Someone succeeds in business and wants to do something good with his accumulated wealth. How about setting up a charitable foundation? It will do good deeds with that wealth after the person who earned it is gone. Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?

Actually, no. Many such foundations have been taken over by “progressive” administrators who have no qualms about devoting the philanthropist’s wealth to causes he would have hated.

In this post, Jane Shaw Stroup provides us a short, sad history of such foundations.

Regarding the Ford Foundation, here’s a snippet:

Finally, in 1974, the foundation authorized a 530-page report on energy by S. David Freeman (later the head of the government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority). The report set energy conservation as “a matter of highest national priority.” It elevated government planning and control over the oil and auto industries. It proposed appliance energy efficiency standards, mortgage subsidies for people who bought homes that met the standards, pushed for car miles-per-gallon standards, and promoted pollution taxes. (Our sluggish dishwashers are an example of what this report led to.)

Is there some way to set up a foundation so that it can’t be turned against the values and intentions of the philanthropist? Given the way that leftists are drawn to capturing every dollar they can (both public and private) and using the money for their purposes, the answer might be “no.”