{"id":3766,"date":"2009-01-03T03:58:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-03T03:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3766"},"modified":"2025-09-30T00:28:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T00:28:04","slug":"a-philanthropy-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3766","title":{"rendered":"A philanthropy lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week ago the Wall Street Journal<\/strong> had a column\/interview with Bill Simon, the son of William Simon, the investment banker and philanthropist who was treasury secretary under Nixon and Ford. <\/p>\n

William Simon was very successful and a big supporter of charities. his son Bill is co-chair of the Foundation his father established. <\/p>\n

Interview: Bill Simon, Philanthropist – WSJ.com<\/strong><\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

"When you make a gift, you have to be very specific with the institution," he tells me. But even specificity may not be enough. To protect donor intent, the Olin and the Simon Foundations have "sunset clauses," preset dates on which they go out of business. Olin officially closed its doors in 2005. The Simon Foundation will spend itself out of existence by 2029.<\/p>\n

Mr. Simon says he didn't always understand the importance of a foundation not existing in perpetuity. "It was something Dad felt strongly about," Mr. Simon tells me. Now, at 57, he has come to appreciate this principle. "As I get a little bit older I can see the wisdom of Dad's advice," he says, noting that "people's behaviors change. . . . You have to be targeted in your focus and it's harder to do that as you . . . get further away from the donor." (The Ford Foundation is the best-known example of a philanthropy straying from its donor's intent. Henry Ford II actually resigned from its board in 1977, complaining that the foundation launched by his grandfather had turned its back on the free-market system that made its creation possible.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week ago the Wall Street Journal had a column\/interview with Bill Simon, the son of William Simon, the investment banker and philanthropist who was treasury secretary under Nixon and Ford. William Simon was very successful and a big supporter of charities. his son Bill is co-chair of the Foundation his father established. Interview: Bill Simon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5323,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions\/5323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}