When is gifted money tainted and when is it not? This is the question Dartmouth and the Museum of Modern Art are asking about Leon Black who continued to pay Jeffrey Epstein for services after the man was convicted on soliciting prostitution from a teen among his wide and varied playboy-esque behaviors.
Every nonprofit needs to create policy about what is tainted in terms of sources of gifts. At minimum failure to adopt policy can result at minimum with very angry consumers and donors and potentially bad press. Now, will folks not go to the Museum of Modern Art because Mr. Black gave a huge gift? There remains part of the question to be answered.
There appears to be no simple rule about when $ are tainted. Like porn it appears to be a "know it when you see it" idea. But is it really? I believe that mission and values must inform when tainted is tainted - singularly. Any other standard is just justification.
Oh, and for press questions like this, I believe answers should come from the Board, not staff.
The following is copy from the Chronicle of Philanthropy Newsletter.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Dartmouth College should distance themselves from Leon Black, a major benefactor with ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein, some artists and students say. Black, a private-equity billionaire, paid $158 million to Epstein for financial and tax advisory services after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl. In 2018, he gave $40 million to the Museum of Modern Art, whose board he chairs, and in 2013 he donated $48 million to Dartmouth for its media and visual-arts center, which bears his name. Among the artists who want the museum to part ways with Black is Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei, who said he wanted the museum to remove his art from its collection if it does not do so. A Dartmouth spokesman said there is no evidence that Black "engaged in any of Epstein's shameful behavior." (New York Times) |