Giving Compass' Take:

• Aruna D’Souza, writing for Medium, explores the importance of transparency in philanthropic foundations.

• How are foundations making a concerned effort to be more transparent?

• Read about why NGOs must be more transparent with trusts and foundations.

In 1952 Russell Leffingwell, chair of Carnegie Corporation’s board of trustees, advocated for greater public accountability among philanthropists:

We think that the foundation should have glass pockets.

Leffingwell’s call came in an atmosphere of creeping distrust of the work of foundations by politicians and citizens who were beginning to wonder why an industry that held billions of dollars in capital and benefitted from tax exempt status was able to operate relatively free of government regulation and oversight.

In fact, this demand for increased scrutiny may have been prompted by the explosion of foundation assets in the 1940s and 1950s: in the six-year period from 1944 to 1950, the number of foundations grew from 505 to 1,001, as did their wealth, from $1.8 to $2.5 billion.

Foundations were also watching with growing alarm fraudulent activity taking place under the rubric of charitable activity, and worrying that the integrity and independence of their industry would be at risk unless they began to self-regulate.

The need for transparency in philanthropy has not waned in the years since Carnegie Corporation leaders Leffingwell, Gardner, and Perkins urged a “glass pockets” approach.

Read the full article on transparency in philanthropy by Aruna D’Souza at Medium.