I am just finishing up Walter Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin. As we all know, he should pretty much be a patron saint to non-profit organizations for his lessons in frugality and thrift in Poor Richard’s Almanack.
One thing you may not be aware of is that after founding what was to become the University of Pennsylvania in 1751, he decided it was important to build a hospital. Since he was having trouble raising money, according to Isaacson he “got the [PA] Assembly to agree that if ‘2,000 could be raised privately, it would be matched by ‘2,000 from the public purse.”
According to Isaacson, he was the person who introduced the concept of matching grants to what was to become the United States. (Which by the way is one of the situations the studies I mentioned two days ago noted males are likely to be more generous.)
Why you ask, with a gentleman with such standing and influence in the policy as to have a hand in the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and the peace accord with Britain, supporting the idea of matching grants did it take nearly 200 years for organizations like the Ford Foundation to employ it as a funding scheme?
Well for one, political opponents felt the move was too conniving. I suppose it was because they didn’t believe he could raise the money and had tricked the Assembly. Franklin noted that knowing that their money would essentially doubled, they gave more.
Franklin himself referred to his innovative idea as a political maneuver so he might have felt a little uneasy about it himself. The success of his plan eased any troubled thoughts he might have had. “…after thinking about it I more easily excused myself for having made use of cunning.”
Like so many of the institutions, inventions and concepts Franklin had a hand in creating or developing, we regard the matching grant arrangement as a common tool for accomplishing our work. It is hard to conceive of it as being controversial.