Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and International Philanthropy Symposium 2005 Opening Ceremony
Tuesday 4 October 2005 The ceremony opened at 09:30. The Rt Hon George Reid MSP: As Presiding Officer, may I bid you the warmest of welcomes to Holyrood and the new Scottish Parliament. Fàilte gu Taigh an Ròid agus fàilte—ceud mìle fàilte—gu Pàrlamaid ùr na h-Alba. We meet this morning in a very special place— a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation world heritage site—where the 1,000 years of Scots history in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile fuses with the land of Scotland in Holyrood park. This is a special place for Americans, too. The fathers of the Scottish enlightenment—the economists, jurists, philosophers, political theorists and scientists whose ideas gave birth to the modern world and shaped the United States—were up and down the Royal Mile long before any of us. Adam Smith, the father of economic theory and author of “The Wealth of Nations”, is buried just across the road in the Canongate kirkyard. The men whose thoughts gave intellectual rigour to the American revolution—David Hume, Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reid—walked the pavements outside where we sit. Benjamin Franklin twice came to Edinburgh to engage in dialogue with them. John Witherspoon, first principal of the Presbyterian College of New Jersey—now Princeton University—and the brains behind the declaration of independence, was here, too. Also here were the bridge-builders, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, freethinkers and wealth creators—the Scottish shock troops of American modernisation, who did so much to make the United States what it is today. Andrew Carnegie came from that get-up-and-go tradition. He was shaped by the Scottish enlightenment and its principles; its commonsense utilitarianism—the need for social conscience and the commitment to the greatest happiness of the greatest possible number; its cosmopolitanism—the ability to be comfortable in different cultures; and, above all, its confidence in the future—the innate optimism that the world was getting better and that it offered extraordinary opportunities to those who set out to achieve. Andrew Carnegie’s first achievement was, of course, to become the richest man in the world. His second was to give the bulk of his wealth away—to stop accumulating, as he said, and to
start distributing. His money went, in a very Scottish way, neither to the great and mighty, nor to advance the cause of rampant capitalism, but to the community, to offer opportunity and enrichment of life to millions of ordinary men and women. He provided 3,000 free libraries around the world to open the mind; public parks and swimming baths to nurture the body; university endowments to push the limits of knowledge; a pension plan for teachers; concert halls to bring excellence in the arts; and a peace foundation to help to end the scourge of war. Carnegie said:
“No man can be truly rich, unless he first enriches others.”
It was a radical programme that was deemed wildly socialist by his peers on Wall Street. However, a century on, gathered here this morning in Holyrood, we can take pride in the fact that a son of Scotland gifted progressive philanthropy to the world. No one should doubt the importance of this week’s Carnegie awards and symposium. The organisations represented in the chamber this morning have given away around $6 billion to their fellow men and women over the past decade. Outside the chamber, looking in and watching what is happening here, are more than 20 million philanthropic organisations from the world’s 22 most developed countries. Their annual spend, according to Johns Hopkins University, is in the region of $1 trillion. Why is Holyrood important to this process? It is not because we are having an awards ceremony, central though that is in recognising extraordinary achievement on behalf of the poor and marginalised people of the world. It is because progressive philanthropy faces major strategic challenges in our compressed global economy and in its relationships with the state, its partnerships with civil society, its advocacy work and its key role of ensuring change for good. Those are the big issues that will be addressed in this morning’s symposium and in tomorrow’s Carnegie colloquy. There are lessons here for those of us who live in Scotland and for a Parliament that prides itself on its commitment to create a sustainable society founded on enterprise and compassion. We have to get back the entrepreneurial, get-up-and-go spirit that we Scots exported to America. We must realise that we cannot redistribute the money until we have made it. We should note that, here in the chamber this morning, there are representatives of the Hewlett and Packard families, who currently invest around $500 million a year in civil, environmental and health programmes, but who started small, in a garage in Palo Alto, California, with 853 bucks.
We should recall what Tom Hunter said recently, when he gifted £55 million to the Clinton Global Initiative. He said, “I’m a Scotsman. I don’t do handouts. I’ve not given anything away. I’ve invested it—in people who will maximise it in the service of their communities.” There may be lessons for America, too. If we can benefit from the return of some of the entrepreneurial spirit that we took to the United States, perhaps Americans can benefit from some of the communitarian values that still remain valid in Scotland. The progressive foundations in America are under challenge from younger, neo-liberal foundations of the right. Their trustees seek new ideas and new strategic directions. Across the Atlantic, this little country has a vibrant voluntary sector and a strong civic society. Our ties with America are firm, but so are our links throughout the European Union and with many of the countries in the developing world. So, in the spirit of the enlightenment, think of us as a bridge across the Atlantic, to a wider world and to different perspectives. If you want a year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want a 100 years of prosperity, grow people. The old Chinese proverb contains a truth that all of us in the chamber share: that beyond the relentless flow of labour and capital across frontiers and beyond the integration of markets, nation states and technologies, people still come first. Yes, we live in a global village, but the future is not fixed. Ours need not be a world of ruthless competition, with the market driving all—a divisive scenario in which the rest squares up, ultimately, to the west. I have personal experience of this. For a dozen years of my life, I worked as a director of the International Red Cross in wars and disasters around the world, in developing and developed countries alike. I therefore pay tribute to all of you in the chamber this morning whose motives encapsulate both the Red Cross truth, “tutti fratelli”—all are brothers—and the sentiment of the great hymn to humanity of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns: “That Man to Man”, and woman to woman, “the warld o’er, shall brothers”, and sisters, be. I pay tribute to your work for human rights everywhere, particularly the rights of women. I pay tribute to you for the provision of microcredit, through which an old sewing machine can turn a landmine victim into a tailor and a person of substance. I pay tribute to your work in investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the most deprived communities of the world and in bringing respite to those caught in the crossfire of conflict. I pay tribute to your work in providing education for excellence, open to all. I pay tribute to you for your work for the arts, for your challenging ideas
and for driving economies. I pay tribute to your work in bringing compassion and tolerance to angry societies and for knowing that community is all. The philosophies of the founding fathers of charity were rooted in another, older world. When the Red Cross was founded, armies lined up and fired off at each other. Ladies came out in carriages to picnic and watch the action. Today, wars happen inside countries, not between countries. Nine out of 10 casualties are civilians. Red Cross workers, as Mary Robinson knows well, have themselves become targets, and the old rules and regulations are no longer enough. Where stands philanthropy in this constantly changing world? Andrew Carnegie recognised the problem in 1889 when he wrote:
“It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than it is to earn it in the first place.”
How do foundations invest money intelligently in st the 21 century and achieve what Carnegie called “scientific philanthropy”? I suggest that they do so only by constantly addressing and readdressing the challenges of today and seeing them from the perspectives of tomorrow. One challenge is innovation. Traditionally, progressive foundations led on social change, Governments followed and the foundations moved on to new challenges. Today, many of their resources are deployed as service delivery agents for Governments, which impedes innovation. Is that right? Another issue is advocacy. Traditionally, progressive foundations spoke out against injustice, but, these days, so much match funding depends on Government that voices are often stilled in case the cash flow dries up. Should advocacy and service delivery be split? Leverage is another issue. Once a foundation has donated seed-corn money, should it move on? The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation recently provided £2 million of core costs to 10 community organisations in Britain and challenged them to raise £20 million over three years—they raised £19.5 million. Is that a model for sustainable development in future? Another issue is whether the regulatory framework empowers charitable giving or shackles it. Does the tax regime provide incentives or penalties? Can tax-deductible donations be used to lobby against Government policy? We must also consider duplication and donor fatigue. Operation Katrina has pulled in well over $1 billion, but the bulk goes to my old shop the Red Cross and is used for emergency relief only. What about longer-term rehabilitation and reconstruction? What about the small communities that have been ravaged by hurricane Rita, which look like getting precious
little? Time and again, in my operational years, we had far too much money for one high-profile disaster and virtually nothing for areas where the need was significantly greater. How do we resolve that? Another issue is corporate giving. How do we release the humanitarian potential of the commercial sector so that it concentrates as much on stakeholders as it does on shareholders? Should we advocate a triple bottom line that measures financial, social and environmental performance and benefits customers, employees and investors alike? Finally, we must consider women. If you give food to a man in a disaster, he will eat it. If you give it to a woman, she will share it and keep some of the seeds for next year’s harvest. How do we liberate women and unleash the world’s greatest potential for sustainable development? Those are some of the challenges to be addressed over the next two days here at Holyrood in Scotland. Vartan Gregorian, the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York—who would never have left his Armenian community in Iran but for a philanthropic helping hand and the constant support of his grandmother—put the issue succinctly when he said:
“Foundations need to be in the ideas business, not the needs business.”
professor about the centrality of progressive philanthropy in addressing the issues of tomorrow, today—the sort of story that is published in Washington, now. The FT of the future traces the process of change back to Edinburgh in 2005 when, it reports, there were “blank looks and buckpassing” elsewhere, but comprehension in Scotland. Enterprise and compassion, surplus wealth for public good and a renewed commitment by the progressive foundations to empowering people and to righting wrongs are all required. Verily, verily, in the words of Andrew Carnegie:
“No man is truly rich, until he enriches others.”
It is now my great pleasure to introduce the second speaker, William Thomson, the greatgrandson of Andrew Carnegie. He has recently been in hospital, but he comes here bravely this morning. William has come in his capacity as chair of the medal organising committee. He has dedicated much time and effort to orchestrating the occasion here in Scotland today. It therefore gives me great pleasure, as Presiding Officer, to call William Thomson. William Thomson: Before I start, I thank George Reid for his kind words of welcome and for hosting this day in this wonderful building. I also thank him for all the advice and encouragement that he has generously and unobtrusively given to us over many months of planning for the event. Presiding Officer, ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a very warm welcome to Scotland and to the 2005 Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and International Philanthropy Symposium. Scotland was the birthplace of my greatgrandfather Andrew Carnegie and I believe that it thereby has a strong claim also to be seen as the birthplace of modern philanthropy. Carnegie was not the first enlightened business philanthropist from Scotland. That honour perhaps lies with Robert Owen, the inspirational founder of the cooperative movements in New Lanark in Scotland and New Harmony in the USA. However, Carnegie, due to his enormous wealth, was the first genuinely global philanthropist of the modern capitalist era and is still seen today as a role model for the new generation of philanthropists that this country is producing. Philanthropy was not born with capitalism. In Scotland, as elsewhere, it has been around for as long as people have lived, worked and cared for one another. In Scotland, we have a strong tradition of both individual and social responsibility. The land of Adam Smith, Owen, Carnegie and Burns has given much to the world in the fields of economics, science, engineering, the arts, education and health. From a small country of then just over 3.5 million people, we
Andrew Carnegie’s daughter, Margaret Carnegie Miller, put it even more bluntly, when she said:
“I am sick of the Santa Claus stuff”.
A new report by the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust entitled “Stepping up the Stairs: Increasing the impact of progressive philanthropy in the UK”, is based on extended interviews with all the main players in British philanthropy. It concludes that trustees have
“a hunger for more intellectual rigour”
in progressive philanthropy if they are to talk the talk, walk the walk and live the legacy. There are two proposals of potential importance to Scotland. The first is to establish a summer school at which trustees such as those who are here today can, at the highest level, have a dialogue about where we are going with the world’s leading academics, economists, entrepreneurs, philosophers and politicians. The second is to establish a philanthropic research unit in a leading university to identify key trends and produce a new generation of philanthropic thinkers. No decisions have been taken about the location, nor will they be in the next few days, but, in a bit of time travel, the authors of the report quote the Financial Times in 10 years. The lead story is about an extended BBC interview with the Prime Minister on the views of a Scottish
ran an empire—perhaps with a little help from our southern neighbours. The founding and development of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand owe much to the endeavour of enterprising and compassionate Scots. Scots such as Carnegie helped to build the modern world. But neither is philanthropy the preserve of the rich. Today, Scots men, women and children give more per capita to charitable causes that people in any other part of the United Kingdom. Whether it be the tsunami, Live 8 or the campaign to make poverty history, Scots are compassionate givers. We have a vibrant civil society here. We are pragmatic yet passionate, interested in what works and in how we can make things work better. As our many guests here from overseas will discover, we are a down-to-earth, nondeferential lot—perhaps that has something to do with the water. Andrew Carnegie shared those attributes and tastes. He loved the country of his birth and his philanthropy improved the lives of its people. The quality of Scottish higher education and of our public services owes much to his passion for learning and opportunity. He had many passions. He was no lover of aristocracy, inherited privilege or racial division. He wanted democracy to prevail across all nations. He campaigned for peace and established political, judicial, scientific, educational and arts foundations and institutes in the United States and Europe that remain internationally respected and influential today, nearly 90 years after his death. Today, we need the voice of independent notfor-profit philanthropic foundations more than ever. Foundations at their best support open thinking and the empowerment of the voices of others—especially the less powerful—not just their founders’ passions. The fact that we are financially independent of Governments and commercial interests should enable us to think and act free of their constraint, to take risks and to invest over the longer term. In the six symposium sessions this morning, we have invited leading commentators to challenge the world of philanthropy. You here today are experts from many walks of life and countries. I hope that the symposium will be a bubbling marketplace for ideas, networking and collaboration. I referred to the renewed interest in philanthropy that has emerged in Scotland in recent years. This afternoon, we shall celebrate that and the work of inspirational philanthropists from this country and others whose foundations are tackling major global and local challenges. Their work is visionary and has been life changing for millions. As Carnegie medallists, they are role models for philanthropy at its best.
They deal with current and future issues in practical and imaginative ways. For Andrew Carnegie, philanthropy was never just about giving wealth away—what has been called the cash-machine approach. His model was that of endowing foundations to be independent research and development agencies that invest for the longer term, whether in science, politics, the arts, social development or education. His concern was to help to change the world for the better, locally and globally, working to influence Governments, business and civil society. His approach to philanthropy was often to challenge the status quo, as with the medallists that we have honoured in the past and shall honour today—their passion is to bring out the hopes, talents and creativity in us all. I thank George Reid, the Presiding Officer, and all our other wonderful partners here and internationally for helping us to make this event a reality. I give a special thank you to the medal selection committee, the medal organising group and our administrator, Elizabeth East, for all their hard work. I also thank all of you for joining us in this marvellous new Parliament—a place of inspiration and confidence for the new Scotland st of the 21 century. Thank you. George Reid: Thank you, William. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to have you and your wife in the Scottish Parliament. In about 10 minutes’ time, the individual workshops to which delegates have been assigned will start. I look forward to seeing you this afternoon at the awards ceremony. The ceremony closed at 09:53.