Plutocratic Housing

Recently billionaire hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin set, as The New York Times (January 24 2018) put it: “ a new standard for conspicuous consumption by paying a fortune for an unfinishedpiece of property in the sky.”  The fortune: $238 million (later adjusted at closing January 23^rd to $239.958 million), the unfinished property: a 24,000 square foot penthouse at 220 Central Park South in New York City. The transaction is the most expensive residential sale in U.S. history. 

It’s not as if Mr.  Griffin lacks for housing. 

He already has a penthouse in Miami ($60 million) and a mansion in London ($122 million). He is based in Chicago where last summer he paid $58.5 million for a the top four floors of a building in the affluent “Gold Coast” neighborhood, in addition to the four other houses he owns in the city. He collects real estate as ordinary mortals collect stamps or bottle caps.

Mr. Griffin who has net worth of  $10 billion has been philanthropic, reportedly donating to date $700 million.  Beneficiaries of his generosity include universities – his alma mater Harvard got $150 million in 2014 – and museums – The Museum of Modern Art received $40 million. However he has declined to sign the “Giving Pledge” organized by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett where 150 billionaire signees so far have pledged to give away a majority of their wealth to charity.

Speaking of Mr. Buffett, the contrasts between this legendary investor and Griffin are striking, especially in the life style category. Buffett, whose net worth is estimated at $85.6 billion, continues to live in the same house in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska  that he bought in 1958 for $31,500. He does have a house in California valued at $4 million (doghouse scale for Griffin) and reluctantly purchased a private jet he nicknamed “The Indefensible” for his corporation. He is 88 years old after all. So far he has donated $35 billion, much of it to the Gates Foundation.

A follow-up article in The New York Times of January 26 offers another contrast, generational and sociological. Brooke Astor (1902-2007), the New York socialite and philanthropist, was content to live in a 5000 square foot Park Avenue apartment. Her wealth, peanuts compared to Griffin’s, was inherited. David Rockefeller ( 1915-2017) and his wife Peggy’s  65^th Street town house was 10,000 square feet , but it was their primary residence where they raised their six children. I would venture to say that the real estate activities of Mr. Griffin would be viewed as distasteful to these old money philanthropists. Their personal acquisitions tended more to art and country estates.

This current period of vast wealth, with its yawning societal income gap, has been termed “The New Gilded Age.” Certainly the Vanderbilts and Carnegies liked their real estate too. The 54 room Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park NY, now a National Historic Site, was only lived in a few weeks a year by its owners Frederick Vanderbilt, and his wife Louise.  It was built in the late 1890s when, it must be emphasized, there was no income tax, which was not made law until 1913. Today the top marginal income tax rate is 37 percent, whereas between 1945 and 1980, during prime Astor and Rockefeller time, it was between 70 and 80 percent.

With the additional tax cuts promoted by President Trump, along with the assault on the Estate Tax (renamed the “Death Tax” by repeal adherents),  rates on the very rich may well drop even further.  So there will be even more cash for the billionaire to spend, some perhaps on philanthropy but also on “toys,” such as the $100 million + yacht complete with a certified Imax Theater recently purchased by Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder. Perhaps on board he will enjoy big screen replays of his football team’s dismal 7-9 season record in 2018.

Let me end this post with uplift, for as you have read I am not a fan of conspicuous consumption. If you are with me on this, this story from The Chronicle of Philanthropy may provide an antidote.

George Ellis, a small town doctor in the Midwest never forgot his time during the period of WW2 earning his M.D. at the University of Buffalo (UB ) School of Medicine.  After the war he moved to rural Indiana where with his wife as nurse set up a practice in his aunt’s house. He practiced medicine there for years, keeping in touch with the UB Medical School, attending reunions and striking up a friendship with the school’s vice president for advancement David Draper. Over the years, Draper visited Ellis in Indiana 50 times where they discussed how “Doc” Ellis might achieve his wish to help his beloved alma mater.

The Ellis couple was childless and lived simply in a two bedroom ranch house. They drove Buicks and Oldsmobiles. He drank bourbon (Buffalo Trace, of course) from a coffee mug.  When he wasn’t tending to patients the doctor spent time at the public library teaching himself about the stock market, researching and investing, with a small inheritance from his father as a starting point.  Along the way he set up charitable trusts. All the time his aim was UB Medical School and UB knew that.  But no one in his small city had a clue of his wealth.  He died age 87 in 2010.

In 2011 UB announced the receipt of an endowment of $40 million, established by a donor (Dr. Ellis) who wished to remain anonymous .His instructions were that his identity as the donor could only be made known after his wife’s death.  By the time his estate was settled in 2013 the donation had grown to $45 million. His wife died in 2018 whereupon the three trusts Ellis had established years before yielded another $11.8 million. The gift from Dr. Ellis to UB Medical ended up totaling $56.8 million.

I have told similar stories over the years I have been writing these blogs.  They were about quiet philanthropists unknown during their lifetimes, living simple lives, but driven by the need to help places or institutions they loved.  

There ought to be a Hall of Fame built dedicated to them. Perhaps it could even have an IMAX theatre to tell their stories.  The only thing conspicuous about them was the purity of their generosity and they should be honored.

The definition of the word philanthropy bears repeating. The Greek root, philanthropia, means love of man.  Philanthropy is the act of desiring to help humanity and is most often associated with providing financial support. I wish I could coin a word for the love of collecting real estate (suggestions anyone?). I further wish those who have that unnamed condition cure the urges by redirecting more of their vast resources to helping others.  Think of what the $238 million spent on the penthouse in the sky could do for those in need who live on the streets below?

Comments on this and previous posts (see archive to the left) are always welcome at gplatt63@gmail.com

How to Find Harmony in the Congress

Quite enough ink has been spilled, and lips flapped, about how our country is bitterly divided politically. I will not add to such analysis but will instead suggest a modest idea that might get us off on a better foot for 2019.

The 116^th Congress will convene January 3, 2019. All 435 Representatives will assemble in the House. They will be sworn in, their families looking on. There will be a prayer and then important business to transact, such as the election of the Speaker. But before that business, I suggest the House -  Democrats, Republicans -  pause to join together in song.

 

There are numerous studies that outline the benefits of singing. Some are scientific in nature.  It is widely believed that singing releases endorphins, the chemicals that affect the sense of happiness in one’s brain. Singing relieves stress by reducing muscle tension. These and other benefits are magnified by singing in a group.

A 2015 article in Open Science, a journal published by the Royal Society (UK) entitled  “Singing and Social Bonding” suggests evidence of “an ice breaker effect of singing,  in promoting fast cohesion between unfamiliar individuals, which bypasses the need for personal knowledge of group members gained through prolonged interaction.”  That certainly fits the situation in the ceremony of gathering and swearing in of a new Congress.  Lots of ice is ready and needing to be broken.

I call upon Speaker-In-Waiting Nancy Pelosi and the Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to demonstrate a simple act of bipartisanship and set the tone for a new Congress by agreeing to schedule group singing by all attendees at the ceremony on January 3, 2019. They might even  find making the decision a distraction from the government shutdown crisis. 

What to sing? An obvious choice is a patriotic selection. Not,  I say,  the “Star Spangled Banner.” Our national anthem, because of its wide vocal range, is difficult to sing for the ordinary person, thus the need for a trained soloist to render it before events. Cameras catching crowds at stadiums during its rendition will see some singing part of it, some lip syncing and some blank faces that want to shout “play ball” instead. If you want an example of a crowd getting into singing its national song, check out on YouTube 70,000 Welsh fans before a rugby match belting out “Bread of Heaven ” (Cwm  Rhondda).

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The music for the “Star Spangled  Banner” was first composed for a British men’s social club in 1773. Called “Anacreon in Heaven” It soon became a popular drinking song, which may have it made its musical challenges less daunting to its original singers.  It became well known in the U.S. Amateur poet Francis Scott Key, inspired by the flag still flying at Ft. McHenry during a 1814 naval battle in Baltimore wrote the lyrics to fit  with “Anacreon” that ultimately became  our National Anthem. 

For the congressional group singing I suggest instead the patriotic song and hymn  “America The Beautiful.”  My reasons have to do the ease by which its lovely melody can be sung by amateurs and by its lyrics, which were composed originally as a poem in 1895 by Katherine Lee Bates, then a professor of English at Colorado College. She was inspired by the views she enjoyed from a visit to Pikes Peak (“O Beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain”).  It was later set to music originally composed in 1882 by a New Jersey church musician Samuel Augustus Ward .

As contrasted to the militaristic nature of the Star Spangled Banner (“rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air”) America the Beautiful, as its title suggests, celebrates the beauty of our vast land (“…for purple mountain majesties. Above the fruited plain.”)  In its clearly patriotic emphasis it also several times calls upon the Almighty for help: “America! America! God shed his light on thee.”   Surely that appeal would be welcomed these days, especially in the House Chamber.

All four verses should be sung (when was the last time you heard or tried any but the first verse of the National Anthem?) as they have important messages for this ad hoc choir. Consider these excerpts: 

“ America, America, God mend thy every flaw, confirm thy soul in self control. Thy liberty in law”

“And crown they good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea” 

The singers may need some initial encouragement so I suggest finding a chorus in support. To avoid partisan bickering over which one or where it’s from,  let’s settle on the glee club from The U.S. Naval Academy from nearby Annapolis. But its participation must not take the place of everyone in the chamber singing together.

 

I guarantee a robust rendition by all.  And maybe this way there will be a few minutes of harmony in the U.S.  House of Representatives. 

Comments on this and other posts to be found in the archives to the left are welcome at gplatt63@gmail.com

Slow Down! An art museum's solution...

It doesn’t need to be said: we are all going too fast, in our cars, in our lives, in our frenetic need for access to information. From Paul Simon’s lyric “Slow down, you move too fast, you got to make the morning last…” (1966) to Wordsworth’s “The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (1807) poets have long chided us for our desire to accelerate and acquire

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One art institution is making a counter statement. Glenstone, the creation of wealthy collectors Mitch and Emily Rales, is a museum of world class contemporary art that opened in 2006 on their 230 acre property in Potomac MD and which, after months of work, has been dramatically expanded. It now features five times its original gallery space, new landscaping, outdoor art installations, walking trails and an online reservation system, very busy since the re-opening of Glenstone in October.  In fact, presently the earliest reservation you can get is for February 2019.

Why? The Rales couple purposely caps Glenstone’s admission-free attendance at 400 per day.  They want to provide a contemplative experience for their visitors.  This attitude is counter to the populist approach museums have had for years. Throw the doors open and y’all come. Even with steep admission prices, such as the Met and MOMA, the galleries, especially for special exhibitions, are jammed. But aside from the fact that you “got in” how much time and visual access do you have with the art displayed? I experienced the infamous “Mona Lisa Moment” cited recently by the Washington Post’s critic Phillip Kennicott at The Louvre some years ago. If you’re lucky, you might get a glimpse of the iconic painting by peering over the shoulders and raised cameras of hundreds of visitors jostling for position.  

Kennicott equates the careful pacing of the Glenstone experience to the Rales’ interest in the growing “slow art” movement, in which some curators and designers are looking to offer visitors a chance for “sustained attention” to works of art. For instance the new indoor galleries at Glenstone were designed to offer 300 square feet in which to move about, as opposed to the average of 32 square feet at the Guggenheim in New York. What’s more, there are no stanchions or barriers between the art and viewer to impede the feeling of connection and immediacy. 

It should be noted this special experience is due to the Rales’ great wealth and generosity. It is a small institution compared to the behemoth METs and MOMAs, with huge curatorial, administrative and maintenance staffs and facilities that need constant feeding.  Nevertheless, the Rales are asking: what comes first - the attendance numbers/income or the visitor’s experience?

The October opening of the new Glenstone received widespread national media attention and praise , hence the backlog in securing a reservation. I look forward to December 1 when Glenstone  (at www.glenstone.org)  will start accepting online reservations for February forward.  But we all better act fast, to guarantee a  reservation  for a slow experience.

p.s. while waiting for December 1 and the Glenstone reservations to open up try the video site  Slow TV premiered by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.  As an antidote to the action hero milieu in the media so popular today, there you can experience, in its entirety, a 9 hour train ride carefully filmed solely from the engineer’s cab.  

Comments on this post and others in the archive to the left are welcome at: gplatt63@gmail.com

In the Matter of Libraries

I am writing this blog post at my local public library, Little Falls Library, part of the large suburban Montgomery County, Maryland system (21 branches, not counting the one at the prison). It is 5 minutes from my home, and I come here almost daily. It has practically become my office, but better, as distractions such as phone calls are not allowed.  I especially enjoy the “Quiet Room” - where talking is prohibited, and people sit reading or writing. It is in this room where I have just finished an article in the September 9 New York Times, entitled “Why Libraries Still Matter.”

I have always loved libraries. If you love books, why wouldn’t you?  They are like a free candy store for those addicted to sweets. I was first turned on to literature by the librarian at my middle school. “Why don’t you try this Geoff,” the librarian Mrs. Rose Baldwin said as she handed me “Johnny Tremain “ by Esther Forbes.  After I devoured this historical novel set during the American Revolution, then it was on to “Red Badge of Courage” by Stephen Crane, a classic Civil War story.  I was hooked. Mrs. Baldwin became my personal book chooser through eighth grade.

The Times article by Eric Klinenberg, a Professor of Sociology at New York University, begins by citing a 2016 Pew Survey statistic that about half of all Americans 16 years and over used a public library in the recent year and that two thirds surveyed said closing their local branch would have a “major impact on their community.” Despite the strong endorsement of the value of libraries seen in this poll, Klinenberg points out there are far too many instances where libraries are being shuttered or their budgets cut.

He blames this disconnect on a lack of understanding by some public officials of what libraries have become, beyond their traditional role as loaners of free books and other media. Libraries are an example of what Klinenberg calls the “social infrastructure” that influences how people interact with each other. He describes how libraries provide a valuable place for social interaction for older people, children and those who cannot afford to patronize other public/community  venues, such as Starbucks. Public libraries tend to be welcoming places, and their mission includes serving their community through active programming.  For instance my small local library offers events that include Storytelling in Spanish, Tai Chi classes and numerous book discussion groups.  These activities bring people of diverse backgrounds together and away from the temptation of their small screens. 

It might be useful to characterize the Little Falls Library and others like it as “community libraries” to distinguish them from the large research libraries such as the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress, although in the cases of such major urban libraries their branches fulfill a community role. I am among the thousands who have found reading, researching or writing in the Rose Reading Room of the New York Public Library or the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress just plain inspiring. These institutions are cathedrals, whereas my local library is more like a country church- each beloved for different reasons. 

At the end of “Why Libraries Still Matter” Professor Klinenberg cites an illustrative story. This past summer Forbes magazine published an article by an economist who suggested public libraries no longer served a purpose and should not receive public tax support. The author suggested instead that Amazon’s retail outlets take their place, claiming that Americans favor free market options. The negative outcry from the public was so overwhelming that Forbes was forced to remove the article from its website. 

I love seeing a child at my library engrossed in a book or an older adult leaving the building with a pile of novels that will be likely read within a matter of days. There are not many better examples of good use of public tax revenue than a public library. So the next time you hear of a measure threatening to close or curtail your local library, don’t stay silent. Contact your community decision-makers with your protest. Cite what a library means or has meant to you, and be especially mindful of what libraries may mean to your neighbors and their importance in the fabric of your greater community. 

Comments on this and other posts seen in the archive to the left are welcome at gplatt63@gmail.com

What the World Cup Suggests about Nonprofits

note: aS tv NETWORKS OFTEN BROADCAST RERUNS DURING THE SUMMER. i AM rE-POSTING THIS PIECE WRITTEN FOUR YEARS AGO  IN jULY 2014. tHE MESSAGE IS STILL APT.

On July 4 a friend, and loyal blogee remarked to me that he enjoyed my posts especially when they point out the error of some nonprofits’ ways. They are useful object lessons, he said. It's not as if I go out of my way to highlight scandals or wayward missions, but sometimes they are hard to ignore. And if discussing them can be helpful, then I see no reason not to continue to bring them to your attention from time to time.

It got me thinking - what is at the core of these disasters, such as the shutdown of major institutions, like the Corcoran Gallery of Art or the New York City Opera? What about the various embezzlement scandals that are revealed in the media it seems almost weekly. There is always plenty of blame to go around but if I were to sum up the reason in one phrase I would say" sloppy oversight." And whose responsibility is it to exercise oversight at a nonprofit? In my opinion it is unquestionably with the board of directors/trustees. That is where the buck stops.

The job of the nonprofit board is to govern the institution, oversee its operations, financial stability, strategy and mission. Ideally its work focuses on policy, leaving day to day operations to the staff, headed by the CEO/Executive Director, who it hires and whose performance it evaluates annually (or should). Much has been written about the individual duties of board members. Here I want to concentrate on how a board, as a corporate body, can be made most effective.

As someone who has served on as number of nonprofit boards and served many others in a staff capacity, I am a veteran of board meetings. Whether it meets four, six or, heaven forfend, twelve times a year, a typical board meeting scenario might look like this. The board assembles, sometimes in straggling formation. Most haven't seen each other since the last meeting. Following what is hoped to have been an agenda sent out in advance, the Chair guides the meeting. If the Chair and executive director have given it some thought, the meeting might have some meat, rather than a series of droned reports. By "meat" I mean discussion of a policy issue or strategic initiative. Votes are taken, including for some the most important, the one to adjourn. Members then disperse, until the next meeting.

Some work has been done, but is it effective? Does the board think of its self as a body rather than a collection of individuals, elected for a variety of reasons - skills, relationships, wealth?  My experience suggests no - with the subsequent impact on the board's success in governing..

Like many, and to my surprise, I was riveted watching the recent World Cup. I don’t think I have seen a better demonstration of team work in any endeavor. So if a nonprofit board is like a group of talented soccer players, how is to be formed into a true team? We don't have coaches, but we do have a mechanism that has come into favor in recent years. It is called a governance committee. It grew out of the nominating committee process. Some people began to ask - ok, we have good new board members, now what?  How can they and other board members work together to further the organization's mission?

The purpose of a governance committee is really board quality control - internally guided by board members themselves. Aside from retaining the nominating function, including care to have a succession plan in place for board officers, the committee should be engaged in education and evaluation. Education takes the form of being sure that board members know their roles and responsibilities and that new board members have thorough orientation before service begins. Periodic presentations should be made on new trends in nonprofit management (including fundraising) along with knowledge updates on how programs are supporting the organization's mission.

Evaluation is setting in place a process of reviewing how the organization is making best use of board member's skills and interests, including an analysis of participation, The board should also engage in self-evaluation annually -  asking itself: "How are we doing?"

Few dispute the need for such a committee. The challenge is to how to make it work, given the time demands on board and staff working on other committees directly associated with, for instance, raising money, marketing or planning. The reward will come in the development of a cohesive governing unit, which, in turn, can make the other function-related tasks more effective and personally fulfilling for individual board members..

Another important aspect is the social one. There should be at least one annual get-together of board members - no agenda but to have a glass of wine and get to know one another. Social relationships are helpful glue for team work. Some organizations attach such events to an annual retreat. Not everyone likes that kind of artificial sequester. One of the better board chairs I had told me he would agree to take that position as long we didn't have retreats: "no disappearing into the woods and brainstorming, please."

There  are various techniques that can be utilized to build a board team but the point is without a group to encourage and guide the process chances of success become haphazard. So if your organization doesn't have a governance committee (some now call it a board development committee) encourages its formation and support. Doing so increases the likelihood of hearing around the table frequent cries of "GOAL!!"