A Necessary Response

Last week’s devastating earthquake in Kashmir tore communities apart and plunged a region already beset by strife and uncertainty deeper into chaos. With the death toll rising past 50,000 and heading towards 100,000, a rising chorus of voices in Cambridge has been asking just how large a crisis has to be for Harvard to match donations from members of the community, as it has done two other times this year. Although we understand the call to have a clear-cut policy as to when Harvard will match donations, we feel that the University should continue its current policy of donating when there is a tremendous community outcry, even though doing so appears arbitrary.

In the wake of last winter’s tsunamis, the University matched donations from students, faculty, and staff up to $100. Harvard ended up matching $245,877 of donations to a variety of charities. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the University again offered to match donations. Although the exact numbers have yet to be released, preliminary indications suggest that donations will exceed the amount for the tsunami relief effort.

Offering a donation matching program after these two catastrophes was the right thing for the University to do. Although Harvard’s primary mission is educational and academic, Harvard is also a community of nearly 35,000 and an employer of over 15,000, making it the fifth largest employer in all of Massachusetts, according to the Boston Business Journal. Beyond the philanthropic and noble ends of raising funds, matching donations when there is a community outcry helps build morale, which is why many businesses across the country had a similar matching program for their employees.

Donating to causes of extreme humanitarian concern is also consistent with the University’s moral mission. While we understand the unease of those who see little precedent for such actions in higher education, we also recognize that there are special instances that warrant overt moral decisions to be made on behalf of the University. Last year, we strongly advocated for the University to sell its stake in PetroChina because of the company’s dealings in Darfur. While it was true that the University might have had other questionable investments, PetroChina was a particularly egregious and visible case that demanded the University’s consideration. It commanded student and faculty attention and thus the University responded to community concern.

Harvard’s $25.9 billion dollar endowment is not a bottomless well of money that can be donated to charity. Harvard needs the money to fund education and research and maintain it’s preeminence in the academic world. In order to do so, it draws a small amount from the endowment each year, so in practice budgets are actually very tight in almost every area. Thus, despite its best intentions, Harvard cannot match donations on a regular basis.

In short, there is no clear or fair answer as to why Harvard matched contributions for the tsunami and Katrina but not the Kashmir earthquake. And it is true that with regards to charitable donations by the University, the administration is beholden to the emotions of the community—emotions that are largely drive by what we are fed by the media—but we fail to see a fairer system devisable. The University must balance competing interests and make these tough decisions, and so far the administration has looked to community outcry. In the case of when to match donations, we feel that the administration has done a good job of sensing and responding to such outcry.