DISCUSSION Robert W. Kelso, Executive Secretary, Council of Social Agencies, Boston The most interesting of Doctor Hart's suggestions, for me, is that in which he warns against fixing for all time, by a single stroke of the pen, the object and mode of giving a trust fund. During the hundred years in which the gift of Benjamin Franklin was to accumulate, the young artisan apprentice ceased to exist as a class to be helped. Just as surely will time change the conditions in which every other gift is sought to be applied. The ideal way to establish charitable trusts is to give them into permanent, reliable, incorporated hands, leaving to such fiduciaries and their successors a large measure of discretion in the mode of disbursement. Social service is an extra-hazardous occupation. As such it requires a master hand. The application of testamentary trusts therefore should be left to the sound judgment of the engineers who actually have it in charge. It is for the same reason that no donor-and this is the second point I wish to make-should give anything until the social program for the community in question is apparent at least in outline. Some time ago a group of gentlemen submitted to me this question: "We are trustees under a will. A residuary trust which will total approximately $350,000 is left to charitable uses generally. The particular applica. tion is left to us as trustees. We feel obliged to make the application of the trust in some form a memorial to the testator by his name, which will require that the principal be kept intact; but are not otherwise bound. Will you advise us what is the best application we can make of this trust, in view of the needs of the community and the best standards of social work ?" I, in turn, asked the same question of the 165 agencies comprising the Boston Council. Down to my departure for the conference, the following suggestions had come in: a home for aged colored people; further care, institutional or otherwise, for chronics and incurables; a fund to be invested, the income to be applied to general relief purposes directly or through other charities within the discretion of the trustees; a contribution of $65,000 to a social agency now in existence, no suggestion as to the application of the remainder; the establishment of a social center in the South End of Boston as an outgrowth of settlementhouse work there; the further development of an existing dispensary; a preventorium for children in connection with existing tuberculosis camp work; the standardization and conduct of public health work for children between infancy and school age, the same to be an extension of existing nursing and hygiene service; the purchase of property as a gift to an existing social agency, in order to permit closer physical combination in a group of agencies; the establishment of a fund, the income to be applied to general health service for children, the plan to involve the co-ordination of service now being rendered by an existing group of agencies; the establishment of a series of similar tenement quarters in various parts of the city, where aged men, women, and couples, who would otherwise go to the almshouse, could be given a place to live under supervision of a selected caretaker and expenses beyond their ability to pay met out of the fund; the training, placement, and incidental relief of handicapped persons; a provident loan fund, the income to be applied to tide families over crises without removing from their shoulders the continued responsibility for their own support; the development of an institution with some hospital facilities for the care of convalescents; the construction and maintenance of a building to be held and operated as headquarters for a group of social agencies; the construction of a memorial building as a part of the plant of an existing boys' school. My third point is that a donor should be large-minded enough to give where the social program is best advanced thereby. In my city the chronic sick are sadly neglected. It is not a popular charity. Many a giver, no doubt, would turn his benevolences toward the care of the helpless, hopeless, and often homeless, group if he could see the field of need and the social service equipment for meeting it all in the one perspective. If those who have property which they are willing to turn to community service would give, therefore, only where the need is demonstrated through rational study of community needs; if they would give where the need is greatest; and finally, if they would give in trust at the discretion of persons wiser than they, who are present and dealing with the hould have taken a long stride toward that preventive social service of which w Raymond Moley, Dire My understanding of the testida sion of the person who has fr And the papers presented by 414 I sh: force the knov of th have mun Inst I hav whet or w ence culti weal a fed able very tact tion its p and! sider the t popu force other ently Orgai whic prom able coucl ng r made hose valle or c ORGANIZATION OF SOCIAL FORCES the two kinds of charitable organizations which would naturally sugges such a giver—the welfare federation or union and the community trust It would be somewhat unfortunate if this discussion should convey se that these two comparatively new forms of social effort are to be in t seekers after such bequests or that they should ever go beyond merely satr each other in the field of social work. Their purposes are different with ic gent and their fields of action more or less independent of each other. Io close of this paper to show how they can in the future co-operate in a very The community trust has from the beginning appealed particularly t giver that is, as fortunes go, the person with less than a million dollar m charity, as well as the more (or less) fortunate person with more than a m should not expect therefore that if welfare federations seriously go after div there could be a line of demarkation at $1,000,000 between the two chimic community trust is most definitely appealing to the small fortune as well as and will without doubt continue to do so. st Two important considerations which largely contribute to the develoew community trust and which have arrested the attention of practical bus everywhere are (a) the danger of the "dead hand" in charitable giving; ( omy and utility of combining many gifts in a single unit dedicated to the inevi of social conditions in a single community. y The first community trust was the Cleveland Foundation established esp tion passed by the board of directors of the Cleveland Trust Company. Thbly formulated and submitted by F. H. Goff, president of the Cleveland Trustom formerly an attorney of broad experience. The aim of the Cleveland Foundation is, in the words of the resolution ca to provide a means of distributing funds for "assisting charitable and educat Call tutions, whether supported by private donations or public taxation; for conditions or provide recreation for all classes; and for such other charitable an education, scientific research; for care of the sick, aged, or helpless; to impr def as will best make for the mental, moral, and physical improvement of the inh Ch of the city of Cleveland, regardless of race, color, or creed." am which is officially designated the trustee of the Cleveland Foundation. The by Property given for this purpose is administered by the Cleveland Trust Co Per gifts thus received are administered as a single trust, when the income become res may receive "gifts, devises, and bequests" for the purposes enumerated about how able for the use of the foundation. tio un The income from this trust (and in certain cases the principal) is expended members of said committee to belong to the same religious sect or omi ell 1 For t ons which would avorable reception which the formation of the Cleveland Foundation received r union and the counds of people who were interested in social work of various kinds and the if this discussing formation of a great number of similar foundations in other cities attest the ns of social efortae development of the community trust idea is one of the most significant should ever go leons to social service which has been made in a generation. The latest reports eir purposes are at about forty similar foundations have been established in various cities s independent at the United States and there seems to be increasing interest in the he future co-ope nning appealed of the landmarks in this development has been the formation of the New York th less thanty Trust with provision for multiple trusteeship. Most of the great trust e person withs of New York are included in this new scheme which simply means that the derations ser giving wealth for posterity may select as his trustee any trust company ,000 between t wishes and that the responsibility for the financial management of his estate he small for ith his own trust company while the distribution of the income thereof will be a community distributing committee. A few cities have recently adopted the Contribute ark plan. Among these is the Buffalo Foundation which now includes all of the ttention of mpanies of Erie County. in charitabl ndation es e fact which is most pertinent to this discussion is that there has been very little anit dedication from the form of organization originating in Cleveland under which a majorle distributing committee are appointed by public officials who themselves are ible to the community at large. There are one or two exceptions to this, note New York Community Trust which has eleven members on its distributing he Clevettee not all of whom are responsible to public officials but some of whom are ted by such organizations as the New York Bar Association, the Brooklyn my of Arts and Sciences, and a number of similar non-official bodies. In practiitable and very other case the Cleveland plan has been followed. Trust Com of the res Fc taxati elpless other th ement. eland I datin nerate Come nly four of the community foundations have yet been able to accomplish any te results in the field of social service. These are the Buffalo, Chicago, and Cleveoundations, and the Boston Permanent Charity Fund. The Boston Permanent ity Fund has an income of about $200,000 and practically all of this is distributed ig charitable organizations of the city, after examination of their needs by the anent Charity Fund authorities. This is an example of a fund which is spent mere distribution among existing social agencies. The Cleveland Foundation has, ever, since its inception followed the plan of expending its limited income in social arch, the more important examples of which are the education survey, the recreasurvey, a short survey of relief agencies, and a number of enterprises which are now er way, including the publication annually of a yearbook detailing community irs in a narrative form, the publication of the Directory of Community Activities forrly issued by the Welfare Federation and before that by the Associated Charities, the incing of a study of teachers' training, and, finally, a survey of the administration punitive justice in Cleveland, which is probably the most comprehensive investigan in the field of the administration of criminal law yet undertaken in the United ates. The Buffalo Foundation has entered a slightly more restricted field but has oceeded in the same general direction. It has published the Social Service Directory Erie County and is now co-operating heartily in a movement to co-ordinate the welre agencies of the city, the director of the foundation acting as the secretary of a sort f embryonic council of social agencies. The Chicago Foundation has published a hort summary of the Americanization situation in Chicago and has assisted in bringing about the formation of an Americanization Council. It also started a survey of the public health of Chicago which has been discontinued. The experience of foundations is, of course, limited. It must be remembered that none of the foundations except that in Boston has an income large enough to contribute to actual services in a city. Consequently it is difficult to estimate the exact methods by which they will enter into the support of community charitable agencies. Probably the only thing that they can do in their early years when their income is limited is to engage in social research. The Cleveland Foundation has outlined as a general policy for the present the prosecution of two general lines of activity: first, the appraisal and publication of information on community needs and conditions; second, the initiation of social activities. It seems to me that the advantages of a community foundation as a recipient of bequests for charity are the following: 1. Living control over income with the power to take away as well as to give. So far as I can see there can never be a specific group of participating agencies with a moreor-less vested right to consideration in determining a foundation budget. The community trust should and probably must avoid entangling alliances with all agencies but constantly seek to aid all which are deserving of such aid. The danger of the "dead hand" is thus wholly eliminated. 2. The close association of community foundations with trust companies assures sound and economical financial management by a trust company of the first order. It is a fact being driven home at great cost to social and educational institutions, that the organizations fitted to perform a specific and often technical kind of social service is almost invariably totally unfitted for the financial management necessary to produce the full measure of return from the funds available. Many colleges and universities are now employing trust companies to administer their funds. This latter sort of financial management is assured permanently to the donor of a community foundation. 3. One of the unquestionable advantages of a great foundation like that established by Rockefeller comes from its large size. It can establish and adequately maintain the investigation and inspection so necessary to determine whether its donations are wisely and effectively used. The union of many small gifts in one large foundation assures the small giver the same sort of checking up as is enjoyed by the large giver. Unless an organization undertaking to solicit funds is prepared to seek a large number of bequests it should be slow to solicit any. For it may find that to wisely administer even a small income requires a considerable overhead which will consume an excessively large proportion of the available income. 4. We all hope that the passing years will more and more make it possible to minimize the kinds of relief services represented in a large measure in the membership of community welfare federations. Such a betterment of social conditions will leave the surplus wealth of the community to flow into certain higher forms of social service. Thus we progress from alms to aid and from aid to service, from relief to recreation and from recreation to education and art. The broad powers given to most of the foundations assure this development. There will always be difficulty in the way of supporting certain activities which according to popular standards of measurement are not "charity." Welfare federations often find that contributions to certain æsthetic purposes cost a rather heavy toll of explanation. One case in point is a contribution to a symphony orchestra made in payment for popular concerts at community centers, but often associated in the minds of givers with paying for the pleasure of people entirely able to pay for their own recreation. Art galleries, museums, educational projects of every character can be supported by community trusts without public criticism and with a maximum flexibility of management. 5. Experimental charities of various kinds can be supported by community trusts. Enterprises which it may be necessary to support for a long period of years before there can be any returns, but which, if successful, might revolutionize the treatment of certain diseases or the management of certain social problems to such an extent as to make unnecessary many very commonly supported existing charities. In cases like this the community trust can withdraw support when the effort or experiment proves unsuccessful, and no public criticism need be feared because of the failure. With the more common agencies results must be produced every year in order that the public may be induced to continue its support. When we consider that much of the progress of the future depends upon pioneer work of an experimental nature, it will be seen that we must make provision to place such work upon such a basis as will permit its prosecution without fear of failure. 6. A community foundation may even enter upon the more remote fields of preventive social work. There may be some question as to whether such subjects as stabilizing employment or cost of living investigation can be lawfully conducted under the term of charity. But it is quite obvious that enterprises of this sort which border upon the verge of political and economic questions can be more nearly approached by the community trust than by any other local charitable agency. The fact that the Cleveland Foundation has entered into and successfully prosecuted a study of the administration of penal justice, in which operation of courts, the police and penal institutions have been brought under study, indicates the scope of activity which the community trust will permit. 7. The community trust can undertake its work free from the distraction which all growing concerns have in meeting current needs. The group of minds which is faced with the needs of meeting a current responsibility, with the constant distractions attendant upon supplying the requirements of social agencies, is rather a poor instrument to use in the thoughtful, contemplative process of thinking through social problems of great importance. Marshal Foch has said that he "won the Great War smoking a pipe," which is another way of saying that, freed from the responsibility of supplying the needs of an army, he was able to determine upon the strategy necessary to direct many individual efforts to a single purpose. It is this sort of strategy-determining agency that a community trust can become-an agency which can in large measure be relieved of worrying about its own existence. |