Who to the Rescue?

It reads like a comic book -- Corporate Superman, perhaps. Almost 50 years ago, Boston was in the midst of a fiscal and leadership crisis of such magnitude that the city itself seemed doomed. To the rescue came a shadowy group of about two dozen corporate chieftains. Clad in pinstripe and calling themselves the Vault, they forced reform and restored economic confidence.

Superhero dramatics aside, the above is a reasonably accurate description of the Coordinating Committee, as the Vault was officially known. When government failed, its members pushed, cajoled, and sometimes threatened, helping to set the city right and providing, in the eyes of many observers, a sterling example of the best of corporate civic leadership.

All of which prompts a question: If a similar crisis existed today, would a new Vault emerge? The answer is no -- and that may not be a bad thing.

The grand old companies of Boston are no more. Many have disappeared. Others have merged or been bought out. Cincinnati's Procter & Gamble Co. owns Gillette. The Globe is a unit of the New York Times Co. After a series of mergers, Bank of Boston submerged into Bank of America, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. These changes have provoked worry that local corporate philanthropy also is drying up. The new foreign masters, runs the argument, no longer want to continue the strong tradition of giving that once was the hallmark of Boston-owned firms.

In fact, despite the spate of mergers and departures, corporate philanthropy appears to be up -- a point that Bank of America officials have made strenuously of late. Even if it were not, it wouldn't matter all that much. Corporate giving has never been that significant, amounting to a tiny fraction of the roughly $4 billion New England saw in charitable donations in 2002 (the most recent year for which data are available), says Ron Ancrum, president of Associated Grant Makers.

Instead, most giving comes from individuals, and that amount is expected to grow dramatically as the baby boomers -- the richest generation ever -- die off. Paul Schervish of Boston College's Center on Wealth and Philanthropy figures that in the 20-year period beginning in 1998, individuals and their estates will give away as much as $6.7 trillion -- an amount that dwarfs corporate philanthropy.

Still, money isn't everything. The kind of Vault-like civic engagement we once saw from area corporations has faded away. Mergers and acquisitions are partly to blame, of course; corporate underlings are rarely paid bonuses for dabbling in local affairs. But even the companies that remain have different priorities. Their businesses are global; sometimes Bangkok matters as much as Boston. Moreover, advances in technology and communication mean that what is happening in their own backyards is far less important than it once was.

And who takes their place? Some have suggested nonprofits, with many pointing to the Boston Foundation and its head, Paul Grogan, which have taken a leadership position on issues such as education and technology. But whether Grogan and his organization are a model for others or sui generis is unclear. And it certainly is true that many in the business community remain actively engaged; real estate developer Bruce Percelay, for instance, heads up the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity and is behind an effort to build 100 units of housing along Blue Hill Avenue. Yet, large corporations have the advantages of institutional depth, economic muscle, and long-term perspective. Individuals and most nonprofits will be hard pressed to match those.

Perhaps that's OK, though.

Business philanthropy rightly deserves suspicion. Oftentimes it's more mercenary than eleemosynary, with corporate giving frequently looking like self-promotion. Indeed, half of corporate charity is in-kind goods, which can be a clever form of marketing.

Even the Vault's activism, as lauded as it is, had selfish motives. Boston's decline was threatening the fortunes of its members' businesses. True, their interests happened to coincide with the public interest, but that isn't always the case. In addition, the Vault's rise was predicated on the failures of political leaders. Perhaps the better approach is for us to address those failures directly rather than look to the private sector to step into the breach.

Thomas M. Keane Jr. is a partner in a private equity firm and a former Boston city councilor. E-mail him at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.