Ben Franklin Can Save Us Again

Ben Franklin helped save the nation during the American Revolution and he just might be able to do it again during the COVID-19 crisis, thanks to a favorite philanthropy tool of his, Program Related Investments (PRIs).

Despite passing in April nearly 230 years ago now, old Ben knew then what many very wealthy households know today.  PRIs are extremely powerful funding tools, especially when government and, or, the private sector cannot directly provide program support for critical projects benefitting large segments of American society.

If you are a wealthy philanthropist, I have a recommendation I hope you will seriously consider.

A Deadly Challenge

Pandemic threats have long been on the federal government’s greatest fears list.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) even invested heavily nearly a decade ago in four facilities that officials claimed could rapidly make vaccines and other lifesaving medicines if America were stricken by an infectious disease outbreak or a biological attack from one of our enemies.

HHS made a $670 million investment in 2012 and 2013 to build and expand the four manufacturing complexes, which were designed for three private companies and one major university to deliver emergency medicines and treatments, including flu vaccines, for both military and civilian use.

Notwithstanding the federal investment, however, vaccine production facilities in the United States are poorly equipped to research, develop, test, manufacture, and even distribute affordable lifesaving treatments to conquer pandemics like COVID-19 today or past maladies like the H1N1 virus a few short years ago.

As the United States and the rest of the world today confront the coronavirus pandemic, a pandemic that HHS is now saying could last 18 months or longer, none of the HHS-funded sites have developed or are close to delivering medicines to effectively counter the latest, rapidly escalating outbreak. So pervasive is this pandemic that American business is shutting down, plunging millions of Americans into unemployment and stressful uncertainty.

Complicating matters, China threatened this past week not to provide lifesaving medicines to the United States in retaliation for what it alleges was the U.S. role in fostering the pandemic in the first place.  President Trump took the bait and now, disparagingly, calls COVID-19, the China Virus, when in fact, this pandemic is owned by every nation now suffering from its effects.

America desperately needs a research, testing, and manufacturing facility with capabilities of rapidly responding to emerging and genetically engineered infectious disease outbreaks free of government contract restraints or corporate pricing pressures which have seriously hampered past vaccine and treatment efforts.

PRIs to the Rescue?

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases estimates that developing and delivering a vaccine takes 12 to 18 months currently.  Without production capacity to make tens of millions of doses, the availability period for these lifesaving measures is even longer.

An issue-specific PRI fund, immediately supported by America’s wealthiest donors, family offices, and community foundations, dedicated to this effort is a viable solution to today’s market and political challenges.

Resulting revenue from the research, test kit production, patent royalties, and manufacturing fees – even provided to all patients worldwide at affordable costs – would offset the PRI costs over a six-to-ten-year period of time, excluding supporting philanthropy from principal and major gifts that might return the principal to participating donors.

What is a PRI?  PRIs are very low-cost charitable investments (usually at a 1% annual interest rate) that let qualified, tax-exempt non-profits and charitable public-private partnerships, use the money to support their initiatives. 

Put simply, a donor lends the money, for a specific period, backed by supporting documentation like any commercial loan documents.  At the end of that loan period, the donor can opt to get the donation back in order to give or invest it again, in that same charity, or another charity if they so choose, while also getting their valuable tax deduction in the process.  The donor can also choose to convert the loan into a gift if they are so inclined.

If donors in the iconic Giving Pledge, for example, or even those who have chosen not to participate in the Giving Pledge, were to make a transformational gift to such a PRI fund, our vaccine-related production challenges could be overcome in short order, permitting the U.S. and global economies to recover more rapidly.

A more market neutral operation for this process, not solely government or private sector funded, could produce better, faster results, cheaper, and more broadly beneficial to those threatened.  PRIs were designed for this purpose.

Ben Franklin would smile at that American innovation!

Ben Everidge is a PRI-experienced fundraiser who has raised money professionally for charitable and political causes most of his career.  He is ten-year veteran of U.S. Senate and U.S. House committee, personal office, and federal campaign staffs.  Everidge has a master’s degree in American Government from Georgetown University where he was also named a prestigious University Fellow.  He is today Managing Member of Cannon & Caius LLC, a strategic collaborations consulting practice specializing in public-private-philanthropic partnerships.  His 2017 political novel, Hoya: The Watchmen Waketh, is about a fictional 47th president of the United States who struggles to keep his nation safe at home and around the world.