Events Detail

What is Conservative

Philanthropy?



Wednesday, September 12 - 12:00 to 2:00 p.m.
Hudson Institute - Betsy and Walter Stern Conference Center
1015 15th Street, NW - Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005


Please click here to read a transcript of this event.

Event Description

As conservative policy proposals have come to play a major role in American politics, liberal pundits have been quick to point to wealthy conservative donors as the source of this success. Notes William E. Simon Foundation President James Piereson: “Conservative ideas play but a minor role in the account, and are themselves generally characterized as mere stalking horses for corporate interests. A particularly sinister role is ascribed to those conservative philanthropies that have helped fund thinkers, magazines, and research institutions—on the assumption that no one would advance such self-evidently meretricious ideas unless paid to do so.”

Piereson goes on to point out that while “the Left has displayed a near-obsessive interest in conservative philanthropies,” it has tended to “ignore the substance of [conservative] ideas themselves, quite as if John Stuart Mill's famous characterization of conservatives as ‘the stupid party’ were still the rule in the early 21st century. But the plain fact is that modern conservatives have been engaged with the world of ideas to a far greater extent than most modern liberals. The columnist David Brooks has observed that, asked to name influences on their thinking, most conservatives are able to list a number of books or authors, while liberals have difficulty identifying any. This lively engagement with a coherent body of ideas forms a crucial if much overlooked aspect of the rise of conservatism, and one in which conservative foundations have played a central role.”

What are the ideas that animate conservative philanthropy today? What direction is conservative grantmaking likely to take in the future? These and other questions were addressed by our distinguished panel, including William E. Simon Foundation President James Piereson, Steven Teles from John Hopkins University, Lenore Ealy of Conversations on Philanthropy, and New York University Senior Fellow Gara LaMarche. Hudson Institute Senior Fellow William Schambra moderated the discussion.

Required Reading

James Piereson, "Investing in Conservative Ideas," Commentary, May 2005.

Program and Panel

11:30 a.m.
Registration, lunch buffet

12:00 p.m.
Introduction by Bradley Center Director William Schambra

12:10 p.m.
Panel discussion
Lenore Ealy, Executive Director of The Philanthropy Enterprise and Editor of Conversations on Philanthropy
Gara LaMarche, Senior Fellow at New York University's Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service
James Piereson, President of the William E. Simon Foundation
Steven Teles, Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

1:10
Question-and-answer session

2:00
Adjournment