Back from India - Oh what philanthropy I've seen...

Quite the trip. But we are far from the first visitors to India, and there are at least 1 Billion residents, so we should refrain from reporting as if we were explorers. We did, however, learn something about philanthropy - some of which challenges American assumptions of our own uniqueness, some which reminds us of our cultural and experiential limitations, and, in one case, a simply touching moment.

Let's start with the last: this meeting of the Board of World Religious Leaders was, as were the 2 before, extraordinary. This time the Dalai Lama joined the group for 3 of the days of the meeting. [for those who would want to see, I am happy to forward a photo of the 2 of us having lunch together.] But for our purposes, the image which will stay in my mind was a spontaneous meeting convened by a Hindu swami in response to a plea to help fund future meetings. He exclaimed that he is an expert in money and so are other religious leaders, so within minutes a circle comprised of a Buddhist Darma Master, a leading Imam, a chief rabbi, the Sikh leader who hosted us, and the swami were planning how to raise money! Talk about interfaith collaborations...

As symbolic as that was, the visits to a couple of ngo's were more poignant and touching. We learned how a little known constitutional law mandating that the governing councils of rural villages must have at least 1/3 women is beginning to transform empowerment, break down centuries old castes and helping to alleviate hunger. The Hunger Project has been providing regional and on site training for 15 years and one cannot help but be moved by their stories. At the same time, they were astounded by the rigidity of western funders who want instantaneous reports. We heard one example of a funder who placed a McKinsey consultant in the Delhi office and was puzzled why he couldn't get timely reports from the villages so that he could assess the effectiveness of the program! [True story!] [for those among the readers who assume that villages means rural USA, please realize that these are places without electricity, running water, and camels, elephants, etc are customary means of transport. Timely for them does not mean nano seconds of email.]

We also need to put to rest that only Americans are philanthropic. The truth is that we just do it differently. We saw Temples which bore the names of their donors; we learned of middle class families who fund health care, education, and retirement for entire families of those who work for them; we saw community run programs for the elderly and infirm which collect from townspeople in a regular and systematic way. It is true that the sophisticated systems of giving and raising that we have are just beginning to be visible - in very preliminary ways - but we need to rid ourselves of the tempting notion that only we know how to give. Especially as so many are beginning to think in terms of international philanthropy and a shrinking world, this trip reminded us that we still have much to learn as well as to share.