Re: Brad getting sued. I genuinely think that Brad actually really cared about the cause in New Orleans, but again, as someone who was a nonprofit professional for years before going corporate is that nonprofit work is WORK. It’s so hard to get right. People don’t expect that they can step in as an investment banker or doctor for a day, but somehow ladling soup for 4 hours automatically makes you a poverty expert. (Which is why I side eye 98% of celeb charity work!) People get get Masters and PhD degrees to go into jobs that will likely never pay them more like 70k. The celebrities that do the best are ppl who just donate and advocate with their own passionate stories to bring public awareness, not make it about THEM or their “ideas” but gracefully let the experts do their thing. I am sure Brad thought his idea to combine his passion for fancy sustainable green architecture built by star architects in Nola was great, but in his excitement and hubris forgot that the point of the aid he was giving the community is not about him or his architecture boner. His project should have never involved piloting concepts for sustainable housing when the goal was to provide those who had lost property with functional, cost efficient, solidly constructed houses quickly. Now we have this mess with all that money wasted. Contrast that with Mariska Haritgay’s incredible work for sexual assault victims through Joyful Heart Foundation. As the public face of it, she tells a compelling story of how deeply she connects to the issue and routinely advocates for it. But look at who she leaves the nonprofit’s operations to – serious hardcore educated professionals who have deep experience in sexual assault trauma: http://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/about-us/staff
And look at the resulting impact:
http://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/about-us/numbers-our-impact-our-inceptionAnother great example of this is Christy Turlington, who almost died in childbirth then went and got a master’s degree at Columbia to devote her efforts to reducing maternal mortality internationally.
Anyway, to bring this back to this whole mess… what I’m saying is that even with the best intentions and true passion like Brad, usually celebs who don’t know their role as a public figurehead and try to get into programming without knowledge run into trouble. It’s incredibly difficult to do charity right. While it remains to be seen how impactful Kate is, what I do appreciate about her is how involved she is in the things that have always defined her life – art, children. She doesn’t overstate her importance and while that might be seen as lazy or not splashy, I appreciate that she defers to others and her personal involvement and level of activity seems to come from a genuine place. MM’s challenge is to come up with a cause she’s truly devoted to and can speak well to, but with so many facades who knows who she really is?
Thank you so much for sending this in!
Yes, exactly. I really think that the fact that Kate brings in experts and defers to them is fantastic. So many people come in with the best of intentions and end up with something completely unworkable and sometimes even downright harmful.
Submitted: Charity
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