Giving Compass' Take:

• Felix Salmon explains how one donor provided an overly-restrictive grant to an animal welfare organization.  

• How can other funders avoid the mistakes made in this example? What drives philanthropists to these types of choices?  

• Learn about the benefits of trust-based philanthropy. 

Let me introduce you to Mark Eisner Jr, an animal lover and car-dealership magnate. Under the conditions of a trust he created to give away his money, $750,000 was to be donated to the Anne Arundel SPCA, where he had previously been a board member. But there was a catch: the charity must have “substantially completed a new building from which to conduct its principal activities in Anne Arundel County” by 10 years after his death, or it would forfeit the donation.

This is legit bonkers, not least because it violates one of the first laws of philanthrophy, which is, don’t fund architecture.

Eisner’s condition also violates another key law of philanthropy, which is don’t give money to people you don’t trust.

While we’re tallying up broken philanthropic laws, here’s another: frontload, don’t backload.

Your money can do more good today than it can in a decade’s time.

Worse still, Eisner managed to posthumously waste a whole bunch of money on entirely predictable and avoidable shenanigans surrounding his bequest. There’s now a whole lawsuit surrounding this money, with lawyers fighting it out on both sides, and a judge whom I’m sure has much more important things to worry about.

Read the full article on philanthropy by Felix Salmon at Cause and Effect.