What HBO's "The Gilded Age" Gets Right About Nonprofits 🪞
Let's travel back in time to the dawning of the Ladies Who Lunch.
Nonprofits don’t get much attention from television, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that philanthropy is one of the driving themes of HBO’s new TV drama The Gilded Age, from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes.
Fans of Downton will enjoy the sweeping cinematography, lavish sets and costumes, and historical Easter eggs scattered throughout the series, which premiered January 24 on HBO Max.
However, unlike Downton— which was more concerned with the upstairs/downstairs politics of an old English estate— The Gilded Age instead focuses on the dynamic between the warring “old money” and “new money” factions of 18th century New York City, during a period of explosive growth and wealth coined by Mark Twain as, you guessed it: the Gilded Age.
The show, set in 1882, transports us to an interesting time in the history of the nonprofit sector:
During the aftermath of The Civil War— in conjunction with the arrival of millions of immigrants to the United States— mutual aid societies, private schools, libraries, and arts organizations began cropping up across the country. As industrialization grew, so too did the wealth gap and the need for charitable entities.
Also important to note: in 1889, millionaire Andrew Carnegie published a piece called “Wealth”, known today as “The Gospel of Wealth”, a manifesto-of-sorts which made the case that inequality leads to progress (Ew.) and that the wealthy, unlike the poor, understand how to manage money and therefore should be allowed to call the shots.
Carnegie used these arguments to convince fellow magnates to join him in donating portions of their enormous wealth to various charitable causes. Critics today argue that Carnegie’s influence during the Gilded Age helped to institutionalize philanthropy and further perpetuate social inequalities, rather than eliminate them.
Which brings me to the title of this post:
The #1 thing The Gilded Age series gets right about philanthropy is just how wrong, impractical, and ridiculous the nonprofit sector actually is. 🙃
The show offers several insights into the shortcomings of our current system of philanthropy in the U.S. and reminds us that, sadly, not much has progressed in the nonprofit world since the dawning of the Ladies Who Lunch in the late 1800’s.
Here are three reasons why the nonprofit sector, also referred to as the nonprofit industrial complex, fails to serve its purpose, as demonstrated by scenarios from HBO’s The Gilded Age.
Please note that there are mild spoilers ahead. 🚨
1. The nonprofit industrial complex encourages wealth hoarding and the gatekeeping of essential resources.
I recently learned that charitable foundations are only legally required to distribute 5% of their total capital each year, despite that fact that they don’t pay taxes on any of the money they control. This 5% rule allows the wealthy to disperse laughably small amounts of their riches to good causes, while simultaneously adding to their disproportionate wealth, typically by investing the remainder of the foundation’s capital.
Additionally, funders get to pick and choose who is “worthy” of being resourced, and place varying requirements on funding that often exclude those doing meaningful work in their communities. Funding tends to go towards organizations who play by the (made-up) rules and look good on paper, rather than those working to create real and lasting change.
Nonprofit organizations themselves— depending on how well-resourced they are— get to be choosy about who they accept funding from, and more importantly: how those resources are then redistributed to the community at large. This collective system of funders and organizations effectively creates a barrier to essential funding for those most in need.
Okay, so how does this tie in to The Gilded Age?
Well, the main storyline revolves around a Mr. and Mrs. George Russell, who have just arrived in New York and are eager to make their mark on the city. Unfortunately, the Russells are considered to be part of the “new money” crowd, and therefore find themselves shunned from decent society at the start of the season.
Mr. Russell, being a shrewd negotiator, manages to insert himself into the business dealings of the local gentlemen, but sadly for Mrs. Russell, the only chance she stands of joining the “in” crowd is through supporting one of the various charitable entities run by the local women.
“Easy enough”, you might be thinking. She’s got butt-loads of money, right?
Wrong. These local women aren’t interested in true philanthropy or in getting resources to those in need— it turns out they’d rather walk through Central Park exposing their pantalets than to accept a penny from eager Mrs. Russell, even if it means that the poor go hungry or the homeless remain unhoused.
They refuse to be associated with Mrs. Russell and reject her offerings of money and resources to benefit their cause, effectively gatekeeping much-needed funds from those they would benefit most.
I’d also like to point out the flippancy with which Mrs. Russell approaches her giving. Signing over checks worth thousands of dollars is absolutely no skin off this woman’s back. And while it is admirable that she’s at least trying to direct funds to those in need, one might argue that she actually could afford to give a lot more, but doesn’t.
That’s because her goal isn’t really to help those in need, it’s to climb the social ladder and be accepted into New York’s elite inner circle. Which brings me to…
2. The nonprofit industrial complex serves as a vehicle for the wealthy to preserve and promote their public image.
There’s a scene in episode 4 of The Gilded Age where Mr. Russell and his secretary Mr. Clay discuss the benefits of associating themselves with the newly-formed American Red Cross. Clay surmises that, in reference to a natural disaster, “if nothing ever happens we’d be seen as a benevolent force in society, and if there is trouble, we’d get help at once”.
Okay, so you’re not only using philanthropy as a shield to protect your image in the public eye, but you’re also joking about abusing a charitable service to your advantage in the case of a national emergency…? Really? Not cool, man.
Episode 5 is aptly titled “Charity Has Two Functions”— those of course being to collect money for the poor and as a means of climbing the social ladder. In this episode, Mrs. Russell transforms a Red Cross meeting into a literal photo op after gifting a large sum to the fledgling organization. Her supposed generosity allows her to elbow her way into the good graces of both Red Cross founder Clara Barton, and her true target: high society gatekeeper Ward McAllister.
In the following episode, the Russells again use their connection to the Red Cross to their advantage as they are pictured in the newspaper delivering a donation to Clara Barton at the grim site of a catastrophic train wreck. Nevermind that the wreck was actually caused by Mr. Russell’s railroad company in the first place.
As I watched these scenes, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a co-worker recently about buying a branded step-and-repeat for a donor event, and I shuddered to think: are we really that far removed from this reality today?
Sadly, no. Philanthropy is still used to this day as a stage upon which the wealthy can flaunt their benevolence, especially in the face of a scandal. Just ask Jeff Bezos if you don’t believe me.
3. The nonprofit industrial complex perpetuates inequality and does little to solve the issues at hand.
I love the way Sidra Morgan-Montoya describes this idea of nonprofits aiding and abetting inequality in her critique of the nonprofit industrial complex:
“Nonprofits unwittingly become part of a story the wealthy elite use to normalize their wealth and avoid public scrutiny for their role in creating economic inequity. We are taught to see the wealthy’s charitable giving as proof of their moral character instead of wondering how they came to have so much money in the first place.”
Actually, wait. Why do these families have so much money in the first place? History points to the fact that many high society families, like the ones we see depicted in The Gilded Age, came to their wealth through ill-begotten means, resulting in the huge wealth gap we see in the United States today.
In the late 1800’s, it was still common practice to use child labor, offer unlivable wages, and generally exploit workers in every way possible.
Not to mention the ways in which white colonizers stole land that didn’t belong to them and attempted to erase the native peoples of our country for their own financial gains.
All this aside, let’s try to give these families the benefit of the doubt. We see in the show that (regardless of personal intent) folks like the Russells are contributing a great deal of money to charitable causes.
We also know that the nonprofit sector has only grown and become more sophisticated since the early 1800’s, so surely some good must be being done, right?
Well— yes and no. It’s 2022 and the nonprofit sector is as robust as it’s ever been, with an anticipated $30 trillion set to be transferred from Baby Boomers to a new generation, meaning that even more growth is on the horizon for our already fast-growing industry.
At the same time, we’re still experiencing a staggering wealth gap, record levels of homelessness, food and water insecurity, and many other seemingly preventable atrocities.
Why? Because the government designed to address these problems is inadequate or uninterested in doing so, and the nonprofit sector that was designed to fill these gaps in public policy is also largely failing to achieve its purpose.
That’s not to say that there aren’t select nonprofits, mutual aid societies, and forward-thinking activists out there striving for real change— it’s just not happening nearly fast enough.
To conclude, I’ll leave you with this very Carrie Bradshaw sign off:
As I sit down to watch yet another episode of The Gilded Age, I couldn’t help but wonder: how many storylines about messed-up rich white people do we need to see before we start to work towards real change?
These are interesting perspectives, thanks for sharing.