Dilemma: Right vs. Right
Should Grant Money Be Given Only for Restitution?
George Alinto created the Alinto Foundation, endowing the foundation with millions inherited from the fortune made by his family in a business which, in its day, was quite profitable, legal and popular. There is no present connection between the Alinto family business and the Alinto Foundation, whose wide-ranging grants, made selectively and with thorough research, achieve results as impressive as they are varied.
During the past decade it has become clear that the Alinto’s family business manufactures a product that, while perfectly legal, harms the public’s health and country’s environment. The government has taken steps to warn the public about the harm the product causes and to try, on its own, to reduce threats to public welfare as they became evident.
The Alinto Foundation’s Board by charter is free to make grants to any program and grantee that holds promise of improving the human condition. Some members of the public have advocated that the Foundation, given the original source of its funding, should address its entire resources to preventing or relieving the injuries caused by the product that created the family’s wealth but so far, the Board has not felt a legal, ethical, or professional mandate to do so.
Should the Alinto Foundation realign its giving programs to address the societal costs of manufacturing its family product?
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