Monday, July 6, 2015
NCG member The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation President Larry Kramer answers HistPhil’s co-founder Maribel Morey’s questions about the role of philanthropy in democracy. Inspired by Kramer’s 2015 Roberts Lecture at Pennsylvania Law School, ‘To Adjust These Clashing Interests’: Negotiation and Compromise as Core Constitutional Values. Is there an ideal role for big philanthropy in American life and how can philanthropies hope to foster meaningful compromises in a political realm?
If there is an “ideal” role for foundations, it is found in this last paragraph: foundations should identify problems that are not being otherwise addressed by government or markets or individual givers and experiment with and explore ways to address them.