Yet as the influence of such business titans increases, concern is being raised about the power of philanthropists beholden to no one but themselves. Watchdog groups applaud the generosity but question the unelected roles the super-wealthy are taking in shaping the world agenda.

"Imagine, and it's not really so science-fictiony, what I'll call a Dr. Evil Donor," said Tom Riley, director of research at the Philanthropy Roundtable, a right-of-center association of charitable donors in Washington.

"You can argue that we've already had one with Osama bin Laden," Riley said,

referring to the suspected bankroller of international terrorism. "Or, if you're a pro-lifer, maybe Ted Turner qualifies. But it's not at all difficult to imagine an extremely wealthy philanthropist imposing his ideology or interests on impoverished or developing countries. Subjects like biotech, narcotics legalization and other emerging topics could lead to the potential for some serious mischief by rich people who were never elected to anything by anyone."

Lack of accountability also troubles the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a liberal organization also based in Washington.

"Charitable foundations are accountable to their boards but the boards aren't democratically elected," said Neil Carlson, director of communications. "Don't get me wrong. Foundations are necessary. Turner and Gates do some great work. But that isn't a substitute for a strong and vigorous civil society and a government that has the capacity to respond to the needs of its citizens."

Gates and Turner are self-made billionaires who rank among the world's richest businesspeople. Gates heads Microsoft, the giant software company, while Turner has grown a media empire that includes CNN, the around-the-clock Cable News Network.

The criticism is more theoretical than pointed, and it's not as loud as the choruses of praise for Gates, whose foundation gave more last year to fight world health problems than the entire U.S. government, or Turner, who has pledged $1 billion to U.N. humanitarian programs. But the worries are being voiced.

In December, when Turner gave another $34 million to the United Nations to help make up for a reduction of the United States' contribution, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations joked that the world had recognized Ted Turner as a government.

Turner's donation prompted this editorial from the South China Morning Post:

"Mr. Turner's generosity to the world body, though well meant, raises serious issues of accountability. The United Nations is an organisation of the world's governments, each of which is accountable to a greater or lesser degree to the people they govern. Mr. Turner is accountable only to himself. If the U.N. were to become dependent on his generosity, this would give him a dangerous degree of influence over its programmes."

The next month, at a Washington news conference announcing formation of a new foundation to fight nuclear war and accidents, Turner was asked to address concerns about his increasing world power.

"I certainly don't feel very powerful," said the CNN founder and Time Warner vice chairman, after pledging $250 million over five years to the anti- nuclear effort. "We have boards of directors that make these decisions. I'm just the funder. I'm just one voice in deciding on how the money is distributed."

Asked if there should be checks in place to curb philanthropic influence, Turner turned sarcastic.

"Maybe what we ought to do is put a limit on giving," he replied. "But you be the one to decide how to do that. And if it passes through Congress, we'll adhere by it, OK?"

Turner's co-chair, former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, quipped that if Congress does limit giving, "let's not make it retroactive."

While that got a laugh from an audience that included members of Congress, advocacy groups don't find it funny when they're left relatively powerless to combat the philanthropic agendas of charities with which they disagree.

Turner, the father of five children, once told a group of newspaper executives that the Ten Commandments should be updated by Ted's Commandments, which would include, "I promise to have no more than two children, or no more than my nation suggests."

Turner owns 1.7 million acres devoted to environmentalism in Western and Plains states, where he drives his property in a Chevy Suburban displaying a "Save the Humans" bumper sticker. Cattlemen object to the media mogul's Endangered Species Fund, a charity seeking to bring back gray wolves, considered by some a threat to livestock.

Opponents of abortion also see Turner as a menace.

Newsweek reported last May that the Turner Foundation made a multimillion- dollar grant to the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and Planned Parenthood to help identify voters supporting abortion rights and to train activists in key states where Democrats faced anti-abortion Republicans.

Maura Donlan, a spokeswoman for Turner, acknowledged the donations but said that no money was granted for "the provision of abortion."

It's the international funding of family planning that most offends Human Life International, an anti-abortion and anti-contraception group based in Front Royal, Va. According to a March 2000 report by Turner's United Nations Foundation, a grant of $2.5 million was directed to Honduras alone for "social licensing of reproductive health clinics."

"This is the worst kind of colonialism and economic imperialism when we go in and force population control on the Third World," said Human Life International spokesman Andy Blom. "And it's all under the apparently wonderful banner of family planning, which is a moral sin and economic sin."

Said Terrence Scanlon, president of the Capital Research Center, a conservative, Washington-based, charity watchdog: "I don't think that should be any American tycoon's mission. Many times, this money is going into countries where a majority of the people, whether Muslim or Christian, oppose this family planning."

Socially conservative groups have protested the $8.9 million the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave in December to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which works in 180 countries.

Trevor Neilson, a spokesman for the Gates foundation, said the money will not fund abortion because "we specifically give our grants in a way that they not be used to fund abortion services of any kind." Instead, he said, it will fund contraception, education and other women's needs.

But even if that's true, critics say, the money indirectly supports Planned Parenthood's abortion rights agenda.

Neilson expressed frustration with the attacks.

"It actually is amazing that someone could be criticized for giving away $22 billion," he said, citing the endowment of Gates Foundation, the world's largest philanthropic organization. "I have to admit it, I'm still baffled by the criticism."

An analysis by the Boston Globe showed that last year alone, the Gates Foundation gave $1.44 billion to fund health programs for poor nations, compared with $1.16 billion given by the U.S. government. The money went to fight diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

While it's difficult to argue with such objectives, some question motives. Gates has been accused of engaging in high-profile philanthropy to improve the public relations of his company, Microsoft. Among those making the claim are former black employees alleging in a $5 billion lawsuit that Microsoft discriminated against them.

Others have suggested Gates' charitable largesse is intended to counter negative publicity from the government's threatened antitrust breakup of Microsoft.

Dick Spring, the former minister of foreign affairs of Ireland, has no problems with Gates or Turner but said it's fair to wonder about what's behind a person's giving.

"The question, of course, is if they want a financial return," said Spring, now with the Boston business consulting firm ML Strategies. "If they do, they should stay in business and make it very clear that they're doing it for business reasons. There should be some type of litmus test to determine if this is philanthropy or this is business."

But Spring had no suggestion of what such a test would look like, or who should administer it.

Stephen Roulac, a corporate strategist on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, said the private influence of Gates and Turner rivals that of the British East India Company, which wielded power over parts of the world from the 17th to the 19th centuries.

While Roulac praised the two as philanthropic role models, he cautioned that "it's seldom for any donation to come without strings attached, without some agenda or some point of view, whether it's explicitly articulated or not."

Some criticize an international environment in which philanthropists feel compelled to fill a vacuum left by governments' absence.

"I'm not concerned that Bill Gates is too powerful," said Marc Cohen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute and an expert on overseas development aid. "I'm concerned that the United States government isn't doing more to provide vaccines and prevent diseases worldwide. "

Carlson of the Committee for Responsive Philanthropy said he fears that "government has sort of become irrelevant."

Jessica Tuchman Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, didn't go that far, but she did express concern that "the sheer amounts of private spending could encourage governments to do less."

A board member on Turner's Nuclear Threat Initiative, Tuchman Mathews said that "new rules of the road" are needed to coordinate private and government efforts.

Others, far from alarmed, see the shift from government responsibility to philanthropic generosity as positive, harkening back to the 19th century when business tycoons such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller set out to address societal shortcomings.

"If anything, this is a proper return to having creative individuals come up with new solutions to the world's problems," said Heather MacDonald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in New York. "There's no law that says the government has to take on certain problems instead of individuals, who have the skill to develop vast amounts of wealth."

If other individuals or groups don't like a philanthropist's agenda, they should "raise their own money" to combat it, MacDonald said.

Nunn, at Turner's news conference, said those concerned about nuclear threats "can all pray" that Time Warner and America Online, which are merging, do well financially. That way, Turner can continue to fund the initiative for world peace.

©2001 San Francisco Chronicle

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