(Illustration by Ross MacDonald)
What Is a Billionaire to Do?
ARTICLE: Why Don’t Philanthropists Build Anymore
Sarah Cone’s cover essay in SSIR’s Summer 2026 issue questioned whether today’s billionaire philanthropists are creating the sort of durable institutions built by previous generations. The argument generated a robust conversation online.
“The article nails it on the need for structural change in philanthropy,” commented Jyotisha Tat on LinkedIn, “but let’s not forget the role of grassroots movements. They often spark the long-term shifts we crave.”
• Dr. Neville Mangwiro added: “In the African context, [the article] also raises a deeper question: Has philanthropy on the continent ever truly entered a ‘Gilded Age’ in the institutional sense, or have African traditions of giving historically been rooted less in legacy-building through large formal institutions and more in relational, communal, and survival-oriented forms of solidarity?”
• “The highest leverage philanthropy creates structures that outlive the founder and expand opportunity across generations,” wrote Amelia Pane Schaffner. “Perhaps the deeper challenge is cultivating a civic culture where renewal, responsibility, and opportunity continuously regenerate through collective participation.”
• But the essay was not without its critics. In a letter to the editor, published in full at SSIR.org, Matthew Bregman wrote:
“The statement I’d most like to push back on is this: ‘The philanthropic class largely writes checks to floundering institutions, offering money where institutional imagination is needed.’
“I must object to three assumptions implicit in that statement: 1) the nonprofit organizations that are addressing these important issues are floundering; 2) they are floundering not because they are underfunded, but because they lack ‘institutional imagination’; and 3) that the world would be a better place if these floundering institutions were replaced by new institutions conceived by today’s tech and finance billionaires.
“First, by and large, the large nonprofits addressing these issues are not floundering (or foundering)—they are, often, doing extraordinary work with limited resources.
“Second, it is unfair to imply that these organizations are struggling because they lack imagination. The professionals and volunteers of these organizations work week by week, month by month, year by year, to address the very social ills mentioned in the article, and often do so with inspiring effectiveness and creativity, despite limited funds and the dismissive attitude of too many observers. The fact that the leaders of these organizations have not accumulated the wealth of the billionaires listed in this article is not a result of an absence of ability, but rather a presence of values that guide them to apply their ability to civic concerns rather than the accumulation of private wealth.
“Third, I am especially uncomfortable with the suggestion that for-profit billionaires are better suited to found and run mission-driven civic organizations than the nonprofit leaders currently doing so.”
• In another comment, Kristina Vayda drew a contrast with private-sector investment norms: “We keep treating philanthropy and business as fundamentally different ways of operating. One of my pet peeves is that nonprofits are told they can’t spend on fundraising, overhead, or internal capacity. Meanwhile, no one blinks when a startup deploys investor capital on marketing and infrastructure. The double standard isn’t accidental. It reflects a deep misunderstanding of what building and innovating requires—and that the social impact sector needs it just as much as the business world.”
Philanthropic Leadership
ARTICLE: The New Gilded Age Needs Civic Leaders, Not Just Philanthropists
Stanford PACS Executive Director Priya Shanker wrote for SSIR that the most important question is not what causes billionaire philanthropists to choose to give but “what responsibilities accompany extraordinary wealth in a world beset with declining trust in institutions, deep polarization, and widespread feelings of political and economic disenfranchisement.” To help answer that, she suggests, the leaders of legacy philanthropic institutions may serve as models for how to operate “at the difficult boundary between markets, states, and civil society.”
“The description of foundation leaders as translators operating among competing constituencies, values, and legitimacy claims resonated with critical concerns in the sector regarding institutional judgment and responsibility under pressure,” echoed Jarvis Williams on LinkedIn.
“There is an insane amount of wealth about to move into philanthropy,” added Rachel Jacobson. “The question isn’t only where it goes, but whether the institutions receiving it have the clarity and capacity to put it to work effectively. The people closest to the work understand their communities best, and the organizations best positioned to steward these resources will be the ones that can clearly articulate what they’re trying to do, how they’re doing it, and what it takes to sustain the work.”
Read more stories by SSIR Editors.