Note to SPS: Ask Amazon And Vulcan to be Good Civic Partners
Today's front page headline story in the Times is about Amazon, "a virtual no-show in hometown philanthropy."
The story points out that while it even took the Gates Foundation awhile to start opening its vast pockets, Amazon still hasn't. Their model?
"Our core business activities are probably the most important thing we do to contribute, as well as our employment in the area," Bezos told The Times.
In a 2010 interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, Bezos expressed doubt that philanthropy was the best way to solve social problems.
"I'm convinced that in many cases, for-profit models improve the world more than philanthropy models, if they can be made to work."
For example, he thinks inventing the Kindle brings more reading opportunities to people worldwide. Discuss that statement.
But frankly, I guess if Amazon continues to grow, employ and be good employers, that is a good thing for our city.
From the story:
In 2009, the construction of Amazon's South Lake Union headquarters was considered a pivotal event in Seattle's history. Amazon not only would change the physical face of the neighborhood, said then-Mayor Greg Nickels, but it also represented a new economic hope for the city in the midst of the Great Recession.
The official groundbreaking ceremony, on a bright April morning, drew the mayor and the governor. Notably missing were Bezos or any other Amazon executives.
It wasn't the first or last time that people in the community would be left wondering: Where is Amazon?
It would seem that Amazon is feeling the pressure as this was also in the story:
In the past year — as The Seattle Times began looking into its charitable giving and shortly after Drago questioned Bezos at the company's annual shareholder meeting — Amazon reached out to more than 30 local nonprofits, offering volunteers, in-kind donations and small, often unsolicited, cash contributions.
Amazon gave between $1,000 and $10,000 to a wide array of local nonprofits, from the Pike Place Market Foundation to the Rainier Valley Food Bank.
Of course, it is easy and cheap to hand out out $1,000-10,000 here and there but I'm sure those groups absolutely appreciated it.
So why do I bring this up?
Because I'm pretty sure that Amazon, along with the Paul Allen company, Vulcan, are responsible for the pressure the district seems to be getting for a South Lake Union elementary school.
You may recall that I reported that two City officials came to the BEX Oversight Committee meeting two months ago with graphs and maps and why they need a school. (It did come out to be a chicken or egg type thing; if you build it, will there be enough students to fill and how long would that take?)
Now don't get me wrong - I think someday soon, we will need a downtown elementary (or K-8/middle school) and a high school. Vancouver, B.C. has at least one elementary downtown. It's a swell idea.
But it is NOT part of our problem of capacity management and the district has no business setting aside $32M in the BEX IV budget for a downtown elementary. It's in every single scenario of the BEX IV preliminary plans.
We have way too many other REAL problems to address and that means EXISTING schools with many facilities AND capacity management problems.
So I read this article and think, so it's the district job to jump when these big businesses snap their fingers? It is not and I certainly hope that if the Mayor and City Council are hearing this from those businesses, then THEY can get together and figure it out.
If Amazon and Vulcan need a school to help keep the best talent, then THEY can set aside a couple of floors in one of their new buildings and lease it cheaply to the district. Then I have no problem with the district setting up the infrastructure for a new school.
But the district does not have the need, the time nor the money to find land, build an elementary and run it for South Lake Union. It would be a slap in the face to every single crowded school or run-down school in our district.
The story points out that while it even took the Gates Foundation awhile to start opening its vast pockets, Amazon still hasn't. Their model?
"Our core business activities are probably the most important thing we do to contribute, as well as our employment in the area," Bezos told The Times.
In a 2010 interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, Bezos expressed doubt that philanthropy was the best way to solve social problems.
"I'm convinced that in many cases, for-profit models improve the world more than philanthropy models, if they can be made to work."
For example, he thinks inventing the Kindle brings more reading opportunities to people worldwide. Discuss that statement.
But frankly, I guess if Amazon continues to grow, employ and be good employers, that is a good thing for our city.
From the story:
In 2009, the construction of Amazon's South Lake Union headquarters was considered a pivotal event in Seattle's history. Amazon not only would change the physical face of the neighborhood, said then-Mayor Greg Nickels, but it also represented a new economic hope for the city in the midst of the Great Recession.
The official groundbreaking ceremony, on a bright April morning, drew the mayor and the governor. Notably missing were Bezos or any other Amazon executives.
It wasn't the first or last time that people in the community would be left wondering: Where is Amazon?
It would seem that Amazon is feeling the pressure as this was also in the story:
In the past year — as The Seattle Times began looking into its charitable giving and shortly after Drago questioned Bezos at the company's annual shareholder meeting — Amazon reached out to more than 30 local nonprofits, offering volunteers, in-kind donations and small, often unsolicited, cash contributions.
Amazon gave between $1,000 and $10,000 to a wide array of local nonprofits, from the Pike Place Market Foundation to the Rainier Valley Food Bank.
Of course, it is easy and cheap to hand out out $1,000-10,000 here and there but I'm sure those groups absolutely appreciated it.
So why do I bring this up?
Because I'm pretty sure that Amazon, along with the Paul Allen company, Vulcan, are responsible for the pressure the district seems to be getting for a South Lake Union elementary school.
You may recall that I reported that two City officials came to the BEX Oversight Committee meeting two months ago with graphs and maps and why they need a school. (It did come out to be a chicken or egg type thing; if you build it, will there be enough students to fill and how long would that take?)
Now don't get me wrong - I think someday soon, we will need a downtown elementary (or K-8/middle school) and a high school. Vancouver, B.C. has at least one elementary downtown. It's a swell idea.
But it is NOT part of our problem of capacity management and the district has no business setting aside $32M in the BEX IV budget for a downtown elementary. It's in every single scenario of the BEX IV preliminary plans.
We have way too many other REAL problems to address and that means EXISTING schools with many facilities AND capacity management problems.
So I read this article and think, so it's the district job to jump when these big businesses snap their fingers? It is not and I certainly hope that if the Mayor and City Council are hearing this from those businesses, then THEY can get together and figure it out.
If Amazon and Vulcan need a school to help keep the best talent, then THEY can set aside a couple of floors in one of their new buildings and lease it cheaply to the district. Then I have no problem with the district setting up the infrastructure for a new school.
But the district does not have the need, the time nor the money to find land, build an elementary and run it for South Lake Union. It would be a slap in the face to every single crowded school or run-down school in our district.
Comments
"Though Amazon is a Fortune 500 company, you won't find the company's name on the rosers of major donors to such venerable local nonprofits as the Alliance for Education..." Gee, why did the Seattle Times mention this group specifically?
Who do they interview in the article? Why Nick Hanauer of reform fame.
This article really stunk in many ways.
-biased
Wholly agree with you about them needing to pony up, though, if they are trying to get school resources where they are not needed.
--ex-Amazon / NE parent
Corporate philanthropy is an institutionalized quid pro quo in which the same companies that threaten to leave town if they don't get tax breaks can point to charitable donations as evidence of their big hearts. Buying indulgences.
I especially enjoy them taking credit for donations their employees have made to United Way as a result of high pressure donation campaigns.
And of course, this image rehabilitation is big business, and so we get an ecosystem of nonprofits ready to vend community goodwill to anyone willing to pay for it. And now they get their own front page story.
That said, a school in slu makes little sense, no matter who pays for it.
- follow the money
Ben
Biased - they mentioned Alliance for Education because it's a group that pumps thousands of dollars directly into the classrooms, something we need more of. Technology, grants, resources, all provided without anything skimmed off by the district. Don't knock them.
In less poor areas, it may be of considerable help.
Amazon has helped a lot with being able to order paper books quickly and easily for delivery wherever there's good delivery services available, though. In the old days if your village was too small to have a bookstore, ordering by mail was a slow process. Catalogs cost money to publish, so lesser-known books languished unadvertised. Books In Print listed them, but it was such an expensive set of books that you'd need a good bookstore or good public library to subscribe, which were not available in many small towns. And they didn't have stock information anyway. I think Amazon has done more for worlwide readers by the new and used book listings on the web than they have through Kindle.
"Biased - they mentioned Alliance for Education because it's a group that pumps thousands of dollars directly into the classrooms, something we need more of. Technology, grants, resources, all provided without anything skimmed off by the district. Don't knock them."
The Alliance has pumped money into the classroom? I must have missed that.
The Alliance is a great idea in theory but they are much more an advocacy group now (and not for SPS) than they are friend to SPS.
From the League of Undead Voter's webiste (and don't forget to check out the rest of their site, and see pics of LUV's undead staff, and see the picture of "Christopher Eide, executive director of Zombies United, [testifying] before a House Education Committee. 'Braaaaiins,' Eide said. Repeatedly. Seriously. It's all he said."
):
"AP: Giant LUV Zombies Found Begging Outside the Gates Foundation
SEATTLE - Long suspected puppets of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, giant undead members of the League of Undead Voters were spotted begging outside of the Gates Foundation headquarters. A bystander, who also happened to be an education blogger at Bill Gates Ate My Brains, was not surprised. The blogger, who prefers to remain anonymous, noted that the life-impaired LUV members dragged their feet to the headquarters naturally, like they had an innate sense of the foundation's location. The foundation's staff was unperturbed as they are used to LUV asking for money and don't see a zombie apocalypse getting in the way of that. The blogger reports that they even saw some Gates' staff throwing dollar bills at the brain-eating giants, but the AP saw no evidence of that."
Vulcan (Paul Allen) wanted the streetcar to nowhere and got it fast. Ridership? It's a vanity project. Let Bezos use his own money. He's paying to recover Apollo rocket engines but he's a skinflint with workers:
http://gawker.com/jeff-bezos/
Amazon's excuses for abusing workers
Mr White
which means more well paid yuppies singing from the ed deform songbook.
YukYuk
(Of course, I don't know what those schools think about the idea..!)
-observer
I wonder if Gates ever had Olchefske over for dinner?
n...
n...
No one pisses and moans when kindly and civic-minded individuals and corporations DONATE to schools; it's only when they "give" money in order to further their own agenda that people complain.
BIG difference.
Actually, the Alliance skims off the top of every school's transactions that they handle. SCHOOL transactions....you know the ones like auctions that people donate thousands of hours of their time and energy to bring alive, not to mention the items they procure or offer for 'sale'. And then the Alliance skims off the top to 'process' the transactions. I think that this issue is disgusting. And they are asking for an increase in fees.....
Two and a quarter years to go.
Well, I read somewhere that the blogosphere is full of poorly-informed people who spread unsourced rumors. Can't remember where I read that, though. Maybe it's not true? Nah, it kinda sounds true---or true-ish, at least. I bet it IS true.
- follow the money
Mr White
-what a racket!
Big Difference.
-observer
If you know of some large donations that the Alliance has made, let us know.
"People who make large donations - want influence over how that money is used....Most of us would call it responsible giving."
Utter hogwash. Responsible givers make choices about their donations based on their assessment of the work of the receiving organization, and because of the desire to further the work of the organization. Responsible givers do not give in order to buy influence and manipulate the work of organizations to which they give.
Oompah
Amazon Shopper