Galen on philanthropic priorities:
Another advantage of government funding over philanthropic funding is the theoretical ability to do better macro level allocation of resources. If you have, say, 10 billion dollars in one bucket you can have a team of experts figure out the optimal allocation of those resources across a broad range of needs, whereas if that 10 billion dollars is private charitable giving the allocation will be made in chunks of hundreds, thousands, and millions of dollars by individuals who can't see the big picture. Restricted money for sexy causes is a lot easier to raise than unrestricted money for more general and less sexy purposes, and individual organizations and donors allocate funds according to their own interests. So you get things like disproportionately large amounts of money for in vitro fertilization research and disproportionately small amounts of money for free preventive medicine for the poor. Not that there's anything wrong with IVF research, but it ought to be a lower priority compared to other things. It's not the fault of the charities or the donors that this misalocation happens, but it's a problem nonetheless.
Right -- It's Arianna Huffington's old quote about finding it easier to raise money for operas than anti-poverty efforts, and the environmentalist's ancient lament that it's simple to attract donations to save endangered polar bears ("charismatic megafauna"), but not to save endangered, but all the more necessary, algae and insects. When you're raising money from private individuals, you have to focus on the causes they're interested in, not simply the ones that require funds. This is why, for instance, alumni associations suck up such a large percentage of charitable dollars. Given the range of possible recipients for my $10 million, I wouldn't rank the Longhorns -- or, for that matter, the Bruins -- high on the list. But donors like their alma maters, and so tend to direct a disproportionate amount of funds their way.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. It's their money! It's just not a substitute for social policy.
