimistic in expecting that
Trustees would research organizations with which they were not personally
involved.
In
conclusion, I won’t personally agree with any system to establish special
purposes for contributions, because I like the quirky charm of the current
system. However, I am willing to hear
arguments for establishing purposes, and then giving from those purposes, or
preferring to give within those purposes.
If the majority of Trustees think that we should establish purposes and
then give toward those purposes, that is fine. Maybe identifying organizations and selecting
their purposes will help.
I am
puzzled by Kathy’s comments 2 and 3. I
don’t understand about keeping the Fund relevant for the younger
generations. The detailed rules in
Article Six worked for three generations (including one to which Kathy also
belongs); I am not sure what her concern is.
I think that Article Three, as detailed in Article Six, is the
purpose. I am willing to discuss other
language in the direction of Kathy’s comments 2 and 3.
I. Kathy writes:
Thanks
for your excellent points. I do agree with your point about the “quirky charm”
of the current system; however, I wonder if that provides enough of an
incentive to keep the fund growing and to attract new leadership over the next
100 years.
The
question that is not answered by the By-Laws or Articles of Incorporation is
this: Why should we bother to keep this Fund alive? Why not just give away all
the money we have and shut it down? That’s what I am trying to get at – a
consensus as to why WE, the trustees, think it is worth continuing the Fund.
It’s more of a Vision statement than the details of what kind of organizations
we should support and I think it’s important that we get some agreement. That
allows us to move forward with developing strategies not only for what causes
we want to support but also for deciding if we should at some point try to
attract more funds for the endowment, through contributions, bequests in wills,
etc.
Honestly
Bob, I think the Fund ONLY exists today because of you. Were
it not for your leadership and perseverance over the past – 30? Years – the
Fund would have died a long time ago. I believe we need to make it attractive
to future generations – they must see some benefit to participating as leaders
and financial contributors because I doubt any of them will do if for very long
out of a sense of duty.
I do
believe we can find some balance between having a well-articulated strategic
vision, and still allowing for a little eccentricity.
J. Bob writes:
Thank
you for the comment, Kathy.
I
will add that the Special Endowment exists because of Kathy, who wanted to make
a large tax-deductible contribution to the Fund. In order for her contributions to be
tax-deductible, it was necessary to create a 501(c)(3)
organization. Kathy and Paul were major
contributors to the Special Endowment.
Thank you, Kathy.
Kathy
refers to “the past – 30 years”. It is
either 39 years or 44 years, depending on what event you count from. In 1971, Paul turned the Fund over to me,
citing the age-50 rule that Walter H. McClenon had originally provided. (A discussion of why he established that rule
and why it wasn’t applicable to him anyway involves details of Strauss-Howe
generation theory and will not be explored in more depth.) Then I took the initiative to incorporate it
in 1976, and the rest is history.
In
assigning credit for the history of the Fund, we must also remember those who
are no longer in this world and so cannot assert credit for what they did. Article 4B states that the
Fund is a memorial to Walter H. McClenon, and Article 4A gives credit to Walter
and Paul. We must also not forget
Ruth K. McClenon and Katherine B. McClenon.
Kathy
says that without my leadership and perseverance, the Fund would have died a
long time ago. I partly disagree. From my standpoint, there was never any choice
but to keep it going. I had given my
word to my grandfather and my father that I would keep it going. What choice did I have? I still don’t see a choice in whether it
should be continued. Maybe other
Trustees think that I did have a choice.
I don’t think so. Maybe that is
what Kathy means by saying that we need to provide an incentive to leaders and
contributors beyond a sense of duty. If
Kathy is saying that I did what I did out of a sense of duty, that is correct. Because we don’t (in my view) have a choice,
I agree with Kathy we should be ready to adopt strategies that will ensure that
it keeps going. I don’t see why we need
to make any major changes to keep it going, but am willing to listen.
-
- Robert McClenon