The philanthropists’ maestro
By Pamela Ryckman
FT
December 15 2007 02:11
Among Vartan Gregorian’s dedicated gatekeepers is a security guard at
the Carnegie Corporation’s Madison Avenue headquarters. `That’s a great
man you’re going to see,’ he says. `He’s known presidents, dignitaries,
everybody. All the most important people.’
Moments later, when Gregorian arrives wearing a conservative navy blue
suit, he greets the guard by name. It is a Saturday morning, but coming
into the office on the weekend is, after all, part of his routine.
The 12th president of the 96-year-old Carnegie Corporation, one of the
nation’s most prominent foundations, leads his guests through glass
doors to the 26th-floor lobby and snaps up a recent edition of
`Carnegie Results’, the organisation’s quarterly newsletter, titled
`Looking Back at Zimbabwe’. When Gregorian gingerly draws attention to
the first line ` `This is the anatomy of a grant that failed’ ` his
message is clear: he and the institution he has led for a decade are
accountable.
His spacious office seems more the retreat of a fervent academic than a
backdrop for the jet-set companion to corporate tycoons, luminaries and
socialites. Covering nearly every surface are books and stacks of
paper, including clippings from the dozen broadsheets he consumes each
week. Pointing to his two large desks, he smiles: `Sometimes I go from
this one to that one, and I pretend I just got here.’
Gregorian’s genial humility belies his accomplishments. A 16-page
resumé reveals he is a board member of 11 organisations, including the
Museum of Modern Art and the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation,
and has similarly served 46 other institutions in the past. He has
received 60 honorary degrees, 39 awards, six international decorations,
14 civic honours and 16 prestigious medals, including the National
Humanities Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s
highest civilian honour.
Gregorian became famous in the 1980s when, as president of the New York
Public Library, he secured the much-needed funding ` $327m by 1989 `
that restored the crumbling landmark to a vibrant cultural nexus.
Later, as president of Brown University, he almost tripled its
endowment and exceeded expectations by raising $534m in a five-year
capital campaign.
Gregorian has been hailed as a fund-raising genius and served as
trusted philanthropic adviser to Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Scottish
billionaire Tom Hunter and the late Walter Annenberg, but he insists
money is a mere facilitator. Ideas are what change the world.
`You have to believe in your cause because if you have no core beliefs
of your own, it’s just a business,’ he says. `I’ve tried to make it a
mission.’
Gregorian is at heart an intellectual and scholarship is core to his
approach to philanthropy. All great transformation stems from the
dissemination of thoughts and theories, and education breeds the
understanding and collaboration that will ultimately cure society’s
ills. `We bring experts together,’ he says of his work at the Carnegie
Corporation. `We believe in solving issues, regardless of where the
solutions come from. We want to create debate.’
As a result, the $3bn Carnegie Corporation functions as the microcosm
of a university where Gregorian continues to learn and teach. `I
surround myself with professors and other thinkers. This place is full
of scholars, idea people, creatives,’ he says. `I’m engaged now in all
of learning, all education transcending the regions.’
For context and edification, the foundation’s programme directors
attend all big grant meetings and are encouraged to challenge one
another. Like a PhD candidate presenting his or her dissertation, each
director submits to questions from the group. Research is dissected and
analysed. `It’s a very healthy give-and-take. Everybody learns as a
result other people’s projects,’ Gregorian says. `We’re not in the
self-promotion business, and we’re not afraid to ask critics to assist.
Then we include all criticisms in our presentation to trustees.’
Gregorian learnt from leading scientists the importance of
acknowledging risk and celebrating trial and error in philanthropy. `I
met James Watson [co-discoverer of the structure of DNA] one evening
and he said: `I’m so excited. I’ve found out how not to do something!’
Why can’t social scientists say the same thing? That would be a great
salvation.’
Though known for his warmth and bear hugs, Gregorian demands boundless
rigour of those who seek grants from the Carnegie Corporation. Having
spent nearly two decades asking for money, Gregorian knows what a solid
pitch entails.
Like Watson, grantees don’t have to be right, but they must be thorough
and forward-looking, evincing zeal and commitment. `You have to
demonstrate that you’re not in the need business, but rather in the
idea business. You have to say: `I’m not entitled to your support. I
want an opportunity to compete for your support,’?’ Gregorian says.
The Carnegie Corporation is `an incubator, not an oxygen tank’; it
takes calculated risks for defined periods of time by endowing the most
promising proposals from the sharpest minds. Deserving grantees have
done their homework. They arrive at the foundation’s offices with
revolutionary scientific evidence or a new orientation, promoting
methods unlike those already pursued. `Are you in the reputation-making
business or are you already reputable?’ Gregorian asks. `I can trust
both ` people who want to make a reputation and people who already have
a reputation to lose.’
Gregorian sees himself as a conductor who, after hiring and subsidising
the virtuosi, works to create a unified opus from their individual
endeavours. `Everybody else has spent a lifetime to become experts. I
cannot second-guess them. All I can do is focus their attention on an
important cause,’ he says. `My role is how to make a symphony out of
all of this.’
In this, he ensures every initiative aligns with his benefactor’s
intentions. `Carnegie Corporation money is not Gregorian’s money. It’s
his money,’ he says, pointing to a portrait of Andrew Carnegie on his
office wall. `I’m an instrument of his foundation, so I have to do
justice to that. I have my own priorities, but I cannot impose them as
a substitute for his mission.’
Fortunately, though, Gregorian’s personal devotion to study and civic
engagement runs parallel to the foundation’s objectives. Among the
Carnegie Corporation’s big new programmes is ongoing instruction for
teachers. Gregorian sees teaching as a profession, not a trade, and
believes America needs `a transmission belt whereby new theories of
psychology, cognition, anthropology, sociology or neuroscience can
reach teachers’.
His labours for international peace are also filtered through the prism
of education. Even before September 11 2001, he recognised the need for
westerners to better understand Islam, the fastest-growing religion in
America ` and the world. In 2003, Gregorian, an Armenian Christian born
in Iran, published Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith to clarify the
history of an increasingly vilified faith and show the diversity among
its 1.2bn practitioners. `We have to see what we have in common, as
well as what divides us,’ he says.
By next year, the Carnegie Corporation will have convened 100 scholars
in an attempt to bridge orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and to promote open
discourse between Muslims and others.
Gregorian is certainly inspired by the classroom, but his accumulated
knowledge has practical application far beyond an isolated ivory tower.
He sees philanthropy as part of the American ethos, a nimble
alternative to our government’s ventures in social welfare. `The
political, public process is slow,’ he says. `Philanthropy can
innovate, challenge, demonstrate. It can provide immediate
breakthroughs and it can allow us to correct governmental actions.’
Gregorian advocates this private investment for the public good. He
works to advance civilisation and culture because, he says, `there are
ideals worth believing in and fighting for. When you stop learning or
being curious, you’re deadening your soul. You have room to grow, no
matter what age you are.’
So, at 73, he remains on stage, wielding power with passion and
precision. And if history is any indication, when Gregorian raises his
baton, his orchestra ` magnates, academics, policymakers, all ` will
begin to play, in harmony and right on cue.