“Business Entrepreneurs & Philanthropy: Potential and Pitfalls”
A Keynote Speech by Mario Morino
Legacy 2007
National Philanthropic Trust
September 28, 2007
In 1991, futurist and noted author Peter Schwartz framed a remarkable period of
transformation, which he described as the “long boom”—spanning from 1980 to 2020—in
The Art of the Long View. Schwartz sees a period of economic and societal transformation
driven by a continuing stream of new technology and the relentless process of globalization.
Today, well past the half-way point of the “long boom,” the entrepreneurs of this period
have generated a wealth creation of near unimaginable levels, with great impact and
implications—economically, politically, socially, and philanthropically.
In the midst of this period, comparisons are often made to the philanthropy of more than a
hundred years ago that came from the wealth created with the Industrial Revolution at the
turn of the 20th century led by industrialists like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Flager,
and Morgan. There are countless examples of how these families created great value and
changed the American landscape in positive and lasting ways. Yet, despite their
accomplishments, critics termed them “robber barons,” and Mark Twain and Charles Dudley
Warner wrote of the waste and ridiculous excess of the era in The Gilded Age: A Tale of
Today.
Even now, more than a century later, it is not clear in some circles how history judges these
industrialist leaders against the scale of “robber barons” to philanthropists. It is prudent to
similarly consider the positives and negatives that this “long boom” cadre of new wealth will
have on society. I am fortunate to have been an entrepreneur who benefited from this
period and have focused the last 15 years on philanthropy and civic engagement. With this
context, I pose several questions to myself and others who have created wealth and are
turning their focus to benefit society:
• How will our actions to better the world be j