Insights
Philanthropy in our Era
Date
17th Sep 2026 
I am involved in philanthropy with —or, despite— my many mixed emotions and thoughts about its role and efficacy. When I was young, grown up where leprosy was still on some of the men and women in the streets, I wanted to serve the poor, and went on to study public health in order to work in disease-riddled places in the far-flung corners of the world. It did not occur to me to work in for-profits.
Life has a shocking quality to it, for in later professional years, I found I had developed a distaste (this is the most precise word that I can find for the sense I had) for non profits. I was then working for our family’s private company, where over 8,000 employees —and by extension their families— had fair and stable income, had access to education and public health resources, and microlending programs, etc. There were no handouts, and we were mutually accountable and dependent on one another. I withdrew from boards that I had been halfheartedly on, where I had anyways seen a lack of performance, or boards were pandering to donors instead of requiring a deeper understanding of the donors.
For profit was the best impact, I was convinced. I still am convinced that it is the greater; but I also have had to admit that very few companies use their considerable financial and political resources to effect valuable change. What is more, there are some problems that a company cannot, realistically, address. Some are firmly in the realm of the social and political. The political —the government’s realm— is the third sector required for solving systemic problems. But calling them non profit, for profit, and governmental “sectors” renders them very impersonal. The personal is ultimately at the center of everything
Our current age is impersonal. In an era of technique and technology (this is a longer topic, one I cover elsewhere), we have reduced ourselves to poorly functioning machines — even comparing our intelligences to machines. What space, then, do we have in our minds and daily lives for helping the poor, who ostensibly function even poorer? Yes, I’m afraid that artificial intelligence will hasten the extinguishing of our already dying flame, accelerating the fading of our compassion for those who have less, for the poor. It may be an age of technique and technology, but even if the personal implications and responsibilities are obscured and obfuscated, they are still there. And they are still real —a part of reality.
It may be an age of technique and technology, but even if personal implications and responsibilities are obscured and obfuscated, they are still there. And they are still real —a part of reality.
Philanthropy is ideally an expression of believing that we are all in this together and that we are responsible. We are responsible for ourselves and for one another. We must rediscover the sense of our neighbor, our equal, our Gegenüber—a fantastic German word that means “the one who is across from me.”
We have forgotten the other. We are convinced that our modern world of science, technology, capitalism (or for others, communism, which is just as cold), are the means for managing ourselves. These systems have an important role, but they lead to domination and oppression when the person, the individual, is not honored.*[ I find it impossible to separate the dignity of man from a personal Creator who endowed mankind with all its glories, as complex (good, evil, beautiful, ugly) it is.] As government grows (this is a tendency across history), we, the individual citizen, dismiss the poor even in our own communities, thinking, I pay my taxes, and the government offers them plenty of services. I need not see my fellow man. I need not get off my donkey and be the Good Samaritan and pay for this fellow man’s convalescence, who is anyways not related to me — I have only seen him on the side of the road. He is someone else’s business.
I am convinced that we begin to regress at a certain scale and level of development. We can no longer ascertain what our role is or what our fellow man means, except in comparison to certain metrics. Rather ironically and tragically, more is not more, when it comes to wealth and comforts. I have observed that regardless of culture, a constant of high levels of comfort creates a low level of anxiety, a constant sense of lostness. We suspect (or recognize) that we are not really needed. We are not even called upon to assure our own survival. Nor are we needed to help our fellow man, the poor, because there’s a government, a system, a program that will address it for us.
We pursue more wealth because our only North Star seems to be senseless growth—never mind if that growth is actually cancerous. This age is a culmination of centuries of reducing everything to measurable metrics, and one another to those adding value to society and those merely consuming resources. This is a dangerous picture, and we are already seeing the disease in our society that is a direct result of this endemic virus of a view. We must pursue a compassionate use of our wealth, in how we generate, how we share, and how we manage publicly. Philanthropy is meant to fill the gaps between public and private sectors, where we as individuals can give by choice where and as we see fit to improve.
For example, in rural areas, there may be on great estates or large companies that have spectacular places, I watch the laborers rapidly harvesting—where not yet replaced by machines— and am struck that this is not much different or better than the feudal system. The large corporations or the large private farms have the power, and the workers have at best a set of minimum work safety standards to protect them. The many that are undocumented (this is internationally the case) are easily abused, sent away before payment is made. In the USA, raids are convenient way to clear the fields of the undocumented that ought to be paid, only for the cycle to repeated itself. These are not slaves, but the mere fact that they technically not slaves whitewashes it all for us. Now landowners can skirt by with minimal requirements, with no sense of personal responsibility towards the laborers. They are technically not slaves, but what have they of their labor? They do not identify with the place. There is hardly any comfort in that land for them. The beauty and meaning of the land is gone —even for the owners. The land is reduced to a source of wealth (i.e. power). And the workers have not intrinsic connection even to one another —except that they share the same plight, whether by choice or misfortune. This is degrading, even if we tell ourselves that they are free.
It is into such situations that philanthropy must step. Philanthropy must fill the gaps where government and corporations cannot care for people.[ I should also mention here that philanthropy is not the same as love. Love is private, between people. Philanthropy is public effort, done hopefully with love, but for the general love of mankind.]
I wonder sometimes what the role of philanthropy will be when AI has managed to predict and effectively distribute food to those it deems should receive it, or funding to those it deems should have it, and takes from those who are producing to give to others who are producing less. The idea that artificial intelligence will solve our environmental and social ills is fascinating, and I’m always astonished by how many grown men and women—intellectuals and industry leaders—talk about this as if it were only a matter of time. If it does, will we still have philanthropy?
I suppose not, for the government of artificial intelligence will so effectively plan, predict, and produce resources and distribute them to those it deems deserving that the idea of helping one another will no longer be necessary. And philanthropy is not about looking good or the tax breaks, though maybe that is what it often gets reduced to these days. It’s not about patronizing the poor. It’s also not a subconscious balancing of power, hoping that if we ever found ourselves in their shoes—if the roles were reversed—they would take care of us.
But we must actively choose to still have philanthropy.