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5 Hours at 1600
Written 12/23/99
This is a belated, and fairly impressionistic
report to Possibly Interested Persons on my excursion to the
first-ever White House conference on philanthropy. If you’ve
had serious time in that building, this will be ho-hum. But
if, like me, you can count your time there in minutes, this
may be something to read.
The President and Mrs.
Clinton request the pleasure…
The invite came first by phone, someone who sounded about
19 saying that the President and Mrs. Clinton would appreciate
my attendance at a White House conference the following week.
Resisting the temptation to say, “Yeah, right. Who is
this?” I asked if it would be in the Executive Office
Building. “No, ma’am. You will be meeting in the
East Room.”
That is not a big room and it’s definitely
inside the White House, not in the Executive Office Building,
where we’ve gone to so-called White House meetings.
When he said the First Lady and the President would personally
preside over the discussion, he definitely had my attention.
I said I’d look into booking a ticket. (If Oprah calls,
the plane ticket to Chicago and the hotel are part of the
invitation; when the White House calls, you’re on your
own.)
The next day the hand addressed, engraved
invitation arrives, presidential seal and all. I try to book
a last-minute seat to DC from Charlotte, where I’m already
scheduled into the national Character Education Partnership
conference and giving a speech the day after the White House
meeting.
Bummer. It’s normally a cheap flight—48
minutes’ air-time—but at this late date, the price
is almost seven hundred bucks. I realize I’m not going.
But we’ve been asked to the table. I should go. I put
out an email to a couple of our online fund-raising companies
asking for help; one replies that they’re working on
it, and I give a tentative Yes to the White House.
Making some research calls, I find out
that only 150 people are invited, that there are ancillary
conferences all over DC (invitations come in for one on E-philanthropy
and another about kids and giving, at the Corporation for
National Service) and there are satellite downloads from the
White House to locations across the country. It’s looking
more and more important to be in the room; I book the hideously
expensive flight, betting we’ll be able to pay for it,
muttering about airline de-regulation.
Getting there
My wake-up call in Charlotte is for five AM. I put on the
power suit, load my one pair of high heels and a lot of business
cards into my shoulder bag and set out for the airport in
the dark. At National Airport, I head for the Metro station.
A Metro guide sees me studying the system map and says, “Where
you going, the White House?” Like a lot of people go
there by subway? He shows me the route and I do this leg of
the journey underground.
I’m at the E-philanthropy meeting
across the street from the White House just long enough to
hear the head of charitableway.com, one of our online partners,
speak, and to talk with the head of guidestar.com, the site
where our financial statements are available to searchers.
Then I head across the park to 1600.
At the White House
Finding the right gate and doing the security check-in, I
link up with a fund raiser from L.A. and a philanthropist
from Mississippi. None of us is quite sure why we’re
here. After my bag goes through the x-ray machine, I put on
the high heels and the three of us head up the broad stairs
into a swell of live music. As we turn at the top of the stairs,
we see a red-coated Marine Band playing in the Entrance Hall.
This is a very big deal.
Nonmusical Marines, many of them women,
shepherd arriving conferees into the State Dining Room, where
a buffet breakfast is laid out down the center of the room,
complete with the ormolu centerpieces that go back to Jefferson’s
love of French imports. I’m not hungry, but know my
brain will work better if I ingest some protein, so I go for
the roulade and the salmon. I can report that the First Cook
is quite good.
This room and the adjoining ones are full
of both familiar faces and unknown ones and everyone is, I
suspect, wondering who they should talk to. Nametags would
be undignified, so there’s much introducing and explaining
going on. I’m working my way along when I suddenly get
hugged—by Giraffe Board member and ace fund raiser Holly
Redell. Our mothers are, we agree, thrilled that we are here.
So are we.
The State Dining Room, the Red, the Blue
and the Green rooms are all open and usable--no silk ropes
keeping the tourists off the furniture. I’m tempted
to sit--high heels are the pits--but I keep moving and meeting,
doing my job, a bright red giraffe folder sticking conspicuously
out of my shoulder bag. The rooms are buzzing quite literally;
people are keyed up—no matter how sophisticated they
are, they’re walking around in our national history
and they know it.
My favorite spot, where Jefferson’s
portrait hangs next to a window that frames a view of his
monument, doesn’t work today; the vista is obscured
by a big white tent that’s been set up for a concert
on the lawn. It’s hard not to smile, moving about under
the gazes of all those faces from our history books. And to
wonder what it would have been like to work in this place--I
had a job offer here in ‘64 that didn’t come to
pass. Ah, the-path-not-taken.
A reporter from a business magazine scribbles
notes when I tell him about an all-women investment company
in Seattle that’s doing great work. An advocate for
the Pine Ridge reservation gives me a folder on their situation.
Our first fund-raising consultant from our New York days re-introduces
himself. A favorite foundation executive promises to stop
by the Giraffe office.
Marines are circulating and asking--with
no possibility of a negative response--“Would you step
this way please?” People move back out into the broad
Cross Hall, where the band is playing show tunes. The entire
noisy assemblage is moved slowly to the East Room and directed
into little gold chairs set in arcs facing a dais. When the
musical chairs game stops, I’m in a back row, with other
attendees possibly feeling as much of an “Oh damn”
as I am. It’s going to be hard to see what’s going
on, even though the room isn’t large. Hmm, can I get
up and move somewhere else? Nope. Every chair is filled. Luck
of the draw. At least the guy in front of me isn’t very
tall, and Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington are in our
corner--not bad company.
Hail to the chief
The decibel level is high as seatmates get acquainted all
over the room; I’m between two heavy-duty foundation
execs and we all make small talk and look through the White
House folders on our chairs. Ah good. There’s a note
pad with “The White House” at the top of every
page—I’ll have fun with that back at the office.
A far-too-show-bizzy voice on the sound system (like one of
those guys at Disneyland) says, “Ladies and gentlemen,
the President of the United States and the First Lady.”
Out in the hall the band strikes up Hail to the Chief. No
matter how many times you’ve heard it played or even
what you think of the incumbent, those notes, in that place,
will get to you. Since everyone’s standing, I can’t
see much, but the sound is great. When everyone clatters and
rumbles back into the chairs as the First Couple joins the
panel on the dais, I realize that Clinton is, unbelievably,
wearing a yellow print tie. (Maybe it wasn’t The yellow
tie, but wouldn’t you think he’d have shredded
any and all yellow ties in his closet?)
This sets off a wonderment that anyone
can deal with a room so filled with thinking heads, each racing
along processing all that they know or think they know about
you. A decade’s worth of endless, inescapable images
and words by and about these two people must be racing through
all these minds, creating enormous background static, whether
or not it surfaces. Which it probably won’t--we are,
after all, guests.
Hillary opens the proceedings
Rodham-Clinton apologizes to all those who did not get invitations.
This, she tells us, is the most sought-after invitation she
can remember at the White House. ”Everyone wanted to
come.” She assures those watching via satellite that
the room is packed.
She talks about what could be done with
just a 1% increase in giving—an amazing number of ills
and problems could be assuaged. The point of the conference
is for the White House to take the lead in inspiring people
to come up with that increased percentage. She introduces
the President, while I wonder what it’s like to refer
to your husband as “the President.”
What the POTUS said
He calls this conference one of her best ideas ever, and gets
a tight little smile from her. He does his easy, charming,
fact-dropping thing, talking about the importance of achieving
that 1% increase, quoting de Toqueville, looking to new possibilities
of fundraising on the Internet, calling universal Internet
access the next great communication goal. He does self-deprecation
well, describing himself as technologically challenged and
totally amazed by a 27-year-old Silicon Valley millionaire
who’s told him universal Internet access could be achieved
by gifts of “founders’ stock, whatever that is.”
The mystery of founders’ stock becomes a good laugh
line throughout the rest of the conference.
He gets a good response from the room when
he calls for erasing Third World debt, citing support by the
Pope and Bono as evidence that there’s a very large
tent for the idea. He urges people to look to the Internet
as a new avenue for philanthropy. (He’s hip to this
new thing—this is good). And to remember that volunteering
time counts as philanthropy. (Ah, so that’s why I’m
here. The Giraffe Project gets people activated and involved
in service). He wonders if retiring Boomers, a prosperous
generation, will be good givers of time and money. He announces
that he’s appointed an inter-agency task force to look
into creating that 1% increase in giving. “This,”
says the POTUS, “is a big deal.”
Conference speakers
speak
The first panelist, a foundation president, gets a huge laugh
by describing the start of philanthropy in this country as
the Indians’ gifts to the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving,
“which turned out not to be in their long-term self
interest.” Nevertheless, he suggests Thanksgiving Day
be designated National Giving Day, to promote philanthropy.
Rodham Clinton calls on nonprofit stars
seeded throughout the audience, who describe giving by Jews,
African Americans, Latinos, women, and kids. A pollster on
the panel reports that Generation X is more likely to give
time than money, wanting to be personally involved. He advises
nonprofits to ask people to give time before asking for checks,
recommending place-of-work approaches to them. Fundraising
has changed, says he. “Tear up the old playbook.”
A nineteen-year-old rocker reports on his
two-week-old foundation to promote music classes in public
schools. Both HRC and WJC are laughing-out-loud pleased when
the kid notes that he doesn’t normally wear a suit and
that the audience is not the demographic he’s used to.
A foundation executive advocates for service
learning in every grade for every kid, because early training
means lifelong giving. HRC agrees emphatically, which is good
to see.
A teenager represents the morning’s
Corporation for National Service conference—the kids
want a Secretary of Youth in the Cabinet, a Senate committee
on service, more media coverage of kids’ positive actions,
youth representation in the dispensing of grants, and service
integrated into all school curricula.
The co-chair of the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation reports that they will sponsor a new initiative
on kids’ philanthropy, including a conference on the
subject.
The Girl Scouts have a new merit badge—for
philanthropy.
Nothing startling is being said, mostly
people witnessing good stuff, calling for more good stuff.
It’s best behavior time.
Every time people talk about needing to
boost the percentage of giving, I want someone to remember
Independent Sector’s national Give Five campaign. Worked
for us. John and I have given away five percent of our intake
ever since. Instead of looking for a new idea, why aren’t
we revisiting good old ones?
Rodham-Clinton is a masterful chair, commenting,
summarizing, adding savvy information--she has clearly done
her homework, as when she notes the difficulty nonprofits
have finding grants to pay the rent and make payroll, the
unglamorous stuff that makes the programs possible. Every
nonprofit rep in the room has to have been pleased that she
brought up this core reality of fundraising.
Cyber moguls take the
stage
A second panel moves in, Silicon Valley types, Steve Case
of AOL; Kevin Fong, a Valley venture capitalist; and Catherine
Muther, a computer millionaire who now has started the “Three
Guineas Fund” to assist women entrepreneurs. Case opines
that the Internet fundraising sites won’t instill the
urge to give in people, the technology just makes giving easier.
Fong describes new givers as giving the way they work—ready
for risktaking, but demanding accountability, and wanting
to be involved in the action rather than just writing checks.
Muther describes giving by her peers as “philanthropy
with attitude” and warns that these new givers want
to be involved in the uses that are made of their money--they’ve
come out of a team culture that’s transformed business,
they don’t respect hierarchies, and they expect to stay
at the table. They’re also harder-nosed about performance.
These are not your father’s donors.
Clinton sums up, and
leaves
The POTUS talks about making philanthropy part of corporate
missions. He notes that money seekers are flocking to Silicon
Valley for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks:
that’s where the money is. Giving the government its
due he notes that Arkansas has had microloans ever since he
and Hillary read about the microloan pioneer, Muhammad Yunus
(a Giraffe), and that the federal AID program has now made
over 2 million microloans, mostly to women. He wants the federal
government to hold its position on banks’ obligation
to re-invest in their communities, but mostly he wants attention
paid to the places that the current prosperity has passed
over. These people are on his mind, he reports, every night
of his life. With that emotional exit line, he’s outa
there.
The mike circulates
…
Lou Katz of the New Jersey Nets talks about the team’s
decision to turn its profits over to kids in Camden and Newark,
two of the places where US prosperity certainly isn’t
visible.
The head of the United Way warns that giving
to human services is down despite the soaring economy. Rodham-Clinton
confirms this and speaks eloquently about the importance of
these basic services.
Someone describes a Millennium Trust—a
program in which people donate their last hour’s salary
of 1999 to a community foundation.
The head of the CS Mott Foundation notes
that big outfits like his have to figure out how to “get
to Main Street” or they’ll just be “horses’
asses, distant, aloof and arrogant.”
A high point for me comes when the hand
mike goes to Brian O’Connell, the former head of Independent
Sector and one of the last great gents in America. He makes
an impassioned statement about “active citizenship”
as the broader picture of what giving in a democracy has to
be if democracy is to survive, and about the necessity of
making training for real citizenship part of our educational
system. I’m tempted to stand up and cheer.
HRC says that her travels abroad have helped
her realize how American voluntarism and personal philanthropy
are, and how important acting for the common good and creating
a civil society are as a democratic model for the world.
Go Brian, Go Hillary! The current and future
health of the body politic are what’s at stake here.
…but not to me
I’ve had my hand up since Rodham-Clinton opened the
discussion to the floor and the time is getting late. She
makes eye contact with me and says, “Yes, you in the
back.” Here comes the mike, it’s right in front
of me and a hand reaches across me and takes it. I have an
instant flash of people fighting over a McGuire homerun ball.
But this is the East Room, not Wrigley Field—and the
person standing to speak is bigger than I am, physically and
philanthropically. I don’t really hear what she has
to say, I’m so stunned. But I’m sure it isn’t
as pertinent as what I wanted to put forth.
I would have said that the Chronicle of
Philanthropy had quoted a prediction that the conference would
be “nice people saying nice things” and none of
it would amount to anything. I thought we should mess up that
prediction by saying something un-nice to Congress--namely
that they must give up the insane idea that nonprofits can
take on any more of the basic services they keep trying to
dump on this sector.
The falling tide of federal dollars lowers
all boats--nonprofits who have to fill in for cancelled Federal
assistance programs are barely able to cope, and other groups
suffer fundraising crises when donors and foundations rightfully
direct more dollars to the overwhelmed human-service providers.
Those of us doing long-term, societal-change work, like character
education and service-learning, must and do go to the back
of the philanthropic queue.
To avoid dying back there, some of us are
getting very creative--learning to market our goods and services
entrepreneurially and signing onto the new Internet fundraising
sites, in the hope that some of these cyberdonors will understand
the importance of long-term programs. Some of us will survive
and keep the work going; some of us won’t.
A lot of us won’t make it if Congress
doesn’t find the wisdom and the courage to stop dumping
federal responsibilities onto this overburdened sector. “Sticking
their necks out” is what’s needed.
Nobody said anything like that, and the
meeting adjourned.
Hell no we won’t
go
People are milling and talking, Marines are saying, “This
way please,” but This way is the door out of the building.
Not so fast, fellas. The conversation has barely begun. Now
that we know who people are, we have things to say to each
other. And Rodham- Clinton is in the main aisle, surrounded
by people who have more to say to her. I join them and see,
past Hillary’s nose, Giraffe Jason Crowe, a philanthropist
who’s all of 13. We mouth hellos and then I have my
few seconds to tell her that the Giraffe Heroes Program is
bringing service-learning and active citizenship to kids in
46 states and to give her my card. I find Jason back on the
fringe of the group, about to leave, despondent that he’s
not going to get through these bodies and talk to her. In
best motherly style I hold onto his jacket and edge him through
the grownups to the front and his moment with the First Lady
of his country.
Out in the Main Hall a lone band member
is playing piano. As I pass, I tell him my granddad played
cornet in John Philip Souza’s Marine Band. He seems
so delighted, I’ve since sent the bandmaster a picture
of said grandfather, in uniform, cornet in hand.
Chanel-suited Muffies, presumably from
the First Lady’s staff, hand each conferee a take-away
package of reports and statistics, and direct me to the loo,
which is discreetly unmarked.
Back in the real world
Outside, on the sidewalk where tourists and other mortals
abound, there’s Jason, bummed because he’s got
the wrong backpack and whoever’s got his has all the
White House paper napkins he’d stashed for his buds
back in Indiana.
There’s time before the flight back
to Charlotte, so I do my usual and head for a hotel lobby
where there are phones, newspapers and comfy chairs. I make
follow up notes—must get a packet on the Giraffe Heroes
Program to HRC, follow up on all the people I’ve talked
to and wanted to talk to, offer whatever help the Project
can offer to make sure something comes of this effort. With
little more than a year to go for this Administration, and
a Presidency with such damaged credibility, the prospects
for results seem slim. But it’s worth a shot.
In the hotel bar, another power-suited
woman picks up her drink and heads to my table. “You
were at that meeting too, weren’t you.” We settle
in to compare impressions—a scholar on public philanthropy,
her comments are funny and caustic. But we agree that it doesn’t
much matter. The real summing up is, “Holy shit, we
just spent five hours in the White House.”
Which actually didn’t hold a candle
to “Breakfast with Mandela.” I kid you not, it
really happened and I hope it doesn’t take me as long
to write up that stunning event as it has to get these notes
together.
Site content © 1978-2004 Ann Medlock
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