The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs

Avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins of Philanthropy

Habitually failing in the aforementioned ways is a charge that can be laid at the door of only the tiniest fraction of grantmakers. But most program officers, from time to time, are guilty of one or more of the lapses. People who make their living practicing philanthropy probably, as a class, have ethics no worse than those of other professions. However, given the high ideals of philanthropy and the enormous potential it offers to society, the public has a right to expect that the ethical behavior of program officers should be higher than that of the average professional. That belief has infused the foregoing chapters, in which I have implicitly addressed ethical issues without labeling them as such. ...