Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short

An insider's view exposing the most urgent issue in US big giving--and how to address it

With Americans increasingly concerned about billionaires controlling our public funds and everyday lives, Glen Galaich--social impact expert, nonprofit leader, and Stupski Foundation CEO--delivers his personal conversion story from believing in strong, consolidated donor power to advocating for more community engagement in foundation funding decisions. In Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short, Galaich offers an incisive critique of the United States' approach to charitable Big Giving and its systems and culture that, he argues, encourage excessive donor control.

Most people don't realize (or don't want to talk about) why today $2 trillion in US charitable funds are essentially stockpiled by big donors and foundations too focused on growing endowments through for-profit investments rather than the timely, vital disbursement of these funds back to our communities and nonprofits. Galaich introduces us to the system-wide "Mindset of Control" that allows continued, outsized influence of major donors over charitable assets legally and ethically no longer their money. He discusses how financial and legal systems, combined with outdated traditions, have given big donors a false sense of ownership over effectively public assets, and kept private foundations and donor-advised funds from comprehensively engaging communities. It's a role in the system that Galaich questions if many big donors even want to play.

Inside the book:

• Revealing examples of how excessive donor control maintains an ineffective culture of Big Giving and limits community engagement
• Storytelling that holds a mirror up to the sector's behaviors, myths, and "fake rules" that impede social progress for working-class and perennially under-resourced communities
• A rare peek into the inner workings of private foundations and how grantmaking decisions are made behind the closed doors of nontransparent institutions

Galaich says the good news is that we created this system, and we can change it. Control offers first steps toward a game-changing shift in this massive sector that affects everyone, showing new roles we can play and fairer mindsets. Challenging and principled, Control is essential reading for anyone interested in this country's socioeconomic trends or in changing our world.

GLEN GALAICH, PhD, is the CEO of the Stupski Foundation. He previously served as CEO of Forward Global (formerly The Philanthropy Workshop) and has worked for more than 25 years with major donors, policymakers, and community leaders to build trustworthy relationships and amplify social impact.