Rick Simonson

Amazon.com: Riches and Embarrassment

One evening last week, in a lovely older home with a view overlooking Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains to the east, there was a reception for the outgoing executive director of Seattle Arts & Lectures. It was the kind of occasion common to the life of non-profit, community-based organizations, be they arts and cultural (as Seattle Arts & Lectures is), human- or social-service in nature. There are gatherings of welcome, farewell, occasions where a distinguished guest is visiting, where funds are being solicited, and so on. Attendees will include board members, sometmes staff, supporters and friends, prospects (for support), and, the occasional invited 'outsider.'

In a country such as the United States, where there is little public/government financial support for artistic, humanities, or human/social service needs, these non-profit organizations do work vital to the life of a community, to making places meaningful, livable, civilized. These organizations derive their sustaining support, earned income aside, from financial contributions made by individuals, corporations, foundations, and (in some cases), government support. The landscape has much changed in recent decades, as the nature of corporations and professions (banking, law) have been dramatically altered, in many cases, with there being fewer locally-owned and operated entities.

Like many larger cities, Seattle has a mix of larger corporations that operate nationally (if not everywhere) and local companies, and a number of foundations. Indeed, Seattle may have a larger and more complex combination than many places, as it (regionally) is home to Microsoft, Boeing (headquarters moved to Chicago, but much of the innards remains here), Costco, Starbucks, and Washington Mutual Bank, to name a few. Whatever one might think of these companies in how they operate in the world, they all do put significant dollars in the coffers of local non-profit organizations of a wide array. Not only do they often put funds directly to operating or capital campaign costs, but most offer matching programs whereby employees (or partners, as Starbucks has them), make contributions to groups of their choice, with their company matching those gifts.

On the same day as this Seattle Arts & Lectures reception, it was announced that a particular Seattle-based corporation with global reach, Amazon.com, had hearty profits for its reported period of earnings - the news of which was greeted with much cheer, boosted stock prices, etc. After its early years of losing money, it's a certfiiably in-the-black operation ... however that has been accomplished.

More than ever, it would then seem, it is time to publicly raise the question as to why Amazon has done nothing, absolutely nothing, in the way of overt philanthopy. Mist Place talked with various people in the non-profit community - everyone is perplexed at Amazon's absence, its total, niggardly abdication of this role. It is perhaps only for a lack of media attention - and a kind of calling-out, or shaming - that this isn't being addressed publicly. One person talked with knows two of the people on Amazon's board, who know well the way of corporate giving, and say they even have gotten nowhere in inquiries. Mr. Bezos, in at least one online account of some time ago, asked about philanthropy, treated the question only in terms of his own wealth. He said he was studying the example of Bill Gates, who was fairly deliberate, and took some flack from people, until the time came when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did start in earnest. But that is a mixing, or confusion, of Jeff Bezos' own money and Amazon's place in things. Even when there was wondering as to what and when Bill Gates would start doing with his own money, Microsoft was very much a player in corporate giving. There are other stories that could be told: as Bezos has attended fundraiser house parties, much in the nature as this for Seattle Arts & Lectures. Everyone who has ever been to one knows of the point of the occasion when someone (usually a board member) makes what is known as 'the ask' Even at one or two of those, Mist Place was told, there was nothing.

The jargon of 'giving' to the customers isn't the real giving ... nor is serving as a portal for contributions for relief after natural disasters, nice a gesture as that is, a substitute for doing their part. From here to elsewhere, and other hands, it is hoped this story can go.

Posted by Rick Simonson on August 2, 2007 | Comments (1)