Can you teach foundation officers new tricks? The journal of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Responsive Philanthropy, seems to have some doubts. An article in the fall issue reiterates findings of a 1997 study by the group, since confirmed in a follow-up analysis: “Conservative foundations often work in a similar and well-coordinated fashion. For example, they often provide general operating support to their grantees, expecting no specific outcomes for their investment. Usually, lengthy and costly evaluations are also not required, as they often are by progressive and centrist grantmakers. Conservative grantmakers also tend to support their grantees for the long haul; they do not withdraw support after two or three years, trying to fund the next big idea. They realize that it takes years to build a sustainable, effective organization and movement.”
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We’ve only just begun? “For more than 80 years, geologists’ estimates of the world’s endowment of oil have risen faster than developers can pump it out of the ground,” argues University of Oklahoma geologist David Deming in the Heartland Institute’s “Environment & Climate News” (October). “In 1920, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated just 20 billion barrels of oil remained in the world. By the year 2000, the estimate had grown to 3,000 billion barrels. Every year, technological advances make it possible to draw upon petroleum resources whose extraction was once unthinkable….Worldwide, the amount of oil that can be extracted from oil shales could be as much as 14,000 billion barrels–enough to supply the world for 500 years.” Maybe longer, as global warming reduces demand for heating fuel.
