The New Robin Hood: Take from the Poor to Give to the Poor (Minus Fees)
In 2006 money mag Forbes led a piece about corporate philanthropy titled ‘The Legend of Robin Hood’ with the paragraph:
“How the leaders of the hedge fund world have banded together to fight poverty – taking gobs of money from the rich, applying strict financial metrics in giving it away, and making philanthropy cool among the business elite.”
Is it just me, or is the whole idea of corporate philanthropy, and the high-fiving modesty-devoid ego-dinners of financial charity organisations, looking a bit bullshit now?
No I’m not alone – here’s Melik Kaylan writing for the same magazine (Forbes) last week:
“Hedge funds… single virtue was that they “created wealth.” It turns out they didn’t. What about their philanthropy? It was ultimately borrowed from us. What do you call this system of wealth distribution? I call it the socialism of bankers.”
Mythical Robin Hood took from the rich to give to the poor. But with nine US banks, and four/five UK banks now accepting multi-billion pound tax payer funded bailouts, isn’t corporate philanthropy at risk of looking like failed management staff taking from the poor to give back to the poor (minus fees and junket costs)?
RBS held one such back-patting festival in Singapore last month, where they launched the ‘Philanthropy Forum’. Mark Evans, the head of Family and Business Philanthropy at RBS Coutt’s, announced some new initiatives from the bank:
“RBS Coutts also intends to provide philanthropy portfolio management services, to help charities and foundations invest and grow their assets.
Mr Evans sees this new initiative as being about relationship building. ‘Philanthropy is becoming a huge part of our clients’ wealth management and financial planning, so being involved allows us to understand them better and on a more personal level too,’ he said.”
That RBS are being payed (by us) to remain in business so they can charge charities (funded by us) fees to grow their assets (using our capital and a broken, corrupt management structure) so they can then give some of that money back to…. US… well, it seems like there’s a few too many links in that chain now eh?
Other corporate philanthropy projects are beginning to look like they’re resting on dubious ground as well. The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy has Goldman Sachs and RBS directors on its board.
The Robin Hood fund itself includes half a dozen hedge fund managers with now dubious claims to the philanthropic limelight. Orgies of ‘charitable bidding’ for luxury prizes (like the video below from the Robin Hood foundations charity dinner last year) now look egomaniacal and disgusting (if they didn’t already before).
It feels like corporate philanthropy is going to have to undergo an image overhaul in the next few months, as bankers are stripped of their celebrity status and the public looks for banks to act responsibly and, well, boringly. The age of the banker as celebrity philanthropist may be over.
Posted by Daniel Stacey in Hot Money | October 22, 2008 1:25PM |