Naming Buildings After Philanthropic Donors: Is It Moral?

(Photograph by iStock/ChiccoDodiFCChiccoDodiFC)

Philanthropically-minded people by way of the ages have chiseled their names on buildings as expressions of civic accountability, status, and energy. Way back to the primary century CE, Roman normal Marcus Agrippa had his identify inscribed on the Pantheon temple. At this time, nonprofit fundraising and particularly giant capital campaigns emphasize naming alternatives to draw seven-, eight-, and nine-figure donations from high-net-worth people (HNWIs). Naming presents present donors with reputational and market worth, what authorized scholar William Drennan refers to as “publicity rights,” and beneficiary organizations and their constituents with monetary and mission-driven worth. Lower than one % of main presents are provided anonymously, not surprisingly, as fundraisers encourage public acts of charity. A time-honored tenet of fundraising maintains that securing and publicizing lead presents for campaigns will spur others to present.

For the previous three a long time, I’ve guided museums, nonprofit arts organizations, and better schooling establishments in planning, programming, fundraising for, and selling new or renovated cultural services that fulfill mission imperatives. Over that point, I’ve witnessed an elevated emphasis on naming alternatives for buildings and a decreased emphasis on moral apply in capital fundraising the place naming presents usually function advertising and marketing or status enhancing automobiles for donors that overshadow honest charitable intent. In response, I returned to high school to review fundraising and nonprofit sector management and their relationship to normative ethics.

Do lead naming presents really stimulate high-level philanthropy from different donors and is that what motivates HNWIs to make such charitable contributions? My analysis finds in any other case and implicates present authorized constructs and fundraising practices that proceed to privilege the self-interests of donors over beneficiaries and society. Nevertheless, by interrogating and understanding the ethics of such apply, it’s potential to develop a technique and greatest practices for capital fundraising which are grounded in socially simply ideas.

Ethical Philosophies and Naming Items

Normative ethics is the examination of proper and incorrect as a information to human ethical conduct. Philosophers since classical antiquity have used ethical reasoning to ponder moral points and decide the suitable course of human motion for all types of debated questions. There are a number of completely different moral frameworks and relating a few of their numerous theoretical ideas to naming presents presents vital views on philanthropy and its impetuses.

Moral egoism posits that fulfilling one’s obligation to behave out of self-interest is the very best ethical calling. The late Twentieth-century Russian-American thinker and novelist Ayn Rand argues that the moral egoist values the self above all else and avoids sacrificing herself for the sake of others. For donors, the private pleasure that outcomes from giving help to others underscores that the charitable act shouldn’t be divorced from the ego. This principle pertains to what American economist James Andreoni calls impure altruism, the inherent rigidity between philanthropy and self-interest. Ostensibly, the moral egoist who seeks identify recognition generously donates to a nonprofit’s constructing marketing campaign to not drive optimistic group influence, however to raised her personal welfare. This concept might not be as exaggerated because it sounds. In 2022, the Financial institution of New York Mellon Company surveyed 200 HNWIs to discern why the rich give; lots of the prime motivations—private satisfaction, giving again, furthering a legacy or household custom, and minimizing taxes, for instance—relate to the self.

Charitable contributions pushed by moral egoism might present probably the most profit to the donor, nonetheless. Contemplate the $10 million lead present in 2019 from author and artist Carolyn Campagna Kleefield to California State College, Lengthy Seaside’s up to date artwork museum that now bears her identify. As well as, an eponymously named gallery shows her work, art work donated by Kleefield to the museum’s everlasting assortment. Los Angeles Occasions artwork critic Christopher Knight has referred to as this eyebrow-raising state of affairs a “practice wreck” and “colossal blunder.”

Utilitarian ethics is predicated on the idea that the last word ethical objective of human motion is to pursue the very best outcomes for a majority of individuals in ways in which maximize pleasure over ache. The utilitarian treats each herself and others impartially, and requires no self-sacrifice or ego suppression if the results of an individual’s actions concurrently serve the pursuits of others and her personal. The mental most related to classical utilitarianism (also referred to as consequentialism) is the 18th-century British thinker and authorized scholar Jeremy Bentham.

At this time’s utilitarian donor would make sure that others profit equally and will not be harmed by a naming present for a constructing. But over time, perpetual naming presents for services might show detrimental to future generations. Legislation professor John Eason notes that present-day social justice actions usually name for renouncing previous namings for slave homeowners, white supremacists, or anti-Semites. Many schools and universities are responding by establishing “denaming” insurance policies that take away the names of divisive figures or histories from campus buildings. A $50,000 present in 1933 from the Tennessee Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to George Peabody School for Academics, later absorbed by Vanderbilt College, named in perpetuity a university dormitory referred to as Accomplice Memorial Corridor. In 2002, the college shortened the constructing’s identify to Memorial Corridor in help of inclusion and educational freedom, and UDC sued for breach of contract. Vanderbilt misplaced in courtroom and needed to repay UDC the present truthful market worth of the present, which it lastly did in 2016 for $1.2 million.

Eason additionally observes that perpetual naming presents can constrain alternatives to boost cash for future, important facility renovations, thus inhibiting a nonprofit’s potential to stay attentive to present and future wants. Some organizations and donors accordingly agree on time-limited preparations, just like the 50-year naming of New York State Theater at Lincoln Middle for the late industrialist David H. Koch in change for his $100 million donation in 2008.

Deontological ethics highlights respect for people—their autonomy, company, and shallowness. Recognizing that people are aware, rational beings, its tenets comply with established societal norms and legal guidelines that discourage utilizing folks to advance private agendas in favor of valuing their inherent capacities, rights, and liberties. In contrast to utilitarians, deontologists are compelled not by the pursuit of happiness, however by obligation that’s each principled and even handed. Eighteenth-century German thinker Immanuel Kant, foremost champion of deontology, superior the idea of the morally binding categorical crucial, the concept common legal guidelines decide how somebody ought to behave. Deontologists assert that a person needs to be guided by motive, not emotions or private preferences, to behave morally in methods that may be universalized for the nice of all folks, for instance: don’t lie, don’t homicide.

Though Kant was criticized for intertwining Christian values into his perception system, it ought to come as no shock that the nice religions of the world espouse ethical codes of conduct. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all encourage some type of charity and there are various donors at the moment who have interaction in philanthropy out of a way of spiritual obligation. Constructing naming presents can actually fulfill such faith-based obligations, neither compromising sacred ideas nor posing ethical conflicts. In Judaism, the apply of tzedakah is an moral obligation to present in a simply and merciful means to assist these in want. Public recognition through a naming provided in change for giving is accepted by many as a strategy to honor donors whereas inspiring further presents.

Advantage ethics emphasizes considering and appearing with noble character and main a morally good life by embodying sure private traits, equivalent to honesty, braveness, and generosity. Advantage ethics originates from each historic Chinese language and Greek philosophies. Chinese language thinker Confucius understood morality as correct conduct optimally expressed by way of 5 virtues. For the late Zhou dynasty sage and his followers, it was necessary to be beneficiant, clever, truthful, trustworthy, and respectful in direction of self and others to stay honorably, at house and in society. Equally, the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle perceived of the virtuous life as outlined by Plato’s 4 cardinal virtues of being simply, clever, brave, and self-disciplined.

For the advantage ethicist, an trustworthy particular person acquires honesty by way of data and by persistently pursuing a life that exemplifies truthfulness. The identical paradigm applies to all virtues. Western advantage ethicists additionally embrace Aristotle’s idea of generosity, which advises giving in line with one’s means and doing so with pleasure. The virtuous donor has a transparent conscience about constructing naming presents and attendant rights if they’re provided with principled intentions, exemplify a life marked by honor, and supply balanced advantages each to society and self. The late electrical engineer and entrepreneur Henry Rowan personifies such a person. Made rich by the profitable industrial expertise agency he co-founded, Rowan donated $100 million in 1992 to not his prestigious alma mater in Massachusetts however to an area school in New Jersey to ascertain a college of engineering to coach the state’s working class. By his entrepreneurship and philanthropy, Rowan demonstrated any variety of virtues—humility, integrity, diligence, belief, generosity, compassion, and justice—and the faculty was subsequently renamed Rowan College in his honor, not at his request.

Care ethics, formed by the ladies’s motion of the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, got here of age as an ethical principle within the Nineteen Eighties. It highlights caregiving, empathy, compassion, and relationships with others. Some take into account care ethics a feminist expression of morality. American psychologist Carol Gilligan stresses the significance of caring, private relationships as a substitute for ethical theories predicated on patriarchal society and a masculine method to abstracted ideas of obligation. The late New Zealand thinker Annette Baier reasoned that men and women make completely different moral selections based mostly on distinct worth programs—ladies lean in direction of belief and care whereas males lean towards justice.

The care ethics-inclined donor is predisposed to consider others and herself in relationship to others. She engages in what public administration scholar Margaret Stout calls “radically democratic apply” to make sure that everyone seems to be cared for and heard, not solely these in positions of affect, however importantly, group members served by philanthropy. American sociologist Paul Schervish refers to personalised, compassionate, outward-facing benevolence that addresses folks’s wants because the “ethical citizenship of care.”

Advocates are using care ethics to form insurance policies round presents designed for public influence. In 2018, the Tate Fashionable museum in London commissioned Cuban artist Tania Bruguera to create an set up for its monumental Turbine Corridor. The artist developed the work to deal with the immigration disaster and collaborated with 21 group members. As a part of the five-month exhibition, Turbine Corridor was quickly renamed not for billionaire Len Blavatnik, who’s the museum’s largest donor, however to honor Natalie Bell, a social employee who has helped youth from the realm overcome their impoverished circumstances. Bruguera and her group cohort have been in the end in a position to persuade the museum and the donor to completely rename the venue for each Bell and Blavatnik as an act of what the artist considers “socially accountable tradition.”

Gender or feminist ethics acknowledges and seeks to treatment conventional ethical philosophies understood as predicated on viewpoints, perception programs, and social practices which have traditionally privileged males whereas subjugating ladies. Acknowledging that gender shouldn’t be binary and rejecting inflexible social conceptions of the female (i.e., mild, compassionate, caring, modest) versus the masculine (sturdy, impartial, assertive, rational), feminist ethics confronts problems with social positioning, privilege, and energy. Among the many patriarchy, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment that girls undergo, feminist principle finds parallels with the results of slavery, colonialism, and racial discrimination that Black folks endure.

Race ethics is predicated on a framework of egalitarianism that applies to all people no matter race and who’re all worthy of the identical elementary rights and respect. Greater than a decade in the past, American thinker Noami Zack asserted that there was no ethics of race and got down to set up its standards. She proposes 12 tenets for a race-conscious moral assemble, which is worldwide, “race-general” (versus race impartial), and free from politics, the place slavery is considered as morally abhorrent, and legal guidelines and social norms consciously manifest these ideas.

The donor involved about gender and race ethics acknowledges that naming rights contravene any sense of social equality, as asserted by philanthropy researcher Benjamin Soskis, and reinforce energy imbalances between main donors and people with much less or no potential to present financially. Such a donor would embrace the ideas of philanthropy as reparative justice championed by theologian Ki Joo Choi and political scientist Roseanne Mirabella, amongst others, and fundraising as community-centric, choosing no recognition connected to her present. She additionally would use the naming proper to extend energy sharing by honoring the legacy of a lady or particular person of shade who superior a selected trigger and made optimistic contributions to society, as famous within the Bruguera instance. In February 2024, former Pennsylvania normal counsel Leslie Miller and her partner, financier Richard Worley, did simply that, donating $25 million to the Philadelphia Orchestra to rename its live performance corridor in honor of the late Black opera singer and civil rights activist Marian Anderson.

The late Charles Feeney is an instance of a donor who most popular anonymity in his philanthropy to privilege the nonprofit arts, schooling, science, medical, human rights, and different organizations he generously supported. The founding father of Obligation Free Buyers, he anonymously donated most of his self-made, $8 billion fortune through Atlantic Philanthropies, a set of foundations included in Bermuda, which meant he was unable to deduct his charitable giving from his U.S. taxes. Feeney contributed to over 1,000 public-sector buildings on 5 continents, but none bear his identify nor that of his foundations.

When Naming Items Can Hurt

Charitable naming presents are replete with symbolism. Of their purest kind, they display the donor’s help of a nonprofit and its social mission. In addition they categorical a corporation’s gratitude for such endorsement. With their implicit transference of values, naming presents can instill credibility within the donor and a “symbolic goodness,” in line with UK political sociologist Jon Dean, that may improve reputations. Such gestures indicate sincerity, authenticity, and integrity that discernibly hyperlinks the giver and the group. This phenomenon is compromised when utilized by a donor for status laundering.

Contemplate the reputational danger when organizations settle for tainted cash from people who both obtained their wealth illegally or whose values are discordant with these held by the nonprofit. Brown College disregarded the identified taint of the Lindemann household when it named its new performing arts middle after them in change for a lead present. The late billionaire father, George Lindemann, solidified his fortune by proudly owning after which promoting the pure fuel utility Southern Union Firm. Below his watch, the corporate was fined $18 million in 2009 for environmental air pollution in Rhode Island the place Brown is positioned. The youthful of two sons, George Lindemann, Jr., an alumnus, was convicted of a felony and sentenced to just about three years in jail for arranging the brutal execution of his present horse for the insurance coverage payout. The mom, Frayda Lindemann, a Brown College trustee, and the daughter, Sloan Lindemann Barnett, an alumna, not too long ago brokered a deal with the U.S. and Cambodian governments to repatriate over 30 historic Khmer sculptures of their possession after a years-long investigation into looted artifacts from the nation.

By its personal admission, Brown College doesn’t prioritize aligning institutional values with these of naming donors whose presents assist to advance its mission. Some constituents and critics view this as a lapse in moral judgment. But the Ivy League faculty is much from alone in its viewpoint—a latest U.S. research by analysis scientists Zoe Rahwan and Christina Leuker confirmed that each skilled fundraisers and most people condone nonprofits for accepting charitable donations from “morally ambiguous people” if the presents are substantial and the “advantages outweigh the prices.” Whereas the acceptance of tainted charitable funds might quickly fill nonprofit coffers, it might additionally completely harm a corporation’s status to be linked with people of disrepute.

Nonprofits are more and more defending themselves by inserting morality clauses in present agreements with naming rights. Such clauses allow organizations to terminate an settlement if a donor’s conduct causes scandal or brings shame by affiliation to the establishment. Whereas morals clauses will help to safeguard nonprofits, they elevate issues about free speech, civil liberties, and the evolving nature of social mores.

Making use of Ethical Insights to Capital Fundraising

Within the early Twentieth century, Scottish thinker William David Ross postulated a pluralist principle of moral apply based mostly on non-Kantian deontology. He conceived of 5 prima facie duties as elementary ideas to stay by: retaining guarantees, righting wrongs, training reciprocity, doing good, and doing no hurt. Making use of his principle, which mixes advantage, care, and deontological ethics, ensures widespread profit that emanates from ethical motion delivered with empathy and compassion in direction of all. Extra not too long ago, the late American political thinker John Rawls asserted that there are not any common ideas on which to rely in figuring out ethical motion. Every state of affairs should be addressed by itself deserves and contexts. He wrote of appraising the ethics of a state of affairs by partaking in a apply of “reflective equilibrium,” an intentional means of deliberation and reasoning, very like thought experiments that philosophers make use of, analyzing legal guidelines, perception programs, and ethical philosophies alongside their software and logical outcomes.

Impressed by Ross and Rawls, I supply a technique of moral fundraising for constructing naming presents that considers the seven ethical philosophies mentioned above:

1. Analysis main donor prospects to find out if their pursuits align with the mission, values, and priorities of the establishment. Vet who the donors are, what they characterize, how they got here to have cash, and their charitable pursuits. Pursue prospects solely when there’s a holistic match with the nonprofit that highlights the donor’s philanthropic intentions and dwarfs self-interest. This will likely imply, at occasions, abandoning potential presents for the better good of the group or society.
2. Attain past conventional philanthropists to have interaction people who characterize various constituencies. As a substitute of a solitary named donor or household, convey collectively a cohort of donors who characterize the communities served by the brand new facility. Encourage and respect those that select to present anonymously or designate their contributions to honor somebody who has made important non-monetary contributions to society equivalent to an artist, trainer, or medical employee.
3. De-emphasize naming presents and make naming rights subordinate to a nonprofit’s charitable objective, as Eason urges. The primary impulse of a capital marketing campaign fundraiser shouldn’t be to conceive of a roster of named giving alternatives and their corresponding value tags utilizing market-based ideas like “perceived worth.” Somewhat, it needs to be to stipulate the mission-centric, charitable, and supposed societal influence of management giving, and the optimistic impact of philanthropic funding designed for and with beneficiaries.
4. Clearly talk {that a} naming alternative is obtainable in gratitude for a charitable present, not as a requisite quid professional quo buy of a naming. Articulate this goal within the present settlement alongside the intention of voluntary philanthropy on the a part of the donor. Be purposeful to not spotlight publicity or advertising and marketing advantages accruing to the donor, which respects the present’s public objective and helps the rationale for its tax deductibility.
5. Rigorously take into account what legislation professor Ann Bartow refers to because the “social objectives of a naming gesture” in formalizing tips for naming alternatives as a part of a corporation’s total present acceptance insurance policies. She contrasts specific goals that acknowledge patrons for his or her generosity and social accountability from these which are implicit, equivalent to donor visibility and status enhancement that infer virtuousness, as Dean contends. Well being coverage scholar Lauren Taylor cautions nonprofit leaders and fundraisers to mirror on the potential for public hurt when contemplating the quantity of “affect and recognition” provided to benefactors in change for philanthropic contributions. Make inner insurance policies clear to employees and the general public, together with an moral decision-making course of to adjudicate when presents endure detrimental scrutiny post-receipt. Here’s a superior instance of naming present insurance policies from George Washington College. And right here is a superb course of for moral decision-making from Santa Clara College’s Markkula Middle for Utilized Ethics.
6. Incorporate into naming present agreements a mutually enforceable, fastidiously drafted, and narrowly outlined morals clause to guard each the donor and the nonprofit, holding every to the identical excessive requirements of making certain the general public belief. Acknowledge the ethical accountability that donors and nonprofits have to one another and to the communities served. Guarantee mutual accountability by incorporating into naming present agreements the consequential actions that can consequence from breach by both get together.
7. Supply a time-limited naming for a brand new or expanded facility that equates to the life expectancy of the donor or the deliberate obsolescence of the ability, for instance, a 25-50 yr interval, as suggested by legislation professor Linda Sugin. For perpetual naming presents, improve the financial threshold for such presents after which put aside a share of the overall, maybe 20-25 %, to ascertain an endowment for the constructing’s long-term repairs.

Understanding and making use of ethical philosophy to naming presents displays the increased objective accountability of philanthropy. Charitable fundraisers are within the distinctive place to assist information their nonprofits in doing the suitable factor. Naming presents, that are undemocratic by nature, pose challenges for nonprofits to stability donor recognition with social good whereas making certain that achievement of the previous doesn’t hurt the latter. Opposite to what Shakespeare’s Juliet thought, names are symbols that do have relevance and energy, and “altering the identify of a civic landmark modifications its that means.”

Constructing naming presents characterize each personal acts for public good and public acts for personal good. As American political thinker Michael Sandel laments, “Do we wish a society the place every part is up on the market? Or are there sure ethical and civic items that markets don’t honor and cash can’t purchase?” I agree with the late civil society scholar and critic Pablo Eisenberg, who routinely urged nonprofit leaders to display ethical braveness within the face of conflicting calls for. It’s time to cease treating donors like Roman statesmen. Nonprofits ought to rethink the pervasive apply of facility naming rights in favor of community-centric fundraising and significant philanthropy that prioritize public profit for beneficiaries and downplay personal profit for donors.

***

Creator observe: This text is predicated on my grasp’s thesis on the Lilly Household Faculty of Philanthropy, Indiana College, which examines the authorized and moral facets of naming presents for buildings. Two wonderful primers, Jonathan Wolff’s An Introduction to Ethical Philosophy, and James and Stuart Rachels’ The Parts of Ethical Philosophy, helped to tell this normative ethics evaluation.

Learn extra tales by Anne Bergeron.