Philanthropy in America: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia (3 vol set)

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Philanthropy in America A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia

About the Editor

Dwight F. Burlingame, Ph.D., is Associate Executive Director and Director of Academic Programs at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, and a Professor of Philanthropic Studies at IUPUI. At the Center on Philanthropy, Burlingame provides leadership for programs in philanthropy studies and nonprofit management as well as coordination with external agencies. He holds degrees from Moorhead State University, the University of Illinois, and Florida State University. He is an active

member of the AFP Research Council, ARNOVA, and other professional organizations. As of July 2004, he is the coeditor of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. Dr. Burlingame has authored and coauthored eight books, more than forty articles, and more than one hundred book reviews. He is active in the nonprofit community and a frequent speaker, consultant, and author on topics relating to philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, libraries, and development.

Philanthropy in America A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia Volume 1: Entries A to H

Dwight F. Burlingame, Editor

Santa Barbara, California

• Denver, Colorado

• Oxford, England

Copyright 2004 by Dwight F. Burlingame All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Philanthropy in America : a comprehensive historical encyclopedia / Dwight F. Burlingame, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57607-860-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 1-57607-861-2 (e-book) 1. Charities—United States—History. 2. Endowments—United States—History. 3. Philanthropists—United States—History. I. Burlingame, Dwight. HV91.P58 2004 361.7'0973'03—dc22 2004013557

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents Contributors and Their Entries, vii Alphabetical List of Entries, xix Preface, xxiii Acknowledgments, xxv Philanthropy in America: A Timeline of Key Events, xxvii

Part I: A to Z Entries, 1 Volume 1: Entries A to H, 3 Volume 2: Entries I to Z, 255 Glossary of Terms in Philanthropy, 533

Part II: Documents in Philanthropy, 543 Volume 3: Documents in Philanthropy, 545

Index, 859

v

Contributors and Their Entries Alan J. Abramson

Jerome P. Baggett

Aspen Institute Washington, D.C. INFRASTRUCTURE ORGANIZATIONS FOR NONPROFITS

Jesuit School of Theology Berkeley, CA HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INTERNATIONAL

Wolfgang Bielefeld Lesley Agard

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN SOCIAL CAPITAL

Kamehameha Schools Honolulu, HI PAUAHI PAKI BISHOP, BERNICE (1831–1883)

Angela L. Bies Natalie Ammarell

Texas A & M University College Station, TX PUBLIC PHILANTHROPY

Human Service Systems Chapel Hill, NC SETTLEMENT HOUSES

Laura Carpenter Bingham Alan R. Andreasen Georgetown University Washington, D.C. SOCIAL MARKETING

Peace College Raleigh, NC WOMEN, HIGHER EDUCATION, AND PHILANTHROPY

Peter M. Ascoli

Drew Blanchard

Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies Chicago, IL JULIUS ROSENWALD F UND

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN BENEZET, ANTHONY (1713–1784)

vii

Contributors and Their Entries

Elizabeth T. Boris

Robert J. Brulle

Urban Institute Washington, D.C. NONPROFIT SECTOR

Drexel University Philadelphia, PA ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Thomasina Borkman

A’Lelia Walker Bundles

George Mason University Arlington, VA SELF-HELP GROUPS

Biographer Alexandria, VA WALKER, MADAM C. J. (1867–1919)

Robert O. Bothwell

Dwight F. Burlingame

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy Washington, D.C. ALTERNATIVE F UNDS RESPONSIVE PHILANTHROPY

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN ALTRUISM CARNEGIE, ANDREW (1835–1919) CORPORATE GIVING

Eleanor L. Brilliant Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ FEDERATED F UNDRAISING FILER COMMISSION PETERSON COMMISSION WALD, LILLIAN D. (1867–1940)

Robert G. Bringle Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN SERVICE LEARNING

Evelyn Brody Kent College of Law Chicago, IL TAX DEDUCTION AND PHILANTHROPY

Lisa Browar Indiana University Bloomington, IN FOUNDATION CENTER

Mary Jane Brukardt The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN GATES, WILLIAM H., III (1955–), AND THE BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION

viii

Sabina Calhoun The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN THINK TANKS

Emmett D. Carson Minneapolis Foundation Minneapolis, MN AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILANTHROPY

Alfred L. Castle Samuel N. & Mary Castle Foundation Honolulu, HI CONTEMPORARY PHILANTHROPY

Jessica Chao Consultant New York City, NY ASIAN AMERICAN PHILANTHROPY

Amelia E. Clark The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN CHAVEZ, CESAR (1927–1993) TRUTH, SOJOURNER (C. 1797–1883)


William W. Clohesy

Hugh Davis

University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, IA MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND PHILANTHROPY

Southern Connecticut University New Haven, CT BACON, LEONARD (1802–1881)

Ram A. Cnaan

Laura Hansen Dean

University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA VOLUNTARISM

Community Foundation of Southern Indiana New Albany, IN PLANNED GIVING

Michael Coatney†

Meredith Deneau

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN CAMPUS COMPACT

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN SALVATION ARMY

Robert S. Collier

Jerome DeNuccio

Council of Michigan Foundations Grand Haven, MI YOUTH AND PHILANTHROPY

Graceland University Lamoni, IA KEAYNE, ROBERT (1595–1656)

Mike Cortés

Alan Divack

University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA HISPANIC PHILANTHROPY

Ford Foundation New York, NY FORD FOUNDATION

Elizabeth R. Crabtree

Aaron Dorfman

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN COUNCIL FOR ADVANCEMENT AND SUPPORT OF EDUCATION (CASE) UNRELATED BUSINESS INCOME TAX (UBIT)

People Acting for Community Together, Inc. Miami, FL COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS (COF) NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP)

David M. Craig Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN COMMON GOOD

Donald T. Critchlow Saint Louis University Saint Louis, MO BROOKINGS, ROBERT SOMERS (1850–1932)

Douglas M. Czajkowski The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN HIGGINSON, HENRY LEE (1834–1919)

H. Daniels Duncan United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona Tucson, AZ ADVOCACY AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS

Joellen El Bashir Howard University Washington, D.C. MOORLAND, REV. JESSE E. (1863–1940)

ix


Mohamed A. Elsanousi

Marybeth Gasman

Islamic Society of North America Plainfield, IN ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA (ISNA)

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN BETHUNE, MARY MCLEOD (1875–1955) JOHNSON, CHARLES S. (1893–1956) MCCARTY, OSEOLA (1908–1999) PATTERSON, FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1901–1988)

Daniel Faber Northeastern University Boston, MA ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Michael Gerrity Kyle Farmbry San Diego State University San Diego, CA SERVICE CLUBS UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Julie Fisher Kettering Foundation Dayton, OH INTERNATIONAL NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (INGOS)

Kathryn K. Frey The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN WINTHROP, JOHN (1588–1649)

Siegrun Fox Freyss California State University Los Angeles, CA BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES FRIENDLY SOCIETIES POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES OF NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN KRESGE, SEBASTIAN S. (1867–1966)

Roberta K. Gibboney Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN BARTON, CLARA (1821–1912)

Teresa Gift The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN INSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATIONS MELLON, PAUL (1907–1999)

Steve Gilliland Harrison County Community Foundation Corydon, IN FORTEN, JAMES (1766–1842)

Susan L. Golden The Golden Group Cleveland, OH GRANTSEEKING

Lawrence J. Friedman

Robert I. Goler

Indiana University Bloomington, IN PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS ON PHILANTHROPY

American University Washington, D.C. CULTURAL POLICY AND PHILANTHROPY

Nina Gondola The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN CUFFE, PAUL (1759–1817) TERRELL, MARY ELIZA CHURCH (1863–1954)

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Gretchen C. Gordon

Emily M. Hall

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN AMERICAN COUNCIL ON GIFT ANNUITIES (ACGA) ASSOCIATION OF F UNDRAISING PROFESSIONALS (AFP)

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN BRACE, CHARLES LORING (1826–1890) GALLAUDET, THOMAS HOPKINS (1787–1851) HOWE, SAMUEL GRIDLEY (1801–1876) KING, MARTIN LUTHER, JR. (1929–1968) TAPPAN, ARTHUR (1786–1865), AND TAPPAN, LEWIS (1788–1873)

John Grabowski Case Western Reserve University & Western Reserve Historical Society Cleveland, OH GOFF, FREDERICK HARRIS (1858–1923)

Janet Greenlee University of Dayton Dayton, OH ACCOUNTABILITY

Robert T. Grimm Jr. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN ADDAMS, JANE (1860–1935) DAYTON FAMILY FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN (1706–1790) PEW FAMILY SMITHSON, JAMES (1765–1829)

Judy P. Hall The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN INDEPENDENT SECTOR (IS) LYON, MARY MASON (1797–1849)

Michael H. Hall Canadian Centre for Philanthropy Toronto, Ontario CANADIAN PHILANTHROPY

Peter Dobkin Hall Harvard University Cambridge, MA BEECHER, LYMAN (1775–1863) LOW, JULIETTE GORDON (1860–1927) LOWELL, JOHN, JR. (1799–1836) NONPROFIT GOVERNING BOARDS

Kirsten A. Grønbjerg Indiana University Bloomington, IN HUMAN SERVICES AND PHILANTHROPY

David C. Hammack Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS

Michael P. Grzesiak The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN DAY, DOROTHY (1897–1980)

Femida Handy York University Toronto, Ontario ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Susan Haber The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN GARCIA, HECTOR PEREZ (1914–1996)

Joseph C. Harmon The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN DREXEL, ST. KATHARINE (1858–1955)

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Ann Harris

Thomas H. Jeavons

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN OLIN, JOHN MERRILL (1892–1982)

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends RELIGION AND PHILANTHROPY

Ted Hart

Mark C. Johnson

ePhilanthropy Foundation & Hart Philanthropic Services Group Washington, D.C. E-PHILANTHROPY

YMCA of the USA Chicago, IL YMCA

Tanya E. Johnson Kristine M. Haskett The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN GRATZ, REBECCA (1781–1869)

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH ON NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS AND VOLUNTARY ACTION (ARNOVA)

Kerry Hepworth The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN ASSOCIATION FOR HEALTHCARE PHILANTHROPY (AHP)

Amy Jones The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN CIVICUS: WORLD ALLIANCE FOR CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

Douglas R. Hess Food Research and Action Center Washington, D.C. FOOD AND ANTIHUNGER CHARITIES

Virginia A. Hodgkinson Georgetown University Washington, D.C. INDIVIDUAL GIVING BY HOUSEHOLD VOLUNTEERING

Frances Huehls Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN CURTI, MERLE EUGENE (1897–1996)

Mamie L. Jackson The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN GARVEY, MARCUS MOSIAH, JR. (1887–1940)

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Grady Jones The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL RESEARCHERS FOR ADVANCEMENT (APRA) DONOR-ADVISED F UNDS

Andrea R. Kaminski Women’s Philanthropy Institute Indianapolis, IN WOMEN’S IMPACT ON PHILANTHROPY

Robert A. Katz Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN DONOR INTENT

Kathleen S. Kelly University of Florida Gainesville, FL PUBLIC RELATIONS AND PHILANTHROPY FOR NONPROFITS


Joseph C. Kiger

Mary Legan

Croft Institute for International Studies University of Mississippi University, MS HISTORY OF AMERICAN FOUNDATIONS

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN ASSOCIATION FOR VOLUNTEER ADMINISTRATION (AVA)

Margaret J. Kimball

Matthew Liao-Troth

Stanford University Stanford, CA STANFORD, LELAND (1824–1893), AND STANFORD, JANE LATHROP (1828–1905)

Western Washington University Bellingham, WA PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

David L. Lightner John Kloos Benedictine University Lisle, IL RUSH, BENJAMIN (1746–1813)

University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta DIX, DOROTHEA LYNDE (1802–1887)

Roger A. Lohmann Roberta Knickerbocker The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN MATHER, COTTON (1663–1728)

West Virginia University Morganton, WV CONFRATERNITY

Al Lyons Vicki W. Kramer V. Kramer & Associates Philadelphia, PA SOCIAL CHANGE F UNDS

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN JACKSON, HELEN MARIA (FISKE) HUNT (1830–1885) U.S. SANITARY COMMISSION (USSC)

Betsy Kranz The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN CENTER ON PHILANTHROPY

James H. Madison Indiana University Bloomington, IN LILLY, ELI (1885–1977)

Linda M. Lampkin National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute Washington, D.C. NATIONAL CENTER FOR CHARITABLE STATISTICS (NCCS)

Richard Magat Yale University New Haven, CT UNION MOVEMENT AND PHILANTHROPY

Ashley M. Magdovitz W. David Lasater Ball State University Muncie, IN GOODRICH, PIERRE FRIST (1894–1973)

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN EASTMAN, GEORGE (1854–1932)

xiii


Alexis Manheim

Kym Mulhern

Corning Community College Corning, NY OWEN FAMILY

Nokomis Foundation Grand Rapids, MI FOUNDATION PAYOUT KELLEY, FLORENCE (1859–1932)

Rachel McCarthy Aspen Institute Washington, D.C. INFRASTRUCTURE ORGANIZATIONS FOR NONPROFITS

Mark Neumeister

Robert D. McChesney

Lynn O’Connell

New York University New York, NY ISLAMIC PHILANTHROPY

Physician Assistant Foundation Alexandria, VA INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THIRD-SECTOR RESEARCH (ISTR) MCCORMICK, NETTIE FOWLER (1835–1923)

Mark McGarvie New York University New York, NY GIRARD, STEPHEN (1750–1831) LAW OF CHARITY

Emily S. McQuade The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN AMERICAN RED CROSS

Ruth B. Mills The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN BOARDSOURCE

Michael Moody Boston University Boston, MA RECIPROCITY STEWARDSHIP

Asia M. Muhammad The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN SAGE, MARGARET OLIVIA SLOCUM (1828–1918)

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The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN HOGG, IMA (1882–1975)

Michael O’Neill University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA ETHICS AND PHILANTHROPY MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Mary J. Oates Regis College Weston, MA CATHOLIC PHILANTHROPY

Teresa Jean Odendahl National Network of Grantmakers San Diego, CA WOMEN AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Kathleen Odne Dean & Margaret Lesher Foundation Walnut Creek, CA PACKARD, DAVID (1912–1996), AND PACKARD, LUCILE (1914–1987) VENTURE PHILANTHROPY


Joel J. Orosz

Juliann L. Peterson

Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI FORD, HENRY (1863–1947), AND FORD, EDSEL (1893–1943) GRANTMAKING KELLOGG, WILL KEITH (1860–1951)

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE CHARITY OFFICIALS (NASCO)

Susan A. Ostrander Tufts University Medford, MA SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND PHILANTHROPY

Andrea Pactor The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHILANTHROPY (AIP) CHARITY WATCHDOGS

Betty J. Parker Morgantown, WV PEABODY, GEORGE (1795–1869)

Timothy J. Peterson Messiah University Philadelphia, PA CIVIL SOCIETY

Edward L. Queen Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN CHARITABLE CHOICE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Brieanna Quinn The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN ASPEN INSTITUTE/NONPROFIT SECTOR RESEARCH F UND

James W. Reed Franklin Parker West Virginia University Morgantown, WV PEABODY, GEORGE (1795–1869)

Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ SANGER, MARGARET (1879–1966)

D. Martin Reeser Aubrey Abbott Patterson The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF F UNDRAISING COUNSEL (AAFRC) AND AAFRC TRUST FOR PHILANTHROPY

Robert L. Payton Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN PHILANTHROPY AND THE GOOD SAMARITAN STEWARDSHIP

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN WASHINGTON, BOOKER T. (1856–1915)

David Renz University of Missouri–Kansas City Kansas City, MO GOVERNANCE OF NONPROFITS

Kevin C. Robbins Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN HISTORY OF PHILANTHROPY

Felice Davidson Perlmutter Temple University Philadelphia, PA SOCIAL CHANGE F UNDS

xv


Kenneth W. Rose

Judith Sealander

Rockefeller Archive Center Sleepy Hollow, NY ROCKEFELLER FAMILY

Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH ROCKEFELLER, JOHN DAVIDSON, SR. (1839–1937) ROSENWALD, JULIUS (1862–1932)

Rebecca Roth The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN GARRETT, MARY ELIZABETH (1853–1915) WELLS-BARNETT, IDA B. (1862–1931)

Timothy L. Seiler Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN MISSION OF THE ORGANIZATION

Laura Rupkalvis The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN SETON, SAINT ELIZABETH ANN (1774–1821)

David Horton Smith Boston College Boston, MA GRASSROOTS ASSOCIATIONS

Lester M. Salamon The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD GLOBAL NONPROFIT SECTOR

Alissa Saufley The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN ALLIANCE FOR NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT WILLARD, FRANCES E. (1839–1898)

James Allen Smith J. Paul Getty Trust Los Angeles, CA ANONYMOUS GIVING EUROPEAN FOUNDATIONS

Michael B. Smith Ithaca College Ithaca, NY MUIR, JOHN (1838–1914)

Katie Schechter The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN LILLY ENDOWMENT

Paul G. Schervish Boston College Boston, MA WEALTH AND PHILANTHROPY

Joel Schwartz National Endowment for the Humanities Washington, D.C. LOWELL, JOSEPHINE SHAW (1843–1905) TUCKERMAN, JOSEPH (1778–1840)

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Steven Rathgeb Smith University of Washington Seattle, WA GOVERNMENT–NONPROFIT SECTOR RELATIONSHIP

Rusty Stahl Ford Foundation New York, NY FORD FOUNDATION

Richard Steinberg Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN ECONOMIC THEORIES OF NONPROFITS


David L. Sternberg

Mary Tschirhart

Loring, Sternberg and Associates Indianapolis, IN DIRECT MAIL F UNDRAISING

Syracuse University Syracuse, NY MEMBERSHIP ASSOCIATIONS

Nicole A. Streeter

Keight S. Tucker

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE F UND (UNCF)

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN HOOVER, HERBERT CLARK (1874–1964)

Martha A. Taylor

Richard C. Turner

University of Wisconsin Foundation Madison, WI WOMEN’S IMPACT ON PHILANTHROPY

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN LITERATURE AND PHILANTHROPY

Eugene R. Tempel

Craig Barton Upright

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN F UNDRAISING AS A PROFESSION

Princeton University Princeton, NJ CONSUMER COOPERATIVES

Emanuel D. Thorne

Jon Van Til

Brooklyn College of the City University of New York Brooklyn, NY BLOOD AND ORGAN DONATION

Rutgers University Camden, NJ CIVIL SOCIETY UTOPIAN THOUGHT, PHILANTHROPY IN

Karin E. Tice Formative Evaluation Research Associates (FERA) Ann Arbor, MI YOUTH AND PHILANTHROPY

Maggie Tittle The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON PLANNED GIVING (NCPG)

Gary A. Tobin Institute for Jewish and Community Research San Francisco, CA JEWISH PHILANTHROPY IN AMERICAN SOCIETY

Richard W. Trollinger Centre College Danville, KY COOPER, PETER (1791–1883)

Lilya Wagner Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN F UNDRAISING INTERNATIONAL F UNDRAISING NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

Elizabeth Watkins The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN LOW, JULIETTE GORDON (1860–1927)

Ronald Austin Wells Wells Associates, Inc. Ridgeport, CT NATIVE AMERICAN PHILANTHROPY STOKES, CAROLINE PHELPS (1854–1909), AND STOKES, OLIVIA EGGLESTON PHELPS (1847–1927)

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Fred Westcott

Autumn Workman

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianapolis, IN GUIDESTAR

Indiana University Bloomington, IN HEALTH AND NONPROFITS

Diane Winston

Walter W. Wymer Jr.

The Pew Charitable Trusts Philadelphia, PA BOOTH, BALLINGTON (1857–1940), AND BOOTH, MAUD (1865–1948) BOOTH, EVANGELINE (1865–1950)

Christopher Newport University Newport News, VA CAUSE-RELATED MARKETING AND SPONSORSHIPS

Dennis R. Young Martin Morse Wooster The Philanthropy Roundtable Washington, D.C. GUGGENHEIM FAMILY

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Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH COMMERCIALISM IN THE NONPROFIT SECTOR NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT

Alphabetical List of Entries VOLUME 1

Benezet, Anthony (1713–1784) Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955) Blood and Organ Donation BoardSource Booth, Ballington (1857–1940), and Booth, Maud (1865–1948) Booth, Evangeline (1865–1950) Brace, Charles Loring (1826–1890) Brookings, Robert Somers (1850–1932)

Accountability Addams, Jane (1860–1935) Advocacy and Nonprofit Organizations African American Philanthropy Alliance for Nonprofit Management Alternative Funds Altruism American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) and AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) American Red Cross Anonymous Giving Asian American Philanthropy Aspen Institute/Nonprofit Sector Research Fund Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA) Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA)

Campus Compact Canadian Philanthropy Carnegie, Andrew (1835–1919) Catholic Philanthropy Cause-Related Marketing and Sponsorships Center on Philanthropy Charitable Choice Charity Watchdogs Chavez, Cesar (1927–1993) CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation Civil Rights Movement Civil Society Commercialism in the Nonprofit Sector Common Good Community Development and Organizations Community Foundations Confraternity Consumer Cooperatives Contemporary Philanthropy

Bacon, Leonard (1802–1881) Barton, Clara (1821–1912) Beecher, Lyman (1775–1863) Benevolent Societies

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Alphabetical List of Entries

Cooper, Peter (1791–1883) Corporate Giving Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Council on Foundations (COF) Cuffe, Paul (1759–1817) Cultural Policy and Philanthropy Curti, Merle Eugene (1897–1996) Day, Dorothy (1897–1980) Dayton Family Direct Mail Fundraising Dix, Dorothea Lynde (1802–1887) Donor Intent Donor-Advised Funds Drexel, St. Katharine (1858–1955) Eastman, George (1854–1932) Economic Theories of Nonprofits Environmental Movement E-philanthropy Ethics and Philanthropy European Foundations Federated Fundraising Filer Commission Food and Antihunger Charities Ford, Henry (1863–1947), and Ford, Edsel (1893–1943) Ford Foundation Forten, James (1766–1842) Foundation Center Foundation Payout Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790) Friendly Societies Fundraising Fundraising as a Profession Gallaudet, Thomas Hopkins (1787–1851) Garcia, Hector Perez (1914–1996) Garrett, Mary Elizabeth (1853–1915) Garvey, Marcus Mosiah, Jr. (1887–1940) Gates, William H., III (1955–), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Girard, Stephen (1750–1831)

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Global Nonprofit Sector Goff, Frederick Harris (1858–1923) Goodrich, Pierre Frist (1894–1973) Governance of Nonprofits Government–Nonprofit Sector Relationship Grantmaking Grantseeking Grassroots Associations Gratz, Rebecca (1781–1869) Guggenheim Family GuideStar Habitat for Humanity International Health and Nonprofits Higginson, Henry Lee (1834–1919) Hispanic Philanthropy History of American Foundations History of Philanthropy Hogg, Ima (1882–1975) Hoover, Herbert Clark (1874–1964) Howe, Samuel Gridley (1801–1876) Human Services and Philanthropy

VOLUME 2 INDEPENDENT SECTOR (IS) Individual Giving by Household Infrastructure Organizations for Nonprofits Institutional Foundations International Fundraising International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) Islamic Philanthropy Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Jackson, Helen Maria (Fiske) Hunt (1830–1885) Jewish Philanthropy in American Society Johnson, Charles S. (1893–1956) Julius Rosenwald Fund Keayne, Robert (1595–1656) Kelley, Florence (1859–1932) Kellogg, Will Keith (1860–1951)


King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968) Kresge, Sebastian S. (1867–1966) Law of Charity Lilly, Eli (1885–1977) Lilly Endowment Literature and Philanthropy Low, Juliette Gordon (1860–1927) Lowell, John, Jr. (1799–1836) Lowell, Josephine Shaw (1843–1905) Lyon, Mary Mason (1797–1849) Mather, Cotton (1663–1728) McCarty, Oseola (1908–1999) McCormick, Nettie Fowler (1835–1923) Mellon, Paul (1907–1999) Membership Associations Mission of the Organization Moorland, Rev. Jesse E. (1863–1940) Moral Philosophy and Philanthropy Muir, John (1838–1914) Mutual Benefit Organizations National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO) National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG) Native American Philanthropy Nonprofit Governing Boards Nonprofit Management Nonprofit Management Education Nonprofit Sector Olin, John Merrill (1892–1982) Owen Family Packard, David (1912–1996), and Packard, Lucile (1914–1987) Patterson, Frederick Douglass (1901–1988) Pauahi Paki Bishop, Bernice (1831–1883) Peabody, George (1795–1869) Peterson Commission Pew Family

Philanthropy and the Good Samaritan Planned Giving Political Perspectives of Nonprofit Organizations Prosocial Behavior Public Intellectuals on Philanthropy Public Philanthropy Public Relations and Philanthropy for Nonprofits Reciprocity Religion and Philanthropy Responsive Philanthropy Rockefeller, John Davidson, Sr. (1839–1937) Rockefeller Family Rosenwald, Julius (1862–1932) Rush, Benjamin (1746–1813) Sage, Margaret Olivia Slocum (1828–1918) Salvation Army Sanger, Margaret (1879–1966) Self-Help Groups Service Clubs Service Learning Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann (1774–1821) Settlement Houses Smithson, James (1765–1829) Social Capital Social Change Funds Social Marketing Social Movements and Philanthropy Stanford, Leland (1824–1893) and Stanford, Jane Lathrop (1828–1905) Stewardship Stokes, Caroline Phelps (1854–1909), and Stokes, Olivia Eggleston Phelps (1847–1927) Tappan, Arthur (1786–1865), and Tappan, Lewis (1788–1873) Tax Deduction and Philanthropy Terrell, Mary Eliza Church (1863–1954) Think Tanks Truth, Sojourner (c. 1797–1883) Tuckerman, Joseph (1778–1840) Underground Railroad Union Movement and Philanthropy

xxi


Venture Philanthropy Voluntarism Volunteering

Washington, Booker T. (1856–1915) Wealth and Philanthropy Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862–1931) Willard, Frances E. (1839–1898) Winthrop, John (1588–1649) Women, Higher Education, and Philanthropy Women and Nonprofit Organizations Women’s Impact on Philanthropy

Wald, Lillian D. (1867–1940) Walker, Madam C. J. (1867–1919)

YMCA Youth and Philanthropy

United Negro College Fund (UNCF) U.S. Sanitary Commission (USSC) Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) Utopian Thought, Philanthropy in

xxii

Preface an encyclopedia of philanthropy. Those conversations usually ended with the conclusion that it would be an impossible task to get one’s arms and mind around such a broad field. It wasn’t until my friend and colleague in philanthropic studies at Indiana, David Smith, provided the sage advice that I should undertake this task as an opportunity to make a “significant” contribution to the field, that I decided to pursue the project. With support and encouragement from colleagues at the Center on Philanthropy and a former editor from ABC-CLIO, a contract was signed and work commenced. Deciding what to include in this three-volume set was not an easy task, as philanthropic studies is a very broad field. To select the entries, I worked with an advisory committee composed of scholars, nonprofit practitioners, and educators. Final determination for what was included, however, was my responsibility. Volumes 1 and 2 include articles on notable people, events, and associations as well as on numerous other important topics in philanthropy. Volume 3 brings together original documents in the field. More than 175 authors participated in the project. For the most part, the essays were written by wellknown specialists in their chosen topical area. In a few cases, bright graduate students from the philanthropic studies or nonprofit management programs at Indiana University, Indianapolis, wrote entries. Needless to say, thousands of significant individuals have contributed and are currently contributing to

Some might consider the task of producing an encyclopedia for an emerging field of study a foolish, if not futile, undertaking. From time to time over the course of preparing this work, I did indeed feel this to be true. Time has won out, and this work represents a first of its kind in attempting to provide an overview of philanthropy as well as of the nonprofit, voluntary, independent, or third sector (terms all used interchangeably) in the United States. Philanthropic and nonprofit studies have enjoyed a major growth spurt over the past twenty-five years in the United States, with recent increased attention around the globe. However, some still see the field as a marginal academic enterprise. With substantial contributions by many scholars in various disciplines and professional fields, philanthropic and nonprofit studies programs have given students and teachers alike a fresh perspective on critical issues in our society. Philanthropic studies instructors relate their material to broader cultural, historical, political, and economic themes. This integrative perspective is a defining element that encourages analytic skill and develops an intellectual, global view that emphasizes the complexity and thematic relationships of a civil society. The authors of the articles in this encyclopedia have made this objective central to their work in contributing to a liberal education. In the mid-l990s, I had several conversations with my colleagues at Indiana University about the need for

xxiii

Preface

the history of giving, volunteering, and social action in the United States. Therefore, my inclusion of a historical figure is very selective and has been made on the basis of a representative type of those who have shaped the history of philanthropy, that is, the history of voluntary action (giving of time, treasure, and talent) intended for the public good. I was greatly assisted in this selection matter by a previous project, Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering (2002), which was directed by Robert T. Grimm Jr. and made possible by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Users may find more extensive philanthropic biographies of many of the people covered in this encyclopedia by consulting that work. Organizations selected for inclusion are those most directly related to the philanthropic infrastructure of the field and its development over time. Needless to say, there is no attempt to include all philanthropic organizations or nonprofits. For profiles of current charitable nonprofits, readers are referred to GuideStar, available online at http://www.guidestar.org. Contributors have attempted to introduce the reader to particular ideas and areas of study in philanthropy and have often included significant bibliographic references to allow the reader to further explore the topic under consideration. In Volume 3, I endeavored to select the fundamental documents and excerpts that provided the foundation for the development of philanthropy and a nonprofit sector in America. Again, it is important to note that this needed to be a selective representation, and the final decision of what to include was dictated by availability of material and subjective judgment. In addition to historical documents, I sought some rep-

xxiv

resentative works from literature that provided visions of what the state of philanthropy was or should have been within historical time frames. Even though the documents speak for themselves, I have included brief notes to provide a contextual guide for the reader. Many historians have characterized the eleemosynary history of the United States as one of American exceptionalism and the individual quest for wealth. As my colleague Lawrence Friedman and his coauthors argued in their recent history of American philanthropy (Philanthropy, Charity and Civility in American History, 2003), the development of philanthropy in the United States is better understood as a missionary quest by givers (of time and/or money) to impose their view of what is good on society writ large. Taking this perspective, American history reads like an ongoing tension play between morals and money, or between obligations to others and those to self. One can make a reasonable case that the history of philanthropy in the United States seems to be informed by Adam Smith’s ethical doctrines, a combination of Christian and Stoic virtues. For the student who wishes to pursue this idea, reviewing Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) is a good starting point. During the course of compiling, writing, and editing, I have had the pleasure of reading my way back and forth in the history of philanthropy from the American colonial period to the present as a way to understand the relationship between self-interest and caring for others. I have come to believe that philanthropy in America is very much a story about the interests of others as well as self-interests. Dwight F. Burlingame

Acknowledgments Patterson, and most especially, Emily Hall. To these and others at the Center on Philanthropy I owe special thanks. Of course, I am most indebted to all the authors who wrote and happily revised the entries herein. My gratitude and appreciation is heartfelt for their scholarly and philanthropic gifts. I have learned a great deal from their contributions as well as from our many hours of discourse—often electronic—which provided intellectual stimulation of the best kind. Particular thanks go to the advisory committee members Kathryn A. Agaard, Eleanor L. Brilliant, Peter Dobkin Hall, Robert L. Payton, Eugene R. Tempel, Cathlene Williams, and especially Lawrence J. Friedman, Robert T. Grimm Jr., David C. Hammack, and Paul G. Schervish, who gave most helpful criticism and suggestions for documents to be included. Thanks also to Fran Huehls, philanthropic studies librarian at IUPUI, and all the other librarians who provided assistance. Finally, thanks to my wife, Audrey, for her encouragement and for understanding why so many books and articles, and the computer, needed to follow us on every vacation or trip during the past three years.

Two colleagues in particular have encouraged me to embark on this project over the past eight years. Initially the topic was broached with me by Robert Payton, the first full-time executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. We both lamented the impossibility of deciding what would be included in a one- or two-volume work on such a broad topic as philanthropy in the United States. In 1998, my colleague and friend David R. Smith encouraged me to embark on this effort, as it was surely needed. To Bob and David I am especially grateful. Subsequently, Marie Ellen Larcada from ABCCLIO suggested that I submit a proposal for a threevolume work on the subject. In the spring of 2001, I signed a contract and work began in earnest. Marie Ellen went on to other endeavors, thus my special thanks to James Ciment, Martha Whitt, and their team for their assistance. During the three years it took to prepare the manuscript, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, with support from the Lilly Endowment, has provided generous assistance, and Gene Tempel and other colleagues from the center have provided moral support. Four graduate assistants from the center have provided invaluable help, including Ben Imdicke, Sara Bosin, Aubrey

Dwight F. Burlingame

xxv

Philanthropy in America: A Timeline of Key Events 1600s

1601

1630

1638

American Indians encounter Europeans and practice one of the oldest giving traditions in North America by giving the foreigners food and assistance. The English Parliament enacts the Statute of Charitable Uses, a cornerstone of Anglo-American charity law and Elizabethan Poor Law and the basis of English and American public poor relief. Puritan leader John Winthrop preaches his famous sermon “A Modell of Christian Charity” while en route to America. The sermon outlines the Puritan settlers’ future society in American as well as his conception of charity. John Harvard bequeaths his library and half of his estate to newly founded (1636) Harvard College at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1656

Puritan Robert Keayne dies and makes one of the earliest charitable bequests in America.

1657

Scots’ Charitable Society, the first American “friendly society,” is created in Boston; it was reorganized in 1684 and is still in existence today.

1675

The Massachusetts legislature provides relief for frontier settlers, an act that departs from the principle of exclusive local responsibility for relief.

1690s

Cotton Mather begins to promote voluntary associations in America.

1702

Cotton Mather publishes Magnalia Christi, which celebrates philanthropy in America; in 1710, he publishes his practical work on public service, Bonafacius: An Essay upon the Good.

1715–1718 Elihu Yale sends gifts to Collegiate School of Connecticut (chartered 1701); in 1718, the school changes its name to Yale College. xxvii

Philanthropy in America: A Timeline of Key Events

1727

Benjamin Franklin founds the Junto Club in Philadelphia. The club serves as a catalyst for numerous civic improvements.

1729

First orphan home in the United States is established at Ursuline Convent, New Orleans.

1750

Anthony Benezet begins teaching free African Americans in his home and devotes over thirty years to such educational endeavors, including the founding of the African School in 1770.

1751–1752 Dr. Thomas Bond, assisted by Benjamin Franklin and others who pioneered the matching-grant concept, establishes Pennsylvania Hospital. 1780

Pennsylvania becomes the first state to pass a law for the abolition of slavery.

1784

Benjamin Rush publishes Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body, and Their Influence upon the Happiness of Society and becomes known as the founder of the American temperance movement. In 1786, he sets up the Philadelphia Dispensary, one of the first free medical clinics in America.

1790

Upon Benjamin Franklin’s death, his will establishes a fund for apprentices in Philadelphia and Boston.

1809–1813 Elizabeth Seton works to establish the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, the first American religious order, with a focus on education. 1810

xxviii

Elizabeth Seton and the Sisters of St. Joseph create the first free Catholic school in the United States, which

becomes the model for Catholic education. 1812

Returning to the United States from a trip to Africa, African American merchant Paul Cuffe encourages American blacks to assist their brothers and sisters in Africa. He enlists the support of black shipbuilder James Forten. Cuffe works in several American cities to spur the creation of black associations to develop transatlantic mutual aid initiatives.

1816

American Bible Society, the oldest national benevolent society, is established.

1817

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet establishes in Connecticut America’s first free school for the deaf, the American Asylum at Hartford for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb (today known as the American School for the Deaf ). Gallaudet’s son continues to be active in the school until 1917.

1818

Economic depression spurs the establishment of the New York Society for the Prevention of Pauperism.

1819

After the state of New Hampshire passed a bill that took over the assets of Dartmouth College and replaced members of the board of trustees, the former Dartmouth College trustees take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the trustees and established protections from government interference to corporations (nonprofit or for-profit).


1825

The New York House of Refuge, the first reformatory for juveniles, is founded.

1825

Robert Owen opens communal experiment in New Harmony, Indiana.

1827

Despite the efforts of Robert Owen and Robert Dale Owen, the utopian community of New Harmony fails but it inspires others and other reforms in America.

1829

Matthew Carey attempts first federated fundraising in Philadelphia.

1831

Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison begins to publish The Liberator, a paper significantly funded by black entrepreneur James Forten as well as white entrepreneurs Arthur Tappan and Lewis Tappan.

Alexis de Tocqueville publishes Democracy in America, which includes his observations on the disposition of Americans to organize and join voluntary associations. James Smithson’s bequest to the United States stirs much debate about the role of government and philanthropy. 1837

Mary Lyon establishes Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (later named Mount Holyoke College), which pioneers higher education for women in the United States.

1838

Rebecca Gratz establishes the first Jewish Sunday school in the United States.

1841

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Amistad case allows the Mendi Africans to return to their homeland. Lewis Tappan is the major benefactor of the Amistad cause.

1832

Samuel Gridley Howe opens New England Asylum for instruction of the blind.

1833

Impressed by Samuel Gridley Howe’s work, Thomas Perkins donates his mansion as well as $50,000 to aid Howe’s efforts with the blind.

1844

Along with others, Arthur Tappan and Lewis Tappan establish the American Anti-Slavery Society. Arthur Tappan is named the first president of the society and Lewis Tappan provides leadership for the society’s publication, the Emancipator.

In Vidal, Girard, et al. v. Philadelphia, the U.S. Supreme Court sides with Stephen Girard’s controversial will and ensures private individuals’ right to have their bequests acted upon per their intent. In 1848, his orphanage opens.

1845

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a charitable organization of Roman Catholic laymen, is established in America.

1846

The U.S. Congress, after much debate, creates the Smithsonian Institution,

1835

Evangelist Lyman Beecher delivers A Plea for the West, which details the role of religion’s place in public life and promotes the value of voluntary associations.

Dorothea L. Dix begins crusade for better treatment of insane.

xxix


1846 cont.

which serves as the model for a pattern of public philanthropy.

1862

Freedmen’s aid societies are established in the North to provide aid to former slaves. In l865, the Freedmen’s Bureau is founded and is active in relief and education in the South until the early 1870s.

1867

George Peabody establishes the Peabody Education Fund, which is often recognized as the first modern foundation in America.

1868

Hampton Institute School for Negroes opens in Virginia.

1879

Frances Willard is elected president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Her “Crusade Roundup” and her “Do Everything” approach and speaking engagements across the land made the WCTU the largest women’s voluntary association in the world.

1881

Clara Barton establishes the American Association of the Red Cross.

1846–1847 Many Americans participate in providing help for Irish famine relief. 1847

1851

Leonard Bacon’s article “Responsibility in the Management of Societies,” published in the New Englander, is possibly the first serious attempt to detail the responsibilities of charitable trusteeship. YMCA movement begins in the United States.

1853

Charles Loring Brace launches the Children’s Aid Society in New York City.

1854

Dorothea Dix’s bill that would provide acres of public lands to “several states” for building mental hospitals is passed by Congress but vetoed by President Franklin Pierce because he worries “that if Congress have the power to make provision for the indigent insane . . . it has the same power to provide for the indigent who are not insane, and thus to transfer to the federal government the charge of all the poor in all the states.”

1859

Peter Cooper opens Cooper Union in New York City as center for free instruction in science and art. Cooper’s school is later singled out by Andrew Carnegie as an example of the proper use of wealth.

1861–1865 During the Civil War, the Christian Commission and the U.S. Sanitary Commission—forerunner to the Red Cross—are established and work to improve the lives of soldiers.

xxx

Booker T. Washington starts Tuskegee Institute for Negroes in Alabama. Andrew Carnegie supports his first public library project in his hometown in Dunfermline, Scotland. Henry Lee Higginson founds the Boston Symphony, the first permanent symphony in the United States. Helen Hunt Jackson publishes A Century of Dishonor, a work on the abuses inflicted upon Native Americans, which along with other works inspires many to support the rights of Indians.


1882

1883

Josephine Shaw Lowell is instrumental in creating the Charity Organization Society of New York, the “flagship” of the charity organization movement. However, the first Charity Organization Society was created in Buffalo in 1877. Bernice Pauahi Paki Bishop leaves the vast amount of her estate, including 9 percent of the landmass of Hawaii, for the establishment of the Kamehameha schools (which begin in l887) and for native Hawaiians.

1884

Arguing for organized charity, Josephine Shaw Lowell publishes Public Relief and Private Charity.

1885

Because of a lack of college preparatory schools for women, Mary Elizabeth Garrett and four of her female friends start Bryn Mawr School for Girls.

1889

Andrew Carnegie publishes “Wealth” in North American Review; it becomes his most well known work under the title “Gospels of Wealth.” John D. Rockefeller gives $600,000 to help found the new University of Chicago. Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr start Hull-House in Chicago, which becomes the model settlement house in America. It is patterned after Toynbee Hall in London, which was started in l884.

1891

“Millionaire nun” Katharine Drexel starts the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People.

Leland and Jane Stanford found the Leland Stanford Junior University. 1892

John Muir starts the Sierra Club. Ida B. Wells-Barnett organizes the first antilynching campaign in the United States. The New York Tribune counts 4,047 millionaires in the United States.

1893

Pioneers of public-health nursing Lillian Wald and Mary Brewster provide nursing services for their neighbors, which leads to the creation of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Mary Barrett’s philanthropy makes possible the opening of the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Her gift is conditioned upon equal admission for women and men.

1894

The first federal income tax law is enacted; it exempts organizations founded and conducted solely for charitable, religious, or educational purposes.

1895

Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, and other Hull-House colleagues publish Hull-House Maps and Papers, an early effort to make reforms based upon social science research.

1896

Ballington and Maud Booth form the Volunteers of America.

1900

The American National Red Cross obtains charter of incorporation from Congress.

1901

John D. Rockefeller Sr. founds the Rockefeller Institute for Medical

xxxi


1901 cont.

1902

1903

1904

Research based upon his advisor Frederick T. Gates’s “wholesale philanthropy” (solving societal problems at their source) instead of “retail philanthropy” (alleviating individual suffering temporarily). This organization and subsequent Rockefeller philanthropies, such as the General Education Board, influence education and medicine significantly.

important for the development of social work and social science research. 1909

The First White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children recommends establishment of a federal Children’s Bureau.

1910

Boy Scouts of America is founded. Girl Scouts of America is founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912.

Andrew Carnegie endows Carnegie Institution of Washington to encourage investigation, research, and discovery. Booker T. Washington secretly finances defense efforts in Giles v. Harris and Giles v. Teasely the following year; both cases challenge black disenfranchisement. Throughout his life, Washington secretly funded legal efforts in several racial discrimination cases and gave anonymous financial support to black newspapers. Mary McLeod Bethune starts and heads the Daytona Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls.

Jane Addams publishes Twenty Years at Hull-House. 1911

Concerned that he would die rich and disgraced, Andrew Carnegie creates his largest foundation ($125 million), the Carnegie Corporation of New York. 1912

Evangeline Booth becomes the head of the American Salvation Army. Building on the work of Ballington and Maud Booth as well as Emma and Frederick Booth-Tucker, Evangeline Booth transforms the Salvation Army into one of American’s largest and most popular religious charities. 1905

1907

xxxii

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is founded. Using $10 million from her husband’s estate, Margaret Olivia Sage establishes the Russell Sage Foundation,

Madam C. J. Walker amazes the city by pledging a gift ($1,000) equal to the amount pledged by wealthy white citizens for a Colored YMCA in Indianapolis.

As the anonymous “Mr. Smith,” George Eastman provides a new campus for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Preferring to give with little or no recognition, Eastman quietly gives his fortune to hometown charities in Rochester, New York, and to localities of Eastman Kodak Company. Henrietta Szold establishes Hadassah, a national Zionist organization for women.

1913

The Revenue Act of 1913 exempts organizations operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, or educational purposes; subsequent acts add “prevention of cruelty to children or animals” (1918), “literary” (1921),


“community chest, fund or foundation” (1921), and “testing for public safety” (1954) to the list of exempt organizations. 1914

1921

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney founds the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Frederick Goff sets up the Cleveland Foundation, the first community foundation. 1923 Herbert Hoover establishes and leads the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) during World War I. Jesse Moorland donates his collection of books, artifacts, and other materials to Howard University to form the first African American research library.

1917

Roger Baldwin establishes the Civil Liberties Bureau, which becomes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Red Cross raises $100 million, the largest sum raised by any voluntary organization up to that time. 1918

George Draper Dayton creates the Dayton Foundation.

1919

Harvard uses professional fundraising counsel in $14 million endowment fund drive.

1920

Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration European Children’s Fund, a private charity, raises close to $30 million in the United States.

Mary McLeod Bethune’s Daytona Literary and Industrial School merges with the Cookman Institute, forming the Bethune-Cookman College; Bethune becomes the president of this college for black women. Margaret Sanger opens the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in New York City.

1924

Total annual charitable contributions reach $2 billion in United States. Sebastian S. Kresge establishes the Kresge Foundation, which diverges from the activities of many earlier foundations by focusing on giving to existing organizations rather than new projects.

Julius Rosenwald creates the Rosenwald Fund to promote racial equality. Income tax law permits individuals to deduct up to 15 percent of taxable income for charitable contributions.

The American Foundation for the Blind is founded; Helen Keller helps raise endowment.

1925

Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament start Xavier University of Louisiana, which remains the only historically black Catholic university. Simon Guggenheim creates the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, which offers one-year fellowships to scholars aged twenty-five to thirty-five. In Pierce v. Society of the Sisters, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Oregon antiparochial school law.

xxxiii


1926

Daniel Guggenheim establishes the Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics.

1940s, the focus of the foundation changes to be national and international.

1927

Robert Brookings creates the Brookings Institution by merging the Institute for Government Research and the Institute of Economics.

1936 Tax Act allows corporations to deduct charitable gifts up to 5 percent of federal taxable income.

1929

Henry Ford dedicates what will become the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village at Dearborn, Michigan.

1937

Along with brother J. K. Lilly Jr. and father J. K. Lilly Sr., Eli Lilly establishes the Lilly Endowment in Indianapolis, a foundation that reflects Eli’s preference for “personal philanthropy.”

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller cofounds the Museum of Modern Art. 1930

1933

W. K. Kellogg starts the W. K. Kellogg Foundation with the goal of improving the lives of young people; major areas of interest included education and health, especially in rural areas. Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin start publishing The Catholic Worker, which leads to the Catholic Worker Movement.

1939

Ima Hogg founds the Hogg Foundation for Mental Hygiene in her beloved Texas.

1944

Frederick Douglass Patterson leads in the creation of the United Negro College Fund.

1945

The Hill-Burton Hospital Construction Act makes the federal government a major player in health care.

1946

John D. Rockefeller Jr. donates seventeen acres in New York City for United Nations headquarters.

Charitable giving during the years of the Depression reaches a low point. 1935

The Social Security Act is passed into legislation, beginning a permanent welfare program by the national government in part necessitated by the failure of the private voluntary sector to meet the social needs of the population.

Five Dayton brothers institute an annual policy of giving 5 percent of Dayton’s pretax profits to charity. Their company becomes a model of corporate giving.

The American Association of FundRaising Counsel is organized. 1936

xxxiv

Edsel Ford and Henry Ford establish the Ford Foundation. Although the founders had focused on Michigan philanthropy, upon their deaths in the

Congress agrees to accept Andrew Mellon’s offer to establish the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

1947

New York University alumni donate various businesses to their alma mater, including the C. F. Mueller Company, a gift that makes New York University


legal right of corporations to make contributions, even if the gifts do not offer a “direct benefit” to the corporation.

the largest manufacturer of macaroni in the world and the recipient of harsh criticism from the U.S. Congress. 1948

Senator Charles Tobey investigates businesses’ use of foundations for nonphilanthropic purposes.

1954

Hector P. Garcia starts the American G.I. Forum, which advocates for the civil rights of all Latinos. J. Howard Pew, J. N. Pew Jr., Mary Ethel Pew, and Mabel Pew Myrin establish the Pew Memorial Foundation, which becomes known as the Pew Charitable Trusts. During their lifetime, the four Pew siblings attempt to do all their giving anonymously.

The Special (Reece) Committee investigates foundations. In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decides that enforced racial segregation in public schools is against the Fourteenth Amendment. 1955

Martin Luther King Jr. becomes the head of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association and leads bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, by promoting nonviolent voluntary action.

1957

Hector P. Garcia succeeds in ending the Texas public schools’ segregation of Mexican Americans by leading the efforts of the American G. I. Forum and the League of United Latin American Citizens behind Hernandez v. Consolidated ISD.

1958

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis becomes the National Foundation with a change of mission after the Salk polio vaccine was developed in l955.

Carrying out the stipulation of its founder, the Julius Rosenwald Fund folds. 1950

1952

A revision of the Internal Revenue Code subjects foundations engaged in certain prohibited practices to loss of tax exemption. John D. Rockefeller Jr. assists his five sons in endowing the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Margaret Sanger serves as a founder as well as the first president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The Select (Cox) committee of the House of Representatives investigates foundations.

1953

The decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court in Barlow et al. v. A. P. Smith Manufacturing Co. clarifies the

John M. Olin founds the John M. Olin Foundation, which eventually becomes highly effective at shaping conservative public policy.

James Herman Robinson forms Operation Crossroads Africa, which serves as the inspiration for the establishment of the Peace Corps.

xxxv


1960

Pierre Frist Goodrich starts the Liberty Fund.

1970

Charitable giving in the United States reaches more than $21 billion.

Philanthropic giving in the United States reaches an estimated $10.92 billion.

1974

McDonald’s restaurants team up with nonprofits to establish Ronald McDonald houses. John D. Rockefeller III creates the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (the Filer Commission). At the end of the following year, the commission reports its findings in an important work, Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector.

The Internal Revenue Service recognizes more than 45,000 taxexempt organizations. 1961

President John F. Kennedy begins a federated fund drive among federal employees and military personnel that is later known as the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC).

1962

Cesar Chavez establishes the National Farm Workers Association, which becomes the United Farm Workers.

1964

David and Lucile Packard create their family foundation.

1965

The Johnson administration establishes Medicare and Medicaid to cover medical expenses of older and lowincome persons.

1975

At Yale University, John D. Rockefeller III funds a feasibility study that leads to the establishment of the Program on Non-Profit Organizations (PONPO) in l978; the first of many universitybased academic research centers studying philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.

1976

A Tax Reform Act limits the amount charities may spend on lobbying.

1979

Robert Woodruff and George Woodruff give $105 million to Emory University, at the time the largest gift by living donors to an American college or university.

1980

In Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for Better Environment, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a city ordinance requiring fundraising groups to demonstrate that 75 percent or more of money raised goes for charitable purposes infringes freedoms protected by the First Amendment.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities are established. 1968

1969

Lundberg’s book The Rich and Super Rich discloses findings from Congressman Patman’s (D-TX) investigation of foundations. President Nixon establishes the National Center for Voluntary Action, a nonprofit, to coordinate voluntary and government sectors. Congress passes the Tax Reform Act of l969, which approves many punitive actions affecting private foundations.

xxxvi

Charitable giving in the United States totals nearly $49 billion.


INDEPENDENT SECTOR is created.

1995

Mississippi washerwoman Oseola McCarty becomes a national figure by making a gift of $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi. Her action demonstrates the significance of philanthropy by “average” people.

1981

President Reagan appoints the Task Force on Private Initiatives.

1984

George Soros negotiates the creation of Soros Foundation–Hungary, the first private independent foundation within a Communist country.

1997

INDEPENDENT SECTOR launches an effort to double charitable giving and increase volunteer activity by 50 percent by 1991. The campaign is not successful and is discontinued by 1997.

Kenneth Dayton and Joe Selvaggio found the One Percent Club, a group of individuals who commit to give away annually 1 percent of their net worth to charity.

1999

Due in part to its strong tradition of corporate philanthropy in Minnesota, the Dayton-Hudson Corporation is able to fend off a hostile takeover.

Bill and Melinda Gates form the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which quickly becomes the largest charitable foundation in the world.

2000

Charitable giving in the United States exceeds $212 billion

1986

1987

1988

Cesar Chavez fasts on water for thirtysix days to spotlight the dangers of pesticides.

Charitable nonprofits in the United States are estimated to number 1.7 million.

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About the Editor



Philanthropy in America A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia Volume 2: Entries I to Z




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Philanthropy in America A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia Volume 3: Documents in Philanthropy




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Part I A to Z Entries

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A Accountability

sector, standards and practices set forth by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) attempt to do just that. These entities determine what types of economic information are to be identified, measured, and communicated in the United States.

Widely publicized revelations of financial improprieties, excessive compensation, and unethical behavior have highlighted the importance of accountability and oversight in both the business and nonprofit sectors. Examples in the business sector abound, but nonprofit organizations have not been exempt. Nonprofits as diverse as the American Cancer Society, the American Red Cross, New York City’s Hale House, and the Amateur Athletic Union have faced public accusations of unethical or illegal behavior. But what exactly is meant by the term “accountability” when it is applied to the nonprofit sector? Kevin Kearns described nonprofit accountability, in part, as that “wide spectrum of public expectations dealing with organizational performance [and the] responsiveness . . . of nonprofit organizations” (1996, 9). Thus, an organization is accountable when it is answerable to some other party for accomplishing some definite goal(s). In the United States, there are two types of accountability: legal and voluntary.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as part of the U. S. Department of the Treasury, has as its primary responsibility the collection of taxes from individuals and businesses. According to IRS documents, “The Internal Revenue Service is the nation’s tax collection agency and administers the Internal Revenue Code enacted by Congress. Its mission: to provide America’s taxpayers with top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness to all” (U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, 2003). The Tax Exempt and Government Entities Operating Division is responsible for tax-exempt organizations. This division has the authority to grant, withhold, or revoke tax-exempt status and to assess fines for noncompliance under certain conditions. Most taxexempt organizations with gross receipts of more than $25,000 are required to file the IRS-designed Form 990, an annual document used to report information

Legal Accountability Accounting is “the process of identifying, measuring, and communicating economic information to various users” (American Accounting Association 1966, 1). James Greenfield and Richard Larkin held that “the whole purpose of accounting is to ensure that accountability happens” (2000, 55). In the nonprofit

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Accountability

about finances and operations. Although the IRS’s oversight authority is potentially quite powerful, it is rarely used. First, when an organization requests taxexempt status, it is seldom denied: In 2002, less than 1 percent of the 87,342 applications for tax-exempt status were rejected. Then, once tax-exempt status is granted, it is rarely lost: Only twenty or thirty organizations per year lose their tax-exempt status (MacDonald and Schlesinger 1997). Finally, IRS employees rarely examine those returns that are filed. In 2002, less than 1 percent of the more than 775,000 Form 990s were examined (down from a 2.09 percent examination rate in 1994). Until 1996, although Form 990s filed by nonprofit organizations were “public” information, one usually had to visit the organization in question or request a copy, in writing, from the IRS to obtain one. Since 1996, however, the document has been required to be “widely available” to anyone who requests it. As a result, Form 990 (which includes both financial and nonfinancial data) has become the primary source of information for a wide variety of users. GuideStar, a nonprofit organization with the goal of revolutionizing “philanthropy and nonprofit practice with information” (http://www.guidestar.org/about), has posted scanned Form 990s and other information about more than 850,000 nonprofit organizations on its Web site. The National Center for Charitable Statistics, as part of the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, has digitized the forms, making it fairly easy for scholars to conduct empirical research about the sector as a whole (http://www.nccs.urban. org). Several streams of research have resulted from the availability of Form 990 data. One stream has focused on the quality of the information that nonprofits submit to the IRS. The results, which have been somewhat mixed, seem to suggest that although the quality of the data submitted may be reasonably accurate for the sector taken as a whole (Froelich and Knoepfle 1996; Froelich et al. 2000), specific Form 990s may be lacking (Gordon et al. 1999). For example, according to GuideStar, 20 percent of Form 990 filers in 2000 charged more than 50 percent of their expenses to “other.” And some researchers have found that between 15 and 25 percent of nonprofits receiving funds from private (non-

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governmental) sources reported zero fundraising costs (Lipman 2000; Greenlee and Gordon 1998). A second area of research has focused on the impact of disclosures on the behavior of donors. Although this type of research is still in its early stages, several scholars have found that information presented on Form 990 does appear to have some impact on donor decisions (Baber et al. 2001; Pollack and Cordes 1999; Tinkelman 1999; Greenlee and Brown 1999). A third area of research has looked at the usefulness of Form 990 data in assessing the financial condition of nonprofit organizations. Authors in the field have described ratios that nonprofit organizations could use in benchmarking with other, similar nonprofits and in conducting trend analysis over time (Greenlee and Bukovinsky 1998); adapted ratios (from Tuckman and Chang 1991) to develop models to predict the future financial health of a nonprofit organization (Greenlee and Trussel 2000; Trussel and Greenlee 2003); and, in an extension of these studies, found that the predictive value of the model does differ within different types of organizations within a subsector (Hager 2001). The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is a private-sector organization with the authority to determine the accounting standards, or rules, used in preparing the audited financial statements of both business and nonprofit organizations. Financial statements following FASB standards are said to have been prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). FASB standards, however, can and do differ significantly from IRS regulations. For example, the IRS permits nonprofits to use either the cash-basis or the accrual-basis method of accounting for revenue and expenses, but the FASB permits only the accrual-basis method. And, although Form 990 is public information, financial statements prepared according to GAAP are not required to be disclosed.1 Since the data are not widely or easily available, little empirical research using audited financial statements has been conducted.2 One study found that many nonprofits that reported fundraising costs on their (nonpublicly available) audited financial

Accountability

statements disclosed zero fundraising costs on their (publicly available) Form 990 (Lipman 2000). Tremendous variation in what was included in operating income has also been found in the annual reports of private colleges and universities. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is “the national professional organization for all Certified Public Accountants” (http:// www.aicpa.org). Certified public accountants (CPAs) are licensed by the state to audit financial statements. In doing so, they examine not only the numbers in the statements but the records underlying those numbers. They then are empowered to express an opinion as to whether these statements were prepared according to GAAP. The rules that govern the audit are determined by the AICPA. The audit can be a powerful accountability tool for those both inside and outside of the organization. Unfortunately, however, the focus of accounting and auditing education has been on business entities. Many auditing firms are “firing” their nonprofit clients because they feel the benefits (profits) do not exceed the perceived risks. In addition, many states require certain nonprofit organizations, usually charities, to register with a state agency and to file reports, usually some combination of Form 990, the audited financial statements, and a state-mandated form. Typically, the focus of these state regulations is to publicize excess fundraising costs.

Voluntary Accountability Several independent organizations set standards that nonprofits (typically charitable organizations) must meet if they are to be “approved” by that organization. The standards can vary a great deal in what they include, in how they are designed, and in how they are implemented. Some are comprehensive; others are narrow in scope. Some of the organizations focus on the entire nonprofit sector; others focus on one type of organization within the sector. Moreover, some consult user groups when developing their standards, and others consult no one. Some of the standards are im-

plemented by external review, some by a self-evaluation process, and some organizations use a rating system, while others use a compliance/noncompliance system. Each standard-setting organization is unique (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 2003). The following examples of standard-setting organizations illustrate some of the diversity that exists in the area of voluntary accountability. (For a more complete listing of organizations, see http://www.independentsector.org/issues/ accountability/standards.html). Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance (http://www.give.org), the oldest of such standard setters and the most widely known, claims that it helps donors make informed giving decisions through charity evaluations, various “tips” publications, and the quarterly publication of its Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Guide. Its twenty standards3 focus on full disclosure, ethical decisions, and sound management practices and are divided into four sections: governance and oversight, measuring effectiveness, finances, and fundraising and informational materials (see http://www.give.org/standards/newcbbbstds.asp for the specific standards and http://www.give.org/ standards/implementation.asp for specifics on implementing these standards). The Wise Giving Alliance has evaluated several thousand, mostly national charitable organizations (see http://www.give.org/ reports/index.asp for a list of charities evaluated and for access to their reports). It recently announced a program where charities meeting all standards would be given a “national charity seal” (Better Business Bureau 2003). The American Institute of Philanthropy The American Institute of Philanthropy rates approximately 500 national charities on a scale of A to F and publishes the results three times a year in its Charity Rating Guide. It uses only three financial performance measures in its ranking system: percent spent on charitable purpose, cost to raise $100, and years of available assets, that is, “how long a charity with large reserves of available assets could continue to operate at current levels without any additional fundraising” (http://www.charitywatch.org).

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Accountability

Charity Navigator Charity Navigator uses a fairly complex rating system (see http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/ content.view/catid/2/cpid/35.htm) to rate more than 2,000 U.S. charities on a scale of four stars (“exceptional”) to zero stars (“poor”). It focuses on the efficiency and the capacity of the organization. Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) is an example of a voluntary standard-setting organization that limits its scope to one type of nonprofit entity. Originally established as a response to some of the well-publicized improprieties that occurred in some television ministries in the 1980s and 1990s, its mission is to help “Christ-centered organizations earn the public’s trust through developing and maintaining standards of accountability that convey God-honoring ethical practices” (http://www.ecfa. org/ECFA/ContentEngine.asp?Page=Mission). To receive the ECFA’s “seal of approval,” a ministry must adhere to fairly stringent standards focusing primarily on ethical and disclosure issues (see http://www.ecfa. org/ECFA/ContentEngine.asp?Page=7standards).

Conclusion The present system of accountability for nonprofit organizations in the United States has resulted in a system where the accounting information that has been examined (audited) is not public information (and is rarely used) and the information that has not been audited is public information (and is used extensively). Voluntary standard-setting organizations attempt to overcome these limitations. Unfortunately, most of these organizations must rely, at least in part, on the public (and possibly suspect) information. Further, each voluntary standard setter has a unique (and usually not fully explained) method of evaluating an organization. In order for the sector to grow and prosper, the public must have confidence and trust in the information that nonprofit organizations provide on their financial and fundraising activities. Although the IRS, the FASB, the AICPA, and voluntary standard-setting organizations have helped to make nonprofits more accountable, much is lacking in this regard. It is

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doubtful that the present system of accountability in the United States does enough to ensure reliable information and to foster the kind of public confidence in nonprofits that is needed for a vibrant nonprofit sector. Janet Greenlee See also American Institute of Philanthropy; Charity Watchdogs Notes 1. Interestingly, in the business sector, the opposite is the case: Tax-return information is private and GAAP financial statements are public. 2. In this regard, too, the nonprofit sector contrasts significantly with the business sector: Audited financial statements for publicly traded companies are widely available on the Internet on a timely basis and are available in several easily searchable digitized formats. 3. New standards were effective beginning March 3, 2003. The twenty-three previous standards focused more on fundraising activities (see http://www.give.org/standards/cbbbstds.asp). References and further reading American Accounting Association. 1966. A Statement of Basic Accounting Theory. Evanston, IL: American Accounting Association. Baber, W., A. Roberts, and G. Visvanathan. 2001. “Charitable Organizations Strategies and Program Spending Ratios.” Accounting Horizons 15 (4): 329–343. Better Business Bureau (BBB). 2003. “BBB Wise Giving Alliance to Brief Reporters on New Charity Accountability Standards and Announce National Charity Seal Program.” Press Release, http://www.bbb.org/alerts/medadvisory.asp. Froelich, K. A., and T. W. Knoepfle. 1996. “Internal Revenue Service 990 Data: Fact or Fiction?” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 25 (1): 40–52. Froelich, K. A., T. W. Knoepfle, and T. Pollak. 2000. “Financial Measures in Nonprofit Organization Research: Comparing IRS 990 Return and Audited Financial Statement Data.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29 (2): 232–254. Gordon, T., J. Greenlee, and D. Nitterhouse. 1999. “Tax Exempt Organization Financial Data: Availability and Limitations.” Accounting Horizons ( June): 113–128. Greenfield, J., and R. Larkin. 2000. “Public Accountability.” In Serving the Public Trust: Insights into Fundraising Research and Practice, edited by Paul P. Pribbenow, vol. 2, 51–71. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Greenlee, J., and K. Brown. 1999. “The Impact of Accounting Information on Contributions to Charitable Organizations.” Research in Accounting Regulation 13: 111–125.

Addams, Jane

Greenlee, J., and T. Gordon. 1998. “The Impact of Professional Solicitors on Fund Raising in Charitable Organizations.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (September): 277–299. Greenlee, J., and D. Bukovinsky. 1998. “Financial Ratios for Use in the Analytical Review of Charitable Organizations.” Ohio CPA Journal 57 (1): 32–38. Greenlee, J., and J. Trussel. 2000. “Predicting the Financial Vulnerability of Charitable Organizations.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership (Winter): 199–210. Hager, M. 2001. “Financial Vulnerability among Arts Organizations: A Test of the Tuckman-Chang Measures.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 30: 376–392. INDEPENDENT SECTOR. 2003. Compendium of Standards, Codes, and Principles of Nonprofit and Philanthropic Organizations, http://www.independentsector.org/issues/ accountability/standards.html. Kearns, K. 1996. Managing for Accountability. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lipman, H. 2000. “Charities’ Zero-Sum Filing Game.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy, May 18: 1, 21–24. MacDonald, E., and J. Schlesinger. 1997. “Group Targets Politically Active Churches for Audits.” Wall Street Journal, March 20, A18. Pollak, T., and J. Cordes. 1999. “Patterns, Trends and Determinants of Fund Raising and Administrative Cost Ratios Reported by Nonprofit Organizations.” Paper at Arnova Conference, Arlington, VA, November 4–6. Pristin, T., and N. Bernstein. 2002. “Ex-Head of Hale House and Husband Charged with Theft.” New York Times, February 6, B1. Schmadtke, A. 1999. “Factors Affecting the Relation between Donations to Not-for-Profit Organizations and an Efficiency Ratio.” Research in Government and Nonprofit Accounting 10: 135–161. Trussel, J., and J. S. Greenlee. 2003. “A Financial Rating System for Nonprofit Organizations.” Research in Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting. Tuckman, H. P., and C. F. Chang. 1991. “A Methodology for Measuring the Financial Vulnerability of Charitable Nonprofit Organizations.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 20: 445–460. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 2003. Introduction and Mission. Washington, DC: IRS.

Addams, Jane (1860–1935) Jane Addams led the American social settlement movement, contrasted her philanthropic approach

with contemporary Andrew Carnegie and others, and became a prominent pacifist. Through her social reform work and voluminous writings, she became one of the most famous American women of her time. Born on September 6, 1860, to John Huy and Sarah Weber Addams, Jane Addams grew up in Cedarville, Illinois. In 1882, she graduated from Rockford Female Seminary (Rockford, Illinois) and began medical school in Philadelphia. After ill health forced her to leave medical school, Addams spent the next few years searching for her life’s work. A member of the first generation of college-educated women, Addams had no interest in marriage and found most professions closed to females. Ultimately, Addams—like many other college-educated women of the time—developed a lifelong career out of voluntary associations. After visiting Toynbee Hall, a London social settlement in which university men lived and worked among the poor, Addams decided to found a social settlement in the United States. In 1889, Addams and college friend Ellen Gates Starr started the Hull-House social settlement in a crumbling mansion located in an immigrant community on Chicago’s South Side. Wishing to improve the lives of her immigrant neighbors and make privileged individuals (especially women) connected with the realities of the world, Addams believed that working and living with the poor would help her and others understand the best ways to combat poverty. At a time when the United States was undergoing rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigration, Addams soon discovered a number of problems. In its first decade, Hull-House dramatically expanded—building- and service-wise—to meet the needs of the surrounding community. The settlement eventually offered a wide variety of classes (on topics such as carpentry and cooking) and included a gymnasium, a playground, a cooperative boardinghouse, a nursery, a music school, a theater, and an art gallery. Primarily led and funded by women, Hull-House helped develop famous female reformers (such as Florence Kelley and Julia Lathrop) as well as the social work profession. In contrast to other philanthropists, such as Peter Cooper, who started Cooper Union, and Andrew Carnegie, famous for his funding of public libraries, Addams and her reform colleagues did not

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Jane Addams (1860–1935) (Underwood & Underwood/Corbis)

Advocacy and Nonprofit Organizations

believe that the poor could pull themselves out of poverty simply by taking the initiative and availing themselves of educational opportunities during their off-work hours. Instead, along with other social settlement reformers, she came to believe that environmental conditions—many beyond an individual’s control—stopped people from rising out of poverty. In 1895, Addams and her reform colleges published Hull-House Maps and Papers, an early social science, systematic study that offered statistics ranging from housing conditions to child labor. Hull-House reformers subsequently fought for various reforms, including industrial safety and child labor legislation, limited working hours for women, and compulsory school attendance. To promote these reforms, Addams gave numerous public speeches and produced a multitude of publications. In 1910, she penned her most famous work, the autobiographical Twenty Years at Hull-House. That year, Addams was the acknowledged leader of a movement that boasted 400 American settlements. She used her celebrity status to promote female suffrage and campaigned vigorously for Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 presidential bid because his Progressive Party represented many of the reforms she advocated. When World War I began in Europe, Addams became a major figure in the U.S. pacifist movement. When the United States entered the war, her continued adherence to pacifism resulted in the public’s condemnation. After the war, she spent much time in Europe working for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Eventually, she earned the Nobel Peace Prize (1931) and returned to the status of an American icon. She died three days after an operation revealed she had cancer. Robert T. Grimm Jr. See also Kelley, Florence; Settlement Houses References and further reading Davis, Allen F. 1967. Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890–1914. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1973. American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams. New York: Oxford University Press. Grimm, Robert T., Jr. 2002. “Jane Addams.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 1–5. Westport, CT: Oryx Press.

Advocacy and Nonprofit Organizations Advocacy in the nonprofit world has a rich history and is often misunderstood by practitioners as well as by the general public and governmental officials. Nevertheless, nonprofit organizations must utilize advocacy skills almost constantly in carrying out their missions. The history of advocacy in the United States has its roots with early humanitarian reform efforts and attempts to influence local, state, and federal political decisions. For example, cause advocates such as Dorothea Dix (1802–1887), who worked to improve the lives of those committed to prisons and insane asylums, and Reginald Heber Smith (1889–1996), who focused on improving legal representation for the poor, attempted to influence those in power during their day and alert them to the plight of certain ignored or exploited groups in society. Various definitions have been developed to describe advocacy over the years. The essence of all of the definitions is that one group or individual is acting on behalf of another group or individual to help secure services or rights. Examples of advocacy range from a caseworker ensuring that clients receive all entitled services to an organization lobbying Congress to modify food stamp legislation to make it easier for individuals to apply for and receive assistance. The activities of nonprofit organizations engaging in advocacy efforts may be categorized into six key arenas: (1) agency advocacy, which focuses on ensuring that individual clients or groups of clients receive the existing services to which they are entitled; (2) legislative advocacy, which attempts to persuade a legislature or governmental official to pass or not to pass a certain law or to amend or repeal an existing law; (3) legal advocacy, which aims to ensure the rights of individuals and groups through the legal system; (4) community advocacy, which educates citizens through the use of the media and through public demonstrations in support of or in opposition to an issue or policy; (5) issue advocacy, which utilizes research and education to identify social problems and potential solutions to them; and (6) political campaign advocacy, which supports the election or defeat of political candidates. Political campaign advocacy is the only

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Advocacy and Nonprofit Organizations

Dorothea Dix (1802–1887), a pioneer in the reform of the mental health industry (Bettmann/Corbis)

form of advocacy that is explicitly prohibited by federal rule for nonprofits that wish to retain tax-exempt status (U.S. Department of the Treasury). Of the types of advocacy listed above, the most misunderstood is legislative advocacy and the role that nonprofits can play. The 1976 U.S. legislation governing lobbying and nonprofit organizations defines two types of lobbying: “direct lobbying,” that is, any attempt to influence legislation through communication with a legislative body or government official who may participate in the formulation of legislation, and “grassroots lobbying,” or communicating with the public to influence legislation by asking the public to act to support or reject certain legislation. Nonprofit organizations are not prohibited from undertaking legislative lobbying. In fact, in some instances it is necessary for nonprofits to engage in such work to ensure their own survival. Nonprofit organizations can inform, educate, and persuade elected and administrative governmental employees, and unless

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they spend a considerable amount of time and money on lobbying, they will not endanger their tax-exempt status. Under the nonprofit tax-exempt regulations, public charities incorporated under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 501(c)(3) are permitted to engage in lobbying activities but are not allowed to devote a “substantial” part of their activities to lobbying. Those violating this rule may lose their tax-exempt status or become subject to payment of taxes on their unallowable activities (ibid.). Since 1976, nonprofit organizations have generally used two methods of determining whether their lobbying activities violate IRS regulations. The first has been to utilize the “nonsubstantial rule,” that is, to rely on the commonsense approach of what would be viewed as “substantial,” taking into account all of the circumstances of the situation and the organization. Neither the IRS nor Congress has precisely defined the term “substantial,” however. Therefore, it is usually in a nonprofit organization’s best interests to elect the second method, the “percentage rule,” whenever possible (churches and private foundations may not make this election). The percentage rule, removing the ambiguity of the nonsubstantial rule, specifically quantifies a nonprofit organization’s annual allowable lobbying activities based on the overall budget of the organization and the amount expended on specific lobbying activities. The limits established by Congress allow 20 percent of an organization’s first $500,000, 15 percent of the next $500,000, 10 percent of the next $500,000, and 5 percent of an organization’s remaining budget. The maximum amount allowable is $1 million (ibid.). Within these parameters, grassroots lobbying is limited to 25 percent of the allowable lobbying expenditures. For example, if an organization had a total exempt budget of $2 million, it would be permitted to spend a total of $250,000 on lobbying activities without jeopardizing its tax-exempt status. In addition, within the allowable $250,000, the organization’s grassroots lobbying would be limited to $62,500. According to current nonprofit legislation, lobbying does not include the following important advocacy tactics, which therefore are not included in the limitations prescribed in the 1976 legislation: making

African American Philanthropy

available the results of nonpartisan research; responding to a written request for technical assistance or advice from a governmental or legislative body; appearing before or communicating with any legislative body with respect to a possible decision of the body that might affect the existence of the organization, its powers, duties, or tax-exempt status, or the deductions of gifts; and communicating with bona fide members of the organization with respect to legislation or proposed legislation of direct interest to the organization. Although public charities are currently provided great leeway in their lobbying activities, private foundations are, for the most part, constrained from any lobbying activities. The only exceptions are making available the results of nonpartisan research or studies and lobbying on their own behalf. Finally, there are no clear rules to guide legislative advocacy and the use of the Internet, an emerging arena for advocacy for both direct and grassroots lobbying. H. Daniels Duncan See also Social Movements and Philanthropy References and further reading Alliance for Justice. “Nonprofit Advocacy,” http://www. allianceforjustice.org/nonprofit/index.html (cited November 27, 2002). Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest. “Educating Charities about the Important and Appropriate Role Lobbying Can Play in Achieving Their Missions,” http://www.clpi.org/ (cited November 27, 2002). Cohen, David. 2001. Advocacy for Social Justice: A Global Action and Reflection Guide. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Ezell, Mark. 2001. Advocacy in the Human Services. Toronto: Brooks/Cole. Homan, Mark S. 1998. Rules of the Game: Lessons from the Field of Community Change. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Hopkins, Bruce R. 1993. Charity, Advocacy, and the Law: How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Charitable Dollars to Affect Public Policy—Lawfully. New York: Wiley. Jasson, Bruce S. 1999. Becoming an Effective Policy Advocate: From Policy Practice to Social Justice. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service (IRS). “Lobbying Expenditures,” http://www.irs.gov/ formspubs/page/0,id%3D12384,00.html (cited November 27, 2002).

African American Philanthropy African American philanthropy—the giving of money, time, or goods by African Americans for various causes—has been shaped by the level of freedoms and rights afforded to African Americans at different points in history. As a result of the socioeconomic inequalities faced by African Americans, their philanthropy has supported both the charitable interests of individuals as well as African Americans’ collective efforts to secure social equality. There have been four distinct periods of African American philanthropy: slavery, reconstruction/Jim Crow, civil rights, and post–civil rights. In each period, the African American church has played a distinctive role because it was often the only institution with independent leadership that was financially supported and directed by the African American community. Because of this, the African American church has often operated like a community foundation, channeling individual donations to support collective community needs, a practice that continues today.

Slavery African American philanthropy can be traced back to the first slaves arriving in the Americas. Recalling their African traditions of collective sharing and facing a common oppressor, African- and Americanborn slaves shared their limited resources to improve their common condition. Not all African Americans were slaves, and those who were not, most of them freedmen, formed self-help mutual aid organizations to provide for their immediate needs as well as to support the abolitionist movement. One of the first mutual aid organizations was African Lodge No. 459, which was founded by Prince Hall in 1787 and received its charter from the Grand Lodge of England. As the number of African American freedmen grew, lodge members used their collective philanthropy to support numerous African American mutual aid societies and churches. The inability to fully participate in the larger society required African Americans to establish and support virtually all of their own institutions using their philanthropic capital. Many of the mutual aid organizations and churches were very active in educational efforts as well as in the abolitionist movement. Organizations such

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as the International Order of Twelve Knights, the Daughters of Tabor, and the Knights of Liberty, among others, were active in the Underground Railroad that helped more than 100,000 escaping slaves. African American nonprofit organizations proved so successful that, by 1835, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina had laws prohibiting African Americans from creating lyceums, lodges, fire companies, or literary, dramatic, social, moral, or charitable societies. Such laws contributed to African Americans developing secret societies and clubs to continue their charitable self-help activities. A number of African American freedmen who became wealthy were active philanthropists. Paul Cuffe (1759–1817), for example, a Massachusetts shipbuilder, established and financed a school for African American children and founded and supported the Friendly Society, which assisted free African Americans who wished to emigrate from the United States to Sierra Leone.

Reconstruction and Jim Crow Although the Civil War brought an end to slavery, it did not bring equality for African Americans. As “separate but equal” became the country’s standard, making possible a new onslaught of discriminatory “Jim Crow” laws and other racial inequalities, African American philanthropy was a cornerstone in helping to educate and train newly freed slaves. Many of the newly formed and existing mutual aid organizations focused on educating former slaves. These groups, along with churches, were active in numerous efforts to establish elementary schools, high schools, and colleges. The accumulated philanthropic capital of churches and mutual aid societies provided the necessary resources that led to the creation of the first African American banks and insurance companies. In addition, African American communities successfully matched their portion of the challenge grant sponsored by the Rosenwald Fund (a private foundation) that resulted in 5,000 new schools throughout the South. As African Americans began to migrate to the industrial cities of the North in the early 1900s, new social justice organizations emerged with differing philosophies. For example, the National Association

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for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association were all supported, in whole or in part, by African American philanthropy. Many of the African American college fraternities and sororities were also established during this time, and they remain active in their philanthropy today. Wealthy African Americans continued to become active philanthropists during this era. For example, Madam C. J. Walker (1869–1919), who sold cosmetics, supported a wide range of causes, including a school for girls that she founded in West Africa. At her death, she left the school $100,000.

Civil Rights Period African American philanthropy was the volunteer and financial fuel of the civil rights movement. Countless numbers of African Americans and their supporters made financial contributions, volunteered their time, opened their homes, and provided transportation and meals to demonstrators. The success of the civil rights movement not only improved the lives of African Americans but also led to increased equality for other racial and ethnic groups, women, and the disabled. All African Americans did not embrace the aims and tactics of the civil rights movement, however. The Nation of Islam, founded by Elijah Muhammad and endorsed, for a time, by Malcolm X, developed a wide array of schools and businesses relying on African American philanthropy to accomplish different objectives. As the “separate and (un)equal” doctrine was slowly replaced by the concept of equal rights, African Americans developed new vehicles for their charitable giving. Maintaining that the United Way’s monopoly access to federal workplace charitable campaigns was unfair, the National Black United Fund in the early 1980s successfully won two U.S. Supreme Court cases that allowed it access to the campaigns. These court victories allowed access to other campaigns that focused on women, Hispanics, and the environment. Post–Civil Rights Period The post–civil rights period has witnessed the sustained development of institutionalized African


A'Lelia Walker, daughter of Madam C. J. Walker, gets a manicure at one of her mother's beauty shops. Madam Walker’s philanthropy supported a variety of causes, including a school for girls in West Africa. (Underwood & Underwood/Corbis)

American philanthropy. As greater numbers of African Americans enjoy economic success, they are establishing donor-advised funds through community foundations or commercial institutions as well as creating private foundations. Although churches, civil rights organizations, and charitable workplace campaigns continue to receive support, greater socioeconomic equality has meant a smaller proportion of collective African American philanthropy as individuals have had the freedom to pursue their personal charitable interests. This period has produced a greater number of wealthy African Americans than any other. In particular, entertainers (such as Bill and Camille Cosby and

Michael Jackson), athletes (such as Muhammad Ali), and business entrepreneurs (such as Oprah Winfrey), among others, have made significant charitable contributions. Oseola McCarty (1908–1999), who left school after sixth grade and spent her entire life cleaning and ironing other people’s clothes, donated her life savings of $150,000 to create a scholarship fund for African Americans at the University of Southern Mississippi. She is a potent reminder that philanthropy has never been dependent upon wealth in the African American community. Emmett D. Carson See also Civil Rights Movement; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Walker, Madam C. J.

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Alliance for Nonprofit Management

References and further reading Carson, Emmett D. 1989. “The Evolution of Black Philanthropy: Patterns of Giving and Voluntarism.” In Philanthropic Giving: Studies in Varieties and Goals, edited by Richard Magat, 92–102. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1991. “Contemporary Trends in Black Philanthropy: Challenging the Myths.” In Taking Fundraising Seriously: Advancing the Profession and Practice of Raising Money, edited by Dwight F. Burlingame and Lamont J. Hulse, 219–238. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ———. 1993. A Hand Up: Black Philanthropy and Self-Help in the United States. Washington, DC: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Press. ———. 1996. “Philanthropy and Foundations.” In Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, vol. 1, edited by Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, 2137–2141. New York: Simon and Schuster.

organizations by strengthening support services. Members of the Alliance include management support organizations, independent consultants, foundations, academic centers, support associations, forprofit consulting firms, and others. Support organizations are strengthened through two primary services: membership networking on the Web and a skill-building, educational conference held each year. In addition to the conference, the Alliance offers its members a resource center, an online newsletter called Pulse!, and online services such as a provider search and career bank. Alissa Saufley References and further reading Pocantico Conference Members. 1998. Aspirations and Intentions, 1999–2003. Washington, DC: Alliance for Nonprofit Management. Pulse! 1997–1998. http://www.allianceonline.org

Alliance for Nonprofit Management

Alternative Funds

The Alliance for Nonprofit Management was created in 1997 in an effort to combine the resources of two previously existing organizations, the Support Centers of America (SCA) and the Nonprofit Management Association (NMA). Created in 1971, SCA provided a network of nonprofit management support organizations. These Support Centers are located in twelve communities across the nation and share training and expertise with nonprofit managers, staff, and board members. NMA, founded in 1975, represented an association of nonprofit management support professionals and promoted nonprofit management effectiveness through networking and collaboration. In 1996, a strategic alliance committee discussed a merger between SCA and NMA, deciding that a new organization was needed in light of the similarities between the two groups and the growing need for services in the rapidly changing nonprofit world. In late 1997, the Alliance was created and an executive director was hired. On January 26, 1998, a ten-member SCA/NMA Merger Task Force became the founding board of the Alliance. In April, this group met with fifteen others to create the mission and goals. Located in Washington, D.C., the Alliance is dedicated to improving the effectiveness of nonprofit

The creation and growth of “alternative funds” is a phenomenon of the latter half of the twentieth century. As private and community foundations and United Ways significantly expanded, a new category of private funding institution—alternative funds— originated and also greatly expanded. The first of these alternatives to mainline grantmaking foundations and United Ways was organized in 1958, and increasing numbers have come into existence every decade since. Approximately 340 existed in 2003. There are two basic types of alternative funds: (1) funds that primarily solicit payroll deduction contributions in the workplace in competition with United Ways—numbering around 200 in 1997—and (2) funds that principally raise money from other sources and operate as grantmaking foundations. However, within these two basic types, there are numerous subtypes. The workplace alternative funds include seven of these (listed in order of their initial entry into workplace fundraising campaigns): health funds, national federations, Black United Funds (BUFs), social action funds, united arts funds, environmental funds, and other local federations. These workplace alternative funds raised an estimated $179 million in 1997 (Bothwell and Delany 1998).

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Alternative Funds

The foundation-like alternative funds array into six subtypes (listed in order of their creation): women’s funds, Funding Exchange foundations, lesbian/gay foundations, Native American foundations/funds, Hispanic funds, and Asian Pacific American funds. These funds granted about $40 million in 1998. Figures on how much they raised, as opposed to granted, are not readily available, except for women’s and lesbian/gay funds, which together raised $50 million in 1998 (Bothwell 2001). These alternative funds are considered a group distinct from United Ways and mainline foundations for the following reasons: 1. Every type of alternative originated because of grave dissatisfaction with how United Ways were making allocations or how mainline foundations were conducting their grantmaking—hence, the identification of them as “alternatives.” 2. These alternatives have organized themselves in structure and process in ways that are often contrary to the top-down approach of mainline foundations and United Ways. 3. The alternatives target their grants narrowly to benefit their special “communities” (for example, women, racial/ethnic groups, or gays and lesbians) or, in the case of the Funding Exchange foundations, to fund lowincome, community-based organizations, and the alternative funds solicited at the workplace distribute their collections to their member organizations. Although some mainline foundations target their grants narrowly, they are few in number relative to the entire foundation universe. 4. Most of the alternatives are organized as public charities rather than as private foundations. Among the 60,000 grantmaking foundations tracked by the Foundation Center, the reverse is true, as private foundations far outnumber the 500–600 community foundations organized as public charities under IRS laws and regulations (Bothwell 2002).

Alternative Funds at the Workplace Alternative funds primarily raising money from employees at the workplace are the most numerous group of alternatives. Of the approximately 200 funds in 1997, nineteen were national federations and the remainder were local- or state-based. Among the latter were fifty-five health funds, forty-four social action funds, thirty-four united arts funds, twenty-one Black United Funds, and nineteen environmental funds, and the remainder were other local federations (Bothwell and Delany 1998). Many originated because of dissatisfaction with United Way allocations. The nineteen national alternative funds solicited around $109 million in 1997 from employee contributions at the workplace, 84 percent coming through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) of the federal government. The local and state funds raised an estimated $70 million from workplace contributions in 1997, only 20 percent from the CFC. Most of the $70 million derived from employee donations, but health funds received substantial corporate contributions (Bothwell and Delany 1998). Many local and state funds also raise small amounts from foundations and individual donors. Workplace-focused alternative funds are primarily organized as federations of member charities. The number of member charities per fund ranges from about fifteen to ninety, though most local and state funds are at the low end of this spectrum. Their history can be traced as follows: 1. Health funds, the first workplace alternative funds to develop, started in Baltimore in 1958. The fifty-five health funds active in 1997 involved charities such as the Arthritis Foundation, the Leukemia Society, and the Sickle Cell Disease Association. 2. National federations were first organized in the early 1960s to participate in the CFC. From two national alternative funds initially, they grew to nineteen in 1997. They now include all types of charities, from international and human rights groups to environmental and conservation concerns and women’s and children’s organizations.

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Alternative Funds

3. Black United Funds, originating in Los Angeles after the Watts neighborhood riot in the late 1960s, were the second type of local alternative fund to seek workplace donations. BUFs, unlike other workplace alternative funds, are not generally organized as federations of charities but set up instead as grantmaking foundations. BUFs were also the first of the identity-based funds. Women’s funds, Native American foundations, Hispanic funds, Asian Pacific funds, and lesbian/gay funds all make up the total of twenty-one funds existing in 1997. 4. Social action funds first appeared in the early 1970s but only grew substantially in number in the 1980s. Sample member agencies of the forty-four funds active in 1997 were the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the AIDS Task Force of the Deaf, the American Friends Service Committee, the Chinese Progressive Association, the Coalition for Consumer Justice, the Disabled Rights Action Committee, and Montanans for Choice. 5. United arts funds support artistic and cultural institutions in local communities. Of eighty in existence in 1996, thirty-four were involved in workplace fundraising campaigns. Some support large, mainstream arts and cultural institutions, others support small, emerging groups, and some support both types. 6. Environmental funds only appeared on the workplace scene in 1982 but have been the fastest growing type of workplace alternative fund. Only four in number in 1990, there were nineteen by 1997. Their revenues had grown 180 percent since 1991.

Alternative Funds as Grantmaking Foundations The wide spectrum of alternative funds acting as grantmaking foundations began with women’s funds, which, with more than seventy organizations, are the next most numerous of the alternatives after workplace alternative funds. The history of these foundations took the following path:

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1. Women’s funds are rooted in the nineteenthcentury women’s movement and the creation of the American Association of University Women’s Educational Foundation. The forerunner of the current movement is the Ms. Foundation, set up in 1972. A first national conference of women’s funds in 1985 led to the creation of the National Network of Women’s Funds, now the Women’s Funding Network. Women’s funds began to grow in earnest after this turning point. The seventy members of the Women’s Funding Network based in San Francisco raised more than $50 million and granted $25 million in 2000 (Women’s Funding Network 2001). 2. The Funding Exchange foundations (FEX) were started by wealthy young heirs of famous fortunes, such as George Pillsbury, who started Haymarket People’s Fund in Boston, beginning in the 1970s. A booklet entitled Robin Hood Was Right! provided inspiration and guidance for the movement. Now fifteen in number, these wellpublicized alternatives and their national headquarters granted a total of $13 million in 1998 (Hanft 2000). The signature of FEX foundations is that, while seeking donors and their substantial gifts, they have also sought to divorce the donors from control of grantmaking by creating funding boards with low-income community residents as decision makers. 3. Lesbian/gay foundations and related foundations for bisexuals and transsexuals number seventeen. Fifteen are local or state based, and two are national. They raised a total of $4.7 million in 1998 and distributed $1.6 million “to organizations and programs that have the least access to philanthropic support,” generating endowments totaling $4 million (Cunningham 2000). 4. Native American foundations, that is, those with American Indians composing half or more of the board and focusing on Native

Alternative Funds

American issues and causes, grew from three in 1973 to thirty-two in 1994. They are greater in number than any other racial/ethnic identity-based alternative. The grantmakers include twenty-two Native foundations and ten funds in nonfoundation organizations. Together, they granted $3.5 million in 1994 for Native causes and scholarships. In addition, the American Indian College Fund gave $5 million to the American Indian Higher Education Consortium for scholarships (Ewen and Wollock 1996). 5. The growth in Native grantmakers has occurred because Native leaders see an interrelationship between the loss of Native culture and the great poverty among Indian people. According to Alexander Ewen and Jeffrey Wollock, Native leaders “believe that the solutions are to be found in Native traditions, though often in combination with Western tools and concepts. For these grantmakers, Native people themselves must become involved in implementing the solutions needed to create lasting, functioning societies.” Most Native foundations and funds “do not have endowments and every year must raise the money” for their grants. However, “much of the funds used by these foundations and [funds] come from other foundations and many Native organizations serve mainly as conduits for foundation funds” (ibid., 3). 6. Hispanic funds and funds for other identitybased groups are the newest of the alternatives. There are six Hispanic funds, which granted $0.9 million in 1997. Three of these raise money through the workplace, and three operate as field-of-interest funds within community foundations. Five work in concert with United Ways, while the other operates independently. All were created because traditional “philanthropy has largely ignored Latinos,” as Henry Ramos and Gabriel Kasper explained. They wrote further that there was “a relative

dearth of institutional vehicles through which to capture and leverage available community giving resources in ways that are culturally acceptable” (Ramos and Kasper 1999, 167). 7. Asian Pacific American funds, like Hispanic funds, focus on an identity-based group. In 1997, there were three of these foundations granting a total of $285,000. All three raise money through workplace donations and were founded to fill a gap in Asian Pacific American funding options. Alternative funds provide an important voice for minorities in American philanthropy. Although currently small in “dollar” sources, they are growing and are expected to become even more significant in the future. Robert O. Bothwell References and further reading Bothwell, R. O. 2001. “Alternative Funding Institutions Have Become Serious Competitors with Mainline Foundations in Funding Progressive Social Change.” Unpublished paper, Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. ———. 2002. “What Are the Alternatives?” Foundation News and Commentary, May/June, 43–45. Bothwell, R. O., and D. Delany. 1998. Charity at the Workplace, 1997. Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Cunningham, N. 2000. Letter to Robert Bothwell from the Executive Director, The Working Group on Lesbian and Gay Issues, June 12. Ewen, A., and J. Wollock. 1996. Native Americans in Philanthropy: Survey of Grant Giving by American Indian Foundations and Organizations. Lumberton, NC: Native Americans in Philanthropy. Hanft, R. 2000. “Estimate of Grants to Groups and Issues Affecting Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexual and Transgender Persons.” Unpublished statistics. New York: Funding Exchange. Ramos, H. A. J., and G. Kasper. 1999. “Latinos and Community Funds: A Comparative Overview and Assessment of Latino Philanthropic Self-Help Initiatives. In Nuevos Senderos: Reflections on Hispanics and Philanthropy., edited by D. Campoamor, W. A. Diaz, and H. A. J. Ramos. Houston: Arte Publico Press, University of Houston. Women’s Funding Network. 2001. Annual Report 2000. San Francisco: Women’s Funding Network.

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Altruism

Altruism Altruism is often defined as unselfish action for the welfare of others without regard for oneself. It is often contrasted with “egoism,” regard for one’s own interest. Although Auguste Comte and his followers are usually credited with coining the French term altruisme in the nineteenth century, many scholars have traced helping behavior, more commonly referred to as altruistic behavior, to classical and even to prehistoric times. Religious traditions have been active in promoting altruism. Most religious traditions also speak of the need for effective care of the self in order to be able to be of assistance to the larger good. In the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospels, there are many references to loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. In addition, virtue theories, which dominated philosophy up to the Enlightenment, dwelled on the importance of being charitable and concerned about others. It is the utilitarian movement, however, that introduced new understandings of benevolence and beneficence that served as precedents for the modern term introduced by Comte. For humanists, relieving the suffering of others can provide meaning to the giver and contribute to the common good as well as to one’s own happiness. Psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow have considered it to be part of human nature to act altruistically. Conversely, authors such as Thomas Hobbes and Sigmund Freud maintained that human nature is individualistic, selfish, and aggressive. During most of the twentieth century, arguments by behavioral psychologists who questioned whether individuals could really behave altruistically (since natural determination would cause one to act only in one’s self-interest) dominated much of the scholarly debate. However, John Dewey (1976), Howard Margolis (1982), E. O. Wilson (1975), and Herbert Simon (1990), among others, have argued that both altruism and egoism are considerations in determining social choice and thus are bundled together in the human condition. Wilson and Simon also argued that altruism is rooted in the human trait of social receptivity and thus is in fact compatible with natural selection. John Dovidio (1984) noted more than 1,000 empirical studies published on altruism between 1962

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and 1982, and one could probably identify another 800 or so articles, books, and studies on the topic since then. Many of these studies have focused on the development of prosocial behavior as a form of altruistic behavior. Others have derived models of voluntary behavior and motivations for volunteering. Still other studies have focused on how such behavior is beneficial to one’s physical and mental health. Philanthropic behavior has come to be viewed as the result of a combination of altruism and egoism jointly at work. This is particularly true in contemporary giving in the United States. Karen Wright made a distinction between giving in the United States and in the United Kingdom, arguing that in Britain philanthropy still carries the disparaging notion of Victorian “do-gooderism and is often seen as elitist, patronizing, morally judgmental, and ineffective as well as old-fashioned” (Wright 2001, 400). Thus, in the United Kingdom people give to things that benefit others, she said, whereas Americans favor causes from which they will gain more personal benefit. Acting altruistically does not always guarantee positive or philanthropic results. Likewise, acting in one’s self-interest does not always produce bad or misanthropic results. Philanthropy is best understood as a combination of the two motivations, or perhaps as self-interest rightly understood. Dwight F. Burlingame See also Moral Philosophy and Philanthropy References and further reading Dewey, John. [1899–1924] 1976. “Altruism and Egoism.” Reprinted in John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 6, edited by Jo Ann Boydston, 368–369. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Dovidio, John F. 1984. “Helping Behavior and Altruism: An Empirical and Conceptual Overview.” In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, edited by L. Berkowitz, 361–427. New York: Academic Press. Margolis, Howard. 1982. Selfishness, Altruism, and Rationality: A Theory of Social Choice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Simon, Herbert. 1990. “A Mechanism for Social Selection and Successful Altruism.” Science, December 21, 1665–1668. Wilson, Edward. 1975. Sociobiology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wright, K. 2001. “Generosity vs. Altruism: Philanthropy and Charity in the United States and United Kingdom.”

American Council on Gift Annuities

Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 12, no. 4 (December): 399–416.

American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) and AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy The American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) was founded in 1935 to “advance professional and ethical standards in philanthropic fundraising consulting and to promote philanthropy in general” (AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy 2001, 5). In a field that was sometimes mistrusted and misunderstood, early leaders of the first fundraising consulting firms sought to ensure that their contributions to the field would be both positive and professional. Therefore, the AAFRC’s first act of business as an association involved the creation of what is known today as the Standards of Practice and Professional Code of Ethics. In the 1980s, through collaboration with the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), and the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), the association developed the Donor Bill of Rights. Both documents are widely accepted and used by professionals in the fundraising field and must be adhered to by member organizations. AAFRC member firms, diverse both professionally and geographically, are held to strict practice standards and conduct extensive client reviews as part of a recredentialing process that occurs every three years. Membership standards include completing a letter of intent and formal application as well as obtaining high recommendations by peer organizations. In order to “promote philanthropy in general,” the association first published Giving USA in 1955 as a public service. Published annually, Giving USA provides an overview of giving trends, statistical analysis of the sources, recipients, and locations of charitable giving, and a list of AAFRC member firms. In 1985, association leaders Arthur D. Raybin, John Grenzebach, and Charles E. Lawson incorporated the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy in order to fulfill the public service goals of the association and to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the AAFRC. That same year, the trust took over pub-

lishing Giving USA, and in 2001 the trust contracted with the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University to research, write, and edit Giving USA. AAFRC strives to offer its member firms the most current information and research on fundraising. From April 1955 until April 1973, The Bulletin of the American Fund Raising Counsel, Inc., offered irregular reports on governmental legislation concerning charitable giving, ongoing fundraising campaigns, and personnel changes within the member firms. In May 1973, the publication name was changed to Giving USA and the irregular publication began to focus on broader trends in American philanthropy. In February 1982, the title became Fund Raising Review and there was added emphasis on major articles and speeches in the field in addition to the national trends. Since January 1988, the publication has been called Giving USA Update. Published four times a year, it highlights trends and practical information in the fundraising field. Aubrey Abbott Patterson References and further reading American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC), http://www.aafrc.org (cited October 3, 2001). American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) Trust for Philanthropy. 2001. Giving USA 2001: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2000. Indianapolis: AAFRC.

American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) The American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) was formed in 1927 as the Committee on Gift Annuities for the purpose of providing educational and other support services to American charitable organizations engaging in planned giving techniques, specifically gift annuities. Formed as a voluntary association at a time when churches and other charitable institutions were utilizing the charitable gift annuity as a means to raise funds, it was incorporated under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 501(c)(3) in 1993 and renamed in 1994. The goal of the ACGA is to “promote philanthropy, primarily by means of the charitable gift annuity” (http://www.acga-web.org/faqs.html). A charitable gift annuity is a method of gift making,

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American Council on Gift Annuities

contractual in nature, in which the donor makes a large gift to a charitable organization in return for a life income. In this arrangement, the charitable organization agrees to pay a donor a fixed sum of money for life at a predetermined rate in return for a transfer of cash, stock, or other property, including real property. The donor is referred to as an “annuitant” or “beneficiary,” and the donated or gifted property becomes part of the charity’s assets. Payments to the annuitant from the charitable organization are backed by all of the charity’s assets and not just by the property contributed. Prior to the founding of ACGA, churches and other charitable organizations independently set their own gift annuity rates. This method soon became problematic as organizations began to compete with one another to offer more attractive payout rates, thus reducing the average gift to the organization at the end of the annuitant’s life, known as the “residuum.” Dr. George A. Huggins, a professional actuary and active Episcopalian, sought to address this problem and helped to found the ACGA under the auspices of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. ACGA was formed for two purposes: first, to study and recommend the range of gift annuity payout rates that would be beneficial to both donors and charitable organizations, and second, to study the appropriate form for contracts, the amounts and types of reserve funds needed to fulfill a charitable organization’s obligation to donors, and legislation affecting gift annuity programs. The first purpose was important to philanthropy because more standardized rates encouraged donors to give based on a charitable organization’s mission rather than on competitive payout rates. The second served to educate charitable organizations about their obligations to donors and also gave a voice to charitable organizations regarding legislative policies affecting charitable giving and gift annuity programs. ACGA is supported by approximately 1,200 charities that provide financial support as “sponsors.” Most of these charities are involved in raising funds through charitable gift annuities and other planned giving methods. ACGA is governed by an eighteen-member volunteer board of directors that conducts an annual review of current payout rates using a formula with variables such as asset allocation of cash, stocks, and

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bonds; total returns of assets; an assumption of a 50 percent residual at the death of the annuitant(s); annual cost for issuing the agreements, making payments, and providing necessary reports to annuitants as well as to federal and state governments; and mortality rates (provided by an independent actuarial firm) to determine any changes that are advisable. Once approved, these new rates are published and become effective on July 1 of each year. In addition to publishing recommended gift annuity rates, ACGA provides information about state regulations for charitable gift annuities. In 1991, the ACGA and the National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG) adopted the Model Standards of Practice for the Charitable Gift Planner. Revised in 1999, these standards encourage responsible gift planning by all gift planners, including gift planning officers, nonprofit fundraising consultants, financial planners, accountants, attorneys, life insurance agents, and other financial consultants. The ten guiding principles include the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Primacy of philanthropic motivation Explanation of tax implications Full disclosure Compensation Competence and professionalism Consultation with independent advisers Consultation with charities Description and representation of gift Full compliance Public trust

The goal of these principles is to also encourage professionals from various fields to work together to ensure that gifts are structured in such a way as to achieve a balance between the donor’s interests and the organization’s mission. ACGA holds a biennial education conference with a focus in three areas: administration of gift annuity programs, introductory education for new planned giving officers, and continuing education for experienced planned giving officers. ACGA works closely with NCPG and shares expertise and office space with this organization in Indianapolis, Indiana. Gretchen C. Gordon

American Red Cross

References and further reading American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA), http:// www.acga-web.org (cited July 28, 2002). Baas, Charles A. 1991. Committee on Gift Annuities: A History. New York: self-published. White, Douglas E. 1995. The Art of Planned Giving: Understanding Donors and the Culture of Giving. New York: Wiley.

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants See Accountability

American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) The American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP), “a nonprofit charity watchdog and information service,” was incorporated in 1992 and is currently headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. Its mission “is to maximize the effectiveness of every dollar contributed to charity by providing donors with the information they need to make more informed giving decisions” (American Institute of Philanthropy). Serving a national audience, AIP is a tax-exempt organization under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 501(c)(3). Daniel Borochoff, founder of the organization and president of the five-member board of directors, has a master’s degree in business administration from Indiana University and worked for five years at the National Charities Information Bureau prior to starting AIP. AIP also has two full-time and up to four part-time employees. AIP’s goals are the following: “to research and evaluate the efficiency, accountability, and governance of nonprofit organizations; to educate the public about the importance of wise giving; to inform the public of wasteful or unethical practices of nonprofits and give recognition to highly effective and ethical charities; to advise AIP members and conduct special investigations and evaluations of nonprofits; and to expand and redefine its programs periodically to meet the continuing challenge of keeping the contributor informed” (American Institute of Philanthropy). The organization’s main activity is publishing a quarterly newsletter, AIP Charity Rating Guide &

Watchdog Report. The guide lists information on the financial operations of more than 400 national charities. AIP rates these charities based on financial information gathered from annual reports, audited financial statements, and the Internal Revenue Service Form 990, with Schedule A, where applicable. AIP considers three factors in determining its rating. First, it looks at the percentage of total expenses spent on the charity’s purpose. For AIP, 60 percent or better is reasonable for most charities. Second, it calculates the cost to raise $100. For most organizations, this figure should be $35 or less. Finally, AIP examines the years of available assets. This factor considers how long a charity can continue to operate at current levels without additional fundraising. AIP views favorably an organization with available reserves of three years or less. In addition to the quarterly guide, AIP operates a Web site, http://www.charitywatch.org, to teach donors about AIP and to provide articles and information to assist them in making informed giving decisions. Andrea Pactor References and further reading American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP), http://www. charitywatch.org. ———. 2001. AIP Charity Rating Guide and Watchdog Report, May. Goss, Kristen A. 1993. “New Charity Watchdog Vows to Tell Donors What They Really Want to Know.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy, November 16, 31. GuideStar, http://www.guidestar.org. Roha, Ronaleen R. “Giving Back: A Friendlier Way to Check on Charities’ Finances.” Exempt Organization Tax Review 9 (3): 520–521.

American Prospect Research Association See Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA)

American Red Cross The American Red Cross, established on May 21, 1881, by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit organization devoted to disaster relief, biomedical services, health and safety, and community services. Its mission statement reads as follows: “The

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American Red Cross

Clara Barton, well known as a battlefield nurse during the American Civil War, dispensed nearly $2 million in humanitarian aid during her tenure as president of the American Red Cross. (National Archives)

American Red Cross, a humanitarian organization led by volunteers, guided by its Congressional Charter and the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross Movement, will provide relief to victims of disasters and help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies” (American Red Cross 2002). Barton brought the Red Cross movement to the United States after her travels in Europe during the Franco-Prussian War. From the efforts of Jean Henri Dunant, a future Nobel Peace Prize winner, “the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1863, to provide nonpartisan care to the wounded and sick in times of war” (ibid.). The United States Congress granted the American Red Cross its first charter in 1900. Two of the first disaster relief efforts of the American Red Cross were responses to the Michigan forest fires of 1881 and the flooding of the Mississippi River

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in 1882. In true grassroots fashion, the national headquarters appealed for assistance from local societies, who responded with donations of money and supplies. Barton’s role in the early stages of the American Red Cross was known to be its greatest strength as well as its greatest weakness. She directed the organization with all her energies but was reluctant to relinquish control. This inhibited the growth of the organization and created problems with public trust. Owing to the lack of uniformity of services and public pressure, Barton resigned from the American Red Cross in 1904. It was during World War I that the American Red Cross experienced significant growth, increasing from just 562 chapters to 3,724 chapters nationwide and from 500,000 to more than 31 million members, including children and adults. Although the United States did not enter the war until 1917, the American Red Cross began its official wartime service by sending a mercy ship to provide soldier assistance in 1914. During the war, the American Red Cross provided “two out of every three navy nurses and four out of every five army nurses, including the first AfricanAmerican nurses,” (ibid.) who served as part of the Army and Navy Nurse Corps. As well as responding to natural and manmade disasters, the American Red Cross serves the needs of the biomedical industry. “In 1948, the American Red Cross established a program to provide blood and its components to civilians without charge, and this program produces nearly half the blood collected in the United States” (“Red Cross, American,” 1976). In fiscal year 2002, the American Red Cross “collected 6.3 million units of blood from over 4 million donors, making it the nation’s single largest blood supplier” (GuideStar 2002). Today, the American Red Cross biomedical services include blood, plasma, and tissue services as well as research in “biomedical science, blood safety, plasma-derived therapeutics, and transfusion technology” (American Red Cross 2002). The volunteer board of directors for the American Red Cross has fifty members, thirty of whom are elected by chapter delegates. It has more than 34,000 full-time staff members and some 1,175,000 total volunteers. For fiscal year 2001, the American Red Cross had total revenues of $2,711,606,718 and total expenditures of $2,702,061,488.

Anonymous Giving

The American Red Cross has not existed without challenges. In the 1980s, the organization exposed millions of people to a blood supply contaminated by HIV, hepatitis, and other infectious and deadly diseases. New safeguards were instituted to protect the blood supply as more information became available. The American Red Cross has also encountered a crisis in the management of its Liberty Fund, collected since September 11, 2001. Originally, it had planned to spend nearly half of the fund to build up blood supplies or prepare for possible future terrorist attacks. Due to public unrest, the organization changed its policy and agreed to spend the entire $543 million to benefit victims of the terrorist attacks. Emily S. McQuade See also Barton, Clara; U.S. Sanitary Commission References and further reading American Red Cross, http://www.redcross.org (cited October 24, 2002). Barton, David H. 1995. Clara Barton: In the Service of Humanity. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Bequette, Cathe. 1990. “Volunteers on Volunteering: A Narrative Analysis of Interviews with Red Cross Disaster Volunteers.” Unpublished master’s thesis, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA. “Clara Barton.” 1997–1998. In American Eras. 8 vols. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. “Red Cross, American.” 1976. In Dictionary of American History. 7 vols. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. GuideStar. “American National Red Cross,” http://www.guidestar.org (cited October 24, 2002). Reitman, Judith. 1996. Bad Blood: Crisis in the American Red Cross. New York: Kensington. Sun, Lena H. 2001. “Red Cross to Give All Funds to Victims; Contrite Charity Changes Course on Sept. 11 Donations.” Washington Post, November 15, A1.

Anonymous Giving Anonymous giving is, literally, the concealment of the name or identity of a donor. It is one of the most ancient and esteemed philanthropic practices. By avoiding publicity and eschewing credit for the gift, the anonymous benefactor has long been celebrated as someone whose motives are more purely altruistic than those of the donor who makes gifts openly, expecting public acknowledgment or praise. Yet anonymous giving is fraught with complexity. It can alter the fundamental nature of gift giving,

which so often has been a means for creating a bond between giver and receiver and a way of solidifying social ties. Giving is considered a beneficial and praiseworthy act, and thus an individual’s generosity ought to serve as an example to others. Contrary to this, anonymous giving dissolves the social connections inherent in the gift relationship and may conceal much more than the donor’s name, perhaps hiding motives and sources of wealth or helping the donor to evade accountability for the gift and its consequences. Despite its hazards, anonymous giving has a long history. For many ancient commentators, the value of anonymity lay in the simple fact that the gift did not have to be reciprocated. The recipient was not indebted to the donor in any way. Anonymity was thus a practical mechanism for easing some of the social discomfort intrinsic to the gift relationship, especially when the donor and recipient were not equals. Writing in the first century C.E., the Stoic philosopher Seneca was among the ancient writers to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of anonymous giving. He knew that such gifts were likely to be infrequent and made only in the most exceptional circumstances. He reasoned that an anonymous gift was best used to keep the recipient from experiencing embarrassment or from feeling so indebted to the donor that resentment would arise. Moreover, for Seneca and his fellow Stoics, anonymity provided a means of avoiding the distractions of either praise or blame for one’s actions. Acting anonymously, a donor could not be accused of merely cultivating the appearance of generosity or of currying political favor through gift giving. Anonymity also holds a special place within the major religious traditions of the world. In a Talmudic story reputedly from the time of Herod, Rabbi Yannai reprimanded a wealthy man for publicly giving a large coin to a poor man, telling the donor that it is better not to give at all than to give in a way that puts a poor man to shame. Christians are reminded in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that charitable actions should always be done in the proper spirit. Jesus asked his followers to give alms without making an ostentatious display of their giving and linked that duty to the humble acts of fasting and prayer (Matt. 6: 1–4). Anonymity is also praised in the Koran: “If

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Anonymous Giving

you disclose your Zakat that is well, but if you conceal it, and give it to the poor, that is better for you. Allah will forgive you some of your sins” (Sura 2: 271). In the twelfth century, Maimonides elaborated upon old and familiar Jewish practices, ranking eight levels of charity in the Mishneh Torah (10.1, 7–14). The highest form of almsgiving was a gift, loan, partnership, or assistance in finding work that would enable the poor person to escape the necessity of begging. Maimonides then carefully distinguished various forms of anonymous giving in the next highest tiers. In the second tier, he praised the person “who gives alms to the poor in such a way that he does not know to whom he has given, nor does the poor man know from whom he has received.” This is the purest form of anonymity. Neither giver nor receiver knows the other. It was a form of anonymity institutionalized within temples, where an office, variously called the Chamber of Secret Gifts or Chamber of the Silent, was created for donors to give and for the poor to receive distributions discreetly. Maimonides then proceeded to distinguish and to rank third and fourth degrees of giving: alms given so that the recipient does not know his benefactor and alms given so that the recipient knows the benefactor but the donor does not know the recipient (Mishneh Torah 10.8–10). For Christian commentators, anonymity was primarily a means of assuring that alms were given with the appropriate spiritual motivations. Early Christian charitable practices differed widely from place to place but tended to be centered on collections during the worship service and distributions to the poor by church officials rather than by the individual donors. This mechanism, like any method of aggregating and distributing resources through intermediaries, was conducive to anonymity, protecting the privacy of both donor and recipient. From St. Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries to St. Francis in the thirteenth, theologians and preachers offered continuing reminders that alms were to be given humbly and without seeking public credit. St. Augustine sought to disengage charity from a concern with social relationships and to redirect it toward the donor’s relationship with God. St. Francis preached that charitable acts were undermined when the donor made a public display of

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St. Augustine (Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis)

virtue; he believed that the true charitable bond was the private relationship between the donor and God and had nothing to do with public recognition or earthly rewards for giving. In the sixteenth century, Protestant reformers criticized the corruption of almsgiving in the late Middle Ages and reiterated earlier church teachings about avoiding ostentation and display. Martin Luther echoed the very words of the Sermon on the Mount, saying “sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. . . . (W)hen you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Anonymity was a means of assuring that charitable motivations were pure, since, according to Luther,

Anonymous Giving

“giving alms in secret means that the heart is not ostentatious, but is moved to contribute freely whether it makes an impression and gains the praise of the people or whether everyone despises or profanes it” (Luther 1956, 130, 136). The mechanism of the Common Chest as the recipient of church income, the placement of alms boxes in the front of churches, and the renewed emphasis on passing a collection box or sack at weddings, funerals, and other religious services were Protestant practices that sought to return to the presumed habits of the early Christian church. They were the reformers’ answer to the complicated and abusive system of indulgences and other spiritual rewards that had corrupted late medieval charitable activities. Protestant practice sought to prevent donors from seeking individual credit and reward for their donations, ensuring that alms were given in a spirit of piety rather than out of hypocritical calculation. No modern or secularized concept of anonymity has emerged to replace these older religious doctrines. In the modern world, anonymity seems primarily to have become a practical decision, a matter of tactical choice more often than of deeply held spiritual conviction. Anonymous giving has not attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, and collecting data on it has proved difficult. Consequently, the extent of anonymous giving in the United States can only be crudely estimated and the motivations behind it only sketchily understood. A survey of development officers conducted in the early 1990s found that 66 percent of the responding institutions received less than 1 percent of their contributed income anonymously and 17 percent received only 1–5 percent of their income anonymously (Cicerchi and Weskerna 1991). Most of the anonymous gifts were small. However, 20 percent of the 563 respondents to the survey said that at one time or another they had been involved with donors making anonymous gifts of $1 million or more. The report cited a separate analysis of publicly reported gifts in excess of $1 million that found that 1.3 percent of the large donations were made anonymously. Total anonymity is rare in contemporary philanthropy. Of the largest gifts received by institutions, development officers reported that only 4 percent

were completely anonymous, the donor unknown and untraceable. In the modern world, anonymity is usually only a relative matter, with a board chairman and chief executive typically aware of the donor’s identity and perhaps other key board members, senior development staff, and fundraising consultants in the know as well. Sometimes contemporary anonymity is merely a matter of keeping the donor’s name off public listings of supporters or withholding the donor’s identity for a certain period of time. Often, a donor has given previously and publicly to an institution but prefers not to be associated with a particular donation at a particular moment. A board member and loyal donor, for example, might want to increase a gift to an institution and to do so as an anonymous challenge to fellow board members. These varying degrees of anonymity hint at the diversity of motives among the donors who seek to remain anonymous. Their motivations are rarely singular; almost always they are mixed and complex. When development officers were surveyed about their perceptions of donor motives, they seldom focused on a single reason for the anonymous gift. Far and away the most frequently cited as the donor’s primary desire was the hope of minimizing solicitations from other organizations, a reason mentioned about half the time by development staff. Other primary motivations were mentioned much less frequently. Religious convictions seemed to motivate only about 5 percent of the gifts. Approximately 5 percent were motivated by the desire to keep information about the gift from heirs or other family members. And the same percentage seemed to be motivated by a simple sense of modesty and a desire for privacy. Conversations with donors themselves have provided elaboration on these motivations and suggested a complex mixture of both instrumental and personal reasons for remaining anonymous. Paul Schervish (1994) interviewed 130 donors and found that 35 had something to say about anonymity, whether they practiced it or not. Among the practical reasons for remaining anonymous was the desire to reduce what donors considered the most bothersome aspects of philanthropy, especially aggressive solicitations. Donors sometimes expressed the desire to conceal the fact of their wealth, to deflect embarrassment from

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Asian American Philanthropy

particular gifts, to retain the simplicity of their modest lifestyle, to increase their philanthropic effectiveness, and to be able to observe the impact of their philanthropy more critically and accurately from behind the veil of anonymity. Those who spoke of anonymity in ethical and moral terms expressed the hope that they could transcend the corrupting lures of their wealth, counter their feelings of superiority and decrease the status differential between donor and recipient, and prevent the recipient from feeling embarrassed. Some said that they wanted to pursue their philanthropy anonymously because it seemed psychologically healthier than to do so publicly. The reasons donors give for remaining anonymous also reveal some of the arguments against the practice. In avoiding public scrutiny, the anonymous donor may also be avoiding public accountability. In providing anonymous financial help, the donor is setting no public example of generosity. In choosing to remain out of sight, the donor may also be limiting opportunities to volunteer and to provide institutional leadership. Nevertheless, this venerable practice survives as a modern philanthropic tactic even if it is no longer so widely celebrated as a charitable ideal. James Allen Smith References and further reading Cicerchi, Eleanor T., and Amy Weskerna. 1991. “Survey on Anonymous Giving.” Indianapolis: Center on Philanthropy, Indiana University. Luther, Martin. 1956. Works, vol. 21. St. Louis: Concordia. Schervish, Paul T. 1994. “The Sound of One Hand Clapping: The Case for and against Anonymous Giving.” Voluntas 5 (1): 1–26. Seneca. 1935. De Beneficiis (On Benefits). In Moral Essays, vol. 3. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library).

Asian American Philanthropy Asian Americans give to and volunteer for numerous nonprofit charitable vehicles. Myriad donor stories, most of which were obtained for this article as primary sources, result in a descriptive model of philanthropic behavior that starts with strategies for survival, moves through helping the less fortunate, and then develops into community investment as Asian

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Americans achieve financial stability, wealth, and a sense of permanence and identity with their communities in the United States.

What Is Asian America? The experiences of Asian American communities in the United States influenced the way various subethnic groups created and used voluntary associations and pooled their funds to create community stability. Describing Asian America is challenging because it comprises many communities that defy generalization even among Asian Americans themselves, let alone by outsiders. It is dynamic and constantly changing. In addition to a variety of cultural, language, and religious backgrounds, increasingly diverse economic classifications and immigrant/citizenship status definitions influence the makeup of Asian America. In particular, the rapid increase in immigration that began when the Immigration Act of 1965 lifted restrictive Asian quotas, and other subsequent immigration regulations, increasingly favored specific, highly skilled professions and occupations. Increasing political and economic instability in many Asian countries also influenced immigration patterns. Compounding this complexity for mainstream America has been the economic growth of several Asian nations, with the resulting small, but significant presence of transnational Asians of wealth. Asians’ reasons for coming to America range from seeking political asylum or religious freedom to career advancement in the sciences, technology, and healthcare professions and from escaping war or poverty to building businesses or expanding family fortunes. Each immigrant wave and group also had different experiences with discrimination and acceptance by the majority U.S. population. Some groups, such as Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos, some of whom immigrated as early as the mid-1800s as contract workers, migrant farmers, and laborers, as well as more recent Southeast Asians and South Asians, experienced abject discrimination and even repeated racist violence. Some elite groups have almost entirely escaped racial or cultural bias (until the campaign financing scandals of the 1990s broke) and often have difficulty identifying with those groups that have legitimate complaints. Others are perplexed by subtle “glass ceil-


ing” experiences. No group or individual seems to fully avoid the “perpetual foreigner” syndrome. Furthermore, the diversity of Asian America is growing with its size. Through each decade since the 1970s, the Asian American population almost doubled. By 1990, it reached 7 million, or 3 percent of the total U.S. population, and by 2000, figures close to 11 million. Projections estimate that Asian Americans will constitute as much as 10 percent of the total U.S. population by the year 2050. The Asian American population has surpassed the size of the Jewish population and is “catching up” to African Americans. The rate of population growth is faster than that of Latinos. Although Americans of Asian descent are truly a minority in this country, by comparison it is often said that half the world’s population can trace its lineage to the continent of Asia. The growth of the Asian American population in this country, however, is primarily due to immigration. Because of this diversity, even as the Asian American category has become commonly used, there are many Americans of Asian descent reluctant to use the all-encompassing multiethnic category, preferring cultural identification by their national origin or subethnic group rather than by racial categorization. They trace growing usage of this term to the convenience needs of “outsiders” (particularly government agencies, funders, academics, and the media) and to the political needs of “insiders” (primarily community activists and the politically oriented) to show greater solidarity with increased numbers. However, some scholars have observed that Asian Americans have multiple identities. Depending on the social, cultural, political, or economic situation or circumstance, even those who most often identify themselves as Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese American may also self-identify as Asian American or simply American when appropriate. This is critical in understanding the patterns of voluntary associations and nonprofit groups that Asian Americans join, as they identify with multiple groups at various times for various reasons. For all their differences, it is especially important to articulate those shared experiences that influence voluntary participatory activity, specifically charitable giving. For the most part, although there are growing numbers of American-born generations of Asian

Americans (particularly among ethnic groups that began immigrating as early as the mid-1800s), Asian America is still largely an immigrant community. In 1990, approximately 68.2 percent of Asian Americans were foreign-born, with a high of 93.9 percent among Laotians and a low of 28.4 percent among the Japanese. How these families and groups create home and community by creating, supporting, and utilizing nonprofit voluntary structures, both formal and informal, is illuminating. Need, identification, social access, and the options available to them at various stages of stability and acculturation influence the organizational structures that will aid them in creating community, regardless of how they define community.

The Descriptive Model: Strategies for Building Home and Community The descriptive model that emerges from interviews with Asian Americans is one that follows a primarily immigrant population along a continuum of philanthropic motivations that moves from survival to help to investing. Specifically, the progression moves from survival of family and community and the need to share resources, to the impulse to help by giving to the less fortunate, and finally to a stage of building or strengthening community infrastructure by investing. Donors, nonprofit executives, and fundraisers used terms such as “surviving,” “helping,” and “investing” voluntarily in fairly similar contexts across ethnicity, economic background, and level of acculturation. Although the suggested continuum of philanthropic motivations seems to be developmental, it should not be construed as a proposal of mutually exclusive, strictly sequenced stages. Several Asian Americans appeared to be in two different frames of mind regarding their philanthropy. However, they were consistent with the motivational terms used and the vehicles they employed under those circumstances. It was quite common to hear a donor speaking about relying on the social network and services of an ethnic voluntary association as well as “giving back” or “helping” the community through an ethnic-specific or Asian American nonprofit. It was also common to hear donors speaking about an obligation to “help” as well as an obligation to invest in the future

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of a given community. Donors did not, however, speak about surviving and investing during the same period of their lives, and they almost never described investing in major museums or universities at the same time they were talking about “sharing” resources with fellow voluntary association members. It also seems that Asian Americans do not refer to the financial and inkind contributions shared during their “survival” stages as philanthropy. Although they refer to “helping” the community and other disadvantaged communities as “charity” or as “giving back,” the somewhat lofty term of “philanthropy” is reserved for those major investments in the future of institutions—most often, but not exclusively, mainstream institutions and noncommunity causes. The term “obligation” was used throughout descriptions about mutual sharing, helping those less advantaged, or investing in permanent nonprofit structures. To progress along this continuum of motivations, an Asian American must reach certain levels of confidence in his or her perception of stability and the stability of his or her family. Therefore, it appears from their stories that those donors who came to the United States with some family wealth, higher levels of education, and more social stability moved through this continuum much more rapidly than those who lacked these assets, sometimes skipping the “giving back” stage entirely. Growing stability is often related to increasing age, with its related increases in disposable income and accumulation of assets (although because of the high presence of technology and communications entrepreneurs of Asian descent, many accumulate wealth at younger ages). For Asian Americans, a growing sense of stability is also related to increasing acculturation, which has several indicators. These indicators include birthplace, the ethnicity and culture of business and social circles, the community in which the Asian American grew up (that is, whether it was an Asian American ethnic enclave or the American majority culture), where he or she attended undergraduate college (in the United States or in Asia), language facility, and the more intangibles of personal ethnic and cultural identity. Unlike European immigrant groups, which have been absorbed into the American character, some-

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times seamlessly within a generation or two, Asian Americans are separated from the majority culture by additional stresses. The differences of race and the distance of “Far Eastern” cultures from Western sensibilities create greater obstacles to full assimilation, even when acculturation through education and profession have been successful. Therefore, many Asian Americans continue to have a strong need to find opportunities to socialize with co-ethnics and other Asian Americans even when they live and work with a high degree of cultural fluency in the mainstream community and economy.

Survival: Sharing Resources to Create a New Home Whether the immigrant arrives with an empty pocket or with a family legacy of wealth back in Asia, and whether he or she comes with no English at all or from an English-speaking nation or colony, the early immigrant years are difficult. This first stage of the continuum is characterized by sharing resources—financial, emotional, informational, and skills-based— to survive. From interviews and casual “storytelling,” it appears that most Asian immigrants consider life in the United States a “struggle” (even if better than the alternative of returning to the country of origin), and for many, if not for most, the struggle is for survival and some foothold on the economic ladder of opportunity. For some, it is a struggle to enter the elite of various professions. For a very few entrepreneurial individuals, it is a struggle for investment from elite business and banking circles. In their isolation and struggle, Asian Americans create communities of shared need by sharing resources. For the working class, working poor, or most culturally isolated (by lack of facility with English, American customs, and occupational training), the mutual aid societies help remedy the loneliness and isolation. The myriad associations whose membership is defined not only by ethnicity but also by finer distinctions of village or province of origin, language dialect, surname or clan, or religion offer a way for social and economic peers to share information and financial, job-related, or in-kind resources. The giving and sharing is very personal and can be quite substantial relative to means. For some ethnic groups, partic-


ularly Koreans, Cambodians, and some South Asians, churches and temples serve dual purposes, providing a gathering place for socializing and a central point for sharing resources to improve the immediate conditions of those in need. The same was true for the early Japanese immigrants. For Asian Americans who are in this “survival” frame of mind, the American notion of philanthropic generosity, which is to give to strangers, may seem somewhat odd, cold, and motivated by ego. One Asian American, for example, said, “Why is giving to those you don’t know considered more generous than giving to those you know? How can I give to those I never met, when there are so many I know in need?” Indeed, what type of generosity places people you never met on a higher priority than your family, community, or neighbor? Some speculate, both inside and outside of Asian American circles, that Asian American informal philanthropy through numerous voluntary associations and faith-based organizations helps to account for the low levels of Asian American representation in American orphanages, jails, and public assistance rolls. It may also help account for the number of small businesses (such as groceries, shops, restaurants, manicure shops, and the like) and even large, high-tech companies that are started with relatively little access to mainstream forms of financing.

The Impulse to Help: Reaching Financial Stability It would be simplistic and grossly misleading to say that Asian Americans share their good fortune only with their families, friends, and association members. Once they reach some personal critical level of financial stability, they frequently help others who are in greater need. The impulse to help, or “give back,” is the second motivation on my proposed continuum. This stability, however, appears to be more a state of mind than an actual dollar amount. For Asians, it is not just measured in terms of one’s own income but also in terms of the stability of the immediate and often the extended family. One cannot feel stable unless one’s children, siblings, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews are all stable. One does not have the luxury of following the impulse to help more distant causes when those within one’s own cir-

cle of family and friends still need help. This “helping” motivation correlates with charitable giving from one with greater means and access to those in less fortunate circumstances. Because there is no realistic sense of return, it is more accurate to describe this type of philanthropy as “giving” rather than as “sharing.” The urge to help is motivated by highly emotional, deeply personal levels of compassion. One interviewee, when asked why she gives to charity, responded, “I give from the heart, not my brain. I even give to street people. It really slows me down on the way to work.” This emotional trigger has its seeds in personal identification with either the type of person benefiting or the type of need. Why the hardship experiences of those transitioning from a survival state of mind to a more stable sense of well-being transforms into compassion in some and into bitterness in others is puzzling. But it appears that this transformation of hardship into compassion is a necessary antecedent for the “helping” impulse. It would be difficult to speculate on the reasons for those who do not give. Those who give, however, exhibit a high degree of empathy. The interviewees’ levels of affluence, as well as their sense of stability, confidence, and selfpossession, were striking. They truly were no longer in “need,” which may have allowed them psychic space to identify with the plight of others. For those who have more exposure and interaction with wider social and business circles, or those who do not come into direct contact with the less fortunate, the identification is more with the need and not necessarily the needy. The types of organizational structures used to facilitate this giving can again include family as conduits for more distant family members and indigenous voluntary associations. But the giving does not expect return, and it can be more structured because it is going to more distant circles of beneficiaries not always within the immediate social network. The larger the cause, the larger the need for money, and therefore, within this “helping” state many Asian Americans become involved in more formally organized fundraising campaigns. Many of the indigenous alumni or professional associations are particularly active with organizing fundraising efforts not only on behalf of their alma maters in the country of origin but also for public works and other improvements.

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Somewhere within the vast range of “helping” motivations, many Asian Americans begin utilizing more structured nonprofit vehicles. As the identification with the need becomes stronger than the relationships with specific beneficiaries, Asian Americans intuitively understand that the strategies for ameliorating the suffering require tools beyond the voluntary associations. The solutions do not just lie within the community but require effective interaction with government agencies, school systems, legal systems, and, most important, other communities beyond ethnic or racial boundaries. Furthermore, for many American-born Asians, the mutual assistance associations are no longer an option because they no longer socialize with association members. Many second-generation Asian Americans, and most of the third generation and beyond, have little connection with the “old” country and no longer identify with the needs or with the people of concern to the mutual assistance groups. For those who are no longer as concerned with human welfare issues of the community, but who now view themselves as members of viable American communities, interest in political empowerment and advocacy often leads to civic organizations and civil rights groups. These include the Japanese American Citizens League, Japanese American Associations, the Organization of Chinese Americans, and the many similar civic associations within the Filipino, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, and other communities. Since the campus civil rights and identity movements of the 1970s, several Asian American social justice and legal aid organizations, such as the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Asian Law Caucus, Asians for Equality, the Asian Pacific Legal Center of Southern California, have been created. Although the services of these organizations most often target social justice and legal rights issues of immigrant and indigent populations, the advocacy against racial and cultural stereotyping, “glass ceiling” issues, and anti-Asian violence cover all classes.

The Desire to Invest: Confidence, Permanence, and Philanthropy The third motivation of the proposed descriptive model—to “invest” in charitable work—stems from a

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desire to build the ideal community. Instead of reacting to a need, the donor is creating his vision of the community within which he can imagine himself, his family, and his friends flourishing. Although several donors expressed this view in describing at least some of their voluntary and charitable giving activities, very few cited this category of motivating factors exclusively. It appears that the desire to invest requires a level of confidence in one’s permanent residency in the United States as well as family financial stability. Those exhibiting these sentiments the most seemed to identify not so much with the sufferer or with the cause as with the facilitator of the remedy or solution. “Investors” look for leadership and results in the charitable organizations they support, and although they did not explicitly articulate it, they seem to regard the nonprofit as a potential partner to their dream, not as a recipient of charity. They are looking for strong organizations to help them realize their visions for a better world. Two donors described their giving strategies in these contexts as “empowering.” It is no wonder, therefore, that the vehicles chosen within this realm of the continuum include not only the largest and most stable Asian American and ethnic nonprofits but also major mainstream institutions such as museums, universities, and research hospitals. The donors are not responding to crises and tragedies. Nor are they acting on personal sympathies with the downtrodden. Rather, they are either looking to obliterate the root causes of the problems or seeking ways to sustain the cultural and social values they wish to promote. They rarely choose indigenous religious organizations, voluntary associations, or grassroots nonprofits as vehicles for these philanthropic goals. They sometimes seek to promote their personal standing and social status within the ethnic, mainstream, or business communities. The communitybased nonprofits and mutual aid associations have audiences that are too insular for their visions and too limited in their implementation tools to build investors’ dreams. “Investing” and “dreaming” donors were generally the most affluent and acculturated of those interviewed. More often than not, they were extremely successful entrepreneurs and self-made men and women. They were usually American by naturaliza-


tion or by birth and had investments and significant assets that they were protecting for themselves and for their families. Their businesses generally dealt not only with Asian and Asian American communities but also with the wider community and, more important, depended on it for their continued success. Regardless of whether these investors felt comfortable within the elite settings of mainstream business and mega-philanthropies, they obviously had sufficient cultural fluency to work with these networks and systems to achieve their goals and personal satisfaction. These donors also tended to be the oldest of those interviewed (sixties to early eighties). They had lived through a lot and survived, even though their backgrounds were quite different. A few were second-generation Japanese Americans who had fought for American democracy during World War II. They had lost their family savings and homes because of internment, but after more than thirty grueling years of toil, like a phoenix out of the ashes, they had slowly regained fortune and status. One investor, a Chinese American, came from an elite family that had taken refuge from war and political upheaval within the walls of top prep schools and universities and eventually built an investment firm. Another had escaped the poverty of the Philippines from a family of sixteen children and built a successful medical practice in Chicago, always including his family and others in his success. If time of life, confidence with the outside community, and higher levels of wealth are predicting factors for reaching the “investment” period of philanthropy, it is no wonder that there were so few interviewees who exclusively fell into this part of the continuum of motivations. Asian America is still very young, in addition to being very “immigrant.” Although Asian Americans on the whole have climbed several steps on the economic achievement scale, the major donor level of wealth is still relatively rare. In fact, among the Asian American donors interviewed, only a small handful had inherited their wealth. It will be fascinating to watch whether many more Asian Americans enter this stage of their giving and volunteering as their confidence and sense of permanence increase. Increasing rates of naturalization, voter registration, educational attainment, residency in mainstream

neighborhoods, entrance into the professions, and the establishment of businesses suggest that more Asian Americans will soon be entering the investment stages of their lives in the United States.

Summary: Observations of the Descriptive Model It would be simplistic to suggest that all Asian Americans begin at the survival stage and then progress smoothly to the helping and finally investing stages of philanthropic motivations. The community is much too complicated and diverse. Although most Asian Americans arrive in the United States in modest circumstances regardless of the family situation “back home,” there are the many American-born and educated immigrants who do not necessarily start their philanthropic activity from a strong motivation for survival and mutual assistance. Supported by an education, professional skills, and language/cultural fluency, they have exposure and access to many more American systems. They may only use voluntary and religious organizations for social purposes and seek other opportunities to fulfill their charitable impulses. Whether one finds them in the “helping” mode or in the “investing” mode is most probably related to individual and family experience. For those whose families or close social networks experienced hardship and/or discrimination, it is likely that they developed strong feelings of identification with the disadvantaged and/or with the need. For the few who inherited wealth and whose family experience is more removed from the “hardship” stage, the “investment” motivation was more likely to be at work. Upon reaching a level of financial, emotional, and social stability, many Asian Americans then have the capacity to reach out to “help” those still in need without any realistic expectation of commensurate return for themselves or their families. The individuals and groups they most often help and the level of help they give are probably related to the degree of identification with the social sphere and the particular need. The degree of identification is probably related to social access and exposure. Those with more access and exposure to outside communities are more likely to identify with the needs outside the family and community, particularly when they are similar,

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that is, immigrant rights, social justice, at-risk youth, and the like. Finally, at the highest level of stability and confidence, when the individual perceives not only the self but the family as stable and flourishing, the Asian American has the luxury of attempting to realize his or her own vision of the ideal community. Although most of the Asian Americans interviewed who exhibited confidence in their American future were also quite affluent, it is most likely that the perception of wealth, not actual wealth, is key. They also tended to be older and more “Americanized.” In other words, those reacting from the motivation to invest philanthropically are at a stage in life where they feel comfortable placing their own individual beliefs and dreams ahead of family and community. They not only can afford to do so, but it also seems that they feel it is socially and emotionally acceptable to do so. The underlying social activities supporting the philanthropic interests are different throughout the continuum. Social contact is most active and intimate at the survival stage and most distant at the investment stage, although it is just as vitally important, just not as frequent or as informal. The relationships within the “surviving” category are more “obligatory” in the sense of being highly personal, close relationships among people one feels responsible for and accountable to. The sense of obligation that underlies the impulse to “help” is still at work, but the relationships with the recipients are not necessarily direct. Finally, the sense of “partnership” seems to be operative as Asian American donors move into investing strategies.

Implications for Increasing Philanthropic Activity among the Acculturated There are several types of organizations that can help encourage more and increased participation from American-born and more acculturated Asians. These organizations and the more acculturated Asian Americans both fall under the “helping” mode of the motivational spectrum. These organizations include ethnic-specific and pan-Asian alumni, business, and professional associations; the many nonprofit Asian American and/or ethnic-specific human service, educational, and social justice agencies; and the smaller

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number of noncommunity causes, such as social justice groups, scholarship funds, and at-risk youth programs that have attracted Asian Americans. Moreover, there is a subset of these organizations that straddle or could straddle both the “helping” mode and the “investing” mode. Perhaps these organizations could act as conduits for encouraging Asian American donors in the “helping” state of mind as they transition into the “investing” state, where most major gifts, endowments, and sustainable approaches are made. These potential “transition conduits” include: Asian American and ethnic community centers, cultural centers, and museums; Asian American nonprofit educational and youth-serving programs; Asian American social justice, legal aid, and advocacy agencies; multiracial/ethnic social justice and legal aid organizations; and multiracial/ethnic educational and youth-serving programs. The Asian American nonprofits are strategically positioned in that their social networks overlap with the existing networks in the community. However, they often do not have the capacity to structure and support the committees and social outreach needed to attract, cultivate, and maintain large numbers of members. The multiracial/ethnic agencies (that is, major youth-serving, social justice, and human rights agencies) tend to be large, institutionally mature organizations with the capacity to mount strategically targeted campaigns. These organizations, however, generally do not have access to the informal social networks within the Asian American community, nor do they appear to have a significant interest in creating them. Philanthropic entities interested in increasing and strengthening the Asian American donor community have at least two main models to explore and support. First, to target the myriad informal social networks already existing in the Asian American communities, Asian American nonprofits need to build their institutional capacity. Most lack the staff time and training to maintain long-term, sustained, robust board and committee structures that can offer meaningful social and volunteer opportunities to large numbers of Asian Americans. Many also lack the fundraising sophistication to ascertain whether donor prospects are acting from a motivation to help or a motivation to

Aspen Institute/Nonprofit Sector Research Fund

invest so they can adjust their fundraising programs accordingly. Many of these nonprofits have access to these associations and various communities but do not have the institutional structures for supporting ongoing activities and communications with them. Second, collaborations among mainstream or other noncommunity institutions or causes with Asian American nonprofits on specially targeted programs and campaigns might also be effective. Although mainstream and other large noncommunity organizations may have the structures and staff to maintain various “friends of ” and special volunteer programs and committees, they do not necessarily know how to adapt these structures to the cultural and social interests of Asian Americans. For those mainstream and noncommunity organizations with strong mutual charitable interests (such as social justice organizations, human rights groups, disaster relief interests, and cultural or educational programs), collaborations with Asian American or ethnic nonprofits may be viable if they offer sufficient benefits to the Asian American nonprofit. In any case, it is important to further develop and maintain the budding Asian American donor community for a variety of reasons important to both Asian Americans and the mainstream population. Perhaps most important is the connection between philanthropy, voluntarism, and civic participation. The voluntary nonprofit sector is a profound supporting structure of America’s democracy and provides opportunities for participants to add their voice to the democratic process of community building. Therefore, Asian Americans need to tap into their philanthropic activities not just to grow greater charitable resources but also to strengthen their civic voice. They need to vote with their money, not just literally through the electoral system, but also figuratively through the nonprofit social structures that collectively define American culture. Both Asian American and mainstream nonprofits can serve their purposes under different circumstances. But whom Asian Americans choose to help, what causes they target, and where they invest their philanthropic dollars and energies will be of great importance as Asian America grows and matures. Jessica Chao

References and further reading Chao, Jessica. 1999. “Asian American Philanthropy: Expanding Circles of Participation.” In Cultures of Caring: Philanthropy in America’s Diverse Communities, 189–253. Washington, DC: Council on Foundations. Espiratu, Yen Le. 1992. Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Ilchman, Warren F., Stanley N. Katz, and Edward L. Queen II, eds. 1998. Philanthropy in the World’s Traditions. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Joseph, James A. 1995. Remaking America: How the Benevolent Traditions of Many Cultures Are Transforming Our National Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Shao, Stella. 1995. “Asian American Giving: Issues and Challenges.” In Cultures of Giving II: How Heritage, Gender, Wealth and Values Influence Philanthropy, edited by Warren Ilchman and Charles Hamilton. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Shinagawa, Larry Hajime. 1996. “The Impact of Immigration on the Demography of Asian Pacific Americans.” In The State of Asian Pacific America: Reframing the Immigration Debate, edited by Bill Ong Hing and Ronald Lee, 59–126. Los Angeles: LEAP Public Policy Institute and UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Smith, Bradford, Sylvia Shue, Jennifer Lisa Vest, and Joseph Villarreal. 1999. Philanthropy in Communities of Color. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Aspen Institute/Nonprofit Sector Research Fund Founded in 1950 by Chicago businessman Walter Paepcke, the Aspen Institute was created to bring leaders from diverse organizations together to discuss important issues that society, organizations, and individuals face. The institute is a nonprofit organization with offices in Aspen, Colorado; Chicago; New York; Queenstown, Maryland; Santa Barbara, California; and Washington, D.C. It has international partners in Europe and Asia and publishes Aspen Peaks, a monthly online newsletter that highlights the people, activities, and publications of the organization. The institute brings together leaders from the nonprofit, private, and public sectors as they strive to improve their leadership abilities to make an impact of lasting importance at the national and global level. Past U.S. presidents, statesmen, diplomats, and judges often attend various institute-sponsored events. The

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Association for Healthcare Philanthropy

isons, market-oriented activity of nonprofits and philanthropy, nonprofit advocacy and civic participation, and the performance and accountability of nonprofits and philanthropy. Besides rewarding grants and conducting research, the fund also produces publications on the nonprofit sector, including its annual report. The fund produces a newsletter, Snapshots, which presents key findings from research studies supported by the fund. Nonprofit Research News, another publication, is easily accessible from the Internet and reports on current trends and news in the nonprofit sector as well as on research being conducted and funded by the fund. These publications offer the opportunity for leaders in the nonprofit and public sector to review the findings of the funded projects. Like its sister organization, the fund also hosts conferences to promote discussion and debate among national and world leaders on issues facing the world today. Brieanna Quinn

A media conference at the Aspen Institute (Andanson James/Corbis Sygma)

institute encourages informed dialogue among its members in the pursuit of wisdom and in the hope of improving the human condition. The mission of the institute, as a global forum, is “fostering enlightened responsible leadership through seminars, policy studies and fellowship programs” (http://www.aspen institute.org). In 1991, the institute established the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, which awards research grants and organizes meetings to assist in the expansion of knowledge regarding the nonprofit sector and philanthropy. The fund also helps improve nonprofit practices. Since its creation, it has supported more than 300 research projects with a total of $7 million in grants (http://www.nonprofitresearch.org). It has supported research, for example, on cross-sector compar-

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References and further reading Aspen Institute, http://www.aspeninstitute.org (cited October 12, 2001). ———. “Annual Report 2000,” http://www.aspeninstitute. org (cited October 12, 2001). Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, http://www. nonprofitresearch.org (cited October 12, 2001).

Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) The Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) is a not-for-profit international professional membership association dedicated to the advancement of healthcare institutions and organizations through philanthropy. The AHP’s work revolves around endeavors to enhance the effective performance and professionalism of its nearly 3,000 members and the institutions they represent. Comprehensive education and accreditation programs are offered and adherence to formally established professional standards for ethical conduct is encouraged. AHP assists members in earning the designation of Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), the independent, industry-wide identification for practitioners who meet the specified stan-

Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action

dards for the fundraising profession. Several publications, including the newsletter AHP Connect, support networking between members and provide platforms from which to exchange professional expertise and share recognized fundraising and philanthropic principles. The organization promotes the value of philanthropy as well as the importance of not-for-profit healthcare institutions and organizations. AHP is governed by a board of directors consisting of seven regional directors (Canada, New England, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Southeast, Rockies and Southwest, and Pacific) as well the officers of the association (elected from the membership), the chair of the AHP Board of Certification, and the president of the Health Systems Development Network. Together, these individuals form the chief policy-making body for the organization. AHP traces its beginnings back to a Louisiana Hospital Association fundraising and financial development seminar held in New Orleans in 1964. After a successful conference the following year, an informal organization, Developartners, was created to enhance communication among hospital development professionals, to share pertinent information about successful fundraising techniques, and to strive to fill the lack of educational standards within the hospital fundraising field. At the Developartners’ 1967 conference, it was decided to formalize the organization. A committee chaired by William B. “Dub” Harris of Methodist Hospital of Lubbock, Texas, worked through the night to develop the structure and bylaws and nominate officers for the new organization, which was to be named the National Association for Hospital Development (NAHD). The following afternoon, members ratified the new name and bylaws and elected Dub Harris as their first president. During the early years, the all-volunteer organization focused on membership building and education. At the same time, it began efforts to lobby for the interests of private philanthropy designated for hospitals. In 1970, when membership reached 200, the board approved the initiation of a professional journal (AHP Journal), several achievement awards, and a system of professional accreditation. In the mid-1970s, the organization hired its first executive director and

moved its records and office from Kansas to Falls Church, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. In 1977, the first NAHD Hospital Philanthropy Institute was held at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a week-long professional course that continues today. In 1990, leadership advocated a new name for NAHD to better reflect the association’s changing image—moving toward an international organization, including health organizations beyond the walls of hospitals, and emphasizing a purpose larger than development. A ballot at the end of the year led to the adoption of the new name, Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP). Kerry Hepworth References and further reading Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP). 2001. Membership Directory and Buyers’ Guide. Falls Church, VA: AHP. Attal, Gene. 2001. “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about AHP but Haven’t Asked!” AHP Connect 1 (2): 2. Roth, William S. 1992. “A Legacy of 25 Shining Years for Healthcare Philanthropy.” AHP Journal (Spring): 5–16.

Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), established in 1971 at Boston College as the Association for Voluntary Action Scholars (AVAS), is a nonprofit dedicated to creating and using research on nonprofit organizations and philanthropy. To meet the changing needs of the burgeoning nonprofit sector, ARNOVA has changed over the years. Its primary goal is to strengthen the community of scholars by increasing diversity, increasing membership, creating research tools, and improving dissemination and collaboration among organizations. ARNOVA provides publications, annual conferences, electronic discussion groups, and an employment network. Publications include: Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ), a scholarly journal; ARNOVA Abstracts; ARNOVA News, a quarterly newsletter; and a series of ARNOVA Occasional Papers,

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Association for Volunteer Administration

the first of which was Philanthropy in Communities of Color: Traditions and Challenges. The founding fathers, David Horton Smith and Bill Ready, had the vision of creating a forum for researchers and practitioners in this newly developing field to bring together ideas that would improve scholarship, research, and activities related to the nonprofit, voluntary action, and third-sector fields. AVAS held its first conference in 1974 in Denver, Colorado, in conjunction with two other organizations, the Association for Volunteer Administration and the Association of Volunteer Bureaus. In 1982, it held its first solo conference, in Lansing, Michigan. AVAS had several publications, including newsletters, abstracts, and The Journal of Voluntary Action Research (JVAR), a scholarly journal for research in voluntary action. In 1972, it was replaced by the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, which became more broadly focused and inclusive of the changing third sector. AVAS eventually moved from its original home at Boston College to several different college campuses across the country, including Pennsylvania State University, Tufts University, and Washington State University. Owing to low membership and financial difficulties, a Strategic Planning Committee was formed in 1988 by Delwyn A. Dyer, which prompted the name change of the organization to the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) in 1990 (Smith 1991). The planning process furthered at two important retreats, one in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1991 and one at the Mason Ranch Retreat in 1993. These retreats facilitated more organizational activities, membership growth, and collaborations with other organizations. Since 1994, ARNOVA has been quartered at the Indianapolis campus of Indiana University, where it is affiliated with the Center on Philanthropy. In addition to its increased revenue from nongrant sources, ARNOVA’s funders have included the Lilly Endowment, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundations, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Tanya E. Johnson

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References and further reading Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), http://www.arnova.org (cited October 27, 2001). ———. “The 2000 Annual Report.” ———. 1972–1995. ARNOVA Records, Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives, University Library, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Smith, David H. 1991. A History of ARNOVA. Indianapolis: ARNOVA.

Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA) The Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA) is a professional organization dedicated to building competent leaders of volunteers. Volunteers built the American nonprofit sector and are an essential dimension of the sector. Although the AVA is an international association, the future of philanthropy in the United States will continue to be closely linked with the volunteers who give of their time and those who lead them.

History According to the AVA Web site, the organization was conceived in1958 by American coordinators of volunteers from the mental health field. The AVA has steadily grown into an international entity. The organization adopted a charter in 1961 and a new name, American Association of Volunteer Services Coordinators (AAVSC), in 1961. The mid-1960s saw the advancement of educational goals and standards for the fledgling organization. Still closely linked to the mental health field, the early organization met prior to Mental Health Institute meetings. The 1970s were a time a great growth for the organization, which again changed its name, to the Association for Administration of Volunteer Services (AAVS), in 1975. During this period, the AVA undertook collaborative efforts with other volunteer organizations and realigned itself as an organization for all volunteer administrators in human services, both paid and volunteer. An executive secretary was hired in 1976, and the office moved from Chicago to Boulder, Colorado. The name Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA) was adopted in 1979 at

Association of Fundraising Professionals

the annual meeting and staff was hired to provide for a firm financial base and to implement the certification program. Through the 1980s, the certification program identified core competencies for volunteer administrators, whether paid or volunteer, and the first credential, Certified Volunteer Administrator (CVA), was granted. The AVA began publishing the quarterly Journal of Volunteer Administration in 1982. In the 1990s, with financial help from major foundations, the international membership grew and greater efforts were put into recruiting. The AVA Web site was begun in 1997, and Richmond, Virginia, became AVA’s new home. By 1999, there were 2,000 members of the AVA from sixteen different countries. In 2001, the AVA leadership attended two international conferences and a new Universal Declaration of Leading and Managing Volunteers was collaboratively developed and adopted by the AVA board.

volunteer management. The bimonthly “AVA Member Briefing” newsletters include resources and affiliate news, keeping members updated on AVA issues. International networking is provided via a comprehensive Web site, through the journal, and through an annual, international conference that brings together professionals, researchers, and educators in the field of volunteering. Mary Legan

Mission and Goals According to the AVA Web site, “The Association for Volunteer Administration, an international professional association, enhances the competence of its members and strengthens the profession of volunteer resources management” (http://www.avaintl.org). In 2002, the following goals were identified: to equip, support, and challenge AVA members; to develop and promote standards of excellence and competence for the profession; to define, interpret, and promote the profession of volunteer administration; to develop and strengthen local professional networks; to expand AVA’s visibility, credibility, and membership in communities and countries worldwide; and to strengthen operational effectiveness.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), formerly the National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR) and then the National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE), is the largest professional association of “individuals responsible for generating philanthropic support for a wide variety of nonprofit, charitable organizations” (AFP 2001a). The organization’s purpose and mission, as outlined in its articles of incorporation, remain essentially the same today as in 1960 when they were first adopted. AFP was created to “unite those engaged in the profession of fund raising” and to serve as a conduit for educating, training, mentoring, and credentialing individuals in the field of fundraising (NSFRE 2000, 5). AFP seeks to advance philanthropy in order to promote stewardship and donor trust by setting ethical practice standards, promoting research in fundraising and philanthropy, advocating for public policy, and educating donors and the public. The National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR) was chartered on June 21, 1960, in New York City after discussions between Benjamin Sklar of Brandeis University, William R. Simms of the National Urban League, and Harry Rosen of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies revealed the need for a code of ethics for fundraisers and an association to represent the

Current Status AVA members are given opportunities and information in a variety of ways. The CVA competencybased credential “assures . . . that the person has the knowledge base covering the essentials of coordinating a volunteer effort” (Ellis 1994, 14–16.) This assurance has helped to professionalize the volunteer administration position. The Journal of Volunteer Administration, written by and for professionals in the field, provides research, book reviews, and articles on

References and further reading Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA), http://www.avaintl.org (cited November 17, 2002). ———. Journal of Volunteer Administration. Various issues. Ellis, Susan J. 1994. “Professional Standards: Should You Be Looking for a Certified Volunteer Administrator?” NonProfit Times, September, 14, 16.

Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP)

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Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement

fundraising profession. Sklar, Simms, and Rosen chose Dr. Abel Hanson, a professional fundraiser and instructor at Columbia University, as NSFR’s first president. At the end of its first year, NSFR had 197 members and began publishing a quarterly issue of NSFR Newsletter. In 1963, eighty-eight participants gathered to discuss “The Future of Philanthropy and the Full Development of Volunteerism” in Suffern, New York, at what would be the first NSFR convention. This meeting would become an annual event and later evolved into AFP’s International Conference. The already existing Association of Fund Raising Directors, an organization of fundraisers in New York City, became affiliated with and was established as NSFR’s first chapter in July 1964. NSFR established its second chapter in May 1965 when the Fund Raisers Association of the National Capital became affiliated with the organization. By the end of 1965, membership approached 500 individuals from twenty-six states, including Hawaii. During the 1970s, NSFR established the Institute of Continuing Education (now the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy) as a subsidiary and as its fundraising entity under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 501(c)(3), moved the national headquarters to Washington, D.C., and changed its name to the National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE). The newsletter was reintroduced as the NSFRE Journal, and a certification program began to emerge. In the 1980s, NSFRE began to evolve from a volunteer-driven to a staff-managed organization with volunteer input on policy and grassroots issues. NSFRE increased its involvement in national and state legislation and collaborated with “sister” organizations such as the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the American Association of Fund Raising Counsel (AAFRC), INDEPENDENT SECTOR, and the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP). Through this collaboration, a Donor Bill of Rights developed. The first certification program (Certified Fund Raising Executive, CFRE) was instituted as a means of providing standards for the fundraising profession, and a course in fundraising was created and implemented. In 1985, the national headquarters moved to its current home in Alexan-

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dria, Virginia, and membership grew to 5,400 fundraisers across North America. In the early 1990s, membership neared 14,000 members. Leaders testified before such groups as the House Ways and Means Committee, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The NSFRE Journal was revised and published under its current name, Advancing Philanthropy. AHP and NSFRE consolidated their baseline certification programs, making CFRE the continuing credential for fundraising professionals, and a new accreditation program using continuing education units (CEUs) was established in 1996. By the end of the 1990s, membership surpassed 22,000 members. NSFRE officially changed its name to the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) on January 1, 2001. Gretchen C. Gordon References and further reading Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), http://www.afpnet.org. ———. 2001a. “AFP Fact Sheet.” Alexandria, VA: AFP, http://www.afpnet.org/tier3_cd.cfm?content_item_id= 13026&folder_id=885. ———. 2001b. “History of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.” In AFP: Association of Fundraising Professionals. Alexandria, VA: AFP. National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE). 2000. “A Brief History of NSFRE, The Society.” In NSFRE Leadership Handbook, 5–8. Alexandria, VA: NSFRE.

Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA) The Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA) was founded in 1987 for the purpose of enhancing the expertise and status of its members. As the first national organization for researchers in advancement, APRA was dedicated to promoting educational and professional opportunities in fundraising research. Those activities included teaching proactive research methods, ethics, prospect management systems, and marketing for the research department. APRA has more than 1,700 members and twenty-five chapters worldwide. Its goals are to promote profes-

Audubon Society

sional growth and advancement; to advocate the highest standards of performance and ethical research; to facilitate interaction among researchers and other fundraising professionals; to advance the role of research in the philanthropic community; and to compile and disseminate data about the profession and its practitioners. APRA was created by a group of professional researchers in Minneapolis who began meeting in 1981 under the name Minnesota Research in Fund Raising Association. Within two years, the group had expanded its membership and changed its name to Minnesota Prospect Research Association. Members were particularly interested in discussing the history of prospect research because no common source of information existed. They were also aware of the benefits derived from sharing information and networking with other professionals. By 1987, they had agreed to expand their membership and include chapters across the country. The association’s membership grew to more than 400 members within its first year. The rapid growth can be traced to factors present in the late 1980s. Dur-

ing that period, the number and dollar goals of capital campaigns significantly increased, creating a demand for information on major gift prospects that would support such major fundraising efforts. Additionally, the information and technology field experienced tremendous growth. For the benefit of its members, the association conducts annual regional and international conferences and offers a mentoring program and a job quest line. APRA also produces two publications. Connections, a quarterly journal, focuses on new resources and methods. The Bulletin, published six times per year, details chapter activities and member news. Grady Jones References and further reading Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA), http://www.aprahome.org. ———. 1997. “APRA History—1981–1997,” http://www. aprahome.org/apralibrary/history.htm.

Audubon Society See Environmental Movement

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B Bacon, Leonard (1802–1881)

bers or to the churches. In order to guard against the perversion of their trust, he believed, executive committees must be responsible to a streamlined and truly representative board of managers. Such boards, he argued, should, in fact and not just in theory, play a significant role in these associations by appointing members of executive committees and engaging in a substantive review of committees’ actions during the previous year. Such an arrangement, he concluded, would best serve to inspire public confidence and safeguard the interests of these organizations and the larger religious community. Bacon was motivated by a number of considerations to write, speak, and organize on behalf of various voluntary associations. He believed, above all, that Christians were obligated to combat sin wherever it existed in the world and that the benevolent societies were the primary instruments for achieving this objective. These benevolent enterprises would, in turn, help to ensure the conversion of mankind to evangelical Protestantism in preparation for the return of Christ to earth for a thousand years. Evangelism, with its emphasis on the dangers to the soul and society posed by a rising tide of immorality and disorder, pointed, in some measure, to a conservative social philosophy. Bacon’s involvement in the temperance, antiCatholic, colonization, and missionary movements as well as the Bible and tract societies represented, in part, an effort to restore order, morality, and racial and

Leonard Bacon was born in 1802 to Congregational missionaries who served on the frontier. He became an influential editor, reformer, Congregational clergyman, and benevolent activist who lived in New Haven, Connecticut, helped to establish and/or served as an officer or director of temperance, colonization, education, antislavery, missionary, Bible, and other reform and benevolent organizations. He was actively involved in developing their strategy and philosophy, disseminating information to the public, recruiting new members, and soliciting contributions. Although seldom able to contribute monetarily to the philanthropic associations that proliferated during his lifetime, he effectively employed the press, the lecture hall, and the pulpit to proclaim the virtues of philanthropic action. He frequently argued that it was incumbent upon Americans to donate their wealth to good causes. One of Bacon’s most important contributions to American philanthropy was an 1847 article in the New Englander, perhaps the first serious treatise on charitable trusteeship in the United States. In this article, he expressed concern that the executive committees of many voluntary organizations, such as the American Tract Society and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (both of which he served on as a member of the board of managers), were not sufficiently accountable either to their mem-

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religious homogeneity in a society experiencing rapid industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and westward migration. Yet his attachment to the concepts of immediate repentance for sin, free will, liberty, and social justice also moved him to champion public education, the abolition of slavery, temperance, fundamental rights for freedmen following the Civil War, and other causes. He served the last fifteen years of his life at Yale Divinity School, where he died in 1881. Hugh Davis References and further reading Bacon, Leonard. Papers. Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT. Bacon, Theodore Dwight. 1931. Leonard Bacon: A Statesman in the Church. Edited by Benjamin W. Bacon. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Davis, Hugh. 1998. Leonard Bacon: New England Reformer and Antislavery Moderate. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Griffin, Clifford S. 1960. Their Brothers’ Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800–1865. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Barton, Clara (1821–1912) Clara Barton, born Clarissa Harlowe Barton in 1821, founded the American Red Cross in 1881 and devoted her life to humanitarian causes through direct service. During the Civil War, this “Angel of the Battlefield” organized and delivered care to Union soldiers, providing food, clothing, and medical supplies without regard for her own health and well-being. While under siege in Charleston, she also gave supplies to former slaves and taught some of them to read. After the war, she met Frederick Douglass and continued to support “Negro rights.” However, Barton focused most of her energies in the early postwar period on organizing a letter-writing campaign to search for missing soldiers. She also spent two years lecturing throughout the North and worked closely with Dorrence Atwater, a prisoner of war at Andersonville Prison in Georgia, to mark the graves of Union soldiers who died there. In 1869, with her health failing, Barton went to Europe to rest and recuperate. While in Geneva, Switzerland, she met founding members of the In-

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ternational Committee of the Red Cross and learned about the Geneva Convention (1864), an agreement regulating fair treatment of prisoners and of the sick or wounded in wartime. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Barton helped the Red Cross distribute aid to European cities, including Strasbourg. There she assisted impoverished citizens not by giving them clothing, but by employing them to make garments from donated goods for two francs a day. Barton returned to the States in 1873, still in poor health. In 1876 she entered a sanitarium in Dansville, New York, to recuperate. From there she moved to Washington, D.C., to lobby for her new cause: American accession to the Geneva Convention and establishment of a new Red Cross society. Success finally came in 1881, when she was named president of the newly chartered American Red Cross. A year later, the United States signed the Geneva treaty, and in 1884 signatories endorsed the “American Amendment” to the international treaty, so called because it grew out of Barton’s realization that Red Cross societies could meet needs in times of peace as well as war by helping victims of famine, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. As president of the Red Cross from 1881 to 1904, Barton worked in the field to bring aid to people in the United States, Russia, Turkey, and Cuba. Eventually, however, opponents forced her to resign, citing her advanced age, lack of careful financial records, and eccentric leadership style. Barton’s philanthropy and activism also supported several other causes. As a young adult, Barton taught for eighteen years in Massachusetts and New Jersey, where she promoted free public education. In 1854, she moved to Washington, D.C., and became one of the first women hired by the U.S. Patent Office. She also championed women’s rights during her post–Civil War lecture tours. Later, she advocated prison reform, based on her experiences as superintendent of the Reformatory Prison for Women at Sherborn, Massachusetts, in 1883. Underlying all her efforts, from teaching to organizing aid, was her commitment to mutual respect and her desire to help others help themselves whenever possible. Roberta K. Gibboney

Beecher, Lyman

See also American Red Cross References and further reading Barton, Clara. 1898. The Red Cross in Peace and War. Washington, DC: American Historical Press. Burton, David. 1995. Clara Barton: In the Service of Humanity. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Gibboney, Roberta. 2002. “Clara Barton.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm, Jr. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Williams, Blanche. 1941. Clara Barton: Daughter of Destiny. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.

Beecher, Lyman (1775–1863) Lyman Beecher, an evangelist who promoted voluntary associations, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1775. A descendant of the early settlers of the state, he received his primary education in country schools in New Haven and Guilford. In 1793, he entered Yale College, where he became a protégé of its president, Timothy Dwight, Congregationalist and Federalist leader. After a decade of preaching in East Hampton, New York, Beecher accepted a call from the church in Litchfield, Connecticut. He arrived just as the political battle over religious establishment was reaching a fever pitch. Although Beecher defended establishment, he eventually became convinced that religious voluntarism would not only strengthen the church but also provide a basis for broader reforms of society. An early organizer of the temperance movement, Beecher believed that people of faith should act as a moral force in society, working through inclusive secular voluntary associations to identify and address social problems. Seeking to “apply Christianity directly to man and to society,” Beecher turned his attention to broader issues of social welfare, arguing that individual giving to support voluntary efforts to “educate, and stop the contagion of vice” was the ultimate solution to the problem of poverty (Beecher 1961, 1: 185–187). In 1826, Beecher was called to the pulpit of the Hanover Street Church in Boston to lead the Congregationalists’ struggle against Unitarian domination of the state. Organizing the young men of his congregation into a voluntary association, the group chal-

Portrait of Lyman Beecher (1775–1863), clergyman and father of several prominent Americans of the nineteenth century, including Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (Corbis)

lenged Unitarian political candidates and took on the political corruption, intemperance, gambling, Sabbath breaking, and immoral entertainment that had flourished under the Unitarian regime. They also organized an assortment of voluntary associations— lyceums (public lectures), libraries, and mechanics, temperance, and missionary societies—intended to rescue young people from the temptations of the city. These became models for organizations throughout the nation. Beecher accepted the presidency of Lane Seminary and the pulpit at Cincinnati’s Second Presbyterian Church in 1832. When his antislavery views embroiled him in conflict with Lane’s board, Beecher resigned the presidency, though he remained at the seminary as a professor of theology. During his Ohio years, Beecher consolidated his reputation as a national religious leader and an eloquent proponent of voluntary associations. His most

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famous oration, A Plea for the West (1835), written for his campaign to persuade wealthy New Englanders to support schools and colleges in the western United States, offered a powerful vision of the public role of religion and the possibilities of associational action— and warned of the dangers posed by growing numbers of uneducated citizens and immigrants. When Beecher’s health broke down in 1850, he returned to the East. He died at the home of his son, famed evangelist Henry Ward Beecher, on January 10, 1863, and was buried in New Haven’s Grove Street Cemetery. Beecher’s chief contribution to philanthropy was his role in changing public attitudes toward voluntary associations from the suspicion of factions and “self-created societies” expressed by the Founding Fathers to the view that they were indispensable to private action in the public interest. In doing so, he helped to change the public role of religion, transforming churches from direct political actors into institutions that empowered their members to act as moral agents in society, politics, and economic life. Beecher is perhaps better known for the achievements of his remarkable children than for his own accomplishments. Of his sons, Henry Ward (1813– 1887) succeeded his father as the nation’s leading evangelical preacher; Edward (1803–1895) was a leading religious journalist and abolitionist; and Charles (1815–1900) was a religious writer, hymnodist, and education reformer. Of his daughters, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) was the author of the hugely influential abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), and Catherine (1800–1878) was a leading abolitionist, domestic reformer, and advocate for women’s education. Peter Dobkin Hall References and further reading Beecher, Lyman. 1961. The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher. Edited by Barbara M. Cross. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Fraser, James W. 1985. Pedagogue for God’s Kingdom: Lyman Beecher and the Second Great Awakening. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Smith, Timothy L. 1957. Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War. New York: Harper and Row.

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Benevolent Societies The tradition of people coming together to help others has a long history, and acts of group-sponsored benevolence can be documented for many of the great religions and world cultures. Accordingly, a substantial number of benevolent societies in the United States trace their origin to charitable activities in the countries from which immigrants arrived. The societies were formed as systematic, capacity-enhancing efforts when the sporadic efforts by individuals or by congregations to meet general human needs proved inadequate. On the one hand, charitable work was often inspired by religious teachings; on the other, ministry to the poor, ill, and elderly sometimes led to religious proselytizing. The organization of philanthropic work into stable benevolent societies made use of what nowadays are well-known ways to motivate volunteers and donors—group pressure and a higher calling. Following the British model, “benevolent society” was a widely used term in the United States in the nineteenth century to denote institutionalized religious and charitable activities. Missionary work, help for a church’s or synagogue’s own congregants, the abolitionist movement, and African American selfhelp efforts, as well as support for newly arrived immigrants, all spawned benevolent societies. Robert Baird argued in 1844 that because of the separation of church and state in the United States, congregations could not rely on the state for financial support and had to mobilize their own volunteer spirit and resources to provide a physical home for their religious services and funds for their activities. Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish interpretations of their religious texts encouraged the faithful to help others by spreading God’s word and doing good. Moral crusades against alcohol and prostitution led to the formation of new religious organizations, and widespread poverty spurred the growth of systematic charitable work. The Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and large-scale immigration created extensive misery that social entrepreneurs tried to alleviate through organized efforts. Some individuals and families in the United States could respond to the call for benevolent work because improvements in their standard of living and the

Benevolent Societies

availability of servants made leisure time available that could be devoted to charitable activities. As the wealth of men in business, the professions, and manufacturing increased, their wives and daughters were released from necessary economic production and it became fashionable for women to join benevolent societies. Indeed, the number and types of benevolent societies increased so much that the term lost its significance in the American context, in contrast to its continued use in British nonprofit law. In Britain, the Friendly Societies Act of 1974 defined benevolent societies as “societies established for benevolent or charitable purposes. In contrast to a Friendly Society, the benefits must not be restricted to members or their relatives. Activities range from the payment of cash benefits to the provision of services, such as medical assistance and accommodation for persons in need.” The act allowed for the registration of incorporated societies in the Registry of Friendly Societies, which is located in Victory House in London and open to the public. The equivalent terminology in the United States to the British distinction between benevolent societies and friendly societies is public-benefit versus mutualbenefit organizations, public-interest versus mutualinterest nonprofits, or public-serving versus memberserving entities. The former are usually incorporated under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 501(c)(3) and enjoy two tax benefits: exemption from the corporate income tax and tax deduction of contributions for donors. Mutual benefit entities may seek tax-exemption, but payments are generally not tax deductible as charitable contributions. The simple distinction between public interest and mutual interest commonly found in the academic and professional literature is not used by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Instead, the IRS states that organizations qualify for 501(c)(3) status when they operate exclusively for one or more of the following purposes: • • • • • •

Charitable Religious Educational Scientific Literary Testing for public safety

• Fostering national or international amateur sports competition • Prevention of cruelty to children or animals In addition, two types of mutual benefit associations—fraternal beneficiary societies, incorporated under IRC 501(c)(8), and domestic fraternal societies, incorporated under IRC 501(c)(10)—enjoy a special tax status. Contributions are tax deductible as charitable contributions “if used exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.” The Encyclopedia of Associations shows that quite a few organizations that offer fraternal benefit life insurance and other member-serving programs also provide funds for charitable activities. Furthermore, the distinction between public serving and member serving is not always clear to the casual observer because the IRS allows charitable organizations to create mutual benefit affiliates and permits member-serving entities to establish charitable funds to make optimal use of tax laws. However, the organizations themselves have to keep their funds in separate accounts, and persons considering a donation must make sure that their contribution falls into the categories for which a tax deduction can be claimed. The National Center for Charitable Statistics developed the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) in the 1980s to create a classification system that would facilitate the analysis of tax-exempt organizations. The core code, created to improve the fit with IRS classifications, has no category for “benevolent societies,” and the term is not included in the index. The reason for this omission could be that the term was not considered useful to identify a class or group of tax-exempt organizations in the American context. Community service clubs such as Kiwanis, Lions, and Jaycees may come close to the traditional notion of benevolent societies. A clearer picture emerges when one looks at organizations that have the term “benevolent society” in their names. The GuideStar database lists seventy-four such entities. Nearly half of them are private foundations, and the rest are public charities. A few got their start in nineteenth-century benevolent activities. About one-third were founded during and after World

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War II, another third during the War on Poverty in the 1960s, and one-third are of relatively recent origin. The benevolent societies were established to help indigents in the local community, in congregations, or certain immigrant groups. Other missions include funding for scholarships and educational institutions or for the operation of retirement homes. The size in terms of assets varies substantially, from zero to several million dollars. In general, in the United States the benevolent society may be defined as a group of philanthropic individuals, usually incorporated as a public charity or a private foundation, who pool their resources and make humanitarian donations or educational contributions on a regular basis. Siegrun Fox Freyss References and further reading Baird, Robert. 1998 [1844]. “The Voluntary Principle in American Religion and American Life, 1844.” In Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States, edited by David C. Hammack, 163–173. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Guide to the Records of Religious and Benevolent Societies and Organizations. 1987. Compiled by Martha Lund Smalley. New Haven, CT: Yale University Library, Divinity Library Special Collections, http://webtext .library.yale.edu/diviflat/divinity.034.htm (cited September 17, 2002). “GuideStar Pages,” http://www.guidestar.org/search/report/ (cited September 17, 2002). Hunt, Kimberly N. 2002. Encyclopedia of Associations, 38th ed. Vol. 1, National Organizations of the U.S. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. Lohmann, Roger A. 1992. The Commons: New Perspectives on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. National Center for Charitable Statistics and the Foundation Center. 2001. National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities—Core Codes. Washington, DC, and New York: Urban Institute and Foundation Center. Oates, Mary J. 1995. The Catholic Philanthropic Tradition in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. “Registry of Friendly Societies,” http://ws2. companieshouse.gov.uk/notes/friendly_socs.html (cited September 17, 2002). Salamon, Lester M. 1999. America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer, 2d ed. New York: Foundation Center. Scott, Anne Firor. 1992. Natural Allies: Women’s Associations in American History. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

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Stanford, P. Thomas. 1897. The Tragedy of the Negro in America. Boston: Charles W. Wasto, http://docsouth .unc.edu/church/stanford/stanford.html (cited September 17, 2002). U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service. 2001. Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization, Publication 557. Washington, DC: IRS, http://www.irs.gov/forms_pubs/ (cited September 17, 2002).

Benezet, Anthony (1713–1784) Anthony Benezet, educator and abolitionist, was born in San Quentin, in Picardy, France, on January 31, 1713, to Jean Etienne and Judith Benezet. Fleeing religious persecution, the Benezet family migrated to London, England, in 1715, where they remained until 1731. There, Anthony Benezet received a formal liberal education. The Benezet family was associated with the London Quakers, and in France, Jean Etienne Benezet was involved with a French Protestant group called Inspires de la Vaunge, known for nonviolent protest philosophies. In 1731, the Benezet family moved to Philadelphia. Shortly after their move, Anthony Benezet joined the Society of Friends (Quakers). Anthony Benezet married Joyce Marriott in 1736. The couple had two children, who died during infancy. Benezet studied at Germantown Academy and taught at the Friends’ English Public School from 1742 until 1754. In 1754, he began a school for young women, the first in Pennsylvania to educate girls past the elementary level. Appalled by the poor treatment of African Americans, Benezet also taught free African Americans in his home from 1750 until his death in 1784. In the 1750s, Benezet began to advocate the need for a school for African Americans. In 1770, the Society of Friends raised enough funds to do so. In its first five years of operation, the school, known as the African School, provided educational instruction to more than 250 African American children. Benezet was heavily involved in the coordination of the school and served as headmaster near the end of his life. The Quakers began an antislavery campaign in the early 1770s in large part inspired by Benezet. In 1772, they required all members to emancipate their slaves

Bethune, Mary McLeod

lowed pure and decent relationships with the environment. Accordingly, Benezet was also a conservationist. Later in life, he became a vegetarian, refusing to slay or eat animals. Benezet also strongly believed in living modestly and felt that the struggle for power and money was the root of slavery. Anthony Benezet spent the months before his death in 1784 preparing the African School for a sustained future through effective fundraising and acquiring strong leadership to carry on the mission. He gave his entire estate to the school after the passing of his wife. Benezet spent his life giving to others and promoting equality. Although radical for his time, he made an impact on education and abolitionist movements worldwide. Drew Blanchard

Illustration featuring reformer Anthony Benezet (1713–1784) (Bettmann/Corbis)

or face expulsion. Benezet wrote numerous self-financed antislavery pamphlets, tracts, and books. He completed his first major abolitionist writing, A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and Her Colonies, in 1762. Benezet also founded one of the first antislavery organizations, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, in 1775. Benezet proclaimed equality across all ethnicities and extended his fight to include Native Americans. He induced the formation of the Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures in an effort to eliminate enmity and warfare against Native Americans. Benezet was a pacifist, an element of the Quaker philosophy that he extended beyond humanity. In his writings, he took a clear stance against disturbing nature and believed that harmony among people fol-

References and further reading Armistead, Wilson. 1971 [1859]. Anthony Benezet: From the Original Memoir. New York: Books for Libraries Press. Benezet, Anthony. Papers. Special Collections Division, Haverford College Library, Haverford, PA, and William L. Clements Library, Small Collections Division, University of Michigan Libraries. Bruns, Roger. 1971 “Anthony Benezet’s Assertion of Negro History.” Journal of Negro History 56 (3): 230–238. ———. 1972. “Anthony Benezet and the Natural Rights of the Negro.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 96 (1): 104–113. Hornick, Nancy Slocum. 1975. “Anthony Benezet and the Africans’ School: Toward a Theory of Full Equality.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 99 (4): 399–421. Jackson, Maurice. 1999. “The Social and Intellectual Origins of Anthony Benezet’s Antislavery Radicalism.” Pennsylvania History 66 (supplement): 86–112. Kashatus, William C. 1989. “A Reappraisal of Anthony Benezet’s Activities in Educational Reform, 1754–1784.” Quaker History 78 (1): 24–36. Kelley, Donald Brooks. 1982. “A Tender Regard to the Whole Creation: Anthony Benezet and the Emergence of an Eighteenth-Century Quaker Ecology.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 106 (1): 69–88. Vaux, Robert. 1969 [1817]. Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet. New York: Burt Franklin.

Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955) Mary McLeod Bethune was born to former slaves in Mayesville, South Carolina, in 1875. Her parents,

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Bethune, Mary McLeod

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955), by Winold Reiss (Bettmann/Corbis)

Samuel and Patsy McLeod, built a strict, religious home for their seventeen children. Upon the suggestion of her teacher, Mary’s parents enrolled her in the Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina, at age twelve. After graduating, she won a scholarship to study at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. There, she cultivated a deeper faith in God that provided the groundwork for all of her accomplishments. Her dreams of becoming a missionary were spoiled, however, when the institute told her that there was no need for black missionaries in Africa (Embree 1942). After graduation, Mary McLeod secured a teaching position at the Haines Institute in Augusta, Georgia. It was in this predominantly female institution that she acquired the skills needed for leadership in education. From her mentor, Lucey Craft Laney, she learned much about educational philosophy as well as how to elicit community support. In 1897, she transferred to the Kendell Institute in Sumter, Georgia,

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where she met Albertus Bethune. The two were married in 1898 and had a child in 1899. When Albertus took a sales job, the couple moved to Savannah, Georgia. Shortly afterward, Mary began to observe the migration of large numbers of African Americans to Florida in search of jobs. Recognizing that this population would need educational opportunities, she moved south to Daytona Beach and opened the Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls in 1904. Inspired and persuaded by Mary Bethune’s efforts, James Gamble of Procter & Gamble supported the school during its early years. In 1923, the school merged with the Cookman Institute in nearby Jacksonville to become Bethune-Cookman College, which served young women rather than girls. Bethune’s achievements in the area of education were recognized in 1935 when she received the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s distinguished Spingarn Medal. Encouraged by her success as an educational leader, Bethune branched out into the political arena. She advocated for antilynching laws, fair job and labor conditions, job training for women, and equality for all races. Bethune believed that women were the essential element in bringing about change in the United States (Love 1984). Her trust and belief in women was affirmed in 1924 when she was elected president of the National Association of Colored Women. Seeing the need for further work in the area of segregation and discrimination, Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1930 to combat these problems. Perhaps one of Bethune’s greatest contributions came through her contacts with those in power. Her connections within the White House spanned three administrations but were strongest during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency (1933–1945). As a result of her leadership role in the women’s movement during the 1920s and 1930s, Bethune caught the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt. Bethune’s close relationships with the Roosevelt family were instrumental in her appointment to many government positions (Smith 1996). In addition to selecting Bethune to become director of Negro affairs for the National Youth Administration, Eleanor Roosevelt helped get Bethune involved in the National Counsel on

Blood and Organ Donation

Negro Affairs—popularly referred to as the “Black Cabinet.” After a life of service to education and government, Mary McLeod Bethune died of a heart attack on May 18, 1955. She left a legacy of increased opportunities for African Americans and women and provided an example of how interracial cooperation can change society. Marybeth Gasman References and further reading Egerton, John. 1994. Speak Now against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South. New York: Alfred E. Knopf. Embree, Edwin. 1944. 13 against the Odds. New York: Viking. Howard-Pitney, David. 1990. The Afro-American Jeremiad: Appeals for Justice in America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Love, Dorothy, ed. 1984. “Mary Jane McLeod Bethune.” In A Salute to Historic Black Women. Chicago: Empack. McClusky, Audrey, and Elaine M. Smith. 1999. Mary McLeod Bethune. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Smith, Elaine M. 1996. “Mary McLeod Bethune’s ‘Last Will and Testament’: A Legacy for Race Vindication.” Journal of Negro History 81 (Winter): 105–122.

Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance See Accountability

Blood and Organ Donation In North America, Europe, and Australia, approximately 42,000 organs were donated anonymously in 2000; an additional 8,000-plus kidneys were donated by living persons, generally to family members. Since there are, as yet, no substitutes for these life-giving organs, and payment for organs was outlawed in the United States in 1984 (and in Europe shortly thereafter), these gifts are an especially beneficent form of philanthropy. The major intellectual and policy issues surrounding organ procurement center on the ban on markets in organs. The debate about organ markets is a manifestation of the larger debate concerning the appropriate domain of the market—a debate over the competing values of freedom, human rights and the

commodification of human beings, economic justice, and, of course, efficiency in the alleviation of human suffering. At a policy level, many of those opposed to an organ market fear that it would lead to exploitation of the poor—even, perhaps, to murder—in order to supply the organ market. This fear has not been borne out. However, despite the large number of organs procured from donation, many who need organ transplants are nonetheless unable to get them because the supply of donated organs is not sufficient. Indeed, in 2000, more than 95,000 people were on waiting lists for kidneys alone. In the United States, more than 6,000 Americans died waiting for an organ. The desperate need for lifesaving transplants has spurred worrisome developments. To illustrate: • Increasingly, kidneys are being procured from living donors, putting those donors at significant health risks, even the risk of death. • The practice of “organ swapping” is gaining adherents. • Proposals to enlarge the definition of death are under consideration. • Some fear that death might be hastened to make needed organs available. • It has been alleged that in some countries prisoners have been executed for their organs. • Black markets and organ trafficking have been documented.

The Debate over the Ban on an Organ Market Economists have long debated the efficiency of relying on altruism, generally. In the context of human blood and organs, economists have articulated many angles in their debate regarding the market ban. Arguing from ethics and political philosophy, some economists have opposed restrictions on sales, citing reasons of personal liberty and efficiency. Others have justified some restrictions on markets on the nonconsequentialist ground that people have a “right not to act out of desperation.” Still others have tried to justify restrictions on market bans in cases of market failure, which has led to a

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Pakistani Fahad Khan gives blood in Peshawar, October 2001, at a makeshift blood donation center set up to receive blood to assist Afghan civilians injured in the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan. (Reuters/Zainal Abd Halim; Reuters/Corbis)

hunt for efficiency-related reasons to ban a market in human organs. The modern debate over markets in human tissue began with Richard Titmuss, who argued that a blood procurement system relying on altruism was not only more ethical than a market but also more efficient. He found the basis for this claim of efficiency in comparisons of blood quality under the two systems: Titmuss presented evidence suggesting that a commercial system subjected both recipients and donors to unnecessary risks. He reported studies that showed that hepatitis rates from blood transfusions were much lower when the blood was donated rather than purchased. One might infer that, in the absence of effective tests for diseases such as hepatitis, donated blood is of better quality because donors who are not paid for their blood have no incentive to conceal their illnesses. An appeal to altru-

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ism may also tend to attract people with healthier habits. Furthermore, offering financial incentives for blood could cause those in need of money to take unnecessary risks. They might, for example, supply too frequently, thereby endangering their own health. Titmuss’s book (1971) attracted the attention of many important social scientists, including future Nobel Prize–winning economist Kenneth Arrow. Arrow (1972) noted that the basic problem associated with procuring blood had parallels in the trade of other commodities and services in which the buyer is not in a position to know what he is buying, whereas the seller knows what he is selling, such as the market for used cars. Arrow and Titmuss disagreed fundamentally over how individuals respond when markets are introduced. Titmuss believed that the price incentives offered by markets would drive out altruism and


Professor Kenneth J. Arrow of Harvard, cowinner of the 1972 Nobel Prize for Economic Science (Bettmann/Corbis)

cause the donated supply to wither. In short, Titmuss believed that either a market or donation is possible, but not both, and that the introduction of a market would deny people “the right to give.” Arrow could find no evidence for the existence of such a phenomenon and could not understand why the creation of a market in blood would decrease the altruism expressed in giving blood. Arrow’s analysis is consistent with the view that altruism is a limited resource, which must, therefore, be rationed. According to this view, altruistic and nonaltruistic individuals respond to different incentives. Altruistic individuals supply when sufficiently exhorted; nonaltruistic individuals supply when offered a satisfactory financial incentive. Neither responds to the other’s incentives. Thus, for Arrow, the introduction of a market elicits new supply from nonaltruists, all the while leaving the donated supply from altruists undiminished. Equally, reducing effort to obtain donations does not increase market-generated supply. Arrow’s view on altruism reflects the general economist’s view, captured nicely in Dennis Robertson’s (1956, 147) answer to a question that he posed in the title to an article “What Do Economists Econo-

mize?” Robertson’s answer was “love,” by which, Robert M. Solow explained, “[Robertson] meant that altruism is a scarce resource, and that society should seek to accomplish its purposes to the maximum extent possible without depending on disinterested kindness” (1971, 1706). This discussion took place largely in the 1970s and early 1980s and in the context of blood procurement. Today, in the main, the issue appears largely settled for economists. Technological and scientific advances have allayed concerns about the quality issue among those who favor markets in human organs. Although a case can be made that a market would encourage murder (a major market failure that has not yet drawn the attention of those who favor markets), the search for more conventional types of market failure has, by and large, not succeeded. Since 1984, when the United States banned the sale of human organs, the lines in the debate over commercialism have been more clearly drawn: On the one hand, those who favor a market in human organs argue primarily on efficiency grounds, contending that payments to suppliers would elicit greater supply, thereby reducing shortages; those who oppose

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a market, on the other hand, argue on grounds of ethical principle rather than efficiency.

Conclusion Modern advances in biotechnology have made human beings—living and dead—useful to each other in radically new ways. Transplants of human hearts, livers, kidneys, blood, corneas, skin, and bones are now commonplace, and new uses for human body parts are proposed almost daily. If therapies based on transplants of fetal tissue or stem cells prove successful in treating such diseases as Parkinson’s, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s, then several million more could benefit. Beyond these developments in transplantation is the increasing use by biotechnology companies of human tissue to develop commercial products. In short, a large-scale production system involving physicians, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies is emerging, and this industry relies on human tissue as a basic resource. The question for the future is whether the objective of an efficient and ethical human-tissue industry, domestically and internationally, can be achieved by a policy of banning markets and by reliance on the nonprofit organizations that run the nonmarket in human tissue. Emanuel D. Thorne References and further reading Arrow, Kenneth J. 1972. “Gifts and Exchanges.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (4): 343–362. Robertson, D. H. 1956. “What Does the Economist Economize?” Reprinted in Economic Commentaries. London: Staples Press. Solow, R. M. 1971. “Blood and Thunder.” Yale Law Journal 80, no. 8 ( July): 1696–1711. Titmuss, Richard. 1971. The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy. New York: Pantheon.

Boards of Nonprofits See Governance of Nonprofits

BoardSource In the early 1980s, a survey conducted by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) and the INDEPENDENT SECTOR found that nearly 70 percent of respondents (nonprofit board members and other nonprofit executives) did not feel they were doing an effective job of board ed-

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ucation and training. In addition, AGB received numerous requests for assistance in board training by nonprofits that desired the same services AGB already offered educational institutions. Thus, in 1988 the W. K. Kellogg Foundation provided the lead grant to establish the National Center for Nonprofit Boards (NCNB), which was renamed BoardSource in January 2002. The mission of NCNB was to “increase the effectiveness of nonprofit boards.” As a nonprofit organization with more than 13,000 members, NCNB provided programs and services designed to increase the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations by strengthening their boards of directors. With the name change to BoardSource in 2002, this mission has not changed. In keeping with the perception that NCNB was a source of information and resources for nonprofit boards, BoardSource was designed to build on NCNB strengths in order to provide better service for nonprofit leaders throughout the world. Programs and services offered by BoardSource include publications, videos, workshops, training, help through consultants, and an annual conference. BoardSource addresses all areas of nonprofit governance issues through its publication series and provides a variety of opportunities for professional development for board members, nonprofit staff, and nonprofit consultants. Although primarily a membership organization, nonmembers may request answers to board-related questions through the Web site, view the question of the week, and order through the online bookstore. Ruth B. Mills References and further reading BoardSource, http://www.boardsource.org (cited October 22, 2002).

Booth, Ballington (1857–1940), and Booth, Maud (1865–1948) Ballington Booth once said, “Our work is not all bread and shelter. The underprivileged, the weak, and the unfortunate need more. They need sympathy, the warmth of fellowship, and the instilling of courage” (Wisbey 1994, 110). Although he spoke these words at the end of the Great Depression, they capture the mix of spiritual solicitude and social pragmatism that characterized his philanthropic mission over six

Booth, Evangeline

decades. Ballington and his wife, Maud, in their leadership of the Salvation Army (1887–1896) and the Volunteers of America (1896–1940), wed religion and humanitarianism at a time when social service delivery was becoming increasingly “scientific” and religion seemed less interested in this world than in the next. The Booths, British evangelicals, believed that individual and social salvation were linked, and they expected followers to care for the material as well as the religious needs of the poor among whom they worked. Ballington Booth, by dint of his birth, was destined for a religious vocation. He was born in 1857 to William and Catherine Booth. His parents started the Salvation Army during his childhood, and they expected their children to lead it. Maud Charlesworth, Ballington’s wife, was born in 1865, the daughter of an Anglican rector who left a comfortable country parish to work in a poor London church. Maud became acquainted with the Salvation Army when her mother took her to one of its religious revival meetings. There, the sixteen-yearold found her life’s work, smitten as much by Ballington, who led the service, as by the Army’s crusade. In 1887, when the Ballington Booths assumed leadership of the Salvation Army’s work in the United States, the movement was disliked because its hallmarks—female preaching, rowdy services, and military parades—seemed contrary to traditional Christianity. Although the Booths continued the Army’s lively antics, they also reached out to the rich and powerful, whose good opinion could help the cause’s reputation as well as finance its activities. After two years in New York, where the Army was headquartered, Maud decided its mission to the poor should include the type of direct ministry that Salvationists pioneered in London. This outreach, dubbed the Cellar, Gutter, and Garrett Brigade, sent young women to live in the slums, where they tended their neighbors, preparing food, cleaning homes, helping the sick, and caring for children. Linking social and spiritual salvation—meeting material needs was considered a prerequisite for saving souls—the Army expanded its social services and the Booths oversaw the nationwide creation of homeless shelters, slum posts, and rescue homes for “fallen women.” In 1896, Army headquarters in London informed the Ballington Booths that they were to be posted

elsewhere. Rather than leave the United States— where they had become citizens—the couple resigned from the Army and started a new religious organization, the Volunteers of America. Although the Volunteers shared many aspects in common with the Army (military titles, ranks, and uniforms), its differences were basic. The new movement was explicitly American and defined itself as a home missionary movement, an auxiliary to the churches rather than a Protestant denomination. Ballington devoted most of his time to administering the Volunteers and strengthening its spiritual foundation, and Maud pioneered its work in prison reform. In the early twentieth century, there were no advocacy groups lobbying for prisoners’ rights or helping ex-convicts adjust to society. “Little Mother,” as Maud Booth was called by prisoners, wanted to reform the worst aspects of prison life (such as the ball and chain, enforced idleness, and harsh discipline), assist the families of incarcerated men, and improve the ex-con’s chances for rehabilitation. In addition to prison work, the Booths also encouraged the Volunteers of America to become active in emergency relief, hospitals, shelters, and homes for unwed mothers. After World War I, the movement’s focus increasingly shifted away from religion, and today it is a nonsectarian philanthropic organization. Known for its responsiveness to local needs, the Volunteers of America is among the nation’s largest providers of affordable housing for the elderly, low-income families, and people with mental or physical disabilities. The Ballington Booths’ love for their adopted homeland, their desire to find practical expression for religious commitment, and their affirmation of each individual’s dignity are among the legacies that continue to shape the Volunteers’ mission. Diane Winston See also Booth, Evangeline; Salvation Army Note: See Booth family references and further reading on page 55, following entry for “Booth, Evangeline.”

Booth, Evangeline (1865–1950) Early Years and Education Evangeline Booth, head of the American branch of the Salvation Army from 1904 to 1934, had a solid

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grasp of her adopted countrymen’s religious preferences. An American, she said, “needs a religion that does something for him and in him, and provides something for him to do in the way of helping others” (Winston 1999, 188). Booth followed her own counsel, establishing the Army as a preeminent religious philanthropy. Although she inherited an Army that most Americans viewed as a ragtag evangelical mission, she helped transform it into one of the nation’s foremost charitable fundraisers. Booth’s savvy leadership enabled the Army to institutionalize its mission, making its provision of social services a religious good that transcended sectarian differences. Born in London on Christmas Day 1865 to William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army in England, Evangeline Booth was viewed by her family as a special gift from God. The seventh of eight children, Evangeline grew up in a household where religion was paramount. At five, she was preaching to her dolls, and a few years later, William Booth found her exhorting the kitchen staff. Like her siblings, Evangeline was educated at home and began a ministry in her teens. Stationed in a slum brigade, at eighteen she won over skeptics by working as a flower girl and opening a toy hospital. In later years, she wove these memories into “The Commander in Rags,” a dramatic monologue that served both as a religious witness and a fundraising appeal.

Career Highlights and Major Philanthropic Achievement After rising through the ranks of the Salvation Army in London, Evangeline became territorial commissioner in Canada and Newfoundland. The Army prospered during her eight-year tenure, and in 1904 she was appointed head of the American branch. By then, the Army’s street parades were a familiar sight and its social service network was expanding. Seeking to secure the movement’s finances, Evangeline made institution-building a priority. When she arrived in New York, Army property was valued at $1.5 million; thirty years later, in 1934, that figure was $48 million plus a capital account of $35 million. During the 1910s, Booth enlarged the Army’s social programs and spotlighted its campaigns against the evils of the day, including cigarettes, alcohol, and

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white slavery. But the Army received its biggest boost when Booth received permission to provide social and welfare services to U.S. troops stationed in France during World War I. Intuiting the troops’ needs for wholesome female companionship, Booth dispatched young women to “mother” American soldiers. Setting up “huts” near the front lines, Sallies, as Army women were called, sewed clothes, wrote letters, and prayed with the men. They also served coffee and doughnuts, frying thousands of crullers each day. By the war’s end, the Salvation Army’s reputation was transformed from a street corner mission to a premier humanitarian philanthropy. Publicly downplaying their evangelical bent, Salvationists sought to provide nonsectarian social services, and Americans of all (or no) religious faiths came to support their charitable work. That work expanded rapidly during Evangeline’s tenure. The Army turned rescue homes for “fallen women” into homes for unwed mothers and expanded its network of daycare services, salvage work, men’s shelters, hospitals, and hotels for working women. Evangeline’s biggest challenge came with the Great Depression. As one of the few social service providers operating on a national scale, the Army was in a key position to offer assistance, especially in the years before the federal government was organized to do so. The Army helped millions while maintaining its core beliefs. For example, judging that the dole undermined an individual’s self-respect, Salvationists often asked recipients to work for their bed and bread. They tried to treat clients with dignity and to keep families together. In 1934, Evangeline achieved her life’s ambition when she was elected general of the Salvation Army. As head of the international movement, she returned to the London headquarters, but when her tenure ended in 1939, she went back to New York. Although she remained interested in the Army’s welfare and enjoyed addressing Salvationist groups, she lived quietly in retirement. Evangeline Booth died in 1950. In the years between 1904 and 1934, the Army’s status changed from an outsider sect to a mainstream religious charity, and Evangeline Booth was at the center of that transformation. Her instinct for helping people in ways that directly addressed their needs—at

Brace, Charles Loring

the front lines or in breadlines—touched the public’s imagination. That she did not foist religion on those whom the Army helped ensured the public’s support and enabled the organization to become, by the end of the twentieth century, the nation’s largest charitable fundraiser. Diane Winston See also Booth, Ballington, and Booth, Maude; Salvation Army References and further reading McKinley, Edward H. 1995. Marching to Glory: The History of the Salvation Army in the United States, 1880–1992. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. Taiz, Lillian. 2001. Hallelujah Lads and Lassies: Remaking the Salvation Army in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Welty, Susan F. 1961. Look Up and Hope. New York: Thomas Nelson. Wilson, P. W. 1948. General Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Winston, Diane. 1999. Red Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2002. “Ballington (1857–1940) and Maud Booth (1865–1948), Founders of the Volunteers of America, and Evangeline Booth (1865–1950), Commander of the Salvation Army.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm, Jr. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Wisbey, Herbert A., Jr. 1994. Volunteers of America: 1896–1948. Metairie, LA: Volunteers of America.

Brace, Charles Loring (1826–1890) Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 19, 1826, Charles Loring Brace pioneered foster care in the United States. His mother died when he was fourteen, leaving him in the care of his father, a history teacher who had read to Charles for two hours a day throughout his youth. The precocious Brace entered college at the age of sixteen, eventually graduating with degrees from Yale and Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He became a prolific letter writer; many of his letters survived and formed the basis for the account of his life later published by his daughter. In February 1850, Brace’s beloved sister Emma died and he subsequently embarked on a tour of Eu-

rope. As his letters attest, he returned two years later with a renewed sense of purpose. As an ordained Methodist minister living in New York City, Brace felt himself increasingly pulled away from the pulpit and toward social justice issues. He experimented with attempts to reform adult behavior on an orthodox Christian model. Lack of success in that area convinced Brace that his talents would be better directed at youth. He wished to counter the vices of the “big city” through old-fashioned preaching at “boys’ meetings.” These meetings gave way to organized schools for both boys and girls aimed at providing homeless children with job skills that would enable them to find work in the city. The schools, however, proved ineffective, as students often failed to attend regularly or to concentrate on their course work. In 1853, Brace founded the Children’s Aid Society. Still in operation today, the purpose of the society in the 1850s was to find suitable homes for orphans from New York City in the rural environment of “the West,” which at that time consisted of such states as Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. The potential families were screened by local committees and required to house, clothe, and educate the children in a pious environment. Ideally, each child was matched with a family prior to arriving from New York. A few hundred children would be sent at a time via railroad to their various destinations. Known as “Orphan Trains,” the mass emigration of orphans from the city to the farm fulfilled Brace’s dream of instituting Christian philanthropic work on a large scale. Eventually, the program placed juvenile delinquents and those children whose families simply could not afford to raise them with rural families. Although many questioned Brace’s methods, his success rate was high. A report issued in 1910 by the society claimed that 87 percent of the participants had “done well” (“Champion of Children,” 2002). The Children’s Aid Society initially tried to keep track of every child, but as that task became impossible, it used different methods to assess the efficacy of its placements. It was later determined that the Orphan Train program saved nearly 100,000 participants from almost certain death due to the violence and poverty they would have faced had they remained in New York City.

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Brace served as executive secretary of the society until his death from Bright’s disease in 1890. His son held the same position until 1928. One year later, the last Orphan Train transported children to Missouri; by that time, the society had expanded to include numerous charitable programs, including those designed to combat illiteracy and child labor abuses. Brace had remained steadfast in his belief in the role of religion in reform and was praised by his colleagues for his “Christ-like devotion” to the children of New York City (Brace 1894, 483). Emily M. Hall References and further reading Brace, Charles Loring. 1972 [1872]. The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years’ Work among Them. New York: Wynkoop and Hallenbeck. Brace, Emma, ed. 1894. The Life of Charles Loring Brace. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. “Champion of Children: Charles Loring Brace,” http://www.childabuse.org/champions2.htm (cited December 13, 2002). Children’s Aid Society, http://www.childrensaidsociety.org.

Brookings, Robert Somers (1850–1932) Philanthropist Robert Somers Brookings was born in 1850 in Cecil County, Maryland, the son of Richard Brookings, a physician, and Mary Carter Brookings. When Robert Brookings was three, his father died and his mother moved to Baltimore, where she later married Henry Reynolds, a carpenter. Brookings moved to St. Louis, Missouri, when he was seventeen to join his older brother, Harry. The brothers went to work for Cupples and Marston, a dry goods firm. Robert soon became a traveling salesperson for the company, and in 1872 he became a partner. By the time he retired in 1885, he had accumulated a fortune of more than $6 million. Early on in his career, Brookings had aspirations of becoming a concert violinist, which led him to Europe for further training. Although skilled as a musician, Brookings realized he lacked the talent necessary to become a professional performer. He then turned to philanthropy. In 1886, Brookings was appointed pres-

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ident of Washington University, which at that time occupied a single building in downtown St. Louis. Brookings transformed the small college into a major university, in the process establishing Barnes Hospital and Children’s Hospital as major medical research centers. During World War I, Brookings was appointed by Woodrow Wilson to serve as a commissioner of the War Industries Board. Through his association with Andrew Carnegie, Brookings became a trustee of the Carnegie Peace Foundation in 1910 and a founding member of the Carnegie Corporation in 1911. In 1916, he became a founding trustee of the Institute for Government Research (IGR) in Washington, D.C., which was heavily funded by the Carnegie Foundation. As a trustee, Brookings played an instrumental role in creating a graduate program and an Institute of Economics associated with the IGR. In 1928, these programs were consolidated into the Brookings Institution. As the author of three books and a half-dozen pamphlets, Brookings called for economic reform, including free trade, agricultural cooperatives, federal unemployment insurance, and the establishment of a European trading union. In 1927, Brookings married Isabel January, the daughter of a longtime St. Louis friend. Four years later, she donated a building on Lafayette Square to house the Brookings Institution. He remained chairman of the board there until his death in 1932. Although no longer housed on Lafayette Square, the Brookings Institution has developed into a highly respected center of research that still acknowledges the importance of Brookings’s economic policies at the turn of the twentieth century. Donald T. Critchlow References and further reading Brookings, Robert S. 1925. Industrial Ownership: Its Economic and Social Significance. New York: Ayer. Brookings Institution, http://www.brookings.org. Critchlow, Donald T. 2002. “Robert Somers Brookings.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm, Jr. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Hagedorn, Hermann. 1937. Brookings: A Biography. New York: Macmillan.

C Campus Compact

they endorsed five central principles: advocating participation in public and community service, including individual student volunteerism and institutional efforts to improve communities’ well-being; publicly articulating ideas contributing to the common good and influencing fair, impartial civic discourse; supporting cooperation between colleges and communities to renew civic life, improve opportunity, expand democratic participation, and apply college resources to community needs; supporting student, faculty, staff, and alumni in citizenship-building service activities; and supporting service learning by integrating academic study with service to include faculty and students in responsible and reflective involvement in communities (Campus Compact 2004). Campus Compact’s activities fall into several areas. Member campuses promote student involvement in community service, especially through service-learning course work, lending assistance and expertise to communities while students learn experientially. National Campus Compact advocates federal legislation promoting community service, has helped to pass legislation, including the National and Community Service Act in 1990, and provides leadership for national programs such as the America Reads initiative and the use of new Federal Work-Study funds for community service. It also forms education, government, business, and community partnerships to promote renewed civic, educational, and economic opportunities,

Campus Compact is a national coalition of college presidents committed to higher education’s civic mission, including promoting student citizenship, campus/community partnerships, and faculty integration of public and community needs with teaching and research. It was created in 1985 by the presidents of Brown, Georgetown, and Stanford universities and the president of the Education Commission of the States, who thought the prevailing public image of college students as materialistic and self-absorbed was false. The presidents believed additional encouragement and a more conducive environment for students to engage in service could mold students into more committed, informed citizens and leaders. Located in Providence, Rhode Island, with affiliate offices in more than twenty-five states, Campus Compact also runs the National Center for Community Colleges based at Mesa Community College in Arizona. These state-based offices link the national office to school systems, higher education, and community-based and government organizations, assisting member colleges and universities with information, resources, workshops, and conferences. In 2001, membership included 743 public and private colleges and universities spread over most states. Member presidents commit their campuses to an educational mission, which inherently includes development of personal and social responsibility. In 1996,

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democratic participation, and the application of higher education resources to community problems. Campus Compact provides information, including statistics, analysis, and publications, on issues, findings, curricula, and innovative programs. Awarding grants to members and affiliates, it helps faculty to create curricula that combine service with academic achievement and helps state affiliates to build supporting infrastructures. It provides funding and awards for outstanding service by students and faculty in carrying out service initiatives, for programs integrating service into curricula, and for specific community needs. Finally, it provides conferences, workshops, forums, and meetings for exchanging ideas, expertise, and successful program models. Michael Coatney References and further reading Bringle, Robert G., Richard Games, Catherine Ludlum Foos, Robert Osgood, and Randall Osborne. 2000. “Faculty Fellows Program.” American Behavioral Scientist 43 (February): 882–895. Brozan, Nadine. “Colleges Encourage Student Volunteers.” 1987. New York Times, January 14, Late City Final Edition, C1. Campus Compact. 2004. http://www.compact.org/about/ about-content.html (cited October 20, 2001). Gamson, Zelda, Elizabeth Hollander, et al. 1998. “The University in Engagement with Society.” Liberal Education 84 (2): 20–26.

Canadian Philanthropy Canada has a diverse and vibrant nonprofit and voluntary sector that is supported by the vast majority of Canadians through their contributions of time and money. It consists of a wide variety of organizations, including places of worship, social service organizations, shelters for the homeless, arts groups, food banks, foundations, self-help groups, health charities, recreation organizations, social clubs, and advocacy groups as well as hospitals and colleges and universities. Nonprofit and voluntary organizations are privileged by Canadian governments in a number of ways. They are exempt from income taxes and certain other taxes, and donors to registered charities may claim tax

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credits for their donations. Registered charities are a distinct set of nonprofits registered by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) to work in health care, poverty relief, education, religion, and other areas of a charitable nature beneficial to the community as a whole. Just over one-third of charities (36 percent) are places of worship, 14 percent are social service organizations, and about 10 percent are foundations (Hall and Macpherson 1997). In Canada, virtually all hospitals as well as colleges and universities are registered charities. However, hospitals and universities, although incorporated as nonprofit organizations and registered as charities, are so strongly influenced by government that they may be better considered as government institutions for some purposes (Hall and Banting 2000). There are approximately 79,000 registered charities, according to the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, and an estimated additional 100,000 other legally incorporated nonprofits (Quarter 1992). Although there is little information about their social impact, their economic contributions appear to be considerable. One study estimated that the nonprofit sector, at a minimum, accounts for 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (Day and Devlin 1997), and another calculated that charities alone account for from 12 to 13 percent of GDP and employ about 9 percent of Canada’s labor force (Sharpe 1994). Private giving is an important source of revenues for Canadian charities, providing 14 percent of all revenues (Hall and Macpherson 1997). Virtually all Canadians contribute time or money to charitable and nonprofit organizations. According to a national survey, 91 percent of Canadians aged fifteen and older made either financial or in-kind donations to charitable and nonprofit organizations in 2000 and 27 percent volunteered their time (Hall et al. 2001). In terms of financial contributions, 78 percent of Canadians made donations that totaled almost Can$5 billion. The likelihood of making a charitable donation and the amount donated are influenced by a variety of factors. Religiosity—or level of religious commitment—is associated with a heightened incidence of charitable giving and larger donations, both to religious organizations and to other types of charitable

Carnegie, Andrew

and nonprofit organizations. Giving also tends to increase with age, education, and income. Although donors with higher household incomes make larger donations, they tend to give a smaller percentage of their pretax household income to charity than do Canadians with the lowest levels of income. Women are more likely to make donations than are men (87 percent vs. 75 percent) but give approximately the same amounts. Religious organizations receive the largest portion of the total value of donations in Canada. In 2000, they were given Can$2.4 billion, or 49 percent of the total value of donations. Health organizations received 20 percent of donation dollars, and social service organizations received 10 percent. The most common ways Canadians make donations is by giving to door-to-door canvassers (15 percent of all donations in 2000), responding to requests through the mail (15 percent), and sponsoring someone in an event such as a walkathon (15 percent). Of course, the gift of time can be as important as the gift of money. According to one study, the approximately 6.5 million Canadians who volunteered in 2000 contributed a total of just over 1 billion hours in 2000, or the equivalent of 549,000 full-time jobs (Hall et al. 2001). Volunteers contributed 162 hours over the year, on average. However, 7 percent of all Canadians gave 73 percent of all volunteer hours. Volunteering in Canada appears to be related to a variety of economic and social factors. For example, volunteer rates are lowest among seniors, yet seniors who do volunteer contribute substantially more time on average than the members of any other age group. In contrast, volunteer rates increase with income, but those with the lowest levels of household income give more time than the members of other income groups. Higher levels of education and religious activity are associated with higher rates of volunteering and with more volunteer hours than are low levels of education. Finally, women are somewhat more likely to volunteer than men (28 percent vs. 25 percent), but men contribute more volunteer hours per year (170 vs. 155 hours, respectively). Arts, culture, and recreation organizations receive 26 percent of all volunteer hours, followed by social services organizations (20 percent) and religious orga-

nizations (16 percent). More than half of volunteers (57 percent) helped organize or supervise events for an organization, and about four in ten served on a board or committee or took part in canvassing, campaigning, or fundraising. Most Canadians give money or time to nonprofit organizations to provide support to one another and their communities. However, the tendency to donate time and money are linked, and a small core group donates a significant portion of both (Hall et al. 2001). Forty-six percent of the total value of all donations and 40 percent of all volunteer hours are contributed by only 9 percent of Canadians. Canadian philanthropy, as a result, appears to have a remarkably broad yet vulnerably thin base. Michael H. Hall References and further reading Day, K., and R. A. Devlin. 1997. The Canadian Nonprofit Sector. Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks. Hall, M., and K. G. Banting. 2000. “The Nonprofit in Canada: An Introduction.” In The Nonprofit Sector in Canada: Roles and Responsibilities, edited by K. G. Banting. Kingston: Queen’s University, School of Policy Studies. Hall, M., L. McKeown, and K. Roberts. 2001. Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians: Highlights from the 2000 National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Hall, M. H., and. L. G. Macpherson. 1997. “A Provincial Portrait of Canada’s Charities.” Research Bulletin 4 (2, 3). Toronto: Canadian Centre for Philanthropy. Quarter, J. 1992. Canada’s Social Economy. Toronto: James Lorimer. Sharpe, D. 1994. A Portrait of Canada’s Charities: The Size, Scope and Financing of Registered Charities. Toronto: Canadian Centre for Philanthropy.

Carnegie, Andrew (1835–1919) Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland. At the age of twelve he immigrated with his parents to America and his formal education ended. They settled in the Pittsburgh area. Andrew, at the age of thirteen, found work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill to help support his family. When his father died in 1855, Andrew took on the responsibility of supporting his mother and younger brother. While working in Pittsburgh, Carnegie educated himself by

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Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) (Library of Congress)

studying business practices and reading voraciously from the library of Colonel James Anderson, who opened his private library to young Andrew and other working boys in the area. Andrew would never forget the importance of the philanthropic action of Colonel Anderson as he developed his own view of how philanthropy should work. From 1855 to 1865, Carnegie pursued a wide variety of business interests, but it was in the partnership he undertook in 1865 to form the Union Iron Mills that was the turning point in his career. By 1892, his Carnegie Steel Company dominated the U.S. steel industry. However, he was often portrayed as a ruthless businessman. His decisions during a strike among workers in 1892 at his plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, were denounced, and the event became a symbol of the injustice owners did to workers. He sold Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan for almost $500 million in 1901, two years after he published his philosophy of wealth in a June 1889 essay in the North American Review. A second essay published in December of the same year discussed the best fields for philanthropy. The two were combined to form The

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Gospel of Wealth, an important work in philanthropy still today. At the age of thirty-three, Carnegie was already a multimillionaire in today’s terms. In a note to himself, he wrote, “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced” (Wall 1992, 41). In this same memo, he told himself that he would retire in a couple of years to pursue good works and practice his belief that he should give his money away before he died. It wasn’t until the turn of the century, however, that he actually began the task in earnest. He began his formal philanthropy in 1881 with a gift for a library in his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. By the end of his life, he had funded l,681 public libraries in the United States and 828 in other parts of the English-speaking world. Because of his generosity in this area, he is often labeled “the patron saint of libraries.” He did jump start the public library movement in this country by leveraging his gifts, requiring the communities to agree to provide public support through tax revenues into the future to operate and buy books for the buildings that he funded. Carnegie is also often called “the father of scientific philanthropy” because of the philosophy that he presented in The Gospel of Wealth. He put forth three main arguments. First, he advised wealthy individuals not to spoil their heirs by leaving them large amounts of money. It is far better, he said, that each individual make it on his own in the capitalistic system. Second, he argued that it is best to give during one’s lifetime to causes that assist in preventing the need for charity. In other words, donors should use their knowledge to engage in wise giving. Third, philanthropists should help those who are able and willing to help themselves within the system. “It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown into the sea than spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy,” he wrote (Burlingame 1992, 10). This belief led Carnegie to focus his giving on public libraries, educational institutions, and other public places that would benefit those who chose to participate in their own betterment. In order to keep to his pledge of spending his fortune before he died, Carnegie set up several major philanthropic institutions. He founded the Carnegie Institution of Washington, a scientific research and

Catholic Philanthropy

educational organization, in 1902. In 1918 he set up the Carnegie Teachers Pension Fund, which was later changed to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and is now known as Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association–College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF), the largest teachers pension fund in the United States. He also established the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Hero Fund to support his pacifist roots. Finally, in 1911 he created the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which remains today as the most visible of his philanthropies, to receive the bulk of his remaining fortune of $125 million. Upon his death in 1919, editorial writers around the country declared an end of an era in American capitalism. Dwight F. Burlingame References and further reading Burlingame, Dwight, ed. 1992. The Responsibilities of Wealth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Carnegie, Andrew. 1920. Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Hendrick, Burton J. 1932. The Life of Andrew Carnegie, I and II. New York: Doubleday, Doran. Krass, Peter. 2002. Carnegie. New York: John Wiley. Wall, Joseph Frazier. 1970. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Oxford University Press. ———, ed. 1992. The Andrew Carnegie Reader. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Catholic Philanthropy The Roman Catholic presence in North America commenced in 1565 with Spain’s first permanent settlement in Saint Augustine, Florida, and its later colonization of territories to the west and southwest. Colonization efforts by France, which began in the same era, focused on New Orleans and on northern and northwestern territories. During the extended colonization period, these European governments and the Catholic Church jointly financed the work of missionaries whom they commissioned to “civilize and Christianize” the numerous Native American tribes. Catholicism was banned in most of the English colonies until 1776, although missionaries had served in a few small Catholic settlements in Maryland and Pennsylvania since the mid-seventeenth century. As a result, when John Carroll of Maryland was appointed

the nation’s first bishop in 1790, and the church was formally organized, his congregation numbered only about 30,000. Since 1790, the Catholic Church in America has consistently called its members not only to support their local parishes and dioceses but also to unite as a church community to assist the needy. An emphasis on the spiritual merits of gifts of personal service as well as of money encouraged parishioners of every social class to participate actively in the church’s charitable sector. The first benevolent work undertaken by American Catholics was the education of girls. In 1805, Visitation nuns near Washington, D.C., established a small day school for poor girls and cared for a number of boarding orphans. Several years later, Mother Elizabeth Seton, who had just founded the Sisters of Charity, established a similar school in Baltimore. From these small beginnings evolved the vast and varied network of charitable and educational institutions that has come to exemplify Catholic philanthropy in North America. The arrival of millions of impoverished immigrants, many of them Catholic, in the 1840s and 1850s posed an immense challenge for a scattered, working-class church. Benevolent laity, clergy, and members of religious orders joined forces to house and care for the destitute, especially orphans. Typically, local parishioners, with the approval of their pastor, would construct a small orphanage, engage an order of nuns to care for the children, and pledge ongoing financial support for the institution. Every parish orphanage had its own male board of trustees, female auxiliary, and benevolent society. Catholic hospitals appeared in response to devastating typhoid, cholera, and smallpox epidemics that recurred regularly in the early nineteenth century. Founded by religious sisterhoods to serve the indigent, these small establishments were financed by free-will offerings and the sisters’ contributed labor. In time, they became larger, broadened their services, and increased in number, from 18 in 1860 to about 140 by 1885. Mainstream citizens distrusted the Catholic Church, not only because of its unpopular religious teachings, but also because its membership was predominantly

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poor and foreign-born. As a result, except in civic emergency, nineteenth-century Catholics rarely cooperated with other benevolent agencies in charity work. A separatist spirit also marked the church’s own charities, since various ethnic groups preferred to concentrate their efforts on projects that aided their own nationalities. Church leaders strongly encouraged generous young Catholics to join one of the many religious orders that were subsidizing church charities and schools through the contributed labor of their members. The response from women was especially enthusiastic, and by 1900, the nation’s more than 40,000 sisters outnumbered clergy by a margin of nearly four to one. Religious sisterhoods continued to flourish until the mid-1960s, when their total membership peaked at approximately 180,000. Nuns were a ubiquitous and very important feature of the nineteenth-century Catholic charity system. In an era of narrow views about women’s proper sphere of influence, they assumed leadership roles in hospitals, social agencies, schools, and child-caring institutions, a phenomenon remarked upon by Americans of every religious persuasion. One aftermath of the Civil War was a sharp rise in the number of orphaned and abandoned children. In response to this critical problem, the Catholic community founded a number of urban orphanages with attached industrial schools. These huge enterprises appeared in most major cities, with seven opening in New York City alone between 1875 and 1885. The New York Catholic Protectory, accommodating nearly 3,300 children, was the largest child-caring institution in the United States in 1897. Funding for the burgeoning charitable institutions, large and small, came from diverse sources. Contributions in occasional collections, although generous, were never sufficient. Most institutions relied for funding almost entirely on their own boards of trustees and benevolent societies. Society members raised money by sponsoring events that attracted the entire community, such as charity fairs, balls, and bazaars, as well as by selling subscriptions and lottery tickets. These various projects continued throughout the year and provided myriad ways for local parishioners to collaborate in charity as volunteers, financial donors, and event patrons.

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By the early twentieth century, the church hierarchy generally agreed that, in comparison with mainstream charity organization, the Catholic philanthropic approach was disorganized and inefficient. Major reform was essential if the church was to collaborate meaningfully with other private charities and government service agencies. The bishops decided that the many charitable institutions in each diocese could no longer continue to operate autonomously in fundraising and in setting institutional policies. With the help of charity professionals, they devised the diocesan charitable bureau, a new structure that would allow them to bring all the charities under their direct control. By the 1930s, almost every diocese had a charitable bureau with the bishop at its head. He appointed its priest-director as well as the clergy and wealthy laymen who sat on its board. The bureau set common policies and all charitable institutions were required to observe them. This comprehensive restructuring was accompanied by equally far-reaching reforms in the area of charity fundraising. Bishops banned all fundraising events for individual charitable institutions. Instead of a host of local charity fairs, lotteries, and bazaars, there would now be a single annual diocesan-wide charity collection. On “Charity Sunday,” congregants in every parish in the diocese were asked to contribute in accord with their means for the support of all charities in the diocese. The funds collected were remitted to the central diocesan office, where the bishop and his advisers proceeded to distribute them among the various charitable institutions. These radical changes in the church’s charity sector disturbed grassroots parishioners. Of particular concern was the expanding involvement of bishops and clergy in the only area of church life where the laity had traditionally enjoyed considerable decision-making power. The ban on charity events to benefit specific institutions weakened the warm rapport between benevolent laity and the religious sisters, and it also reduced occasions for informal contact between donors and beneficiaries. Working- and middle-class parishioners who responded to the call to contribute generously in the annual diocesan charity collection no longer had the means to give much to their favorite charities. Realistically, only the wealthy could afford to designate their giving.

Cause-Related Marketing and Sponsorships

Since the 1960s, the proportion of household income that U.S. Catholics, on average, contribute annually to the church and its charities has declined appreciably, and membership in religious sisterhoods has experienced a dramatic downturn. These disquieting developments are linked, in part at least, to the farreaching bureaucratization of the church’s philanthropic sector in the first half of the twentieth century. Although the highly decentralized approach of nineteenth-century Catholic charity had its flaws, it fostered far more lay initiative and personal involvement than did the hierarchical model that succeeded it. Several auspicious developments suggest that a revival of time-honored Catholic philanthropic values may be under way. Stewardship, sacrificial giving, and tithing programs are spreading in the nation’s 19,000 parishes; parish communities are uniting to address the needs of the local poor; and laity, women as well as men, are again assuming leadership positions in church philanthropy at every level. Mary J. Oates References and further reading Brown, Dorothy M., and Elizabeth McKeown. 1998. “The Poor Belong to Us”: Catholic Charities and American Welfare, 1870–1940. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Greeley, Andrew, and William McManus. 1987. Catholic Contributions: Sociology and Policy. Chicago: Thomas More. Oates, Mary J. 1995. The Catholic Philanthropic Tradition in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. O’Brien, David, and Thomas Shannon, eds. 1995. Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Zech, Charles E., Francis J. Butler, and Mary Grant. 2000. Why Catholics Don’t Give . . . And What Can Be Done About It. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Press.

Cause-Related Marketing and Sponsorships Cause-related marketing and sponsorships are important types of collaborative relationships between the business and nonprofit sectors. These relationships are growing in importance as businesses are coming to expect their involvement with the nonprofit sector to generate business benefits in addition to support for a worthy cause. Nonprofit organizations seek business-

partner support to bolster their resource base in an era of declining government funding and stagnant corporate philanthropy.

Cause-Related Marketing Cause-related marketing is a relationship between a business and a charity or other nonprofit organization in which the business agrees to contribute a proportion of the profits from sales of a product (usually up to a specified limit) to a specified cause. American Express led this trend in the business sector in the 1980s by demonstrating how cause-related marketing programs could increase sales and enhance the company’s image. For example, in the last quarter of 1983, American Express heavily advertised that it would donate a penny to the Statue of Liberty restoration fund for every credit card transaction and a dollar for each new card member. The campaign resulted in $1.7 million in donations and a 28 percent increase in use of the American Express card. Other companies took notice. In addition to supporting a worthy cause, businesses that become involved in cause-related marketing arrangements with nonprofit organizations usually view the campaign as a marketing tactic. Business managers seek increased sales of the targeted products. They also seek to enhance their reputation with customers. There has been sufficient research in the past decade to suggest that all cause-related marketing campaigns are not equally effective, however. The public’s perception of cause-related marketing campaigns is variable. Consumers can be roughly segmented into three groups in terms of their responses. There is a small group of consumers who are skeptics, believing that business always acts out of self-interest. This group is not influenced to purchase products that are targeted in cause-related marketing campaigns, nor is its image of the participating company enhanced. There is also a group of consumers who strongly support cause-related campaigns. These consumers will switch brands to purchase the products of companies engaging in such appeals and appreciate corporate support of a cause they care about. The majority of consumers, however, fall somewhere in the middle of these extremes. They believe businesses are doing well by supporting causes, but they will switch

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brands only if the targeted product is also a good value in terms of price and quality. Other factors affect the potential success of causerelated marketing campaigns. Females, for reasons not fully understood, are more responsive to cause-related tactics than males. Also, consumers react more positively to companies that demonstrate long-term support for a nonprofit partner. Consumers’ perceptions of company motivations are also important. Companies donating what consumers believe to be trivial amounts are perceived as exploitative. To increase demand for their brands, corporate managers should look for well-known charities that appeal to the company’s target market. Managers need to test different versions of the promotion prior to launching the campaign to ensure that consumers view the program in a positive manner.

Sponsorships Sponsorships, another type of collaborative association between business and the nonprofit sector, involve agreements between a corporate sponsor and a nonprofit cause or other related event in which the business pays a sponsorship fee to support the cause or event and in return gets to have its name and logo associated with the cause and event. A business participating in sponsorships is primarily interested in promoting its brand or company name, although sponsors may also want to fund and promote the event. Nonprofits are concerned about protecting their favorable public image and generally have the preponderance of control regarding how their sponsors advertise their association. Sponsors, however, have paid for the right to associate their name with the event and exercise some power in the relationship as well. There are several types of business-nonprofit sponsorships, including sponsorships for sports teams or events, book projects, exhibitions, education, expeditions, cultural activities, local events, and documentary films. Sponsorships between businesses and nonprofits have experienced a sharp rise in corporate marketing budgets. Marketing dollars allocated to sponsorships in the United States increased from $2.1 billion in 1989 to nearly $7 billion in 2000. This amount covers the amount paid for sponsorship rights; the total sponsorship expenditures would be much higher.

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Although businesses are motivated to enter into sponsorship agreements primarily by the opportunity to associate their brand and company names with a worthy cause in a way that will reach its target markets as well as the general public, nonprofits are motivated by the opportunity to generate funding. The desired funding may be used to support the event (for example, Special Olympics), or the sponsored event may be a fundraiser for the nonprofit (for example, Race for a Cure). Relationships with businesses will continue to be an important revenue source for many nonprofits as well as a way to gain further support for the mission of the business and nonprofit involved in sponsorship and cause-related partnerships. Walter W. Wymer, Jr. See also Commercialism in the Nonprofit Sector References and further reading Andreasen, Alan. 1996. “Profits for Nonprofits: Find a Corporate Partner.” Harvard Business Review, November–December, 47–59. Austin, James E. 2000. The Collaborative Challenge: How Nonprofits and Businesses Succeed through Strategic Alliances. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Berger, Ida E., Peggy H. Cunningham, and Minette E. Drumwright. 1999. “Social Alliances: Company/ Nonprofit Collaboration.” Social Marketing Quarterly 5 (3): 49–53. Cornwell, T. Bettina, and Isabelle Maignan. 1998. “An International Review of Sponsorship Research.” Journal of Advertising 27 (1): 1–22. Nowak, Linda I., and Judith H. Washburn. 2000. “Marketing Alliances between Non-Profits and Businesses: Changing the Public’s Attitudes and Intentions towards the Cause.” Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing 7 (4). Sagawa, Shirley, and Eli Segal. 2000. Common Interest, Common Good: Creating Value through Business and Social Sector Partnerships. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Weeden, Curt. 1998. Corporate Social Investing: The Breakthrough Strategy for Giving and Getting Corporate Contributions. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Center on Philanthropy History The Center on Philanthropy was established in 1987 and has been a principal force in the movement to legitimize philanthropy as a field of study. Its activities

Center on Philanthropy

have expanded over time to include academic programs that extend internationally, in-house research, and publications. According to its mission statement, the center “increases the understanding of philanthropy and improves its practice through programs in research, teaching, public service, and public affairs.” The center was conceived by a consortium of individuals, including Henry A. Rosso, fundraising consultant and the first director of The Fund Raising School; Robert L. Payton, professor emeritus in philanthropic studies at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI); Charles A. Johnson, retired vice president for development, Lilly Endowment, Inc.; and Eugene R. Tempel, former vice president of the Indiana University Foundation and vice president of external affairs for IUPUI. Henry Schaller, a retiring dean of Indiana University, served as the first director of operations, followed by Payton as the first full-time executive director in 1987. Tempel succeeded Payton and is the center’s current executive director. These individuals believed that the nonprofit sector and philanthropy was one of the “most misunderstood, understudied, under documented and least visible” areas of American life. To address this issue, the center was created with support from the Lilly Endowment to study and improve the understanding and practice of philanthropy. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, on the IUPUI campus. Academic and research programs are based there and at the Indiana University–Bloomington campus and are conducted internationally. The university, as well as foundations and individuals, fund the center’s programs and operations.

Major Activities The Center on Philanthropy serves as a national clearinghouse for education, research, training, and public service programs pertaining to the nonprofit sector. Programs and services created to assist with the education and understanding of philanthropy, or “voluntary action for the public good,” are the basis of activities. Areas of operation include academic programs, research, public services, and development and communications. Regular, ongoing research activities include reports, such as the “Philanthropic Giving Index,”

which shares current trends and future expectations in philanthropic giving in the United States; “Indiana Gives” (a summary of Indiana giving and volunteering); assistance with Giving USA, a publication of the American Association of Fund Raising Counsel; and collaboration with the University of Michigan’s Philanthropic Studies Institute. The only library devoted exclusively to philanthropic studies, the Robert and Matthew Payton Philanthropic Studies Library, is located on the IUPUI campus. It serves as a national and international resource for nonprofits and others on fundraising and charitable giving. In collaboration with Indiana University Press, the center edits a book series in Philanthropic and Non-Profit Studies. The library houses a collection of philanthropic archives that includes records from foundations, fundraising consultants, and other professionals in the field. The Fund Raising School, the only universitybased, national fundraising training program in the United States, is the cornerstone of the center’s public services effort. Started in California and acquired by the university in 1987, the school conducts educational and training classes throughout the United States and internationally. Regular and customized courses for individuals and groups are offered; some include on-site training. The Fund Raising School was franchised in 1995 to include Procura, which offers Spanish training, in Mexico City, and CEDES (Centro de Estudios en Estado y Sociedad [Center for Studies in the State and Society]) in Argentina. A community foundations institute was added in 1999. The center’s annual symposium, “Taking Fundraising Seriously,” examines such topics as income sources, ethics, the role of trustees, the language and rhetoric of fundraising, the impact of technology, donor relations, youth and philanthropy, etc. The first master’s degree program in philanthropic studies was initiated by the center in 1993, and by 2001, the faculty numbered over sixty. The academic programs offered include the master of arts (M.A.) in philanthropic studies; the master of public affairs (M.P.A.) in nonprofit management; a dual M.A./ M.P.A.; the executive master of arts; the Hearst Minority Fellowship; the Jane Addams–Andrew Carnegie Fellowship Program; the Certificate of Fund Raising Management (via The Fund Raising School);

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an online certificate; and the Executive Leadership Institute, held annually in conjunction with the Association of Fundraising Professionals. The Institute on Philanthropy and Voluntary Service was established for college undergraduates in 1997. Formed in partnership with the Fund for American Studies, the program, the first of its kind in the nation, offers intensive summer institutes that engage college students in an examination of philanthropy in economic concepts, political systems, and moral philosophy. This program moved to Washington, D.C., in 2004. Books, essays, working papers, and multimedia materials are published by the center in an effort to further the understanding of philanthropy among students and practitioners. More than 200 titles are available. The center also publishes Philanthropy Matters; a quarterly newsletter; an annual report; and an occasional essay series. Betsy Kranz Reference and further reading Center on Philanthropy, http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/.

Charitable Choice The term “Charitable Choice” refers to a specific section (Section 104) of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, known popularly as the “Welfare Reform Bill.” Although arousing little notice or controversy when adopted, Charitable Choice and the subsequent attempts to expand it eventually led to the creation of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the White House and became the subject of much political debate and public attention. Most simply, the purpose of the Charitable Choice provision was to make it easier for faith-based organizations (FBOs) to bid for contracts to provide services funded by federal block grants to states under Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), the program that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Many in Congress felt that such a law was needed to prevent discrimination against religious organizations in contracting. Many also felt that the wider use of FBOs would lead to greater success in moving individuals off of welfare and into employment.

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The Charitable Choice Provision The Charitable Choice provision has several major components. Although the legislation did not require states to contract with nonprofit organizations to deliver services paid for with TANF funds, it stipulated that states could not treat religious service providers differently from other contractors or demand changes in an organization’s governance structure or religious character in order to receive such funds. Additionally, under the legislation, religious organizations need not remove religious objects, art, or iconography from the buildings or rooms in which the services are delivered. Finally, the law expressly exempts religious organizations from laws forbidding employment discrimination on the basis of religion. The law also has provisions protecting the religious beliefs (or nonbeliefs) of beneficiaries and forbidding the use of governmental monies for religious purposes, including proselytization, worship, or instruction. Additionally, the service providers cannot discriminate against beneficiaries on the basis of religion or require that they attend religious services or engage in any religious practices. If a beneficiary does not wish to receive the service from a religious provider, the law requires that the state must ensure provision of an equivalent service by a secular provider. Religious Providers before Charitable Choice Although many viewed Charitable Choice as a new development, governmental use of religious organizations to provide services has a long tradition. FBOs were common in the international development field and quite prominent domestically before the adoption of Charitable Choice. Organizations such as Lutheran Social Services, Jewish Welfare and Family Services, and Catholic Charities received 50 percent or more of their operating budgets from public funds prior to 1996. The Charitable Choice provision, however, was the first legislation to explicitly address the ability of religious organizations to receive a particular type of governmental funding on an equal basis with other nonprofits and to do so without having to alter substantially their religious character. To a great extent, one could argue that the provision did little to change the prevailing landscape, at least on its face, although it did ensure a level of uniformity under exist-

Charitable Choice

ing law. What Charitable Choice will and will not do is, however, a question that will be answered as it is implemented. Six years after its adoption, the most visible result has been heightened interest in the role of religiously based service providers.

The Beliefs behind Charitable Choice Charitable Choice elevated to the level of public policy a series of unexamined assumptions about the structural strengths of faith-based providers. These assumptions were that FBOs were more effective and more efficient than secular providers and capable of serving as major sources of services and funding to fill the gap brought about by decreases in government spending. Such assumptions had almost no significant research data behind them. Indeed, research into the magnitude, scope, and potential of religiously motivated service providers was woefully inadequate at the time the legislation was adopted. As a result of the legislation, greater attention began to be paid to the role of religion and religious providers in the overall social service mix. Despite the lack of knowledge about the “success” of Charitable Choice and the process of its implementation in the various states, there has been a marked push to adopt similar rules for other federally funded social service programs and to encourage greater use of religious providers. Part of this push resulted from a generalized feeling about the manner in which religious providers worked as well as from subjective assessments of the qualities of services they provided. Much of the impetus behind welfare reform in the United States rested on the view that poverty—at least to some extent and for some individuals—resulted from bad values. If these values could be changed and those individuals removed from the welfare rolls, then more attention and funds could be provided to those who truly needed the monies. Since the end of poverty required a change in values, the best way to accomplish that change would be by increasing the places where recipients would come into contact with people modeling the necessary values. Moreover, it was believed that recipients would benefit more if they were viewed as people, not merely clients. Orga-

nizations driven by religious principles and motivations were assumed to satisfy these requirements. Even if the service provision had no religious content per se, the mere experience of being served by people in such a way would help to transform individuals. Combined with this was a view shared by many across the political spectrum that local organizations familiar with local needs and already doing productive work had value and should be used more aggressively in service. Proponents of Charitable Choice pointed to the innumerable local organizations, many faithbased, that were doing wonderful work without governmental support. How much more work, they asked, could these organizations do if they could receive more funds? If the contracting system were made more welcoming, if religious organizations were not discriminated against or disfavored because they were religious, then they would be more willing to apply for funds and to submit bids. These very successful organizations would become even more successful, and the problems of poverty would soon begin to subside.

The Results Such views drove the passage of Charitable Choice during the debate in 1996. A half-decade after its passage, questions about the validity of the assumptions that led to its adoption and the success of its implementation remained unanswered. Although some research has suggested an overall increase in the number of faith-based providers contracting with state governments, other studies have found significant problems in various states. Additionally, legal challenges to the manner in which the law was implemented in several states have suggested that despite the safeguards within the legislation itself, state officials have been lax in their oversight and enforcement of the bill. Despite the problems, however, many have found the basic ideas driving Charitable Choice and the use of faith-based providers viscerally compelling. During the 2000 political campaign, both candidates spoke in favor of the idea. After his election, President Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and placed liaisons with FBOs in six of the cabinet departments. Although changes in the leadership of the White House office and the

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attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001 slowed the momentum somewhat, Charitable Choice remained a major part of the George W. Bush administration’s domestic agenda. Edward L. Queen References and further reading Cnaan, Ram. A, with Robert J. Wineburg and Stephanie C. Boddie. 1999. The Newer Deal: Social Work and Religion in Partnership. New York: Columbia University Press. Olasky, Marvin. 1992. The Tragedy of American Compassion. Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway. Wineburg, Bob. 2001. A Limited Partnership: The Politics of Religion, Welfare, and Social Service. New York: Columbia University Press.

Charitable Intent See Donor Intent

Charitable Sector See Nonprofit Sector

Charity Watchdogs Charity watchdogs are independent agencies that monitor the management and financial activities of nonprofit organizations at the local, state, or national level. As the nonprofit sector has expanded, the desire for accountability and transparency in the sector has intensified. Often, potential donors seek information about whether a nonprofit is a good organization to support. The rationale for charity watchdog organizations is to provide these potential donors with information about a charity’s activities so they can make informed decisions about how to allocate charitable dollars. Generally, charity watchdog agencies use a set of standards as a benchmark for nonprofit effectiveness or publish via the Internet Form 990, the Internal Revenue Service’s Information Return, for a variety of nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit organizations are an increasing presence in the U.S. economy. From 1987 to 1998, organizations incorporated under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 501(c)(3) grew by 74 percent. Nearly 30,000 new charities are created each year. In 2001, there

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were 1.2 million nonprofit organizations, and according to a 2001 INDEPENDENT SECTOR report, these organizations employed an estimated 10.9 million people and accounted for 6.1 percent of the national income. The dramatic expansion of the sector has created intense competition for funds. As more and more nonprofits use impersonal methods of fundraising, such as direct mail and telemarketing, donors, funders, and nonprofits seek accountability. The desire for increased accountability stemmed also from scandals during the 1990s at notable nonprofits, including United Way, New Era, Covenant House, and Adelphi University and with televangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker. The scandals eroded trust in the nonprofit sector. Charity watchdogs, with their emphasis on standards and public disclosure of financial information, are one way the philanthropic sphere monitors itself. Monitoring is conducted in a variety of ways. National organizations such as INDEPENDENT SECTOR and the Council on Foundations promulgate high standards for nonprofits to follow. The national associations of each subsector also promote standards and accreditation procedures. Government regulation at the state level is provided by the state attorney general and at the national level by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The Operation Missed Giving Web site of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is another resource to help donors make informed decisions. The site includes cases filed by the FTC, links to other charity watchdogs, and a charity checklist (http:// www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/giving). Historically, these government units are understaffed and unable to function proactively in this arena. One issue confronting the sector is whether monitoring should occur at the local, state, or federal level. Some scholars have argued that nonprofit boards are the first level of regulation. Warren Ilchman and Dwight Burlingame estimated that 10 million individuals serve in board positions (Ilchman and Burlingame 1999, 200). When nonprofit boards meet their legal responsibilities of duty of care, duty of loyalty, and duty of obligation, the entire sector is enhanced. Ilchman and Burlingame cited three reasons why there has been minimal emphasis on public monitoring of nonprofit organizations. The first, trust, is

Charity Watchdogs

Jim and Tammy Bakker listen to the words of supporters during a rally in the driveway of the Bakkers’ mountain home in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. (Bettmann/Corbis)

one of the defining characteristics of the nonprofit sector. Because society trusts nonprofits, the sector is seen to be less in need of attention than the for-profit sector. Second, the size and scope of the sector with its diverse organizations make it difficult for many to view it as a sector. Third, the sector is hard to regulate because it is dispersed and because its constituencies are small. The returns on the regulations are minimal (ibid., 204). Joel Fleishman (1999), a lawyer and former president of the private foundation Atlantic Philanthropies, suggested three options for improved accountability. First, the sector should create one umbrella organization to self-monitor. A second option is a nonprofit/government partnership in which

the national Association of State Charities Officials creates a national clearinghouse of information on abuses by nonprofits. The option of last resort, according to Fleishman, is creation of a new federal agency, the U.S. Charities Regulatory Commission, structured much like the Securities Exchange Commission or the Federal Trade Commission. Charity watchdog agencies have monitored the nonprofit sector at the state level for more than fifty years. The Charities Review Council, a nonprofit Minnesota organization, for example, has reviewed Minnesota charities since 1946. The council’s mission states that donors have the right to choose how they will spend their charitable dollars and to expect that charities will conduct themselves in an accountable, ethical, and effective manner. Furthermore, the council states that the responsible actions of both donors and charities will sustain and enhance the climate for charitable giving. Nonprofit oversight agencies exist in several other states as well (Charities Review Council). There are two nationally based charity watchdog agencies that directly monitor the activities of nonprofit organizations: the Better Business Bureau (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance and the American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP). Although their intent is the same, to provide potential donors with information to make informed decisions about what charities to support, the standards they apply to evaluate nonprofits differ. Another organization, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) serves as a Christian Better Business Bureau for its more than 1,000 members, overseeing financial practices and maintaining standards of accountability. Charitable, religious, missionary, social, and educational organizations are included in the ECFA directory. The subjective nature of standards is problematic for charity watchdog agencies. At the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, standards are set by volunteers and are not substantiated by empirical data or research. Charities have no opportunity to refute or appeal a rating. The use of a one-size-fits-all set of standards may be detrimental to such a diverse and varied nonprofit sector. The biggest concern to nonprofits about the standards is the limitation of fundraising expense to no more than 35 percent of the operating budget. The

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new standards recommend that charities spend at least 65 percent of total expenses on program activities. Additionally, they stipulate that net assets available for use should be no more than twice the expenses budgeted for the current year. Another valuable resource for potential donors is the Web site of the nonprofit philanthropic research organization GuideStar, which posts Form 990, the IRS informational return, for thousands of nonprofit organizations (http://www.guidestar.org). Nonprofit organizations are required to file the Form 990 when their annual income is greater than $25,000. (Faithbased organizations, however, are not required to file Form 990.) Web-based access to a charity’s leadership and financial records heightens accountability and transparency in the nonprofit sector. Form 990 has become a major tool for collecting and disseminating information about nonprofit operations. The federal government encourages donors to use it as an informational source to guide their giving. The form lists sources and amounts of income; program, management, and fundraising expenses; net assets; board members; and salaries of top staff. Although charity watchdog agencies monitor nonprofit organizations, no comparable agencies monitor foundations. Foundation information returns, Form 990 PF, are not posted on the GuideStar site. Foundations initiated a variety of self-monitoring practices following the Tax Reform Act of 1969, however. At the national level, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy promotes effective philanthropy through public education campaigns. An underlying premise of the charity watchdog movement is that as people learn more about nonprofit organizations and become better able to make informed decisions about their contributions, contributions to charities will increase. Andrea Pactor See also Accountability References and further reading American Institute of Philanthropy, http://www .charitywatch.org. ———. 2001. AIP Charity Rating Guide and Watchdog Report (May). Association of Fundraising Professionals. “BBB Wise Giving Alliance Introduces New Charity Standards,” http://www.afpnet.org (cited February 4, 2002).

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Charities Review Council, http://www.crcmn.org (cited April 18, 2002). Fleishman, Joel L. 1999. “Public Trust in Not-for-Profit Organizations and the Need for Regulatory Reform.” In Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Charles T. Clotfelter and Thomas Erlich, 172–197. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Goss, Kristen A. 1993. “New Charity Watchdog Vows to Tell Donors What They Really Want to Know.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy, November 16, 31. GuideStar, http://www.guidestar.org. Hearts and Minds: Inspiration for Change, “Wise Giving to Charities,” http://www.change.net/articles/wisegive. htm. Ilchman, Warren F., and Dwight F. Burlingame. 1999.” Pp. 198–211 in Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Charles T. Clotfelter and Thomas Erlich, 198–211. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Roha, Ronaleen R. “Giving Back: A Friendlier Way to Check on Charities’ Finances.” Exempt Organization Tax Review 9 (3): 520–521.

Chavez, Cesar (1927–1993) Throughout his life, Cesar Estrada Chavez fought a steadfast battle for the rights of farm workers in the United States. The plight of the farm worker was and continues to be a constant area for reform. Farm workers endured deplorable working conditions for meager wages. Further, the farm workers and their children were often exposed to harmful pesticides while working in the fields. Through the farm workers movement, Chavez fought for the rights of farm workers and the civil rights of all through nonviolent tactics. Chavez, born March 31, 1927, encountered countless injustices as a child. For example, he and his classmates were punished for speaking Spanish at school. Because of the financial hardships endured by his family, he attended school only through the eighth grade, however, and then helped support his family by working in the fields as a migrant worker. As the Chavez family moved from field to field, Cesar witnessed the harsh conditions in which the field workers lived and worked. As a young adult in 1944, Chavez enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After serving his country for two years at the end of World War II, he returned home and married Helen Fabela. The couple would have eight children.

Chavez, Cesar

United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez squeezes a bunch of grapes at a rally in New York City in 1986. (Ezio Petersen; Bettmann/Corbis)

In 1952, Chavez met Fred Ross, a community organizer with the Community Service Organization (CSO), a workers’ rights group in Los Angeles. Chavez and Ross would become a great team, registering Latinos and Hispanics all over California to vote. Through the CSO, Chavez gained the knowl-

edge and confidence he needed to begin organizing farm workers. Ten years later, in 1962, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). In 1966, the NFWA became the United Farm Workers (UFW), an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, a national labor

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CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation

federation. Before the name change, the NFWA negotiated a contract with Schenley Vineyards—the first ever between a grower and the farm workers. As Chavez organized the farm workers and continued to assert their right to unionize, he remained firm in the belief that reform could be accomplished through nonviolent means. Chavez and the UFW organized countless boycotts, strikes, and marches against fruit and vegetable growers. Through Chavez’s leadership, the farm workers were empowered to demand their rights. Chavez brought national attention to the UFW and the farm workers movement through fasting in 1968, 1972, and 1988. In 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy was with Cesar when he broke his fast. In 1988, Chavez fasted for thirty-six days and was visited by Ethel Kennedy and Jesse Jackson when he broke his fast. Chavez remained active with the UFW until his death on April 23, 1993. Although Chavez is gone, he is certainly not forgotten. His legacy lives on through the UFW and through all battles for civil rights. In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal of Freedom to Cesar E. Chavez posthumously. Amelia E. Clark References and further reading Ferriss, Susan, and Ricardo Sandoval. 1997. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace. Garcia, Richard, and Richard Griswold del Castillo. 1995. Cesar Chavez: A Triumph of Spirit. Oklahoma City: University of Oklahoma Press. United Farm Workers, http://www.ufw.org (cited November 5, 2001).

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation was created in 1994 to “promote a worldwide community of informed, inspired, committed citizens who are actively engaged in confronting the challenges facing humanity” (http://www.civicus.org). Founded in 1994 in Barcelona, Spain, after two years of planning, the organization grew during its first seven years from 171 to 604 members from 102 countries. The bulk of its membership consists of citizen organizations (84

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percent), followed by individuals (10 percent) and donor organizations (6 percent). The founders of the organization include Brian O’Connell from the United States, Miguel Darcy de Oliveira from Brazil, Carlos Monjardino from Portugal, and Eddah Gachukia from Kenya. CIVICUS headquarters is located in Washington, D.C., with regional offices in Germany, Hungary, Australia, South Africa, England, and Canada as well as additional regional staff in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. Within a few years of its founding, CIVICUS also created “regional convener” positions for various world regions. The most visible activity coordinated by CIVICUS is a biannual World Assembly focusing on specific topics within the general theme of civic society. The first assembly was held in 1995 in Mexico City, and subsequent assemblies were held in Budapest, Hungary, in 1997; Manila, Philippines, in 1999; Vancouver, Canada, in 2001; and Gaborone, Botswana, in 2004. In addition to the assembly, regional conveners coordinate conferences and workshops for members within their region. Through its assembly and regional activities, CIVICUS generates a variety of publications (including its newsletter CIVICUS World and its electronic resources) in each of its program areas. CIVICUS has identified five specific program areas: Civil Society Watch, Civil Society Index, legitimacy and transparency, participatory governance, and the World Assembly. In 1997, CIVICUS developed Legal Principles for Citizen Participation: Toward a Legal Framework for Civil Society Organizations. CIVICUS also participates in advocacy programs to encourage governments and corporations to permit and develop citizen participation. It published Building Civil Society Worldwide: Strategies for Successful Communications in 1997. In resource mobilization, CIVICUS published Sustaining Civil Society: Strategies for Resource Mobilization and Handbook on Resource Mobilization in 1997. The Civil Society Index, a long-term project, attempts to assess and interpret the state of civil societies and their development over time. The first publication from the project was The New Civic Atlas: Profiles of Civil Society in 60 Countries (1997). CIVICUS also coordinates an international Gender Equality Initiative and promotes youth par-

Civil Rights Movement

ticipation in their assembly. As part of their corporate engagement, it published Promoting Corporate Citizenship: Opportunities for Business and Civil Engagement in 1999. In 1997, CIVICUS received “special consultative status” with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Amy Jones References and further reading CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, http:// www.civicus.org/main (cited December 29, 2003). CIVICUS. “2002 Annual Report.”

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement, the struggle for the universal application of legal and social rights to all persons in the United States regardless of their religion, social background, race, color, gender, heritage, and other extraneous factors was (and remains) a milestone in American history. In its narrower meaning, the term “civil rights movement” defines the struggle for black political equality that leapt into public view in the 1950s and continued as a major political force through the late 1970s. The civil rights movement of that era can reasonably be described as the first American social movement to be organized, managed, and often funded by formal nonprofit organizations. While most social and political reform movements in the United States historically have come from voluntary associations, the changes in legal and tax structures in the twentieth century led to a process whereby voluntary associations increasingly sought formal nonprofit status as a matter of course. Some of the impetus for this undoubtedly grew from concerns about legal liability; other factors, including foundation and (later) government funding, played a role as well. Perhaps more importantly, by the 1960s structural realities were such that individuals simply assumed the need for a formal nonprofit organization, either a 501(c)(3) or a 501(c)(4), before undertaking certain types of work. The roots of the movement for black civil rights, however, are long and deep. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the movement began when the first African resisted the process of enslavement by fight-

ing, running away, or committing suicide rather than submitting to captivity. Similar forms of resistance marked the entire slave period. From work slowdowns to poisonings, from feigned illness to rebellions, slaves resisted attempts to make them objects of slavery and worked to affirm their humanity and independence. Such actions were not confined to the slaves alone. Freed blacks also resisted the social and legal constraints under which they labored and as groups often established their own voluntary associations to protect them from the racism of the surrounding culture. Racism in the churches led many into separate black churches and even denominations. Discrimination in social services and fraternal organizations convinced blacks to create organizations, voluntary associations that they controlled and ran. Perhaps one of the most powerful movements in U.S. history, abolitionism—the struggle to end slavery—became, outside of the historically black denominations, the most institutionalized of the early attempts to recognize the dignity and equality of blacks. The abolitionist movement, one of a series of nineteenth-century reform movements, foreshadowed the civil rights movement in its form, its level of racial integration, and also in its internal conflicts and disagreements. Bursting on the scene with the first issue of William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator, the abolitionist movement had been preceded by the so-called Negro conventions, organized by Bishop Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which voiced black opposition to slavery and racial discrimination. Abolitionism brought blacks and whites into an integrated sociopolitical movement for the first time in U.S. history. As the efforts of the abolitionists waxed and waned, the country divided and moved closer to the conflict that defined the nation for nearly a century. If the Civil War decided the question of slavery, Reconstruction attempted to settle the question of black political equality. The so-called Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, defined citizenship, and forbade limitations on voting imposed solely because of color. But as Reconstruction faded due to political compromise, the promise of equality was replaced with the reality of white political and social

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domination known as Jim Crow. Enshrined in law by the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, establishing the legal acceptability of separate but allegedly equal facilities for blacks and whites, it also allowed an entire system of white domination and black subjection, white power and black degradation, a white world and a black one. It was this world that the civil rights movement challenged and changed. The struggle for black civil rights in the twentieth century is an incomplete struggle in two parts. The first part encompasses the work of men like W. E. B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, and Roy Wilkins and organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. The second part was the work of men like Martin Luther King Jr., Bob Moses, Ralph Abernathy, and newer organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). All of these organizations called the United States to its higher self, demanding that the country realize its values of freedom and equality, by ending racism and racial discrimination. Although much smaller in number, other groups such as the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad rejected the American dream and worked for a complete separations between blacks and whites. They believed in a world in which blacks completely and totally controlled their own lives and destinies. The first generation to struggle against racism and segregation in the twentieth century organized the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 and used its journal The Crisis as its voice. Edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, The Crisis argued for a concerted legal attack on segregation and for the training of a black elite (the talented tenth) who could lead the black masses to social equality. Under the direction of Walter White, who served the organization from 1918 until 1955, and his successor Roy Wilkins, the NAACP became the organizational center for black opposition to segregation. The NAACP remained, however, an elite organization centering its work on political and legal remedies. More in touch with the masses of working-class blacks was A. Philip Randolph, longtime president of

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the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Randolph was a working man and his concerns always extended beyond race to include issues of economic justice. Other leaders within the Pullman Porters Union, like E. D. Nixon in Montgomery, Alabama, provided much of the local organizational civil rights work prior to the 1950s. The 1940s and 1950s saw growing successes in the area of civil rights. Franklin Roosevelt showed a greater interest in black concerns than any president since Theodore Roosevelt and had his own black “kitchen cabinet.” His wife, Eleanor, took an even more active concern with civil rights issues, serving on the executive committee of the NAACP. Black activists themselves also achieved marked success in this period. Randolph’s threatened march on Washington in 1943 forced Roosevelt to issue an executive order integrating all war industries. The NAACP’s legal attacks on segregationist laws during the 1940s and 1950s were increasingly successful and its lawyers won a series of cases striking down “whites-only” primaries and ending legal segregation in higher education. Their efforts culminated in the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which declared public school segregation illegal. To have the courts overturn legal segregation was not the same as ending it in fact. During the next two decades the civil rights movement tried to achieve in practice that which law and the courts had said were their rights. This struggle was long, savage, and bloody. During the 1950s and 1960, the drive for civil rights became a mass movement, due primarily to the work of Martin Luther King Jr. When he and others formed the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1955 to end unfair treatment on the city’s buses, the modern civil rights movement was born. Preaching a message of justice and nonviolence, King and his colleagues established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and slowly began to unpeel the layers of racism and economic exploitation under which African Americans labored. The struggle was difficult, but dramatic successes in places like Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, where vicious attacks upon peaceful demonstrations showed the savageness of racism, led to the end of legal segregation and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.


One early attempt to silence King resulted in a major U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding the right of association. In this decision, NAACP v. Patterson (357 U.S. 449 [1958]), the Supreme Court expressly recognized that “the right of the members [of a voluntary association] to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others in so doing” comes “within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The SCLC taught that blacks could win their rights only through nonviolence. This message dominated the movement during the early 1960s. By the end of that decade, however, many began to question both nonviolence and white involvement in civil rights organizations. Some of this opposition came from expected critics, primarily from the Nation of Islam’s national spokesman, Malcolm X. The Nation of Islam began in Detroit in the 1930s with the teaching of W. D. Fard. Succeeded upon his death by Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam emphasized black separatism, black empowerment, and black economic development. Other critics of nonviolence included Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, who claimed blacks had a right to self-defense. A major change, however, was that of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Organized as a younger, more active, and less clergy-driven counterpart to the SCLC, the SNCC achieved its greatest visibility in 1964 with the creation of the Mississippi Freedom Summer (partially funded by the Ford Foundation as part of a wider Voter Education Project) and the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which nearly unseated the regular (all-white) Mississippi Democratic Party at the 1964 presidential convention. The Freedom Summer brought students (primarily white northerners) into Mississippi to teach black children, participate in organizing, and to fight segregation. It led to the brutal murder of students James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in May 1964. This killing, accomplished with the participation of the local police, radicalized the SNCC. King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, and the resulting riots and violence also weakened the appeal of nonviolence. There were increasing calls for aggressive response to racism and injustice. These voices in-

cluded the Black Panthers advocating armed rebellion on the one hand and the Conference of Black Churchmen demanding reparations on the other. As nonviolence gave way to Black Power, “We shall overcome” became “Burn, baby, burn.” The refusal of entrenched white power structures to change and the violence with which they defended their bastions led to an increasing militancy among blacks. This militancy led to numerous violent confrontations with police and increasing violence in America’s cities. The election of Richard Nixon in November 1968 did little to ease the calls for increasing militancy. The Republican administration’s apparent lack of concern for African Americans, the Vietnam War, and increasing social conflict moved attention away from civil rights. Although the movement was revived somewhat during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan’s administration was particularly hostile to advances on the civil rights front. Equally significant was the fact that after the ending of legal segregation and the guaranteeing of voting rights, the more complex and tedious issues of economic justice were less amenable to wide-spread public action and often even legal action. Economic decline during the last two decades of the twentieth century increasingly led to situations where economic justice for blacks was seen as an economic threat by poorer whites, thus exacerbating racial tensions and animosities. By this time the scourge of drug abuse and the rise of what many perceived as a permanent underclass comprised primarily of people of color made many individuals question traditional approaches to questions of race. Opinion polls showed that blacks and whites in the United States had widely divergent views on the continuing power of racism and its affects on individuals’ daily lives. Some commentators even claimed that the civil rights leadership intentionally favored policies designed to keep blacks subservient to the government in order to further their own ends. While such opinions remained minority views, their emergence suggested the seeming intractability that certain aspects of race had taken on. Additionally, questions surrounding police abuse and the disparity in the application of the death penalty continued to show the lingering vestiges of racial inequity in American society.

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During these years many of the leading civil rights organizations went through periods of decline and difficulty. The SCLC lost much of its grassroots support following the end of legalized segregation. After King’s assassination and the resignation of his successor, David Abernathy, as president, the SCLC experienced a leadership crisis and its importance dwindled. An attempt to revive and revitalize the organization under the leadership of Martin L. King III saw it increasingly adopt the language of the latetwentieth-century nonprofit world. Holding the title of president and CEO, Martin L. King III speaks of public/private partnerships and bridging the digital divide. Similarly, the NAACP underwent a difficult organization period during the 1980s. Massive financial difficulties and conflicts with its 501(c)(4) partner the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., as well as leadership problems caused a decline its influence. Much of this was regained in 1996 when Representative Kweisi Mfume was chosen as the NAACP’s president and CEO. A respected legislator who resigned his seat in Congress to take the helm of the NAACP, Mfume did a masterful job in reclaiming much of the organization’s credibility and financial stability. The civil rights movement remains a symbol of America’s struggle to realize its most deeply held values. The religious dimension of King’s vision and that of his colleagues stirred chords in the hearts of Americans everywhere and helped to bring an end to racial divisions enforced by law. The civil rights movement also exemplified the strength and power of America’s voluntary spirit and the power of nonprofit organizations to work to transform society. Edward L. Queen See also King, Martin Luther, Jr.; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People References and further reading Branch, Taylor. 1988. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster. Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: New American Library. Franklin, John Hope. 1994. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans. New York: McGraw Hill. George, Carol V. R. 1973. Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Emergence of Independent Black Churches. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Harding, Vincent. 1990. Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement. Maryknoll: Orbis. Lincoln, C. Eric. 1974. The Black Experience in Religion. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press. Myers, Walter Dean. 1991. Now Is Your Time: The AfricanAmerican Struggle for Freedom. New York: Harper Collins. Paris, Peter. 1985. The Social Teaching of the Black Churches. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Taylor, Clarence and Jonathan Birnbaum, eds. 2000. Civil Rights since 1787: A Reader. New York: New York University Press.

Civil Society The idea of civil society has become a central theme in contemporary thought about the third sector and philanthropy and yet is difficult to define, inherently complex, and resists being categorized or interpreted through a singular theoretical lens. The term is used to define conditions and characteristics that make the strength and expansion of the third sector possible within a sociopolitical context from community to international levels. An appealing aspect of this term is found in the linguistic root it shares with the behavioral concept of civility. Although it is increasingly used to describe how social life should function within and between societies and provides a fundamental way of describing public action and social responsibility, its meaning and implications remain difficult to grasp. In this globalized world of the twenty-first century, the defining and articulating of civil society carries both transnational and communitarian components that will condition and guide philanthropic activity.

Historical Background Historically the term “civil society” has been used to describe the unique form of economic, political, and social relationships and structures in Western societies since the early eighteenth century. On the one hand, classical political economists such as John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith viewed civil society as a realm of virtuous freedom, both economic and personal, and contrasted it with the evils of the state. G. W. F. Hegel, on the other hand, used it to explain how government could find its niche in a market-driven society by nurturing cooperation in the face of economic and social conflict.

Civil Society

values and behavior will follow. But it is uncertain whether the “civil societies” that emerge in these and other non-Western systems will be similar to and compatible with their Western counterpart. In its current form, civil society goes beyond merely providing for open markets, free elections, and voluntary associations and means various things to a variety of people.

English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806– 1873) (Library of Congress)

Karl Marx expanded Hegel’s argument by delineating the terrain of civil society as resulting in social conditions of alienation, exploitation, and injustice. This theme was continued by neo-Marxist theorists who viewed civil society as the arena that economic and political actors used to maintain positions of power through the form and function of various social systems and institutions. In more recent literature, the idea of civil society has moved beyond either a comparison of existing political conditions or an ideological characterization of dangers to avoid by being used to describe the response needed in emerging democracies of Eastern Europe following the evaporation of Communist structures in 1979 and thereafter. Attempts have been made in these changing societies to institutionalize specific aspects of Western economic and political systems with the expectation that the underlying civic

Contemporary Usage To some, the concept of civil society is defined narrowly in reference to the initiatives and associations that occur at the community and grassroots level. To others, it is a broad term that works with and helps condition government and market forces. To people from both conservative and liberal perspectives, it is viewed as a primary characteristic of the independent sector and a replacement for much of what government has previously done by subsidizing charitable giving and legitimizing a variety of sociable behaviors and organizations. To still others, it represents the soul of democracy and gives social institutions moral cohesion and force rooted in and inspired by a venerable heritage of religious faith. The social space of civil society has come to be viewed as commonly held principles of vernacular, local civic life expressed through “mediating structures” (Berger and Neuhaus 1977) and systems. It is used to initiate and maintain positive social change and to interface the shifting and changing conditions of an individual’s private life with surrounding public circumstances. And these are changes for which the individual is in need of protection, assistance, and support from a “third” or “independent” party—those who do not have a vested interest in the dominant economic and political systems and who are not controlled by these forces. Civil society appeals to people because of its many implications: It sounds better to be civil to each other than to be uncivil; things civil also seem rather less regimented than what is militarized or bureaucratic; and, of course, a civil society has a welcome ring to it in a time of uncertainty and social turbulence. But a wholesome sound goes only so far in social theory. The fact remains that the concept of civil society will have to be more solidly defined and constructed if it is to play a role in the reconstruction of

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public decision-making by all members of society, allows for legitimatized control Systems of Civil Society over civic space and resources, and mainPrinciples of Economic Political tains fairness in the political and judicial Civil Society Development Governance Social Institutions systems, with a special concern for those Civic engagement Commons Office Associations who are disenfranchised, through the proCivic authority Trusteeship Sovereignty Accountability tection of human rights. Participation in Civic responsibility Equity Justice Reconciliation decision making and in the process of solving social problems challenges a number of current political attitudes and conditions: cynicism regarding motives for involvemodern society. Civil society is best understood as a ment in public life, incivility in public culture, and the very special space within and between the major infutility of public action and community collaboration. stitutions of society. Effective political involvement and control rests on a cultural basis of shared values and beliefs. Characteristics of Civil Society From this historical perspective, the concept of civil Social Institutions society can be viewed as highly interrelated with a The strength, vitality, and diversity of social institumarket economy, democratic politics, and key social tions, especially those related to the independent secinstitutions serving as the framework for and encourtor, play a crucial role in the existence of civil society. agement of philanthropic activity. Nine indicators of Changes or shifts in the economy and in the organizacivil society may be identified by linking the three systion of work, family, and neighborhood have occurred tems of economic development, political governance, more quickly than the capacity of existing public, proand social institutions to the three principles of civic prietary, and social institutions available to and used by engagement, civic authority, and civic responsibility. individuals and communities to cope with and direct those changes. Communitarian institutions found in Systems of Civil Society strong democratic settings are characterized by open Economic Development groups and networks that form the context in which The type of economic environment and activities coneconomic development and political governance ocducive for civil society is characterized by the open curs, holding community stakeholders accountable for availability and utilization of common resources necthe outcome of their actions and providing a context essary for constructing a satisfying and satisfactory for resolving conflicts through nonviolent means with life, the responsible care and management of those rea special concern for those who are marginalized. Posources for current and future generations, and the eqlitical theorist Benjamin Barber referred to this system uitable distribution of resources with a special concern of civil society as a voluntary realm “devoted to public for those who are impoverished. A symbiotic relationgoods,” the “true domain” of “church, family, and volship exists between human social economies and the untary association” (1998, 44). natural economy of ecosystems and bioregions upon which all life depends. Economic development and Principles of Civil Society the improvement of human life cannot occur without Civic Engagement preserving and enhancing environmental quality. The principle of civic engagement refers to involvement in and benefit from economic activities by havPolitical Governance ing access to and use of resources held in common Political structures and activities found within civil within this social context; by actively participating in societies are expected to seek, promote, and protect civic action and political governance; and by taking the welfare of the people. Political governance within the opportunity to join and be represented by social this context includes full and active participation in Characteristics of Civil Society

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groups and associations that provide a sense of belonging on a community level. Public participation in civic action—that is, contributing to and benefiting from economic development and political governance within the context of public life through involvement in legitimate social institutions—is true civic engagement. The work of civic engagement extends from the basic level of helping someone in need to include empowering individuals and groups to effectively solve community (or national) problems. Commons Civic engagement and economic development form what is termed the “commons,” referring to the context of public interaction and content of the public good. The context of commons suggests that there is a definable location where public resources are produced and exchanged. The content of commons refers to the open availability and utilization of those goods and resources. It also includes the right each community member has to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from the context and content of public commons. This right of participation carries with it responsibility for participants to act in ways that enhance and strengthen the commons. Office Civic engagement through political governance occurs within the framework of legitimatized positions and opportunities for participatory decision making in and through local leadership positions, that is, citizens recognizing their right and civic duty to take an active role in the governance of their community. To participate fully and equally requires knowledge of how systems work and what outcomes will result from decisions that are made. Increased participation through democratic structures necessitates an increased decentralization of power and authority. Elected officials have a responsibility to remember that they are first and foremost public servants who have been chosen to represent the interests, concerns, and needs of all members of society. Associations Effective civic engagement is especially aided by the strength and diversity of various social institutions op-

erating within a social context. Social structures characterized by voluntary, free, open participation in and association with agencies, groups, and organizations provide individuals with active networks necessary for effective governance and social change. “Associations” refers to all of those social places where people gather and interact with others to exchange ideas, offer support, and receive a sense of belonging. These groups and affiliations occur within and through all three sectors of social life: public, proprietary, and independent. As Robert D. Putnam suggested, “Participation in civic organizations inculcates skills of cooperation as well as a sense of shared responsibility for collective endeavors” (2000, 90). Civic Authority The principle of civic authority is characterized by legitimate public authoritative rulership based on public control over the space and resources required to form and maintain community; the ability to place a high degree of trust that the needs of the community and its welfare (not self-interest) will serve as the basis for decisions made by community stakeholders; and the ability of local groups and associations to hold various actors accountable for the outcomes of policies and programs. There is a fundamental emphasis in this principle on the important role that independent sector organizations have in equipping (economically) and empowering (politically) its stakeholders (organizations and volunteer workers) with the resources (tools, knowledge, skills, and materials) required for bringing positive community change. Trusteeship “Trusteeship” refers to the civic authority all members of the community have for exercising sustainable, responsive stewardship of resources on behalf of the common good. Within market economies, community members need to be able to trust that those making economic decisions, especially corporate actors and business leaders, will act in ways that will strengthen and improve the local economy and its “capital” (human, social, material, and ecological). In civil society, trusteeship runs counter to forms of corruption that are evidenced by benefits going to the “haves” at the expense and exclusion of the “have-nots.”

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Sovereignty Civic authority and political governance of “sovereignty” is expressed in the authority, right, and legitimacy actors have to make political decisions within a particular social setting and defined geographic location. In representative democracies, the sovereign rule of civil society is conditional and limited by various actors within the state and its bureaucracies. It is fundamentally important to the survival of civil society that political actors not be “captured” by special-interest groups or industries yet work to be responsive to and inclusive of the disenfranchised. Accountability Organizations within the independent sector play an important role in civil societies by providing community members with the ability to hold economic and political actors accountable for policies, programs, and distribution of resources. Accountability is based on transparency of rules and known expectations of public actors. The contestation of issues in the public setting is the best place for community members to assert themselves and monitor the actions of economic and political actors. The basic freedoms and rights associated with civil society (for example, free speech, a free press providing access to information, fair elections, and the freedom to organize in groups) are the mechanisms used to hold economic and political decision makers accountable. Civic Responsibility The principle of civic responsibility is characterized by mutual obligation and responsibility evidenced by a universally accepted and equally enforced “rule of law” that results in social order and stability. Strong and legitimate civic responsibility results in the practice of equity, justice, and nonviolent conflict resolution. In civil society, the rule of law is applied fairly and consistently to all members of society. No one is exempt from being held accountable to the law. No one is above or beyond the law. The globalization of the market economy, increased regionalization of political governance, and the expanding role of nongovernmental organizations indicates a universalization of the rule of law applied to all countries, especially in the context of international conflict. This

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universal application of the rule of law guarantees the protection of civil liberties and human rights and provides legitimate and effective avenues of appeal and response to cases of abuse and violations. Equity Civic responsibility is evidenced within the context of economic development when each member of the community has equitable access to resources for living a satisfying and satisficing life. The concept of civil society emphasizes allocative and procedural equity in terms of the impact of policy decisions on groups and classes of people, not just on individuals. An important question to be asked of all economic policy and program decisions is the following: How will this decision impact those already facing economic impoverishment and how will it affect the quality and availability of resources for future generations? Evidence indicates that a laissez-faire economy will not eliminate poverty and will continue to enrich the few while impoverishing the many. For this reason, civil society calls for a moral response of economic equity that permits, preserves, and maintains the resource conditions necessary for producing and sustaining a high quality of life for all people at the community level. Within the context of civil society, those in positions of power have an ethical responsibility to make decisions that will result in benefit for those suffering from economic impoverishment. A significant contribution of independent-sector actors is the preference and concern these organizations have for the poor. Justice In civil society, justice is defined as the overlapping obligations of exercising fairness and compassion. A law or policy is unjust if it is unconstitutional or contrary to the rule of law, but a law is also viewed as unjust if it is unfair and lacks compassion. In democratic governments, constitutions serve as the basis for forming and evaluating all civil laws. The forming and strengthening of social justice is characterized as a response to the needs of the disenfranchised and advocacy for those who are economically weak and politically vulnerable. Although social justice holds a strong moral claim within the context of civil society, often the ability to accomplish it is viewed as being politi-

Commercialism in the Nonprofit Sector

cally and practically weak. People in positions of power are reluctant to follow through with policies and programs that will fully accomplish the goals of social justice because of the risk it entails to their political future. Independent-sector actors, by virtue of not being “captured” by these political interests, can work on behalf of those excluded from the political process and negatively affected by unjust laws. Reconciliation In civil society, social institutions and associations provide a context for divergent individuals and groups to come together to negotiate, mediate, and resolve conflict through peaceful, nonviolent means. Social institutions give groups and individuals access to the law and empower them to fairly enforce impersonal, equitable laws in socially transparent ways.

Conclusion As we enter into the twenty-first century, the principles and systems of civil society will need to move from the nation-state level to include a global political economy of relations and groups. Every person is a neighbor to everyone else, and we are all mutually responsible for ensuring that the opportunity to experience a satisfying and satisficing life is available to all. Our global economy has brought us together and pushes us to the development of appropriate political and social systems whereby participation, authority, and responsibility are just, equitable, and nonviolent—responding with intentional concern for the disenfranchised, marginalized, and impoverished. Timothy J. Peterson and Jon Van Til See also Nonprofit Sector References and further reading Barber, Benjamin R. 1998. A Place for Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong. New York: Hill and Wang. Berger, Peter L., and Richard J. Neuhaus. 1977. To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Eberly, Don E. 1998. America’s Promise: Civil Society and the Renewal of American Culture. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Lohmann, Roger A. 1992. The Commons: New Perspectives on Nonprofit Organization and Voluntary Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: Civic Disengagement in America. New York: Simon and Schuster. Reisman, David, and Nathan Glazer. 1950. “Criteria for Political Apathy.” In Studies in Leadership: Leadership and Democratic Action, edited by Alvin Gouldner, 505–559. New York: Harper. Seligman, Adam. 1992. The Idea of Civil Society. New York: Free Press. Shils, Edward. 1997. The Virtue of Civility: Selected Essays on Liberalism, Tradition, and Civil Society. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Van Til, Jon. 2000. Growing Civil Society: From Nonprofit Sector to Third Space. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Commercialism in the Nonprofit Sector Commercialism in the nonprofit sector may be defined as a set of interrelated phenomena through which nonprofit organizations are acquiring some of the characteristics of for-profit businesses. Although commercial activities of nonprofit organizations have been recognized for many years (Crimmins and Keil 1983), awareness of this subject accelerated in the last decade of the twentieth century as they became more widespread. Commercialism in the nonprofit sector has been met with mixed reactions, promoted by some as the embodiment of new opportunities for nonprofit organizations and questioned by others as a cause for concern for the health and integrity of the nonprofit sector.

Manifestations of Nonprofit Commercialism The ways in which nonprofit organizations are thought to be becoming more like for-profit businesses can be roughly divided into two interrelated categories: changes in the interface between nonprofit organizations and external markets, and changes in the internal operations and culture of these organizations. Market Interfaces In a variety of ways, nonprofit organizations are becoming more integrated into markets and, by implication, becoming less reliant on the “grants economy” of philanthropy and government. There are at least six overlapping ways in which this appears to be the case, including those described below.

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Increasing Dependence on Fees and Other Forms of “Earned” Income Several researchers have noted that fees, investments, and other forms of market-based income constitute the largest single source of revenue for nonprofit organizations in the United States. Estimates of this dependence and how it has changed over time vary depending on the definitions and assumptions associated with particular research efforts. For example, calculations in one study showed that overall, fees and charges represented 47 percent of the revenue of public-benefit nonprofits and that this figure had changed little since 1977 (Salamon 2002). The results of another study indicated that revenue from “program services” for all nonprofits increased from 69.1 percent to 73.5 percent from 1987 to 1992 (Weisbrod 1998). The difference between these findings derives not only from the different years of comparison and from the somewhat different groupings of nonprofits, but more importantly from the classification of income from government sources. In particular, the estimates in the second study showed that much of government-derived revenue is provided on a fee-for-service basis, much like other nonprofit earned income. Although most estimates show a declining share of nonprofit revenue from charitable contributions, they also confirm that the government share of nonprofit income has been growing. Hence, the classification of government income into payment for services versus grants influences whether dependence on earned income is thought to be growing or stable over time. In any case, it is widely recognized that earned income, however derived, has certainly become the dominant source of nonprofit revenue overall. Researchers have also observed that dependence on earned income varies widely within the nonprofit sector, with health care and education organizations having the heaviest such dependence, arts and culture organizations having substantial dependence, social services nonprofits somewhat less dependence, and religious, civic, and international aid organizations less still. Moreover, it is not clear that dependence on fee income is growing in all subsectors. For example, research on museums suggests that such dependence did not increase in the 1980s and early 1990s (An-

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heier and Toepler 1998), although fee income became a notably greater part of the finance of zoos and aquariums from the mid-1970s through the 1980s (Cain and Meritt 1998). Finally, research on an international scale suggests that the nonprofit sector in some countries is much more fee-dependent than it is in others (Salamon and Associates 1999). Undertaking Ventures with Profit-Making Objectives As with fee-based income, the idea of undertaking ventures for the explicit purpose of generating net revenues for the organization has been a part of the culture and modus operandi of U.S. nonprofit organizations for many years. For example, in youth services, activities such as cookie or candy sales have long been common (Young 1998). What appears to have changed recently is the degree to which nonprofits are emphasizing this as a strategy for supporting themselves, the legitimacy they place on activities whose purpose is primarily income generation, and the variety of creative initiatives that are now undertaken, ranging from museum stores to travel services run by university alumni offices. Some analysts have encouraged nonprofit organizations to embrace commercial ventures as a potentially lucrative and productive source of resource development (Skloot 1988), and researchers have recognized the place of profit-making ventures in the overall financing of nonprofit organizations. In particular, the prototypical nonprofit organization has been modeled as a “multi-product” firm in which some activities primarily address the organization’s social mission while others are primarily intended to help finance that mission ( James 1983; Schiff and Weisbrod 1991). A special insight has been to recognize that nonprofits can be expected to adjust their portfolio of revenue strategies as external conditions change (Weisbrod 1991). In particular, if public or charitable support declines, nonprofits can be expected to put more emphasis on commercial sources, even if they prefer to put their energies more directly into mission-focused services. This model also contains the reverse implication, that if sources of public support increase, nonprofits will de-emphasize commercial ventures, although such behavior has not been confirmed ( James 1998).


Collaborating with Corporate Business One particularly notable vein of nonprofit commercial activity in recent years has been to undertake collaborative ventures with profit-making corporations (Austin 2000). An early manifestation of this phenomenon was cause-related marketing, the promotion of a commercial product by associating it with a charitable cause. American Express launched this innovation in 1983 with a credit card that set aside a portion of the revenues from sales charged to the card for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. This concept has caught on, and many charities now have credit cards in their name or similar arrangements with corporations that generate charitable revenues based on product sales. Moreover, a variety of new arrangements associate nonprofit missions with products ranging from orange juice to smoking patches. Museum shows may have commercial themes, and nonprofits may license their own products to commercial firms, taking advantage of the value of their intellectual property while exploiting the development and marketing capacities of business corporations. For example, Sesame Street characters are manufactured and sold as toys by commercial firms. Finally, the nonprofit-corporate connection has strongly infiltrated traditional nonprofit fundraising efforts. Many charities, for example, host corporatesponsored events such as marathon runs, walks, swims, and celebrity golf tournaments. Corporate volunteerism is another important part of this pattern. Increasingly, corporations have sought to engage their employees to work with nonprofits in various ways, as staff and board volunteers, to bring their skills to the management of nonprofits or their contributions to specific charitable projects. In return, businesses derive public relations, employee morale, and other benefits (Austin 2000). Indeed, some corporations have more or less adopted certain charities in a holistic sense, and vice versa. City Year and Timberland, or Georgia Pacific and the Nature Conservancy, are two examples (Austin 2000). There is currently some debate surrounding the advisability of nonprofits forming exclusive arrangements with particular corporations (Young 2003). One school of thought is that the deeper the relationship with a corporation, the more

trust is developed and the more creative and productive the opportunities that may be identified and undertaken together. Another school of thought recommends the diversification of corporate relationships to minimize the risk of dependence on any one corporate arrangement that might ultimately turn sour with serious financial or reputational consequences. The recent scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and other major corporations have increased the level of this concern. Competing for Resources and Markets Another way in which nonprofits are said to be becoming more like businesses is that they are more engaged in market competition along several fronts. First, as noted above, nonprofits are presumably more engaged in selling their services for fee income, often to make a profit. As such, they are engaged in competition for market share among themselves and in some instances with profit-making businesses. Hospitals compete with other hospitals, both for-profit and nonprofit. Nursing homes, home health services, day care, schools and colleges, arts and cultural organizations, community and recreation organizations, training and rehabilitation services, and mental health and social service organizations follow similar patterns of competition. Many industries in which nonprofits operate are so-called mixed industries in which both nonprofits and for-profits are substantially represented (Weisbrod 1988). Even outside these industries, nonprofits may compete with business if they undertake explicitly commercial ventures outside their traditional fields of activity. A social service organization that opens a restaurant or runs a bakery in order to employ clients and earn money competes with businesses in those industries. So does a museum that sells coffee mugs, a university that sells T-shirts, or an orchestra that sells compact discs. In some fields, such as zoos and aquariums, concession income has been the fastest rising source of revenue for nonprofits (Cain and Meritt 1998). In fact, sponsorship advertisements on nonprofit Web sites are becoming more popular as a source for more income. Finally, nonprofits compete among themselves and sometimes with businesses and government for the critical (input) resources they need to operate. Charitable fundraising is the most obvious example.

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Nonprofits have professionalized rapidly in this arena, using increasingly sophisticated marketing technology and competing more and more intensively for this highly valued yet slowly growing source of income, often employing for-profit telemarketing firms. For many decades, charitable contributions have remained static at approximately 2 percent of national income, while nonprofit expenditures have grown rapidly (Nonprofit Almanac 1997). As a result, charitable contributions are declining as a proportion of nonprofit revenues and competition for these revenues is becoming more intense. Human resources is another area of increasing competition for nonprofits. Professionalization has meant entering the labor markets for employees in a variety of skill areas, many of which are sought by businesses as well as nonprofits. These include talent in generic areas such as management, information technology, marketing, communications, and accounting. Depending on their missions, nonprofits also compete for professional talent in their areas of service specialization. This competition is mostly within the nonprofit and public sectors for social workers, educators, and clergy but crosses strongly into the business sector for artists, scientists, and healthcare workers. Although pressures vary over time, it is fair to say that competition is a growing fact of life for nonprofits, with some especially intensive competitive pressures experienced in recent years. During the late 1990s, for-profit corporations competed strongly for government contracts to administer welfare reform programs, a traditional area of nonprofit expertise. During this same period, one in which the economy was booming, nonprofits had difficulties competing in the labor markets for the talent they needed to adopt new information technology. The slower economy of the early twenty-first century has eased some of these competitive pressures. However, nonprofits have learned that they must think of themselves as market competitors if they are to survive and operate effectively over the long term. Outsourcing Nonprofits have tried to make themselves more competitive by paying closer attention to their compara-

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tive advantages and by relying on the market for capacities for which they have no special edge (Ben-Ner 2003). This further market engagement is another way in which nonprofits are seen to have become more like businesses. Although there has been little systematic documentation of this trend, nonprofits are now known to outsource a wide variety of activities ranging from fundraising to accounting services and public relations. Outsourcing of fundraising has been the most controversial practice in this arena, as telemarketers and other firms and consultants have sometimes claimed for their compensation high proportions of gross contributed revenue, stirring resentment and controversy among donors and public officials. Using the Market to Address the Mission Perhaps the most intriguing way in which some nonprofits have become more “commercial” is in looking to the marketplace for strategies to address their social missions. This change in orientation is both external and internal in nature. Although it is difficult to say how pervasive this kind of thinking has become across the nonprofit sector to date, two things are clear. First, the core idea has long existed in the form of “protected workshops.” Goodwill Industries, a national organization, and Vocational Guidance Services of Cleveland, Ohio, for example, both employ handicapped people to produce marketable goods and services. But the notion that markets can be engaged to address social missions appears to have expanded significantly in recent years under the rubric of “social purpose enterprises” (Emerson and Twersky 1996). The basic concept is that people who are challenged in various physical, psychological, or social ways can have their needs best addressed by becoming more selfsufficient through the learning and application of marketable skills and employment experience. This notion has been applied to a wide variety of circumstances and projects, including a furniture factory employing low-income members of an Asian American neighborhood, a screen-printing business employing Hispanic youth, a gourmet bakery that hires and trains unemployable workers, a job-training service for inner-city residents, an aircraft parts manufacturing operation employing ex-offenders, and many others. Nor is the general concept of addressing the mis-


sion through the market limited to social services and employment. For example, environmental groups use the market in various ways, such as warehousing and reselling discarded materials or engaging in environmentally friendly projects, such as operating a bicycle valet service (Young and Salamon 2002). Interestingly, there has also been convergence toward social enterprise from the for-profit side. Corporations such as the Body Shop, Newman’s Own, and Ben and Jerry’s have made their reputations by engaging in environmentally and socially progressive business practices and allocating profits for philanthropic causes. Ironically, this convergence of business and nonprofit practices around social enterprise is another factor that obfuscates differences between businesses and nonprofit organizations and may increase the perception that nonprofits have become more like commercial business (or vice versa). Changes in Internal Operations and Culture The growing interface with markets has been accompanied by changes in nonprofits’ internal operations and culture. In addition to a newfound orientation to market-based solutions, these changes have been manifested in several other ways, including a new emphasis on professional management; the adoption of business language, methods, and practices; and a shift in emphasis from social to business goals. Professional Management In one sense, the trend toward employing professional managers is part of an overall professionalization trend in which paid staff have taken over work that once would have been carried out by volunteers and amateurs. The latter secular trend has several roots, including the increasing complexity and sophistication of work carried out by nonprofit organizations in social services, health care, education, environmental conservation, and other areas, as well as changes in labor markets that have opened up new opportunities for women and made them less available for volunteering. However, the move toward professional management is also unique in some ways. In particular, nonprofit administrators traditionally have been drawn largely from the ranks of direct service professionals who, over time, took on administrative respon-

sibilities in the course of their careers. Thus, professors became deans, social workers became program and executive directors, doctors became hospital administrators, and so on. Although this pattern is still common, a new stream of talent has begun to enter the ranks of nonprofit management—individuals with degrees in nonprofit management or another management-related discipline, and service professionals who have returned to school for professional management education. It is only within the past twenty years that professional education programs have existed for nonprofit managers (Young 2002). Within that time period, these programs have grown exponentially and are beginning to change the character of the management function within nonprofit organizations. In essence, through the engagement of professional management, nonprofits have in some ways come to operate more like business corporations and bureaucracies despite the fact that the new stream of nonprofit management education emphasizes the differences as well as the similarities between nonprofit management, business management, and public administration. Changes in Methods and Language Accompanying the shift to professional management, nonprofits now use words, concepts, and methods that were foreign to the sector just two decades ago. These include entrepreneurship, marketing, franchising, strategic planning, performance incentives, business plans, and other business concepts. Nonprofits are beginning to think about cost and profit centers and organizing their accounts so that they can determine the impact of their various units on both their social missions and their financial bottom lines. More than just language, these ideas and methods have been embraced by large segments of the nonprofit sector, mostly to good effect in helping nonprofits to pursue their social missions more effectively. At the same time, their adoption has clouded the differences between nonprofits and business organizations. Goal Displacement Several of the factors cited above raise the concern that some nonprofit organizations are beginning to

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give greater priority to organizational survival and financial well-being and less to the achievement of the social missions for which they have been established. Whether this has actually occurred to a substantial extent in practice remains unclear. However, the apprehension arises for several reasons. First, the changing mix of nonprofit personnel, with an increasing emphasis on paid professional and managerial workers, yields organizations in which the members have a greater economic stake in the organization’s financial success. Second, the increasing competition that nonprofit organizations face in their service markets requires them to behave more like for-profit firms in order to survive. For example, a nonprofit hospital can afford only so much free charity care or may be reluctant to couple its care with unreimbursed teaching and research if its for-profit competitors avoid such work. Third, the increasing collaboration with business, including the engagement of business volunteers in nonprofit governance and operations and joint ventures with business, may influence nonprofit leaders to think more like business executives. Finally, engaging in profit-making ventures as sources of revenue and as means to achieving mission-related goals and engaging staff with entrepreneurial skills to develop such enterprises contain the potential to shift the organization’s thinking. In effect, the confluence of these factors may have a profound impact on the goals and priorities that a nonprofit organization pursues over time, whatever its rhetoric may be.

Issues and Consequences The cluster of phenomena grouped under the rubric of nonprofit commercialism raises important issues and concerns for the future of nonprofit organizations. Not all the potential consequences are negative by any means. Indeed, the pursuit of earned income opportunities, collaborations with business, and employment of business methods appear to hold great potential for increasing the efficiency with which nonprofit organizations utilize their resources, the effectiveness with which they pursue their social missions, and, indeed, the level of resources that they bring to bear in the pursuit of important social goals. Given contemporary limits to government support and the continued modest rates of growth of giving

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and volunteering, market-based initiatives represent the most important source of growth of the nonprofit sector for the foreseeable future. Still, the issues and concerns raised by nonprofit commercialism merit serious attention. As the discussion of goal displacement above suggests, nonprofit commercialism threatens to obfuscate the clear identity of nonprofit organizations by conflating their social character and goals with those of the business sector and even producing hybrid forms that are difficult to pigeonhole into one sector or another. Such loss of identity is threatening in a number of ways. It may have a chilling effect on donors and volunteers, inducing them to contribute less than they might otherwise because they may feel their contributions less necessary or because they lose trust in these organizations. Indeed, commercialism may also undermine the trust that clients and government officials place in nonprofit organizations, ultimately threatening the special tax exemption and other benefits that nonprofits currently enjoy. Interestingly, the contemporary emphasis on accountability, performance measurement, and evaluation of nonprofit organizations reflects both sides of the nonprofit commercialism issue. On the one hand, a new emphasis on performance assessment follows logically from the deeper interactions of nonprofit organizations with the business sector. On the other, the need for performance assessment may have become more urgent because of growing skepticism about nonprofit organizations stemming from their growing commercialism. Dennis R. Young References and further reading Anheier, Helmut K., and Stefan Toepler. 1998. “Commerce and the Muse: Are Art Museums Becoming Commercial?” In To Profit or Not to Profit, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 233–248. New York: Cambridge University Press. Austin, James E. 2000. The Collaboration Challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ben-Ner, Avner. 2003. “Outsourcing by Nonprofit Organizations.” In Effective Economic Decision Making by Nonprofit Organizations, edited by Dennis R. Young, 67–82. New York: Foundation Center. Cain, Louis, and Dennis Meritt Jr. 1998. “Zoos and Aquariums.” In To Profit or Not to Profit, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 217–232. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Common Good

Crimmins, James C., and Mary Keil. 1983. Enterprise in the Nonprofit Sector. New York: Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Emerson, Jed, and Faye Twersky, eds. 1996. New Social Entrepreneurs. San Francisco: Roberts Foundation. James, Estelle. 1983. “How Nonprofits Grow: A Model.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 2 (Spring): 350–365. ———. 1998. “Commercialism among Nonprofits: Objectives, Opportunities and Constraints.” In To Profit or Not to Profit, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 271–285. New York: Cambridge University Press. Salamon, Lester M., Helmut K. Anheier, Regina List, Stefan Toepler, S. Wojciech Sokolowski and Associates. 1999. Global Civil Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. ———, ed. 2002. The State of Nonprofit America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Schiff, Jerald, and Burton A. Weisbrod. 1991. “Competition between For-Profit and Nonprofit Organizations in Commercial Markets.” Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 62(4): 619–639. Skloot, Edward, ed. 1988. The Nonprofit Entrepreneur. New York: Foundation Center. Weisbrod, Burton A. 1988. The Nonprofit Economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———, ed. 1998. To Profit or Not to Profit. New York: Cambridge University Press. Young, Dennis R. 1998. “Commercialism in Nonprofit Social Service Associations: Its Character, Significance and Rationale.” In To Profit or Not to Profit, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 195–216. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002. “The Evolution of University-Based Nonprofit Management Education in the U.S.” Nonprofit Review 2(1): 1–10. ———, ed. 2003. Effective Economic Decision Making by Nonprofit Organizations. New York: Foundation Center. Young, Dennis R., and Lester M. Salamon. 2002. “Commercialization, Social Ventures and For-Profit Competition.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 423–446. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Committee on Gift Annuities See American Council on Gift Annuities

Common Good The idea of the common good presupposes that individual well-being depends on the existence of moral interdependence in some society, whether local, national,

or global. In today’s pluralistic societies, the common good consists largely in the recognition that every person requires certain social, civil, political, economic, and environmental conditions to flourish and that maintaining these conditions is a shared responsibility. As a term in ethics, the “common good” can be distinguished from “private goods” and “public goods.” Private goods are the ends that a person seeks for him or herself and for family members and other intimates. Public goods serve the interests of many— for example, good roads—but require state action to produce them. Although the common good may sustain private goods and may benefit from public efforts, it is located in what people hold in common as social beings. That people are social shows first in the broader relationships that people develop in pursuit of shared goals. By working out agreements about these goals and cooperating to obtain them, individuals form bonds that shape their own sense of meaning and identity. In addition to these formative bonds, being social means that people depend on each other in meeting their basic needs. However loosely a society is structured, this material interdependence motivates a moral responsibility to ensure conditions conducive to everyone being able to realize these basic needs. Thus, the common good is reflected in the fabric of communal relationships and in the structures of interdependence that make people’s lives meaningful and viable. A brief review of the history of Western thought about the common good indicates why the concept is elusive today. For classical authors, the common good consisted in the collective ends pursued by the state’s citizens (Aristotle) or by all of its people (Cicero). Christian thinkers, such as Augustine, identified the proper ends and ordering of people’s lives with God’s purposes, but he and Thomas Aquinas, more clearly still, argued that participation in a political community is instrumental to an ultimate fellowship with God. These authors described the common good as a hierarchy of goods to which everyone should submit. Such a conception of the common good has met with considerable distrust in the history of the United States. In colonial times, appeals to a uniform vision

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Common Good

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225?–1274), Italian scholastic philosopher. Fresco by Fra Angelico. (Florence S. Marco Museum, undated. BPA 2 #4291; Bettmann/Corbis)

of the good legitimated the religious conformity of Puritan communities and mandatory taxes for established churches. White slave owners’ control of African Americans and the imposition of restrictive roles on women were justified on similar grounds. Examples like these have caused some theorists to doubt whether the common good exists at all. The British utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued that there is nothing beyond the “greatest happiness of the greatest number,” understood as the best possible satisfaction of individuals’ aggregated interests. Likewise, the long-held suspicion in the United States that the common good stands for the vision and privileges of an elite has contributed to this country’s reliance on individualistic mechanisms of consumer choice and interest-group politics to grant priority to private

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goods and to leave individuals free to pursue their own conception of the good life. Advocates for the common good argue, however, that individualism cannot account for the forms of moral interdependence that people develop and require for personal well-being. Instead of detailing the one hierarchy of goods necessary to the one good life, recent theorists of the common good have investigated the conditions needed for a flourishing life lived with others, many of whom will disagree about the contents of such good lives. The French Roman Catholic thinker Jacques Maritain’s “personalism” exemplifies this shift from uniform goals across the polity to enabling structures throughout society. He argued that certain liberal institutions are compatible with and necessary to the common good because the

Community Development and Organizations

common good rightly serves people’s dignity and well-being. That goal requires guaranteeing such conditions as political and civil rights, the freedom to participate in debates over public priorities, and the liberty to engage in initiatives by oneself and with others (1966 [1946]). Defining the common good in terms of the conditions required for human flourishing does not remove the tensions addressed above. Even if it is agreed that the common good plays a critical role in people’s lives, the fact of pluralism means that no clear conception of it will be held by everyone. That does not imply, though, that citizens cannot strive to imagine and extend the common good through action and debate aimed at fostering a mutually beneficial life for all. Engaged philanthropy offers one avenue for such contributions. David M. Craig References and further reading Hollenbach, David. 1989. “The Common Good Revisited.” Theological Studies 50 (1): 70–94. ———. 2002. The Common Good and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maritain, Jacques. 1966 [1946]. The Person and the Common Good. Translated by John J. Fitzgerald. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Mount, Eric, Jr. 1999. Covenant, Community, and the Common Good. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press. Nemetz, A. 1967. “Common Good.” In New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4, 15–19. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wuthnow, Robert. 1998. Loose Connections: Joining Together in America’s Fragmented Communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Community Development and Organizations Community development is a comprehensive planned approach for addressing human care needs. Based on the assumption that the people impacted by an issue or condition should be involved in developing and implementing the solution, it incorporates the process of engaging residents and other stakeholders in sustained, collaborative efforts to strengthen and improve conditions in a defined geographic area. Effective community development is not a collection of agencies that provide separate programs for separate problems; rather, it is a process through which indi-

viduals, associations, and organizations assemble to exchange services and act together for the good of their community. Community development starts by working with community or neighborhood residents and leaders to identify and mobilize assets—the skills, abilities, and resources of all residents, associations, and organizations—and, based on the collective agenda, leveraging community resources to complement, not replace, the existing assets. The long-term success and sustainability of community development depends on strong, active citizen involvement. Utilizing the community development approach, the work of organizations and institutions is to strategically leverage individual, neighborhood, and community resources to address community issues and to build strong communities through enhanced citizen involvement. Many national foundations support community development efforts as a means to effectively address the issues of poverty and crime in low-income urban and rural neighborhoods. The Ford Foundation defines community development as “an approach to improve the quality of life and opportunities for positive change in urban and rural communities. Our goal is to develop community-based institutions that mobilize and leverage philanthropic capital, investment capital, knowledge, skills, and natural resources in a responsible and fair manner” (http://www.fordfound.org). The Community Development Society, a professional society for community advocates, has developed the following community development principles to help guide organizations and professionals in carrying out their community development practice: Promote active and representative participation toward enabling all community members to meaningfully influence the decisions that affects their lives; Engage community members in learning about and understanding community issues, and the economic, social, environmental, political, psychological and other impacts associated with alternative courses of action; Incorporate the diverse interests and cultures of the community in the community development process; and disengage from support of any effort that is likely to adversely affect the disadvantaged members of a community; Work actively to enhance the leadership capacity of community members, leaders, and groups

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within the community; and, Be open to using the full range of action strategies to work toward the long term sustainability and well being of the community. (http:// www.comm-dev.org/principles.htm)

The two major types of organizations involved in community development are community development corporations (CDCs) and community development financial institutions (CDFIs). CDCs are community-based, nonprofit organizations created for the purpose of developing and improving low-income communities and neighborhoods through housing development, economic development, and other related activities. They are typically governed by a local board of directors comprised of residents from the CDC’s geographic area and managed by a professional staff of community economic development professionals. The activities undertaken by a CDC usually include housing-related activities, including affordable housing development and home ownership, and economic development, including microenterprise development and small business training and incubation. Utilizing an asset-based approach, most CDCs address local issues by working to identify and build on existing neighborhood assets. The number of CDCs has grown steadily over the past twenty years, and CDCs are now located in most large and medium-sized cities in the country. Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are nonprofit organizations or financial intermediaries created to support community development activities by providing credit, capital, or support services to small businesses or home mortgage assistance to individuals. The primary mission of CDFIs is to promote economic development both in urban and rural areas that are underserved by traditional financial institutions. As in the case of the CDCs, CDFIs are typically governed by a citizen board of directors dedicated to representing and improving the quality of life in a targeted geographical area. CDFIs make loans and investments that are often considered inappropriate or “high-risk” for mainstream financial institutions. They provide access to capital for community development activities that normally would not have access to the capital needed. CDFIs serve as a bridge between the low- and moderate-income com-

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munity and the normal credit markets. The services provided by most CDFIs include providing financial services, loans, and investments; offering training and technical assistance services; and promoting development efforts that enable individuals and communities to effectively use the credit and capital they offer. The different types of CDFIs include community development banks, which provide financial loans and investments to support community development activities; community development credit unions, selfhelp credit unions that provide affordable credit and financial services to low-income individuals who do not have access to normal banking institutions; community development loan funds, which work to create below-market loan funds from socially responsible investors to support community development activities in low-income communities; community development venture capital funds, which provide start-up capital for real estate and new business development in economically distressed areas; and microenterprise loan funds, which provide microbusiness loans and technical assistance to low-income individuals interested in starting small businesses. In 2000, there were more than 500 CDFIs in the United States, with at least one in every state. As the community development field has matured, more CDCs have become involved in what is termed comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs). In response to growing needs in the communities they serve, many CDCs have gone beyond their economic and housing development roots, expanding their programs and partnerships to provide an array of community-building activities, such as job training and career placement, child care, youth counseling and programming, cultural arts projects, and community advocacy and organizing. CDC participants have realized that to be effective in improving the quality of life in their communities they must go beyond their “bricks and mortar” approach to address a wide variety of needs through a comprehensive community development approach. H. Daniels Duncan See also Grassroots Associations References and further reading Annie E. Casey Foundation, http://www.aecf.org (cited January 20, 2003).

Community Foundations

Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCDI), Community Development Program at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research, http://www. northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.html (cited January 20, 2003). Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago, http://www2-chc.spc.uchicago.edu/index.html (cited January 20, 2003). Chaskin, Robert J. 2000. Lessons Learned from the Implementation of the Neighborhood and Family Initiative: A Summary of Findings. Chicago: University of Chicago, Chapin Hall Center for Children. Community Development Society, http://www.commdev.org/ (cited January 20, 2003). Ferguson, Ronald F., and William T. Dickens, eds. 1999. Urban Problems and Community Development. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Ford Foundation, http://www.fordfound.org (cited January 20, 2003). Homan, Mark S. 1998. Rules of the Game: Lessons from the Field of Community Change. Pacific Grove, CA. Brooks/Cole. Housing and Community Development Knowledgeplex, http://www.knowledgeplex.org/ (cited January 20, 2003). Kingsley, Thomas G., Joseph B. McNeely, and James O. Gibson. 1997. Community Building Coming of Age. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Kretzmann, John P., and John L. McKnight. 1993. Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path toward Finding and Mobilizing Community Assets. Evanston, IL: Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, Northwestern University. McKnight, John. 1995. Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits. New York. Basic Books. National Community Building Network, http://www.ncbn. org (cited January 20, 2003). Walker, Christopher, and Mark Weinheimer. 1998. Community Development in the 1990s. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Community Foundations A community foundation is an unusual sort of philanthropic institution. Composed of a group (or “community”) of funds, it serves a limited geographic region or occasionally an otherwise specified “community” of donors and potential beneficiaries. Community foundations offer donors the investment management and beneficiary selection services of a large foundation as well as a less expensive, more flexible means than the cy pres legal procedure to change

beneficiaries when warranted. They enable likeminded donors to work together. A good number of community foundations also offer significant consensus-building and leadership services to the communities they serve. In almost every case, community foundations are incorporated under the specific laws of their home state. At present, they operate under federal rules implementing the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which granted them exemption from new fees and regulations applying to private foundations so long as they remain “public charities” that not only spend (in operations and grants) 5 percent of the average value of their endowments over the previous three years, but also raise (from a number of different donors) the same 5 percent in new gifts to their endowments. The first community foundations in the United States appeared in the World War I years. They flourished in three remarkable spurts, during the 1920s, the 1950s, and the 1990s, and recently they have grown more rapidly than other types of foundations. Until the 1980s, community foundations were concentrated in the states of the Midwest and the Northeast, and just six of the largest—in the Cleveland, New York City, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco areas—held half of all community foundation assets. Since 1980, significant community foundations have appeared in almost every metropolitan region with a population of more than 1 million. Statewide community foundations have emerged in twenty states, including New Jersey, Arizona, Oregon, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire as well as most of the less populated states in the South, the Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountains. Extraordinary efforts led by the Mott, Lilly, and Kellogg foundations have greatly increased the numbers of community foundations in a few states, notably Indiana and Michigan. And growing community foundations have emerged across the South. In 2001, community foundations held assets of about $31.6 billion, somewhat more than 6 percent of all foundation assets (see Table 1). The Council on Foundations and the Columbus Foundation, which annually survey the field, counted a total of 658 community foundations in 2001. Fewer than half of these had assets of more than $10 million, sufficient at 5

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Table 1 U.S. Community Foundation Assets, 1921–2001

Year

Total Assets in 2001 Dollars (millions)

Average Annual Growth Rate in Period (%)

Assets of Six Largest Community Foundations as Share of All Assets (%)

1921 1931 1941 1951 1962 1973 1983 1987 2001

69 431 651 749 2,492 4,787 4,979 7,357 31,630

52 5 1.5 21 8 0.4 12 24

76 58 42 45 45 48 50 44 22

percent to support an annual budget of just $500,000 for all operations, including rent, office staff, and fundraising. These smaller community foundations must of necessity concentrate on fundraising; sometimes, they also distribute funds provided by other large donors. The sixty-four largest (including the statewide foundations of Oregon, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Arizona, New Hampshire, Delaware, and Maine) had assets of more than $100 million in 2001. Of 2001’s twenty largest community foundations— the “peacocks”—eight were in the Midwest, four in the East, two in the South, and six in the West. (See Table 2 for the assets of community foundations in the largest metropolitan areas.) Frederick Harris Goff, the architect of the first community foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, in 1914, emphasized two public purposes that have been widely influential: the accumulation of permanent charitable endowments (as distinct from the annual operating funds of the United Ways and the like), and efforts to implement locally, in private as well as public agencies, new policies for social welfare, health, and education that had been developed through the disciplined inquiry supported by such national foundations as Rockefeller and Carnegie. Because even the largest community foundations have never been able to make really large grants, however, they have emphasized services to donors and, in recent years, their roles as regional “conveners” for discussions of such complex matters as urban and rural economic development, the

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concerns of women and racial minorities, the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations, and the response to emergencies such as those posed by AIDS and by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The community foundation idea spread rapidly from its initial appearance in Cleveland because it constituted a key component of a new framework for philanthropic and nonprofit activity. This new framework distinguished religious from secular purposes; permitted more professional control of medical, educational, and social services; and developed funding and coordinating agencies that drew funds from the metropolitan community as a whole. In keeping with the new emphasis on interfaith cooperation that seemed essential as Cleveland’s manufacturing plants attracted large new populations of Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Jews to what had once been a predominantly Protestant region, the Cleveland foundation’s funds were to be used for “mental, moral, and physical improvement . . . regardless of race, color or creed” (Magat 1989, 26). During the 1920s, these broad purposes recommended community foundations to business leaders throughout the greater midwestern region that extends from Pittsburgh and Buffalo west to Denver and south to Dallas and Winston-Salem. The Trust Division of the American Bankers Association (ABA) established a Committee on Community Trusts in 1920, and midwestern chambers of commerce advanced community foundations and federated fundraising campaigns as devices to support healthcare and social agencies, to subordinate them to a central community chest, and to promote new professional standards in public health and social work. Northeasterners saw the community foundation as a “mechanism” for the “conservation and distribution of charitable funds” (Magat 1989, 30). The New York Community Trust, established in 1920, early influenced the field by adopting from the start the “multiple trust plan” arrangement first employed in Indianapolis, whereby several banks served as trustees. The New York fund also emphasized service to donors: One of its first funds was established as early as 1925 to provide scholarships at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; in 1931, it accepted its first “donor-advised fund.” As they gathered large resources, however, many


Table 2 U.S. Community Foundations, Assets per Capita, Metropolitan Regions Greater than 1 Million, 2001 Metropolitan Region Cleveland-Akron-Lorain-Elyria-Canton Hartford Columbus San Francisco–Oakland–San Jose Minneapolis-St. Paul Kansas City Oklahoma City Providence–Fall River–Warwick Pittsburgh Indianapolis Cincinnati-Hamilton Greensboro–Winston–Salem–High Point Portland, Oregon Milwaukee-Racine Charlotte–Gastonia–Rock Hill Dallas–Fort Worth Louisville Rochester Tulsa Boston-Worcester-Lawrence-Manchester Chicago-Gary-Kenosha San Diego Nashville New York City Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton Phoenix-Mesa Buffalo–Niagara Falls Detroit Atlanta Norfolk–Virginia Beach–Newport News Denver-Boulder-Greeley New Orleans San Antonio Jacksonville Philadelphia–Wilmington–Atlantic City Washington-Baltimore Los Angeles–Riverside–Orange County Austin–San Marcos Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater Miami–Fort Lauderdale St. Louis Sacramento-Yolo Houston-Galveston Salt Lake City–Ogden

of the northeastern foundations began to assert themselves. By 1930, the Permanent Charity Fund of Boston reported to the American Bankers Association that it was requiring each of the 117 organizations that received its funds to “consider itself in relation to the

Total Assets of Region’s Community Foundations

Assets per Capita

$1,769,781,606 $572,952,397 $738,863,948 $2,930,828,822 $1,188,174,679 $636,106,000 $363,174,929 $366,300,103 $561,925,137 $378,722,109 $450,911,304 $270,152,971 $476,622,423 $312,875,374 $254,010,244 $855,368,233 $160,137,429 $168,825,308 $153,775,994 $815,985,863 $1,175,149,684 $344,379,402 $143,581,345 $2,206,170,504 $362,752,386 $323,381,648 $113,327,275 $487,380,364 $366,735,780 $137,398,667 $447,572,172 $100,400,000 $100,047,697 $68,864,610 $369,571,197 $366,381,101 $717,468,861 $53,066,977 $75,017,633 $150,678,549 $67,423,401 $36,226,140 $68,411,820 $3,573,773

$527.82 $484.32 $479.78 $416.37 $400.19 $358.17 $335.34 $308.07 $238.20 $235.67 $227.85 $215.78 $210.43 $185.13 $169.45 $163.80 $156.08 $153.76 $149.88 $140.23 $128.32 $122.38 $116.64 $104.06 $102.04 $99.44 $96.86 $89.33 $89.19 $87.52 $76.90 $75.04 $62.84 $62.60 $59.72 $48.16 $43.82 $42.45 $31.31 $30.09 $25.89 $20.16 $14.65 $2.68

whole work of the community, and to adopt a uniform accounting system” (Magat 1989, 30). The Great Depression interrupted community foundation growth. The ABA Committee on Community Trusts ceased to function in 1933, and twenty-five

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of the ninety-one community foundations that had started by 1939 closed entirely. In 1949, just thirty-five earned the minimum $10,000 required to maintain the smallest office. A new group of leaders in community planning now took the lead, working through a new National Committee on Foundations and Trusts for Community Welfare. New community foundations often took the form of the self-perpetuating charitable corporation (already adopted, largely for tax purposes, in Boston and several other cities) to the bank trust agreement. They also preferred the multiple trustee plan, which gave all banks providing trust services a reason to encourage donors. Definitions of community purpose continued to change and to attract controversy. Immediately after World War II, most postwar community foundation leaders insisted that their main purpose was to strengthen the community chest movement that had been devastated by the Depression. This was a serious matter at the time: In cities such as Cleveland, the community chest had been raising as much as half or more of the funds that supported local hospitals and social welfare agencies. Many established community foundations promoted the community chest; elsewhere, community chest leaders pushed community foundations. By the 1950s, more than half of community foundation grants seem to have gone for the operating expenses of social agencies. But leaders of the San Francisco Foundation, founded in 1949, and other community foundations never embraced the community chest alliance. By the early 1950s, the civil rights and women’s movements challenged the white Protestant men who had defined “community” for nearly all foundations. Paul Ylvisaker of the Ford Foundation, seeking ways “to move out of safe and sane hospital, university and similar do-nothing grants . . . to begin getting after the more gutsy urban problems” in the late 1950s, suggested that substantial Ford grants might “gain the large-scale leverage necessary for getting this country to wake up to social change” (Magat 1989, 37). Such Ford initiatives with community foundations in Kansas City and Cleveland launched important community organizing and voter registration efforts; the relatively large community foundations in Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston followed with similar initiatives.

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Wright Patman of Texas and other congressional critics cited these Ford Foundation and community foundation efforts, in part, in their drive for the 1969 revisions of foundation regulations. It was not surprising that donations to community foundations lagged while this legislation was debated, a period of nearly ten years. To respond more effectively to Patman’s criticisms, the National Committee on Foundations and Trusts for Community Welfare reinvented itself as the comprehensive Council on Foundations, with permanent offices in Washington, D.C. Ultimately, the new regulations approved in the late 1970s gave community foundations, with their accountable boards and more adequate professional staffs, advantages over small family foundations. Most community foundations continued to value unrestricted endowments, but in the 1980s and 1990s nearly all also moved aggressively to attract money that might previously have gone into family foundations by emphasizing “special-interest” and “donor-advised” funds through which donors (and sometimes their heirs) might control and continue to influence the use of their money. The extraordinary expansion of federal support for health and social welfare, together with the equally extraordinary increase in the ability and willingness of Americans to pay for secondary and higher education, presented an even greater challenge than the new rules imposed by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. In 1960, private gifts accounted for a third or more of the income of schools, hospitals, and private welfare agencies; by 2000, they counted for only about a sixth—or less. Lacking sufficient resources to influence these nonprofit organizations, many community foundations—especially those that were small or new—simply emphasized their ability to serve as agents for their donors. In this field, they faced increasing competition from other charities, including United Ways and Catholic and Jewish federations. They also faced strong competition from some of the nation’s largest mutual fund companies—and found new ways to cooperate with such financial institutions as Merrill Lynch to provide increased services to donors. In the context of the international conflict with terrorism, all of these philanthropic intermediaries faced the challenge of ensuring that their beneficiary-evaluation

Confraternity

services reliably directed funds to legitimate charities. Community foundations and competing funds also faced the challenge of making sure that donors met federal and state “hands off ” requirements for receiving a charitable tax deduction when the donation went to a “donor-advised” fund. Across the United States, community foundations responded to these challenges with campaigns that attracted many new donors during the 1990s. Long-established foundations in Buffalo, Atlanta, and other cities expanded their focus to encompass their entire metropolitan regions; many of the larger foundations set up affiliates in nearby areas. Leaders in almost every large city that lacked a community foundation got together to create one. In Indiana, Michigan, and other states, philanthropic leaders built central offices to provide investment and grantmaking assistance to many small community foundations. The larger community foundations continue to seek to play catalytic roles, at least among substantial groups of donors in their communities. Many provide critical support for the arts and for public radio and television. Several manage special funds for women’s concerns, for African Americans and other minorities, and for those concerned about the environment. Several community foundations seek to advance the cause of local economic development— in rural counties, in urban neighborhoods, and in downtown areas. Some work to create and sustain new networks of community development or housing organizations. A few have joined with chambers of commerce, think tanks, and universities to find and begin to implement comprehensive regional economic development plans. Overall, as community foundations became more and more diverse, it became more and more difficult to characterize them in a single, coherent way. David C. Hammack See also Goff, Frederick Harris References and further reading Hammack, David C. 1996. “Philanthropy.” In The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, edited by David D. Van Tassel and John Grabowski, 764–768. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Loomis, Frank Denman. 1962. The Chicago Community Trust: A History of Its Development, 1915–62. Chicago: Chicago Community Trust.

Magat, Richard, ed. 1989. An Agile Servant. New York: Foundation Center. Newman, Diana S. 2002. Opening Doors: Pathways to Diverse Donors. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Tittle, Diana. 2000. Rebuilding Cleveland: The Cleveland Foundation and Its Evolving Urban Strategy. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Confraternity Broadly, “confraternity” is an English-language term derived from the Latin frater (brother) and referring to any Roman Catholic membership association operating under the authority of a bishop and canon law. Although the usual references are to male-membership and lay associations of a nonoccupational type, this is not always the case. Catholic membership associations whose members are predominantly or exclusively women, however, may be designated as “sodalities.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines confraternity as “a brotherhood; an association of men united for some purpose or in some common profession; esp, a brotherhood devoted to some particular religious or charitable service.” The Catholic Encyclopedia uses confraternity and sodality interchangeably as “voluntary associations of the faithful.” In general, it is possible to think of confraternities as philanthropic organizations devoted to practical tasks or instrumental missions, so long as one gives rather wide latitude to what may be deemed practical at different times in church history. Confraternities are distinguishable from such other forms of Catholic social organization as dioceses, parishes, and orders in part by this shared purpose or mission. Confraternities, which were especially prominent in the social order of medieval Europe, where they were often distinguished primarily from guilds (or “gilds”) formed by groups of merchants or craftsmen, are comparable in many respects to the American concept of voluntary associations. Participation in any association sanctioned by episcopal authority, ecclesiastical obligation, and divine sanction may hardly be designated “voluntary” in the ordinary sense, however. The importance of explicit grants of authority, obligation, and sanction are evident when one contemplates the line between confraternal actions and heretical

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Confraternity

movements (including the Protestant Reformation) in the history of Catholicism. Philanthropy organized through confraternities reaches deep into the history of Christianity and other world religions. Christianity produced a wealth of philanthropic institutions associated with monastic establishments, cathedrals, parishes, chantries, and local dioceses. As early as the fourth century, bishops such as John Chrysostom of Antioch laid down rules for the foundation and operation of local associations within the broader penumbra of the organized church (Wilkin 1983). Lay confraternities such as the wellknown Knights of Columbus (KoC) represent one of the most interesting and least studied modern survivals of medieval Christendom within the organizational network of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church (http://www.kofc.org/; http://www.new advent.org/cathen/08670c.htm). As of this writing, the Library of Congress catalog lists only twelve entries on the KoC, none of which appears to be a critical or scholarly work. One of the most distinctive periods in the history of confraternities was the late nineteenth century, which saw a rapid rise of fraternalism in the United States. Equally remarkable is the European upsurge that occurred in the wake of St. Francis of Assisi within the indigenous local political dynamics of the Italian city-states. The movement quickly spread to other localities, including Spain (Henderson 1997; Trexler 1991). The activities of confraternal organizations in medieval Europe were sometimes rather different from the activities engaged in today. One rather dramatic example is the confraternity from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries in Florence that specialized in the creation and use of “images of shame” (tavolettas), paintings on religious subjects held in front of the eyes of condemned prisoners on their way to the gallows by a confrater walking backward, who would pray with the condemned (Edgerton 1985). There is little doubt that life in medieval urban social worlds struggling with plague, warfare, famine, and the many other ills was well characterized by the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan as “mean, nasty, brutish and short.” In such contexts, preoccupation with death was a suitably

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practical task of much interest to various confraternities. James R. Banker (1988) examined the evolving commemoration of death over two centuries, from 1250 to the coming of Florentine rule in 1440, in the small Tuscan town of San Sepolcro in the Upper Tiber Valley. Confraternities were not always concerned just with the harsh realities of life. The tie between confraternities and the arts—notably painting, music, architecture, and sculpture—is an important one and has been a strong interest of humanist scholars. Recent studies have examined the architecture produced by a Venetian confraternity between 1437 and 1550 (Sohm 1982); the music in Venetian confraternities (Glixon 2003); the role of confraternities in patronizing the visual arts (Wisch 2000); and the role of confraternities in Seville, where patrons sponsored the creation of wooden sculptures used in processions during Holy Week (Webster 1998). Piety was an important dimension of medieval confraternities and deeply intertwined with art, charity, and politics (Barnes 1994; Crouch 2000; Eisenbickler 1991; Henderson 1997). An important subclass of medieval and modern confraternities are known as “confraternities of penitents.” In the thirteenth century, their numbers increased to such an extent that there were eventually more than 100 organizations in Rome alone. Each was distinguishable by the colors of its processional robes—white, black, blue, gray, red, violet, or green. Typically, members would combine penitential acts such as fasting, discipline, or wearing of hair shirts with activities somewhat similar to contemporary social care services. Taking care of the sick, burying the dead, bringing medical aid to the indigent, and providing dowries for poor girls were considered penitential acts for white penitents. Black penitents consoled criminals, accompanied them to the gallows, and buried them along with the poor and unidentified bodies found within the Roman Campagna. The confraternity movement was not limited to medieval Italy, however. In addition to the Knights of Columbus, an interesting and controversial modern form of penitential confraternity in the contemporary United States are the penitentes of New Mexico (Ahlborn 1986; Carroll 2002; De Aragon 1997; Steele

Confraternity

and Rivera 1984). Likewise, throughout the former territories of New Spain, New France, and predominantly Catholic cities and neighborhoods of the United States today, confraternities continue to be important forms of religious association for Catholics. In addition to the authority of the bishops, most confraternities had (and have) one or more patron saints, as well as patrons in a more earthly political and economic philanthropic sense. Thus, for example, St. Bonaventure, inquisitor-general of the Holy Office during the thirteenth century, prescribed the rules, as well as the white habit, of the most important of the white pentitents, the Archconfraternity of the Gonfalone, established in 1264 at Rome. Confraternities may be distinguished from other forms of Catholic voluntary association by at least three important variables: gender, occupation, and status. Most medieval and modern references to confraternities, in accordance with the Latin root of the term, refer to male associations that might be considered symbolic rather than genetic brotherhoods. Ronald F. Weissman captured precisely this connotation in the title of his 1981 book, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence. The role of confraternities in preserving and maintaining the fundamentally patrimonial authority structure of Catholicism is evident but little studied in the women’s literature. Women’s sodalities were not unknown in late medieval Florence, according to Richard C. Trexler (1991, 14). One might question his conclusion, however, that “they played no perceptible civic or neighborhood role” (ibid., 14). At any rate, Florentine women, as well as adolescents, youths, and adult salaried workers, were generally excluded from occupational associations (gilds) and from religious groups until the late fifteenth century (ibid., 14). Although confraternities are usually not occupationally based, there have been notable exceptions to this rule. In Renaissance Florence, for example, foreign artisans (who may not have been Catholic, but whom the Florentines nevertheless wished to keep in the city) were in some cases allowed to organize into confraternities (ibid., 14). Trexler also noted that Florentine gilds and confraternities both maintained constitutional distinctions between major and minor members along status lines. Confraternities were organized primarily by and for taxpaying nongildsmen,

although the leadership often came from important gilds (ibid., 15). The political and status dynamics of confraternities in Renaissance Florence were intimately tied up in traditional connotations of philanthropy going back to the Greeks. No less an authority than Niccolo Machiavelli noted, in his History, that the nobility had brought the city both necessary military virtue and a certain “generosity of feeling,” which were obliterated by the subsequent rise of the popolo, or common people, in the early sixteenth century (Machiavelli 1901 [1525], Book 3, ch. 1). Catholicism poses a host of special problems for contemporary philanthropic and religious studies: Is the Roman Catholic Church a single organization, a collaborative network of hundreds of distinct organizations, or even an international subculture? Is it an entire hierarchical social order (“Christendom,” “the church universal”) as rhetoric perfected in the High Middle Ages still proclaims today? Is the “communion of saints” an association of currently living persons or, as is claimed theologically, an association of the presently living and dead and all those unborn? In what sense are associations formed as an expression of religious obligation “voluntary” associations? These are questions much easier to pose than to answer. There is a rich literature on confraternities, only a small portion of which is available to the Englishreading audience. The Library of Congress catalog, for example, lists almost 200 books on the subject in English, French, Spanish, German, Latin, and other languages dating from the 1500s. Easy entry points into the literature of confraternities include an essay by Andrew Barnes (1991) that reviews several books on Italian and Spanish confraternities in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, and entries on the subject in The Catholic Encyclopedia. The rich literature, some of which is cited here, on confraternities in Florence, Venice, and the other Italian citystates has many strong ties to contemporary civil society and social capital discussions (Putnam 1995). For those with a more intense interest in the subject, the Society for Confraternity Studies, based in Toronto, produces a regular online newsletter (http://www. library.utoronto.ca/crrs/Confraternitas/scs.htm). Roger A. Lohmann

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References and further reading Ahlborn, Richard E. 1986. The Penitente Moradas of Abiquiâu. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Banker, James R. 1988. Death in the Community: Memorialization and Confraternities in the Italian Commune in the Late Middle Ages. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Barnes, Andrew. 1991. “Poor Relief and Brotherhood.” Journal of Social History 24 (3): 603–611. Carroll, Michael P. 2002. The Penitente Brotherhood: Patriarchy and Hispano-Catholicism in New Mexico. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Crouch, David J. F. 2000. Piety, Fraternity, and Power: Religious Gilds in Late Medieval Yorkshire, 1389–1547. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, and Rochester, New York: York Medieval Press. De Aragon, Ray John. 1997. Hermanos de la Luz: Living Tradition of the Penitente Faith. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light. Edgerton, Samuel Y. 1985. Pictures and Punishment: Art and Criminal Prosecution during the Florentine Renaissance. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Eisenbichler, Konrad. 1991. Crossing the Boundaries: Christian Piety and the Arts in Italian Medieval and Renaissance Confraternities. Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 15. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University. Glixon, Jonathan Emmanuel. 2003. Honoring God and the City: Music at the Venetian Confraternities, 1260–1807. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Henderson, John. 1997. Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. New York: Oxford University Press. Knights of Columbus, http://www.kofc.org/. “Knights of Columbus,” http://www.newadvent.org/ cathen/08670c.htm. Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1901 [1525]. History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy from the Earliest Times to the Death of Lorenzo the Magnificent. New York: W. Walter Dunne. Putnam, Robert D. 1995. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Society for Confraternity Studies, http://www.library. utoronto.ca/crrs/Confraternitas/scs.htm. Sohm, Philip L. 1982. The Scuola Grande Di San Marco, 1437–1550: The Architecture of a Venetian Lay Confraternity. Outstanding Dissertations in the Fine Arts. New York: Garland. Steele, Thomas J., and Rowena A. Rivera. 1985. Penitente Self-Government: Brotherhoods and Councils, 1797–1947. Santa Fe, NM: Ancient City Press. Trexler, Richard C. 1991. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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Webster, Susan V. 1998. Art and Ritual in Golden Age Spain: Sevillan Confraternities and the Processional Sculpture of Holy Week. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Weissman, Ronald F. E. 1981. Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence. Population and Social Structure. Advances in Historical Demography. New York: Academic Press. Wilkin, Robert L. 1983. John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wisch, Barbara, and Diane Cohl Ahl, eds. 2000. Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy: Ritual, Spectacle, Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Consumer Cooperatives A cooperative is a form of economic organization in which a business is owned and governed by a group of voluntary members for the benefit of these members, rather than being established for the profit of its investors. This organization may range from a loose association of individuals who come together for a single purpose and then disband to a formal, self-sustaining legal entity with an ongoing mission. The members of a cooperative might be individuals, families, households, or more formal organizations such as businesses or other cooperatives. The main difference between an incorporated cooperative and a stock-issuing corporation is that ownership is distributed equally amongst all members and it is not possible for one member to acquire the ownership stakes, privileges, and responsibilities of other owners. Membership implies not only a commitment to the organization and the ability to receive benefits, but partial ownership of the organization and a voice in governance issues. The resources contributed by the individual members may include financial support, labor, legal expertise, and a physical space in which business can be conducted. Both membership criteria and distributed benefits may vary widely from one cooperative to the next. Although each member/owner has a potential voice in the operation of the cooperative, the members may delegate some decision-making authority to any person or body within or outside the organization. Managers, for example, might be hired to oversee day-to-day operations, or accounting firms might be hired to handle financial transactions.

Consumer Cooperatives

Workers at Fruit Growers Packing Co-op (James L. Amos/Corbis)

A consumer cooperative is a special type of cooperative in which individuals pool resources in order to purchase goods as a single collective body and then distribute these goods through various mechanisms. In general, a consumer cooperative is at least a semiformal business organization that seeks to provide benefits on an ongoing basis. When the organization is a legal entity, it may acquire assets, hire employees, register as a nonprofit corporation, receive charitable donations, and protect its members from some forms of financial liability. A consumer cooperative is inherently philanthropic in that in order to attract and retain membership it must provide some selective incentive that cannot be more easily obtained through individual consumer actions or from other organizations. This incentive might take the form of lower prices for goods purchased by members, forms of personal interaction made possible when conducting actions of collective

behavior, or the personal satisfaction obtained when the organization provides benefits and services to those beyond its membership. By channeling the money that would be spent on these goods through a single organization, the cooperative can offer the benefits of collective action in areas beyond the direct market transaction. The degree and kind of philanthropy supported by the cooperative depends on both type of benefits extended as well as the scope of intended recipients, which are generally outlined in the organization’s bylaws or mission statements. Many consumer cooperatives focus on providing benefits to members within a specific geographic location. Others might concentrate on specific goods that are purchased with some degree of frequency, such as food products, clothing, or electricity. These products might be purchased for individual use and consumption, but they could also be used in the manufacture of other products or sold as retail items in

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noncooperative venues. In rural areas, for example, farmers might form a consumer cooperative in order to secure better pricing and distribution of seed or fertilizer, and then form a producer cooperative for the collection, storage, and selling of harvested grains. Many regional grocery stores are members of consumer cooperatives, competing with each other for customers but working together to obtain lower wholesale and distribution costs overall. The Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society formed in England in 1844 is generally recognized as the first successful “modern” cooperative in the Western hemisphere. With an initial membership of twenty-eight individuals, the cooperative was established “to form arrangements for the pecuniary benefit, and the improvement of the social and domestic condition of its members” (Brown 1944, 23). Other consumer cooperatives, such as the Co-operative Wholesale Society in England and Wales (1863) and Scotland (1867), established wide-ranging distribution networks, providing imported food products at reasonable prices for the rising and increasingly prosperous working class. By 1900, consumer cooperatives in England had an estimated 1.7 million members. In the United States, many cooperative movements associated with agricultural or labor groups began in the nineteenth century, such as the National Grange movement and the Knights of Labor. Most of the cooperatives created by these organizations, however, failed owing to insolvency. The most successful consumer cooperatives were primarily in rural areas with a limited consumer base that could not support competitive markets. The economic disarray created during World War I provided the strongest foothold for the cooperative movement. Consumer cooperatives were later actively supported by the U.S. government during the Great Depression and World War II as an economic tool to help ensure the delivery of products to financially distressed Americans. The town of Greenbelt, Maryland, was one of three planned communities created by the federal government during the 1930s in which the majority of services were provided by cooperative organizations. The term “new-wave cooperative” describes consumer cooperatives formed primarily during and after the 1960s in mostly urban areas. It is generally used

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by consumer cooperatives that support liberal or progressive political agendas concerned with participatory democracy, consumer health, and environmental protection. Most new-wave cooperatives directly associate themselves with the original principles of the Rochdale Pioneers, including (1) open voluntary membership; (2) democratic control; (3) limited return, if any, on equity capital; (4) net surplus belonging to member/owners; (5) education; and (6) cooperation among cooperatives. These co-ops focus on benefits beyond providing lower costs to their members, such as offering products not available elsewhere (especially organic food), supporting local producers and economies, and actively engaging in political movements sympathetic to the membership’s ideologies. Craig Barton Upright References and further reading Brown, William Henry. 1944. The Rochdale Pioneers: A Century of Cooperation. Manchester: Co-operative Union Limited. Merret, Christopher D., and Norman Walzer. 1999. Bibliography of Cooperatives and Cooperative Development. Macomb, IL: Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs. Neptune, Robert. 1977. California’s Uncommon Markets: The Story of the Consumers Cooperatives, 1935–1977. Richmond, CA: Associated Cooperatives. Reddy, T. Subbi, and M. Hampanna. 1990. Essays on Consumer Co-operatives. New Dehli: Deep and Deep Publications. Sekerak, Emil, and Art Danforth. 1980. Consumer Cooperation: The Heritage and the Dream. Santa Clara, CA: Consumers Cooperative Publishing Association.

Contemporary Philanthropy Philanthropy has been the subject of more study in the past twenty-five years than at any other time in U.S. history. This popular and scholarly attention, reflected in a spate of books, articles, and university courses on the subject, have enriched our understanding of an important national characteristic. One hotly debated issue for scholars studying the role of charity in national institutions is whether philanthropy preserves economic inequalities in a capitalist society. Critics of Western democratic capitalism see private philanthropy as one of the many ideological means by which the capitalist class maintains its


privileged status. In Western societies of the past, religion supplied the dominant ideology by which the lower classes were reconciled to their fate on earth with the promise of heavenly rewards. In contemporary U.S. society, such principles as equality of opportunity, economic growth, individual initiative, and the absolute value of private property integrate citizens into a belief system that makes the financial success of some and the failure of others appear natural, even inevitable or just. From this critical viewpoint, a commitment to philanthropy—as opposed, for example, to efforts to achieve a more equal distribution of wealth—serves the interests of the capitalist class. Defenders of philanthropy, however, argue that the right to associate freely and to support formally such associations is a key to safeguarding American liberties. Conservatives may also find philanthropy, with its frequent progressive agenda, suspect, but they argue that volunteer associations provide a critically needed layer between citizens and government. The right of people to “vote their values” through charitable giving is viewed as essential in a pluralistic democracy. Another major issue is the public’s lack of understanding of the important historical role philanthropy has played in shaping U.S. history. Since the 1980s, more universities, however, began studying charitable giving in order to understand its effect on the nation’s past and present. Excellent programs in nonprofit management and philanthropy exist at Harvard University, the University of Southern California, Indiana University, and the University of San Francisco, among others. The range, extent, and growth of giving in the United States is astonishing. Donors gave an estimated $212 billion to charity in 2001, and donations outpaced inflation despite a weak economy from 1970 to the mid-1990s (AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy 2002). Giving by the nation’s 50,000 active grantmaking foundations ($25.9 billion in 2002) has increased more than other sources of contributions since 1990. The continuing importance of foundation giving lies in the ability to concentrate funds on selected projects, call attention to trends in special needs, and provide capital for unproven solutions to social problems. The formation of new foundations, as well as more openness and accountability among grantors and

grantees, is a trend that should continue. Corporate giving continues to raise controversy. In an era of downsizing, corporate officers have reduced charitable budgets, putting emphasis on gifts that enhance the marketability of their products and advance their business agenda. Short of cash, many corporations emphasize cause-related marketing partnerships with prestigious nonprofits, from major universities to human services groups such as Red Cross. The connection between giving and corporate interest has increased scrutiny of this sector. Should corporations engage in philanthropy with the funds of stockholders? Is corporate philanthropy just another marketing tool? These are avidly discussed questions in the early years of the twenty-first century. Biennial national surveys by the INDEPENDENT SECTOR reveal important trends in charitable behavior. There are 1.23 million nonprofits that benefit substantially from people giving their time and talent. In 2000, 44 percent of adults over age twenty-one volunteered this way; of these, 63 percent reported that they volunteered on a regular basis at least once monthly. An estimated 83.9 million adults volunteered some 15.5 billion hours. This labor force represented the equivalent of more than 9 million full-time employees at a value of $239 billion. Rates of volunteering continue to positively correlate with certain factors, including being asked to volunteer, gender (women are more likely to volunteer than men), and membership in religious organizations (Toppe 2002). Much scholarly attention on the part of INDEPENDENT SECTOR and other research organizations has focused on the diverse sources and recipients of giving. In 2001, $212 billion was given to charities. Approximately 84 percent of this came from individuals and bequests; the rest came from foundations (12 percent) and corporations (4 percent). The relative prosperity of the economy in the 1990s accounts for the use of foundation giving and the number of foundations of all types being started. Of the $212 billion, religious causes received 38 percent, education 15 percent, human services 10 percent, health 9 percent, arts and culture projects 6 percent, and environmental projects 3 percent of the total. These percentages have been relatively stable over the past decade (AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy 2002).

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In 2000, 89 percent of households made charitable donations. The average contributing household gave $1,620, or 3.1 percent of household income. Contributions included gifts of money, property, stocks, and other items of value. Households in which the respondents also volunteered typically gave substantially more than nonvolunteers. For donor households, the average contributions were $2,295 from volunteers and $1,009 from nonvolunteers. Moreover, higher rates of giving typically correlate positively with religious faith, childhood experiences where parents volunteered and made financial contributions, optimistic perceptions about the state of the economy, and being asked to give (only 57 percent of households were asked to give to one or more nonprofit organizations in 2000). In the early years of the twenty-first century, the age of electronic information and Internet access have created new opportunities for volunteers and donors. In 2000, about 10 percent of those with Internet access used it to search for volunteer opportunities, learn about nonprofits, or engage in research. Three percent of those with Internet access reported volunteering over the Internet, doing such things as tutoring, Web site development, or monitoring. Moreover, 3 percent of Internet users actually made a cash donation via the Web, and 17 percent of contributing households reported that online methods of contributing had replaced older forms of contributions. This trend is likely to expand as more Americans become comfortable with computer use and information (Toppe 2002). Motives for giving are complex. Surveys agree that giving correlates with identifiable attitudes and feelings. Citizens who believe that those possessing wealth are responsible for the less fortunate, people with well-defined personal philanthropic goals or who are concerned about reinforcing traditional moral values, and those giving for religious reasons tend to give more than others. Tax considerations can affect the timing and amount of gifts but are not more important than a host of other donor motives, including having a sense of personal satisfaction; furthering activities of institutions from which the donor benefited in the past; responding to the request of a friend, influential business associate, or employer; and creating

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a memorial to a family member. Americans continued to support charities in record numbers and record amounts despite changes stipulated by the 1986 Tax Reform Act that disallowed tax deductions to certain donors. The changing culture of philanthropy helps to define the ethos of the country as a whole as well as its regions. Historians, philosophers, economists, and sociologists are interested in what attitudes, beliefs, values, and expectations shape the giving and receiving of gifts. Scholars such as Lester Salamon and Michael O’Neill have provided perspectives on how, why, and where ethnic and racial groups define need and support for communities. Solid information about trends among groups other than traditional Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish donors was still sketchy in the mid1990s, but scholarly attention began focusing on African American, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American, and other groups heretofore underexamined. Clearly, traditional philanthropy, which tends to dictate solutions from the top of society down, is unsatisfactory. Complex social problems require sensitivity to multiculturalism, grassroots community planning, and multisector (private, government, and nonprofit) funding. With the return of Republican control of Congress in the 1994 elections and fewer public resources for a host of familiar programs in support of the arts, education, health, and welfare, the 1990s witnessed a renewed debate about philanthropy’s role. Many conservatives argued that reduced government spending would be adequately replaced by private giving. With a slow-growth economy and lingering recession in key states, such as California, there was little likelihood that giving rates could keep pace with human needs. Indeed, the traditional debate about the proper mix of public- and private-sector responsibility for the welfare of the country was revived. Many, particularly in the charitable foundations sector, continued to feel that organized philanthropy is best limited to social research, advocacy, and innovation, with government remaining responsible for primary social services. The outcome of the debate promised to help shape policy in important ways as the twentieth century drew to a close. Philanthropy in the United States helps to characterize society. It is not likely that voters will ever allow

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government to restrict free association of the right of donors to help shape their communities by expressing values through giving. For all its imperfections and occasional waste, philanthropy will continue to help define the United States as a culturally distinct part of the world. Alfred L. Castle References and further reading AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. 2002. Giving USA 2002: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2001, 47th Annual Issue. Indianapolis: AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. Bremner, Robert H. 1988. American Philanthropy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nisbet, Robert A. 1986. The Making of Modern Society. New York: New York University Press. O’Neill, Michael. 1989. The Third America. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Salamon, Lester. 1999. America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer. New York: Foundation Center. Toppe, Christopher M., Arthur D. Kirsch, and Jacobel Michel. 2002. Giving and Volunteering in the United States: Findings from a National Survey.Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Peter Cooper (1791–1883) (Corbis)

Cooper, Peter (1791–1883) Despite his success as an inventor and industrialist, Peter Cooper was haunted throughout his life by a lack of formal education. His response was to use his considerable wealth to build and endow a free school in New York City, the Cooper Union, where working youth could attend night classes. The philosophy of life that animated such thoughtful generosity is captured in Cooper’s comment that “while I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner, I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good” (Curti and Nash 1965, 76). Born in New York City in 1791, Cooper grew up mostly around Peekskill, New York. Like many working-class children of his day, he had little formal education and attended school for less than a year. At the age of seventeen, he returned to the city of his birth and was apprenticed to a leading coachbuilder. It was during this apprenticeship that Cooper’s talent for invention emerged. Among his inventions were a device for mortising the hubs of carriages, a

cloth-shearing machine, and the first commercial glue in America that could compete with European imports. The latter became the foundation upon which Cooper would build his fortune. As an inventor, however, he is best remembered as the creator of the first steam locomotive in America, an engine he nicknamed the “Tom Thumb” because of its small size. As a philanthropist, Cooper made his most lasting mark in the field of education. For three decades, as he worked to establish himself as a leader in business and industry, he nurtured a dream of what he would do with the wealth he was accumulating. The dream came to fruition in 1859 with the opening of the Cooper Union—a school inspired by a friend’s account of the free education offered to young Frenchmen at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Recalling his own experience, Cooper reflected: “How glad I would have been, if I could have found such an institution in my youth in [New York City], with its doors open to give instruction at night, the only time that I could command for study” (Curti and Nash 1965, 76).

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Built at an initial cost of more than $600,000 in downtown New York City, the Cooper Union offered all of its services free and made itself accessible to the working class by offering night classes, public lectures and concerts, and an excellent library. Moreover, there were no distinctions of class, creed, race, or sex among its beneficiaries. Today, the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is the only private college in the United States dedicated exclusively to preparing students for careers in architecture, art, and engineering and providing full-tuition scholarships for its students. Cooper dedicated nearly thirty years of life to Cooper Union but never gave up his interest in technological innovations. During the late 1850s, he was the original president and a principal investor of New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Company, the first firm to lay a transatlantic cable. Cooper and his wife, Sarah, also invented instant gelatin at this time. An inventor, industrialist, and civic leader, Peter Cooper used the rewards of his business success to create for generations of youth the opportunity for an education that had not been available to him. Richard W. Trollinger References and further reading “About the Cooper Union: History.” Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, http://www.cooper .edu/administration/about/history.html. Cooper, Peter. Papers. Special Collections Division, Cooper Union Library, New York. Curti, Merle, and Roderick Nash. 1965. Philanthropy in the Shaping of American Higher Education. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Lach, E. L. 1999. “Peter Cooper.” In American National Biography, edited by J. A. Garraty and M. C. Carnes, 454–455. New York: Oxford University Press. Nevins, Allan. 1967 [1935]. Abram S. Hewitt: With Some Account of Peter Cooper. New York: Octagon Books. “Peter Cooper and His Legacy,” http://www.cooper .edu/engineering/chemechem/general/cooper.html. Rossiter, W. Raymond. 1972. Peter Cooper. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press.

Corporate Giving American business interacts with the nonprofit sector primarily through what has been referred to as corporate social responsibility (CSR), or those actions

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through which businesses meet the expectations of society in any particular time (Sethi l979). Other terms that have been used to express this concept include “corporate philanthropy,” “corporate community investment,” “corporate community involvement,” and more recently “corporate citizenship.” Corporate citizenship is usually meant to convey “a multi-faceted concept which brings together the self-interest of business and its stakeholders with the interest of society more generally” (Logan, Roy, and Regelbrugge 1997, iii). “Corporate giving” and “corporate philanthropy” are understood to be narrower terms restricted to the charitable giving and volunteering that a company does that meets part of its felt citizenship responsibilities. Cause-related marketing and sponsorship fall outside the scope of this article. In the United States, corporate giving has developed along the lines of the legal history of the corporation. In the early twentieth century, the issue was how much of the company profits could be used for community benefit without having a shareholder revolt. Examples of early donations were to YMCAs that provided housing for company workers. From l921 to l953, companies could only give to causes that benefited the company. In l953, the Smith v. Barlow case in the New Jersey Supreme Court cleared the way for A. P. Smith Manufacturing Company to donate $1,500 to Princeton University without violating shareholder interest. In essence, the principle of direct corporate benefit was overturned, and a rationale for public responsibility of business was established in the United States. According to Giving USA 2003, giving by corporations in 2002 was approximately $12.19 billion— an increase from the previous year. This represented 5.1 percent of all contributions. Over the last twenty-five years, corporate giving as a percent of profits has declined from 2.3 to 1.3 percent in 2001, and back up to 1.8 percent in 2002. The major reasons for this decline have been the changing philosophy of the role of corporate giving, the role of the CEO, a changing corporate culture, and an increase in global competitiveness. After examining research in this field, Young and Burlingame (1996) identified four models that cate-

Council for Advancement and Support of Education

gorized why companies engaged in volunteering and giving. The four paradigms are the stakeholder model, the neoclassical or productivity model, the ethical or altruistic model, and the political model. The stakeholder model posits that a company is a complex entity with various constituents—shareholders, customers, suppliers, managers, community groups, and the like—that hold different claims on the company. How the various groups interact to determine corporate policy is unclear. For a review of the empirical research on corporate social performance, see Wood and Jones (1995). The neoclassical/corporate productivity model operates from the frame of reference that the business of business is to make money, and giving to community groups will enhance the bottom line. In other words, enlightened self-interest, which is focused on the long-run profitability of the corporation, is the order of the day. The political model takes as its external reference corporate power and autonomy by building relationships with nonprofits as an alternative to government growth. Internal to the company, this model suggests that the corporate giving officer is a larger player within the company, in which departments attempt to build allies among each other to succeed in their respective missions. The ethical model is based upon the premise that companies are given the right to exist by society and thus have a social obligation to do what is right for the greater good. It encourages management to make gifts that will maintain the business as a partner in addressing societal needs. These models suggest that there is no one motive for corporate giving. Therefore, can the corporate contributions function be empowered in the twentyfirst century by using the expression of global corporate citizenship, which suggests that companies have an interest in strategic social investment because it is necessary for a successful business environment? If one agrees that the main purpose of businesses is to provide efficient means for capital for stakeholders as well as shareholders, then it would appear that corporations can benefit themselves as they benefit society. Dwight F. Burlingame See also Cause-Related Marketing and Sponsorships

References and further reading Giving USA 2003. 2002. Indianapolis: AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. Logan, David, Delwin Roy, and Laurie Regelbrugge. 1997. Global Corporate Citizenship: Rationale and Strategies. Washington, DC: Hitachi Foundation. Muirhead, Sophia. 1999. Corporate Contributions: The Views—from Fifty Years. New York: Conference Board. Sethi, S. Prakash. 1979. “A Conceptual Framework for Environmental Analysis of Social Issues and Evaluation of Business Response Patterns.” Academy of Management Review 4 (l): 63–74. Wood, Donna J., and Raymond E. Jones. l995. “Stakeholder Mismatching: A Theoretical Problem in Empirical Research on Corporate Social Performance.” International Journal of Organizational Analysis 3 (3): 229–267. Young, Dennis R., and Dwight F. Burlingame. 1996. “Paradigm Lost.” In Corporate Philanthropy at the Crossroads, edited by Dwight F. Burlingame and Dennis R. Young, 158–176. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) The largest education-related association in the world and leading professional membership organization for all areas of institutional advancement, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) has a membership comprising more than 3,000 colleges, universities, and independent elementary and secondary schools in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and forty-two other countries. Within these member institutions, more than 38,000 advancement professionals, working at all levels in alumni relations, communications, and development, are represented. CASE was established in 1974 as the result of a merger between the American Alumni Council and the American College Public Relations Association. In 1994, the organization expanded beyond the North American continent and officially opened a European office located in London to better serve the needs of its growing international membership. The primary purpose of CASE is to assist its membership in promoting and advancing the merits of the educational institutions that they represent. In support of this mission, CASE promotes a variety of mentoring and networking activities that help members strengthen their institutions’ advancement operations

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as well as enhance their own professional development. Activities include the annual sponsorship of nearly 100 regional, national, and international professional conferences, workshops, and educational institutes; publication of CURRENTS, a member magazine; development of topic-oriented research and benchmarking studies; and promotion of various advancement-related products, services, books, and publications. Another important activity of CASE is its government-relations efforts. By monitoring legislative and policy debates and communicating the interests, views, and needs of its members to policy makers, CASE provides its members with timely, critical information and advocates on their behalf. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., CASE is classified as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) and is governed by a board of trustees who are elected by the member institutions. The board elects and hires the organization’s president, who also serves as the chief executive officer. CASE’s North American member institutions are grouped into eight geographic districts, with each district providing additional support to members through regional programs and services. CASE’s strong encouragement of professional ethics and standards, leadership, and service to education is demonstrated through a number of distinguished recognition and award programs. The Circle of Excellence Awards Program acknowledges best practices in advancement operations and research. The Chief Executive Leadership Award recognizes effective and outstanding institutional leadership. Other programs include scholarships and fellowships to promote diversity in the advancement profession and awards for exceptional service to the field of education, teaching, scholarly research, volunteer involvement, and government relations. Elizabeth R. Crabtree References and further reading Council for Advancement and Support of Education, http://www.case.org.

Council on Foundations (COF) The Council on Foundations (COF), founded in 1949 as the National Committee on Foundations and

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Trusts for Community Welfare, was created to promote responsible and effective philanthropy. It is the largest association of grantmakers in the United States, assisting staff and trustees of foundations with their grantmaking activities. COF provides one-onone technical assistance to its members and other services of benefit to foundations, such as conducting research, producing publications, convening conferences and workshops, and providing legal services. It also plays a major advocacy role, lobbying the U.S. Congress on issues that affect foundations, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector. Commonly, the Council on Foundations is viewed as a centrist voice for foundations, positioning itself between the more conservative Philanthropy Roundtable and the more liberal National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. COF adopted its current name in 1964 after two previous name changes. The organization’s offices were in Chicago from 1949 to 1954 and in New York City from 1954 to 1979. They have been in Washington, D.C., since 1979. A thirty-five-member board of directors, consisting primarily of high-level foundation executives and corporate philanthropy officers, governs the organization. Dues paid by member foundations produce a majority of operating revenues for COF. The organization also includes thirty-six affinity groups—small or large groups of foundations that share similar funding interests, such as education, religion, Hispanics, neighborhoods, or the environment. Some of the affinity groups maintain their own staff and have separate budgets from COF. Since the watershed Tax Reform Act of 1969, which established a 4 percent excise tax on foundation assets and a 6 percent minimum annual payout, the Council on Foundations has played an increasingly important role in representing the interests of foundations to members of Congress. The Tax Reform Act of 1969 came in response to public concern about scandals involving private foundations and marked the first instance in which private foundations were defined and regulated by law. The passage of this act, which was generally viewed by the Council on Foundations as hostile to foundations, led to the organization’s recognition of the need to maintain better relationships with congressional representatives. Through

Cuffe, Paul

its involvement with the Filer Commission (the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs) in the 1970s, COF helped reduce the excise tax on foundation assets to its current 2 percent level and the minimum foundation payout to its current 5 percent level. Efforts by COF to completely eliminate the excise tax have been unsuccessful. The excise tax is meant to cover costs incurred by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in regulating private foundations, but in reality the tax generates far more revenue for the IRS than is needed to oversee foundations. COF maintains that nonprofit groups will benefit most if the excise tax is eliminated because foundations currently count the 2 percent excise tax as a portion of the mandatory 5 percent payout. If the tax is reduced or eliminated, COF argues, foundation grants to nonprofit organizations will increase dramatically. Aaron Dorfman References and further reading Council on Foundations, http://www.cof.org. Edie, John A. 1987. Congress and Private Foundations: An Historical Analysis. Washington, DC: Council on Foundations.

Cuffe, Paul (1759–1817) Upon returning from a visit to Sierra Leone in the early 1800s, Paul Cuffe wrote, “As I am of the African race I feel myself interested for them and if I am favored with a talent I think I am willing that they should be benefited thereby” (Thomas 1986, 40). Upon examination of his life, one can readily see that Paul Cuffe’s statement embraced not only Africans on the continent but also those across the diaspora. At a time when blacks were considered not more than property and less than human beings, Paul Cuffe, an abolitionist and pan-Africanist, succeeded at becoming an entrepreneur, a sea captain and merchant, and a community benefactor and philanthropist. He was most probably the wealthiest African American of his time and used his talents to benefit his African brethren on both sides of the Atlantic.

Early Years and Education Born on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts (near Martha’s Vineyard), on January 17, 1759, Cuffe was

the seventh of ten children born to Kofi Slocum and Ruth Moses. Kofi (whose name means “born on Friday”) was an Ashanti slave of Akan ancestry who had been brought to the North American colonies when he was about ten. By 1728, he had reached Newport, Rhode Island, where he was acquired by Ebenezer Slocum, a Quaker. On February 16, 1742, Ebenezer sold Kofi to John Slocum, his nephew. Due to the growth of antislavery sentiments among Friends (Quakers), Kofi was emancipated, quite unexpectedly, in 1745. That same year, he became engaged to Ruth Moses, a Native American of the Wampanoag group. Kofi took his master’s last name, and he and Ruth were married in 1746. After living in Dartmouth for a time, the couple moved to Cuttyhunk, in the Elizabeth Islands. They had ten children, who were reared along the Quaker principles the couple espoused, though they were not accepted as members of the Society of Friends. In 1766, Coffe (he had changed the spelling of his name) Slocum bought a 116-acre farm in Dartmouth. The following year, the entire family moved there, and at the age of eight Paul began helping with the work and farming. After his father died in 1772, Paul became interested in sea life. At the age of thirteen, Paul could barely read and write, but he persisted in his studies, occasionally with the help of a private tutor. He was very interested in navigation, which he found very difficult at first but finally grasped. Cuffe once told a Professor Griscom: “There were always three things that I paid attention to—latitude, lead, and lookout” (Sherwood 1923, 156). Around the age of sixteen, he became a seaman and joined the crews of whaling merchants such as Joseph Rotch and Joseph Russell. On his third voyage, the British captured the ship he was on and he was imprisoned in New York. After three months, Cuffe returned to Dartmouth and wrestled with his identity. The white Slocums did not want Paul’s family to use their name. About 1778, Paul decided to take his father’s African name as a surname, but continued to acknowledge his mother’s Native American ancestry. All of the other children followed suit, with the exception of his youngest sister, Freelove. The family farm weathered heavy tax increases from 1777 to 1780, when Paul and his brother John,

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along with five other Dartmouth blacks who had been recently freed, petitioned the state of Massachusetts, noting that they were being unfairly taxed without representation. The petition failed; however, these efforts led the way to African and Native Americans getting voting rights and privileges in 1783. On February 25, 1783, Paul married Alice Pequit (a Native American), and to this union seven children were born.

Career Highlights and Major Philanthropic Accomplishments Paul Cuffe began his quest for economic independence in his early twenties. Though he had basic seafaring skills and plenty of drive, his entrepreneurial skills were still wanting. He learned the subtleties of entrepreneurial success by observing the family enterprises of successful Quakers such as the Rotches (Thomas 1986, 13). At age twenty, Cuffe built a boat with the help of his brother David in order to engage in trade with people of Connecticut. Life at sea was very dangerous, however, with its natural hazards and pirates always in pursuit. Thus, David decided to return to farm work, leaving Paul to cope for himself. With the Revolutionary War ensuing, Paul also thought it best to work in agriculture until it was safer to go back to sea. He returned to the farm for a time, but it wasn’t long before his desire to become a sea merchant surfaced once again. As Paul had spoken with David repeatedly about his desires, David agreed to build Paul a boat if he would supply the materials. With borrowed money, Paul purchased some goods. After narrow escapes with pirates, the undaunted Paul finally managed to reach Nantucket with his cargo, though the voyage was not financially profitable (Sherwood 1923, 156). On a second voyage, he was robbed by pirates and injured, but the third voyage was successful. With the war over, the sea became safer and his business began to prosper. Around this time, Cuffe’s brother-in-law, Michael Wainer (a Native American), entered into business with him. Three vessels were registered by the Cuffe-Wainer family between the years 1785 and 1795: the Sunfish (a 25-foot schooner), the Mary (a 42-foot schooner), and the Ranger (a 62-foot square-sterned schooner).

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Cuffe had sold the Sunfish and the Mary in order to pay for the Ranger, “thus displaying in finance the same daring that had earned him respect at sea, for one disaster would have wiped out his maritime investment” (Thomas 1986, 16). He determined that the family would always own his vessel, and whenever possible, her captains and crew would be from the family as well. It was on the Ranger that Wainer’s sons gained their seafaring knowledge and expertise. Cuffe would eventually own several ships, including schooners, brigs, and barks. On the Ranger, Cuffe sailed the Chesapeake to Norfolk and Vienna in Virginia to purchase corn. Upon his arrival, the townspeople were amazed and alarmed to witness a vessel commanded by a black man with an all-black crew. At first, these whites were very concerned about the influence Cuffe and his crew might have on their slaves. This spectacle, they feared, could incite an uprising. Cuffe and his crew, however, conducted themselves prudently and with “conciliating propriety” (Sherwood 1923, 158). The venture was so successful that Cuffe made another trip. Cuffe knew about the African refuge of Sierra Leone through Quakers in and around Westport. Granville Sharp, a British philanthropist, had sent three shiploads of free blacks (former American slaves living in London) to West Africa and hoped to establish a “Province of Freedom” there. When Quakers around New England began seeking a haven for their slaves, Cuffe began receiving proposals for black emigration. Cuffe resisted the idea because he believed that black survival, as well as independence, depended upon assimilation with whites (Thomas 1986, 19–20). This belief was manifested in his life through his service to the community. As a result of the very profitable ventures he had experienced in purchasing Vienna corn, Captain Cuffe was able to purchase a $3,500 farm along the Westport River. Since there were no educational facilities in his new neighborhood, Cuffe called his neighbors together to discuss building a schoolhouse. Unfortunately, this meeting was unsuccessful because there was such a difference of opinion. Cuffe, however, eventually used his own funds to build a schoolhouse on his property and made it available to the public. The school he established there was racially integrated.

Cultural Policy and Philanthropy

By 1804, Cuffe had learned of profitable whaling exploits around southeast Africa. Though entering waters where slavers lurked was certainly a risky proposition, Cuffe successfully met the challenge. In 1807, British abolitionists were forming the African Institution, an organization that promoted black emigration as well as African “civilization and happiness” (Thomas 1986, 32). British Quakers corresponded with their American counterparts, who soon joined in this enterprise. Cuffe was sought to assist in this effort since he was considered an exemplary man of color. Cuffe, along with his family, still held Quaker beliefs. Though his parents had not been allowed membership, Cuffe became a member of the Westport Society of Friends in 1808 after much deliberation on the part of the Society. The Westport Friends built a new meetinghouse in 1813, with Cuffe contributing at least half of the material and “overseeing the business end of the matter” (Sherwood 1923, 160–161). When the slave trade ended in 1808, Cuffe began to think more seriously of pursuing trade in Africa (particularly whaling) and promoting African civilization through trade and ethical principles. He sailed to Sierra Leone with an all-black crew on December 27, 1810. There, the company met an array of people in the vicinity of Freetown, Sierra Leone, the overwhelming majority of whom were people of color. Yet three-fifths of all property was controlled by twenty-eight Europeans. Tensions often rode high, but the settlers were determined to succeed. Cuffe, along with John Kizell (another respected black merchant), formed the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, a mutual aid society concerned with commerce (Thomas 1986, 51, 54). Observing that Africans were being exploited by British trade monopolies and that blacks were still in bondage in the United States, Cuffe reluctantly believed that blacks might become a people in Africa. He had come to the sad conclusion that they could never do so in America. The founders of the American Colonization Society (ACS), an organization established in 1816 with the supposedly goodwill intentions of transporting free blacks to Africa of their own consent, hoped that Cuffe would align himself with their organization. Cuffe soon realized that this or-

ganization was simply a vehicle for racist white Americans, as evidenced by the words of Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives and a member of ACS, who asserted that he wanted “to rid our country of a useless and pernicious, if not dangerous portion of our population” (Thomas 1986, 111). Francis Scott Key, the composer of the U.S. national anthem and a member of ACS as well, felt that the ACS must protect slavery as an institution. Cuffe, who felt that free blacks should emigrate to Africa only if it was their choice, thought it best that blacks withdraw from the organization. After his death in 1817, the country of Liberia was founded with the help of the ACS. Despite his differences with the society, there is little doubt that Cuffe would have been pleased that the African nation he had long hoped for had been formed. Nina Gondola References and further reading Cuffe, Paul. Papers. Free Public Library, New Bedford, MA. Johns, Robert C. 1999. “Paul Cuffe.” In Notable Black American Men, edited by Jessie Carney Smith, 241–243. Detroit: Gale. Sherwood, Henry Noble. 1923. “Paul Cuffe.” Journal of Negro History 8, no. 2 ( January): 153–229. Thomas, Lamont D. 1986. Paul Cuffe: Black Entrepreneur and Pan-Africanist. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Wiggins, Rosalind Cobb. 1996. Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 1808–1817: A Black Quaker’s “Voice from within the Veil.” Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Woodson, Carter G. 1920. “The Relations of Negroes and Indians in Massachusetts.” Journal of Negro History 5, no. 1 ( January): 45–57.

Cultural Policy and Philanthropy Direct, sustained governmental support for cultural activities in the United States began in the 1960s. Few formal policies on cultural matters have been established, however, and the level of support has been limited in comparison with that of other developed nations. Of the $15 billion that was given by the private sector to support arts and culture organizations in the United States in 2000 (Giving USA 2001; Americans for the Arts), $2 billion came from the federal government,

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$447.5 million from state governments, and roughly $1 billion from local governments. The vast majority of funding for the arts, however, was donated by individuals, with foundations and corporations combined contributing about 10 percent of the total. The relatively low government funding levels are mirrored by the lack of a cabinet-level political position such as the ministries of culture that exist in other countries, as well as by the fact that the vast majority of the cultural organizations in the United States are privately governed. Efforts to stimulate additional support and to develop a coherent statement of policy have been primarily generated by private foundations. The single most consistent form of governmental funding for cultural endeavors remains the indirect support granted to nonprofit organizations. Under the relevant tax provisions, individuals and corporations are able to deduct charitable contributions to organizations with 501(c)(3) status under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). These benefits have occasionally been extended to cover specific cultural activities, indirectly constituting a national policy. For example, the revisions to the 1976 tax code provided significant credits for the preservation and restoration of historic structures (these provisions were expanded in 1981). Similarly, periodic tax allowances for items of appreciated value have contributed significantly to highvalue gifts of art to museums. The Business Committee for the Arts, formed in 1967 largely through the efforts of David Rockefeller, has helped to increase awareness of the value of such tax deductions to cultural organizations. During the 1930s and again in the 1970s, the federal government provided short-term, direct support to culture workers. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), established under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, helped to establish a nationwide investment in artistic endeavors, from theater and writing to music and the visual arts. The WPA, however, was eliminated in the face of the rising wartime economy of World War II. The Comprehensive Education and Training Act (CETA) of 1973 offered employment and job training in the arts for thousands until it was discontinued by the Ronald Reagan administration in 1981. The watershed event for the formation of cultural policies and the establishment of continuing direct

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government support to the nation’s cultural life came with the adoption of the National Endowment for Arts and Humanities Act in 1965. This legislation created two agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which have provided a combination of operating, capital, and special project support for nonprofit cultural organizations in the United States. At various times, these agencies also have provided support to individuals engaged in cultural work—including artists, writers, poets, and filmmakers—although some of these award programs have been revised or eliminated in the face of public concerns about the creation of pornographic or sacrilegious work. Despite the creation of federal agencies to support cultural programs, federal policy remains a weak link in the American system. Struggles between the state and local agencies have exacerbated controversies over federal funding of the arts and have made it difficult to provide anything other than minimal support for cultural activities. To date, no formal federal policy has been created, nor has there been any significant public debate over what that policy should be. The creation of the NEA and the NEH in 1965 reflected many years of behind-the-scenes efforts by those in the private sector, an effort that continues to the present. A Rockefeller Brothers Fund report issued in 1965, The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects, outlined the dire economic straits of many private arts groups and called for a major investment in America’s nonprofit professional arts community. The research findings of William Baumol and William Bowen, Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma (1966), complemented the Rockefeller report by demonstrating the ongoing need for unearned income by arts organizations. Policy makers within the John F. Kennedy administration had advocated increased support for the arts, but action was postponed when Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency. Nevertheless, these voices helped make a strong case for governmental support of the arts and efforts to reach economically diverse audiences. America’s Museums: The Belmont Report (1969), written under the auspices of the American Association of Museums for the Federal Council on Arts and


Humanities, focused attention on the financial needs of the nation’s museums. In response, the Institute of Museum Services (IMS) was created in 1976 at the federal level with the intent of providing general operating support to private-sector museums. In subsequent years, IMS expanded its programs to include support for conservation and management services, and in 1996, it absorbed the library activities of the U.S. Department of Education to create the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The few policy discussions that have addressed arts and culture have focused primarily on the economics of arts organizations. In the pre-1965 era, perhaps the largest impact on cultural development came through the decision of the Ford Foundation, beginning in 1957, to provide major support to nonprofit arts groups. Staff of the Rockefeller Foundation, together with Ford Foundation staff, frequently met cultural leaders and convened private roundtable discussions on the proper role of foundation and government support. Private foundations also funded the preparation of numerous studies on the economics of the arts, such as a 1974 Ford Foundation study (The Finances of the Performing Arts) and a 2001 Pew Charitable Trusts study (The Performing Arts in a New Era). Under the auspices of the American Assembly, W. McNeil Lowry of the Ford Foundation organized national conferences on the arts in 1977 and 1984, each of which generated publications that underscored the need for continued government support. A third American Assembly, held in 1990, called for increased advocacy efforts. Although additional governmental bodies have been established over the years to advance issues associated with cultural policy, none has provided significant leadership in this area. The Filer Commission report of 1977 discussed the need for public funding to supplement the largesse of private philanthropy in the arts but had little effect. The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH), created in 1982 by executive order to bring together the heads of twelve federal agencies that support the arts along with twenty-four citizens appointed by the president, has commissioned a number of reports on private support of the arts, but these have rarely gotten a wide readership. Disappointingly, PCAH’s most public ac-

tivity has been the annual National Medal on the Arts and Humanities awards. Congressional efforts to examine cultural funding have intermittently coalesced into the Congressional Arts Caucus with occasional involvement of private-sector representatives. These efforts have been aided by long-standing advocacy efforts of discipline-based support associations. State and local government support, however, has proven to be an important element of financial stability for many arts organizations. Some municipalities have long underwritten the costs of city museums and symphonies, and beginning with New York State’s Council on the Arts in 1963, states also began to provide operating support for cultural activities. Spurred by the availability of “block grant” funds from NEA and NEH, every state in the union had arts and humanities councils by the early 1970s. These state agencies have become significant sponsors of arts activities, often working together through the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. Local agencies have also been active in conducting studies of the economic impact of the arts that have introduced a new perspective into policy discussions. Despite such active sponsorship, little has been done to develop comprehensive cultural policies. Attacks on federal spending for the arts—particularly by Reagan in 1981 and by conservatives during the “Culture Wars” of 1989–1995—underscored the fact that there is no national cultural policy. Initiatives in the private sector have sought to fill this need. Since 1982, Americans for the Arts (first established as the American Council for the Arts in 1960) has held annual Arts Advocacy Days in Washington and, beginning in 1988, has tried to spotlight cultural issues in the annual Nancy Hanks Lectures on Arts and Public Policy. These efforts are likely to be enhanced by the receipt of a $120 million endowment from the estate of a Lilly heiress in 2002. Similar efforts have been adopted by many state arts groups across the nation. Beginning in the 1990s, some foundations have pursued more tightly focused goals relating to cultural activities with the intent, sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit, of leveraging additional support for the cultural sector from the government. Among the most influential of these have been efforts by the

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Lila Wallace Fund to develop minority audiences for arts organizations, by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support regional theaters, and by the Pew Charitable Trusts to encourage the training of journalists in cultural issues. The last is of particular interest as critics of American cultural policy have consistently cited the paucity of reliable and consistent data as a primary flaw in the development of a coherent discourse. The Creativity and Culture Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, long interested in international affairs, has chosen to focus its resources on multiculturalism and globalization. During the “Republican Revolution” of 1995– 1996, funding for the NEH dropped from $177 million to $110 million and that for the NEA fell from $167 million to $99.5 million. In response, a number of private foundations helped to establish the Center for Arts and Culture in Washington, D.C. (This approach parallels the efforts of private foundations to create the Foundation Center following the Cox and Reece commissions of the 1950s.) This nonprofit research institute is developing a coherent database on arts issues in order to help promote effective advocacy efforts for increased support of the arts and to foster dialogue for a comprehensive cultural policy at the federal level. A related effort is the Pew Charitable Trusts–funded development of an informational infrastructure for research on performing arts audiences through the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive at Princeton University. Both efforts build on earlier attempts of the NEA to encourage policy research on the cultural sector, culminating with The Arts in America report to Congress in 1988. Americans for the Arts also maintains a National Arts Policy Database with materials dating from 1960. The rise of governmental support for arts and cultural endeavors in the past generation has brought with it an increasing obligation for arts organizations to provide public accountability. In addition, a number of foundations and donors have begun to ask nonprofits to explore ways of generating income for longterm sustainability. One tangible response to this impulse has been the creation of a national online database of financial reports on nonprofit organizations, spearheaded by GuideStar and the Urban Institute in collaboration with the Internal Revenue Ser-

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vice and with funding from a variety of national foundations. This push toward social enterprise is likely to continue in future years. American cultural policy, then, has taken the form of an ungainly amalgam in which private and local groups push for funding and policy statements from government rather than a system in which government takes the lead in developing and implementing a national policy. In this setting, private foundations and professional associations have the opportunity to continue having crucial but limited influence on the formation of a comprehensive cultural agenda. Robert I. Goler References and further reading Baumol, William, and William Bowen. 1966. The Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Benedict, Stephen, ed. 1991. Public Money and the Muse. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. [Fleming, John R.] 1969. America’s Museums: The Belmont Report. Washington: American Association of Museums. Lowry, W. McNeil, ed. 1978. The Performing Arts and American Society. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ———. 1984. The Arts and Public Policy in the United States. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. McCarthy, Kevin F., Arthur Brooks, Julia Lowell, and Laura Zakaras. 2001. The Performing Arts in a New Era. Santa Monica, CA: Rand. [Rockefeller Brothers Fund]. 1965. The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wyszomirski, Margaret. 1999. “Philanthropy and Culture: Patterns, Context, and Change.” Pp. 461–480 in Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America. Edited by Charles T. Clotfelter and Thomas Ehrlich. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press.

Curti, Merle Eugene (1897–1996) Merle Eugene Curti was born in 1897 in rural Nebraska. Curti studied with Frederick Jackson Turner at Harvard, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1927. An eminent social and intellectual historian, he directed the History of American Philanthropy Project of the University of Wisconsin from 1957 to 1961. Curti’s interest in research on philanthropy was spurred by criticisms of the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford foundations by the congressional commission headed by B. Carroll Reece in 1954. The commission

Cy Pres

suggested that the foundations were forcing socialism on the American public. Following a meeting of scholars and foundation representatives at Princeton in 1956, the Ford Foundation agreed to provide $100,000 for historical research on philanthropy, headed up by Curti, who was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin from 1942 to 1968. Although the project was not able to accomplish as much as Curti might have wanted, the report to the Ford Foundation included an impressive listing of published articles, books, master’s theses, and doctoral dissertations on philanthropy. A major impediment to the project was the unwillingness of foundations to open their records for research. Curti and his codirector, Irvin G. Wyllie, encouraged other historians to undertake research on philanthropy and its role in American life, but project funds were primarily used to provide stipends to graduate students who were interested in doing research on the field. In his 1958 essay “American Philanthropy and the National Character,” Curti traced the history of philanthropy as an idea in American culture, showing how definitions and social meaning have changed over time. He set forth the notion of philanthropy as an “index and agent” of American national character and suggested that philanthropy historically may have been the “American equivalent for socialism.” Curti recognized that the breadth of American philanthropy could only be revealed through an interdisci-

plinary approach to history. He suggested research on all areas of the history of philanthropy, including religion, humanitarianism, economics, social welfare, corporations, and law, as well as studies of individual charitable institutions and organizations, fundraising, changes in the definitions and social meaning of philanthropy, and biographies of individual philanthropists. He died in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1996 at the age of ninety-eight. Frances Huehls References and further reading Curti, Merle E. 1957. “The History of American Philanthropy As a Field of Research.” American Historical Review 62: 352–363. ———. 1958. “American Philanthropy and the National Character.” American Quarterly 10: 420–437. ———. 1961. “Tradition and Innovation in American Philanthropy.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 105: 146–156. ———. 1963. American Philanthropy Abroad. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Curti, Merle Eugene, Judith Green, and Roderick Nash. 1963. “Anatomy of Giving: Millionaires in the Late Nineteenth Century.” American Quarterly 15: 416–435. Curti, Merle Eugene, and Roderick Nash. 1965. Philanthropy in the Shaping of American Higher Education. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Cy Pres See Donor Intent

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D Dartmouth College v. Wooster

City–based party newspaper, the Masses, which was closed down by the government. A common-law marriage to Forster Battingham yielded a daughter, Tamar Teresa, but the marriage ultimately ended because of Day’s conversion to Catholicism. While Socialism and Catholicism may seem at odds, Day saw commonalities with the dedication each voiced for those of the working class. Day continued to write, and as her reputation grew, Peter Maurin, a French immigrant with his own dedication to the poor, noticed her work. Maurin sought out Day in 1933, and the two began to copublish a newspaper, the Catholic Worker, charging a penny a copy (the price of which remains the same today). The newspaper became an outlet written for the poor and covered such subject matter as the support of labor unions, reports of civil unrest, and commentary on the inequities of a capitalist system. As the economic depression continued, Day and Maurin observed the dramatic increase in the number of homeless and hungry individuals. Later in 1933, they opened the first of many houses of hospitality (providing food and shelter) in New York City, where they also assumed lives of poverty and lived in the houses themselves. Day and Maurin viewed their own poverty as an essential tenet of the Catholic Worker movement—to give all they had to the poor was the only way they could credibly serve the poor and God.

See Law of Charity

Day, Dorothy (1897–1980) Because of her strong commitment to the dignity of the poor, Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker movement in the United States and personally embraced a life of voluntary poverty. Her outspoken dedication to pacifism and to equal treatment and justice for all people provide a strong example of philanthropy that has earned her consideration for sainthood in the Catholic Church. Dorothy Day was born in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of a newspaper-journalist father who frequently moved his family to follow writing opportunities. One such stop was San Francisco in 1906, where the family survived the well-chronicled earthquake of that year. Day observed firsthand as her family and others gave of their own belongings to help those who had lost everything. Day later attended the University of Illinois and pursued general studies. As a student, her political awareness blossomed, and she began to identify with the plight of the working masses. Day was deeply affected by the chasm she perceived between the wealthy and the poor, and she subsequently joined the Socialist Party. After leaving the university, she moved east and, for a short time, wrote for a New York

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The Catholic Worker movement relied almost exclusively on the work of volunteers, many of whom were university students. As the students graduated from their respective schools, they took the Catholic Worker concept to their hometowns. Soon, Catholic Worker houses began to form around the country and the world, many publishing their own newspapers. Pacifism was another crucial ideal for Day, and she did not let the threat of arrest stop her from protesting wars and nuclear armaments. First apprehended as a young writer for picketing with suffragists, she continued to participate in protests and was arrested when she was well into her seventies. Day died in 1980 at the age of eighty-three. The Catholic Worker movement thrives today through the continued publication of the Catholic Worker newspaper and the proliferation of settlement houses serving the poor. While some still publish their own newspapers, many others have turned to the Internet to continue the teachings of Dorothy Day. Her selfless commitment to the poor and constant striving for peace have made her a candidate for canonization for sainthood in the Catholic Church. Michael P. Grzesiak References and further reading The Catholic Worker Movement, http://www.catholic worker.org Coles, Robert. 1987. Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Day, Dorothy. 1952. The Long Loneliness. New York: Harper and Row. ———. 1963. Loaves and Fishes. New York: Harper and Row. Ellsberg, Robert, ed. 1992. Dorothy Day: Selected Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Dayton Family Through the course of the twentieth century, George Draper Dayton, his children, and his grandchildren built a retail empire known initially as Dayton’s, then as the Dayton-Hudson Corporation, and now as the Target Corporation. Through their long-standing policy of annually giving 5 percent of their pretax profits to charity, the Dayton family also became regarded as leading corporate philanthropists. In 1987, this corporate giving tradition even helped them fight off a hostile takeover.

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David Day Dayton and Caroline Wesley Draper Dayton bore George Draper Dayton in Clifton Springs, New York, on March 6, 1857. While growing up, George Dayton considered a career in the ministry—due to his parents’ strong religious beliefs—but began a career in business instead. He married Emma Willard Chadwick in 1878 and they had four children: David Draper, Caroline Ward, George Nelson, and Josephine. At the age of twenty-four, Dayton traveled to Minnesota to investigate some central New York businessmen’s investments and ultimately moved to that state. In 1902, he became a silent partner in a retail enterprise in Minneapolis that he and son Draper Dayton soon ran as Dayton’s and transformed into a large department store. Son George Nelson Dayton joined the enterprise in 1911, and the Dayton Company continued to reap sizeable profits. When George Nelson Dayton retired in the 1940s, his five sons (Donald Chadwick, Bruce Bliss, Wallace Corliss, Kenneth Nelson, and Douglas James) took over the company. In the next few decades, Dayton’s expanded dramatically: starting the first Target store in 1962, going public in 1967, merging with retailer Hudson’s in 1969, and buying Mervyn’s California in 1978. All through this growth, the company maintained a strong corporate giving program. In 1946, the Dayton brothers instituted the policy of giving 5 percent of the corporation’s pretax profits to charities. The decision to give a certain percentage of their profits honored and mirrored their family’s philanthropic tradition. Grandfather George Draper Dayton tithed at a young age, gave away 40 percent of his income by midlife, and became a strong tithing advocate later in life. As the second corporation to have such a generous giving program, Dayton’s implemented this policy while the legality and appropriateness of corporate philanthropy remained highly questionable. Even after the Smith v. Barlow case of 1953, corporations slowly, if ever, chose to develop a substantial giving program. The Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (1974) found that corporations with a giving program gave 0.85 percent of their pretax profits on average. Bucking this trend, the Daytons believed their giving represented a long-term investment in their prof-

Direct Mail Fundraising

itability (making their communities stronger), a social responsibility, and a way to separate themselves from other companies. Even when the company went public, the Daytons made it clear that their 5 percent program would continue. Starting in the 1960s, the Dayton-Hudson Foundation particularly focused on social action and the arts and encouraged many Minnesota corporations to make a similar giving commitment by creating 2 percent and 5 percent giving clubs. In 1987, the Dart Group attempted a hostile takeover of Dayton-Hudson, but the company’s philanthropic commitment paid valuable dividends: numerous charities and citizens immediately lobbied against the takeover, and the state’s governor called a special session. A week after Dayton-Hudson announced the possibility of a takeover, the Minnesota legislature responded by passing antitakeover legislation. Although the Dart Group made a second takeover attempt, the 1987 stock market crash foiled that effort. The Dayton brothers’ commitment to philanthropy did not stop with the family business. Each brother also gave substantial amounts individually. In particular, Bruce Dayton became recognized as the major art patron of Minneapolis, and Kenneth Dayton wrote about his philosophy of giving (The Stages of Giving) and urged other wealthy Americans—following in his grandfather’s footsteps—to be more generous with and thoughtful about their philanthropy. Robert T. Grimm Jr. Further reading Dayton, Kenneth N. 1999. The Stages of Giving. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Grimm, Robert T., Jr. 2002. “Dayton Family.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm, Jr., 72–80. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Mathews, John B., Kenneth E. Goodpaster, and Laura L. Nash. 1991. “Dayton Hudson Corporation: Conscience and Control.” In Policies and Persons: A Casebook in Business Ethics, 256–284. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Direct Mail Fundraising Excellent fundraising is the result of a blending of strategies that advance the case for support of an organization. Direct mail fundraising is one of those strate-

gies. It is the systematic process of mailing a gift request to individuals who are likely to make a contribution to a given organization. The method often produces consistent revenue and can be an effective communication tool for the constituents of any organization. The earliest printed fundraising appeals can be traced to efforts on behalf of Harvard College in the 1640s (Cutlip 1965, 4). As the philanthropic sector and its traditions grew in the United States over the next 350 years, so, too, did the use of direct mail fundraising. Creating a direct mail program requires an understanding of expectations. The early phases of a mail program, typically referred to as “acquisition,” require multiple mailings, and it may be a number of years before the program becomes profitable. Response rates will be low and gifts may be smaller than anticipated. In contrast, mature direct mail programs achieve higher response rates to mailings and higher average gifts and may become effective enough to cost as little as eight or ten cents to raise one dollar. An effective direct mail program starts with determining who will be receiving the fundraising letter and developing letter copy and package design that will appeal to that audience. For example, lapsed donors might be reminded when they last gave and at what level and informed of how their last gift made a difference. Non-donors should be informed about the organization’s mission and how their gift can have an impact. Direct mail audiences include the following: nondonors, donors, lapsed donors, alumni, friends, parents, members, clients, and prospects. Each different audience can then be broken down into “segments,” a term that refers to a smaller group within an audience—for example, alumni who graduated between 1950 and 1955. Audience segmentation improves the response to direct mail appeals since the message can be tailored more specifically for a focused group of people. Many organizations have a database comprised of the many audience types solicited using direct mail. For many other organizations, building a database requires renting or purchasing a list of prospects. Many fundraising publications, such as the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Times, have helpful resources.

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Illustrator’s rendering of direct mail transforming into money (Images.com/Corbis)

Direct mail pieces should be designed to appeal to specific audience segments. The artwork chosen for envelopes, stationery, and reply devices often influences response rates. Recipients take only a few moments to decide whether to open a direct mail piece. The whole process, from first seeing a solicitation to opening it and scanning its contents, takes only five to eight seconds (Warwick 1994, 47). Many direct mail packages are comprised of the carrier (outer) envelope, the letter, a reply device (envelope), and some type of insert, such as a brochure. Inserting these parts into the carrier envelope may be time consuming, and an organization must determine whether to use volunteers, staff, or a professional mailing house to complete the assembly. Each of these options has costs associated with it and will ultimately increase or decrease the overall expenses. Direct mail letter copy should make an effective case for support by focusing on the needs served by an organization. It should also create a sense of urgency. The text should be conversational in tone, reflecting what might be said in a personal visit. Each paragraph

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should express only one thought, typically in five lines or less. Readers are more likely to read pieces that have sufficient white space; thus, it is important to indent paragraphs, leave a line of space between paragraphs, and format the document with appropriate margins. In repeated focus groups, it has been observed that the P.S. is the most often read part of a fundraising letter. Including a P.S. can strengthen the overall letter and help boost response rates. Finally, those receiving a direct mail appeal expect a request for a specific amount of money. Recipients must understand what the expectation of the gift request is as they consider whether or not to respond. There has been much debate about the proper length of a fundraising letter. After years of testing direct mail packages, researchers have concluded that the length of a letter should be dictated by the space needed to make an effective case for support. In addition to the letter itself, a direct mail package often includes inserts that enhance the case for support, such as a small lift letter on distinct stationery that demonstrates how someone was impacted by a particular program or a thank-you note from a grateful recipient. Organizations may also choose to include premiums such as mailing labels or pocket calendars that the recipient may keep even if a gift is not sent in reply. These free items may remind the recipient many times of the organization and its cause, increasing his or her chances of responding at a future time. The postage to be used in mailing appeals varies and may be researched at any post office branch or on the Internet at http://www.usps.com. The most expensive postal rate is first class. The least expensive is third class bulk rate, which is usually about a third of the first class rate. Each postal rate has requirements that determine whether an organization is eligible for specific discounts. It is important to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of a direct mail letter. This not only provides a measuring tool as a mailing program grows but also helps organizations improve their direct mail campaigns as they learn from experience. There are various formulas commonly used in evaluating mailings. The response rate, for example, is equal to the number of gifts made divided by the number of pieces

Dix, Dorothea Lynde

mailed. The average gift can be determined by dividing the total income by the number of gifts made. The total expenses divided by the income equals the cost per dollar raised. Finally, the net income is derived by subtracting the total expenses from the income. Successful and mature direct mail programs have a low cost to raise a dollar, produce high net income, and achieve high rates of response. Direct mail fundraising—like any fundraising effort—requires much forethought and planning. A well-run direct mail program is successful because there is a systematic way to move a solicitation from a concept to the mailbox. If the letter copy and package contents reflect a convincing case for support, create a sense of urgency, and are tailored to the desires and interests of an organization’s audience in a precise manner, the direct mail appeal letter may reap great benefits. David L. Sternberg References and further reading The Chronicle of Philanthropy, http://philanthropy.com (cited September 10, 2002). Cutlip, Scott. 1965. Fund Raising in the United States: Its Role in America’s Philanthropy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Dove, Kent. 2001. Conducting a Successful Annual Giving Program. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Huntsinger, Jerry. 1989. Fund Raising Letters: A Comprehensive Study Guide to Raising More Money by Direct Response Marketing. Richmond, VA: Emerson. Johnston, Michael. 2000. Direct Response Fundraising. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lister, Gwyneth. 2001. Building Your Direct Mail Program. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Nonprofit Times, http://www.nptimes.com (cited August 15, 2002). U.S. Postal Service, http://www.usps.com (cited August 15, 2002). Warwick, Mal. 1994. How to Write Successful Fundraising Letters. Berkeley, CA: Strathmoor Press.

Dix, Dorothea Lynde (1802–1887) By dedicating four decades of her life to the cause of the mentally ill, Dorothea Dix became one of the most famous and admired women of nineteenth-century America. Born in Hampden, Maine, on April 4, 1802, Dix had an unhappy childhood until, as a

teenager, she went to live with her well-to-do grandmother in Boston. There, she joined the Unitarian Church and achieved success both as a schoolteacher and as an author of religious and instructional works. In 1836–1837, she visited England and became acquainted with British reform activities, including parliamentary inquiries into the care of the insane. In 1842, Dix decided to investigate the plight of the indigent mentally ill in Massachusetts. After an exhaustive tour of local facilities throughout the state, she submitted to the legislature a memorial containing shocking descriptions of insane men and women enduring cold, filth, and abuse as inmates of jails and poorhouses. The legislature responded by appropriating funds to enlarge the state asylum at Worcester. Elated at that modest result, Dix took her crusade far afield. In state after state, she compiled evidence, wrote memorials, and lobbied legislatures either to create a new mental hospital or to enlarge an existing one. By 1848, she had traveled more than 60,000 miles and had carried her campaign to most parts of the United States and also to Canada. Dix now turned her attention to the federal government, lobbying Congress to transfer 10 million acres of public lands to the states in order to provide them with a perpetual source of support for their asylums. Her bill passed both houses of Congress in 1854 but was vetoed by President Franklin Pierce. Dix then went to Europe, visited hospitals from France to Turkey, and won improved facilities for the insane in Scotland, Jersey, and the Vatican. During the Civil War, she volunteered her unpaid services as superintendent of women nurses. After the war, she resumed her work in the states until old age and ill health at last ended her travels. On a visit to the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum in 1881, she became too weak to move on. The asylum set aside a small suite of rooms for her use, and she resided there until her death on July 17, 1887. Dorothea Dix did not single-handedly deliver America’s mentally ill from their suffering and chains. Almost everywhere she went, she did not begin a new movement but instead came to the aid of local reformers already working for the cause. Some dozen public hospitals for the insane already existed in the United States before she began her crusade. Moreover, even in

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her own lifetime, many hospitals became hopelessly overcrowded and failed to deliver the prompt cures that she had expected. Yet her impact was enormous. Local activists constantly pleaded for her to come and often declared that only her personal intervention had secured the passage of bills or the donation of funds. For thousands of mentally ill men and women, hospital care was better than any alternative existing at the time, and no one did more than Dorothea Dix to make it available to those in need. David L. Lightner References and further reading Brown, Thomas J. 1998. Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gollaher, David. 1995. Voice for the Mad: The Life of Dorothea Dix. New York: Free Press. Lightner, David L. 1999. Asylum, Prison, and Poorhouse: The Writings and Reform Work of Dorothea Dix in Illinois. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Tiffany, Francis. 1890. Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin.

Donor Intent When a person donates property to a charitable organization (“charity” or “donee”), she invariably hopes and expects the recipient to use it in certain ways: to pursue some purposes but not others, to benefit some classes of persons but not others, and to employ some means but not others. In ordinary usage, “donor intent” denotes the donor’s subjective preferences regarding the charity’s use of her gift as these preferences were actually formulated in her mind. In law, “donor intent” refers to the restrictions, if any, that the donor expressed an intention to impose upon the charity’s use of her gift at the time she donated the property. By accepting a gift with restrictions attached, a charity thereby creates a “trust” or a trustlike arrangement. (A charitable trust is a type of trust, an arrangement for managing property in which one party [the trustee] holds property at the request of another [the settlor] for the benefit of a third party [the beneficiary]. In a charitable trust, the property must be used to advance a legally charitable purpose [e.g., relief of poverty, education, religion] and to benefit the entire community or a significant portion thereof. The terms “trust” and “restricted

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gift” are used interchangeably.) In using a restricted gift, a charity’s primary legal duty is to ascertain and execute the donor’s charitable intentions as expressed in the gift’s terms. For a variety of reasons, the donor’s subjective wishes may diverge, sometimes significantly, from the “intent” imputed to her for legal purposes and from the ways that the law permits her gift to be used. This is demonstrated most vividly when the charity cannot comply with the gift’s terms as originally formulated. At that point, courts claim to use the gift’s balance based on what the donor actually wanted or would likely have wanted to happen under the circumstances. Charities and courts lack direct access to a donor’s actual, subjective will. Instead, they must look to external expressions of such intent. The donor’s first obstacle is thus language in general and legal language in particular: she must express her wishes in ways that the donee is legally obliged to heed and that provide it with meaningful guidance. The former task may be accomplished by using written or spoken words to dictate mandatory terms for the gift’s use, as opposed to mere requests or recommendations. Alternatively, an individual can give in response to a fundraising appeal; the gift’s terms will then consist of the charity’s representations as to how contributions will be used. A donor can “speak her mind” with varying degrees of specificity. A gift “to create a summer camp for Israeli and Palestinian teenagers” will steer and constrain the donee more than a gift “to promote the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Even with very detailed instructions, however, questions will inevitably arise as to how to follow a gift’s terms that the terms do not definitively answer—even if the background conditions remain constant and the donor’s assumptions valid. Because she is not omniscient, moreover, the donor cannot foresee every contingency that might impair the charity’s ability to realize her intentions. Because the donor has better things to do, she does not try. For all these reasons, the donor must delegate to others the task of filling in gaps in her expressed intent, and responding to unanticipated obstacles to their realization. To whom are such decisions delegated, and by what standards are they decided? As a matter of black letter law, a charity’s managers have authority only to

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interpret a gift’s terms in the ordinary course of events. Courts, by contrast, have authority to change terms themselves in some cases. The legal standard for effecting such change depends on how the court categorizes the contested term: does it specify a means by which the gift’s ends must be pursued (also known as an “administrative term”) or does it identify the ends themselves (also known as “purposes”)? All these distinctions can of course be manipulated at the margins: common law courts, for example, have been making law through “interpretation” for centuries, and one donor’s means can be another donor’s endin-itself. Even so, these distinctions work in a large number of cases. Consider a donor who contributes 100 shares of Corporation X’s stock to Charity A with two restrictions: (1) Never sell this stock; and (2) Use the dividends to build a sanatorium for treating tuberculosis patients. Here, the charity’s managers have discretion to select where to build the sanatorium, its design, the number of beds, and so forth. If accounting and self-dealing scandals at Corporation X cause the value of the stock to plunge, however, the charity’s managers may petition a court for permission to sell the stock, notwithstanding the first term. If the court determines that this restriction is merely an administrative term, it will approve the petition where (1) complying with the restriction (i.e., holding on to this stock) will undermine the charity’s ability to achieve the gift’s purpose (i.e., to build the sanatorium); and (2) this unhappy prospect is due to circumstances that the donor neither knew nor anticipated (Rest 2d Trusts § 381). This is known as the doctrine of deviation. In this way, the court mimics what it believes the donor would have done in this situation had she anticipated it. Implementing a donor’s intent is much harder where a gift’s primary purpose has failed, has already been accomplished, or has otherwise been overtaken or undermined by events. In our hypothetical situation, for example, tuberculosis has been largely eradicated in the United States, and sanatoriums are no longer used to treat the few patients so afflicted. What happens then to the unused portion of the gift? Under the traditional default rule (which applies whenever the donor does not provide explicit instructions for

this contingency), the balance reverts to the donor or those claiming under her (Holmes v. Welch 1943, 463–464). When a donor restricts her gift’s use to a single charitable purpose, the law has traditionally presumed that she intended to aid that charitable purpose and none other, unless she affirmatively “manifested a more general intention to devote the property to charitable purposes” (Rest 2d Trust § 399). If it becomes “impossible,” “impracticable,” or illegal to carry out that single purpose or if that purpose has already been accomplished, then the gift is withdrawn from charitable channels and reverts to the donor et al. (Rest 2d Trusts §§ 399, 400). Courts are more willing to jettison an administrative term that thwarts a gift’s charitable purpose than to replace the donor’s thwarted charitable purpose with one of the court’s choosing. This presumption—that a charitable gift whose purpose has failed or been fulfilled reverts to the donor—may be overcome if the donor manifested a “general charitable intent.” (ibid.) This means that if the donor had been presented with the current situation and two options—(1) let the court apply the gift’s balance to another charitable purpose; or (2) let the balance revert to the donor et al.—she would have preferred the former. In that case, the court will reapply the balance to a related charitable purpose that falls within the general scope of the donor’s intent. This is known as the doctrine of “cy pres,” which is Norman French for “as near as.” When courts apply this doctrine, the correlation between a particular donor’s actual intentions and those that the law imputes to her can become especially attenuated. Cy pres entails three inquiries: (1) Has it become impossible, impracticable, or illegal to carry out the gift’s purpose, and/or has that purpose already been accomplished? (2) If yes, did the donor have a “general charitable intention”? (3) If yes, what new purpose should be substituted for the original one? The first inquiry asks how low or high to set the threshold for setting aside the gift’s original purpose and hence the donor’s expressed intent. Some commentators have criticized the current prerequisites (impossibility, impracticality, illegality) as too deferential to donor intent at society’s expense: cy pres should be available, they argue, “to the extent it is or becomes wasteful to

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apply all of the [gifted] property to the designated purpose” (Rest 3d Trusts § 67). If adopted, this principle would give courts more latitude to modify a donor’s wishes to advance efficiency goals. At least one court, however, has considered and roundly rejected this idea. The case involved the Buck Trust, which was created to benefit the poor and to advance other charitable purposes in Marin County, California (also known as the “hot tub capital of the poor”), and which was producing relatively large sums per capita for a population that was generally very well-off. The trust’s administrator, the San Francisco Foundation, petitioned the California Superior Court of Marin County for permission to use some trust income to benefit the other four Bay Area counties it served. The court rejected the request, holding that “ineffective philanthropy, inefficiency and relative inefficiency, that is, inefficiency of trust expenditures in one location given greater relative needs or benefits elsewhere, do not constitute impracticability” or impossibility within the meaning of cy pres (In the Matter the Estate of Beryl H. Buck, 1987). The second inquiry—“Did the donor have a general charitable intent?”—is somewhat peculiar. It asks what the donor would have thought about something she did not actually think about, or at least did not express an opinion about, that is, how to dispose of the gift balance if it were to become impossible, impracticable, or illegal to execute its purpose, or if the purpose were already accomplished. For example, was this donor’s sole charitable aim to help persons with tuberculosis, such that her next best use of the gift would have been retaining it for herself or those claiming under her? Or did she care more generally about, say, people suffering from respiratory and thoracic diseases, so much so that she would have preferred any balance to benefit members of that class rather than her or her estate? In most cases, the court lacks enough information about any given donor to make an intelligent or insightful prediction as to how that individual would answer the question (Laird 1988 at 979). In the absence of such information, courts must use a default rule. There are at least two approaches to formulating a default rule for this situation: (1) One could try to predict and then mimic what the average or reason-

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able donor would want to happen in this situation; or (2) One could try to produce a socially or normatively desirable outcome. It is unclear which approach underlies the traditional rule, wherein the donor is presumed to have wanted the gift to revert to her unless she affirmatively expressed a general charitable intent. Perhaps it reflects the normative view that family members should be the natural objects of one’s bounty and that departure from that norm should be narrowly construed. The modern trend reverses the presumption: the donor is deemed to have a general charitable intention unless she expressly dictates another disposition for the balance (Rest 3d Trusts § 67 and comment b). This approach is grounded firmly in policy: where the evidence regarding the donor’s intent is equivocal, speculative, or nonexistent, charity law favors an interpretation that keeps the gift’s assets flowing in charitable channels, where they will presumably generate more public benefit than if returned to the donor or her estate. Any invocations of donor intent are rhetorical, anecdotal, or wishful thinking. Of course, survey research might reveal that most contemporary donors do in fact give with what the law calls a “general charitable intent.” That would provide an even more solid grounding for the modern trend. Once the first two conditions for cy pres have been established (i.e., the original gift’s purpose has failed or been fulfilled, and the donor had general charitable intent), what principles guide the court’s selection of a substitute purpose? The doctrine’s name is suggestive: “cy pres” is shorthand for cy pres comme possible— Norman French for “as near as possible.” In practice, however, many modern courts do not feel obliged to substitute a purpose as near as possible to the donor’s original one (Rest 2d Trusts § 399 comment b; Rest 3d Trusts § 67 comment d). The proper analogy is not a bull’s eye, with the donor’s purpose at the center and the substitute purpose the shortest possible distance away. Rather, the donor’s purpose is (or was) simply one means to a larger charitable end or one species in a genus of charitable purposes. In selecting a substitute purpose, a court may prefer to look for the most effective means to the same larger end (Rest 2d Trusts § 399 comment b) or for the species within the same genus that generates the greatest public benefit (Rest

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3d Trusts § 67 comment d). Here too the selection criteria are grounded on social policy. Even so, one might hope or suppose “that among similar purposes charitably inclined [donors] would tend to prefer those most beneficial to their communities” (ibid.) Yet these speculations about the hypothetical, charitably inclined donor are a far cry from what we ordinarily mean by “donor intent.” Although this article has discussed cy pres at some length, these situations are really the exception, not the rule. Most of the time, charities do not find it impossible or impracticable to comply with the terms of a donor’s gift. The issue is generally not whether they can do so, but whether they will. How can the legal system make charities honor donor-imposed restrictions, and to what extent does it do so? Federal tax law is generally unhelpful in this regard. Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code requires nonprofit organizations seeking tax exemption to pursue some charitable purpose or purposes and not to bestow excessive benefits on private parties. When a charity uses a restricted gift for a charitable purpose other than the one designated by the donor, the charity is still using the gift for a charitable purpose and without benefiting a private party. State law provides some mechanisms for enforcing the terms of restricted gifts, but many regard these as inadequate. Donors generally cannot sue to enforce these terms unless they expressly reserved the right to do so (Carl J. Herzog Foundation, Inc. v. University of Bridgeport 1997). Nor can other private parties bring suit, generally speaking, absent either a specific statutory grant (Fishman and Schwarz 2000, 273, 277) or an ad hoc judicial determination that they have a “special interest” in the matter (Blasko, Crossley, and Lloyd 1993). Apart from a charity’s own trustees or directors, usually only the state attorney general can sue to enforce the terms of a gift. Yet these officials have more responsibilities than resources and deem many responsibilities more weighty and urgent than enforcing the terms of charitable gifts. This situation results in chronic underenforcement of such terms, punctuated by occasional involvement in the most high profile and/or egregious cases. Fortunately for donors, the legal system is not the only inducement for charities to honor donor-

imposed restrictions on gifts. One instrument is the ability of disgruntled donors to generate bad publicity for a charity, thereby harming its ability to compete in the market for charitable dollars (Fishman and Schwarz 2000, 271). This works best with charities that rely on an ongoing stream of contributions and whose managers’ performance is measured in terms of their fundraising ability. This approach clearly does not affect fully endowed private foundations—because they do not seek additional contributions, there are no potential donors to punish them for disobeying the wishes of past donors. This helps explain why some commentators (mostly conservatives) allege that the clearest violations of donor intent have occurred in such entities—at least in the sense of disappointing their founders’ hopes and expectations for their activities (Wooster 1994; Halcombe 2000, 135–152). Another force that leads charities to comply with gift terms is their managers’ desire to cultivate and maintain personal reputations for honesty and scrupulousness (Macey 1988, 320). Such managers will likely take some care to avoid misusing donor funds out of fear of losing “reputational capital” among the relevant group, be it fellow philanthropic professionals or other pillars of the local community (ibid.). Managers who (also) view their stewardship of restricted gifts as a serious moral responsibility will behave the same way, but for a different (though mutually reinforcing) reason. Robert A. Katz References and further reading Blasko, Mary Grace, Curt S. Crossley, and David Lloyd. 1993. “Standing to Sue in the Charitable Sector.” 28 U.S.F.L. Rev. 37. Bork, Robert H., and Waldemar Nielsen. 1993. Donor Intent. Indianapolis: Philanthropy Roundtable. Carl J. Herzog Foundation, Inc. v. University of Bridgeport, 699 A.2d 995 (Conn. 1997). Fishman, James J., and Steven Schwarz. 2000. Nonprofit Organizations: Cases and Materials. New York: Foundation Press. Holcombe, Randall G. 2000. Writing Off Ideas: Taxation, Foundations, and Philanthropy in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Holmes v. Welch, 49 N.E.2d 461 (Mass. 1943). In the Matter of the Estate of Beryl H. Buck, No. 23259 (Cal. Super. Ct., Marin County August 15, 1986), reprinted in 21 U.S.F.L. Rev. 691 (1987).

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Laird, Vanessa. 1988. “Phantom Selves: The Search for a General Charitable Intent in the Application of the Cy Pres Doctrine.” 40 Stan. L. Rev. 973. Macey, Jonathan R. 1988. “Private Trusts for the Provision of Private Goods.” 37 Emory L.J. 295. Restatement (Second) of Trusts (1959). Restatement (Third) of Trusts (Tentative Draft No. 3, March 5, 2001). Smith, David H. 1995. Entrusted: The Moral Responsibilities of Trusteeship. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Turner, Richard C., ed. 1995. Taking Trusteeship Seriously: Essays on the History, Dynamics, and Practice of Trusteeship. Indianapolis: Indiana University Center on Philanthropy. Wooster, Martin Morse. 1994. The Great Philanthropists and the Problem of “Donor Intent.” Washington, DC: Capital Research Center.

Donor-Advised Funds A donor-advised fund is a legal instrument through which an individual establishes a fund for the purpose of making tax-deductible contributions to organizations recognized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as qualified charities under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 501(c). Such funds are usually established through community foundations or through commercial financial institutions such as banks and brokerage firms. Donors choose them because they allow the donor to suggest or advise the fund’s administrator about his or her preference of qualified recipients, may provide a significant tax advantage, and offer a vehicle of sustained giving that may lead to a permanent endowment. There are several factors of which the donor should be aware. First, money that is donated to the fund is irrevocable. Second, the fund administrators are not obligated to accept the recommendations of the donor. It is customary for administrators to attempt to accommodate donors’ wishes, however. Third, community foundations do not have a standardized method of managing donor-advised funds. Areas in which the administration of funds might differ are the time periods for processing grant applications, the minimum balance required to maintain the fund, rules that stipulate whether an annual allocation of assets is mandatory, and administration practices regarding accepting advice from the donor.

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The process of establishing a donor-advised fund is designed to be accessible to a wide range of donors. Community foundations may require an initial donation of as little as $200, whereas many major brokerage firms require a minimum of $10,000. It is customary for the organization administering the fund to charge an annual administration fee. Donors receive many benefits from the arrangement with an administrative agency. In addition to the possibility of remaining active in the grantmaking process, donors are allowed to name the fund and determine whether the fund will be temporary or permanent (endowed). In some cases, the donor decides that a fund should be spent during his or her lifetime. But it is possible to make the fund an endowment. In this case, the donor names another person to continue advising the administrator after his or her death. Donors often use this option to involve family members in a philanthropic tradition. By establishing the fund through an organization already involved in philanthropy, the donor gains the expertise of professionals and reduces the investment of time in administrative duties. Donor-advised funds may be funded by a onetime contribution of cash or by periodic contributions of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other marketable financial assets. Under current tax laws, donors can receive a significant benefit from contributing appreciated stock. The donor benefits by avoiding the capital gains tax, and the fund does not pay taxes on the fund’s earnings. The consequence of these savings is reflected in the amount the fund can provide to charities. Donor-advised funds have been in existence since the 1930s and have grown rapidly in recent years. Individuals should consult a tax adviser or an attorney before entering into an agreement to establish a donor-advised fund in order to determine changes in tax laws and to assess how the fund might affect their individual financial situation. Grady Jones References and further reading Columbus Foundation. 2002. “A Flexible and Growing Service to Donors: Donor-Advised Fund in Community Foundations,” brochure. Columbus, OH: Luck, J., & Feurt, S.

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Community Foundation. 2002. “About Donor-Advised Funds,” http://www.givingcapital.com/ (cited September 2, 2002). ———. 2002. “What Are Donor Advised Funds?” http:// www.communityfund.org/advisedf.htm (cited September 6, 2002). National Philanthropic Trust. 2002. “What Is a Donor Advised Fund?” http://www.nptrust.org/03_about_ DAFs/3_00_about_daf.htm (cited September 2, 2002). Rotary International. 2002. “Donor Advised Funds,” http:// www.rotary.org/foundation/development/advisedfunds (cited September 2, 2002). Tides Foundation. 2002. “Become a Tides Donor Advisor,” http://www.tidesfoundation.org/donor_advised_funds. cfm. (cited September 6, 2002).

Drexel, St. Katharine (1858–1955) In 1858, Katharine Drexel was born into a prominent Philadelphia family. Her father, Francis Anthony Drexel, was a banker and business partner of J. P. Morgan. The Drexels were a devout and pious Catholic family and conscious of their philanthropic obligations. The Drexel children watched and learned as their elders prayed, received the sacraments of the church, and gave generously to churches, hospitals, schools, missions, and asylums. Katharine developed a particular concern for the welfare of Native and African American children. She is now considered the patron saint of Catholic schools and missions to Native Americans and African Americans. Francis Drexel died in 1858, leaving for his three daughters a trust worth $15 million (about $250 million in today’s dollars). Katharine shocked her friends by indicating a desire to leave her life of privilege to live as a nun. In 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People (SBS). One of the the order’s first missions, St. Catherine’s Boarding School for Pueblo Indians in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was founded in 1894. The following year, St. Emma Military Academy, a vocational school for African American boys, was opened at Rock Castle, Virginia, and the nearby St. Francis de Sales school for girls opened in 1899. By 1903, additional schools had opened in Arizona and Tennessee. Xavier, a coeducational secondary school for black children, was founded in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1915. It became Xavier University of Louisiana in

The Reverend Mother Mary Katharine Drexel (1858– 1955) (Bettmann/Corbis)

1925, with an initial enrollment of forty-seven students. By 1936, the enrollment had jumped to 829. It remains the country’s only predominantly Catholic black university. In these early years, SBS schools stressed both religious formation and practical skills. Boys were taught agricultural skills such as farming, equipment maintenance, cannery management, and accounting as well as blacksmithing, iron working, printing, carpentry, and masonry. Girls were taught such skills as homemaking, needlecraft, sewing, and nursing. By the time of Katharine’s death in 1955, SBS had established some sixty schools in the West, Midwest, and South and had provided generous support to missions in Alaska, Canada, and Africa. Vowed to poverty and simplicity in her own life, this “millionaire nun,” as she was sometimes called, distributed some $20

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million to feed, clothe, educate, and save the souls of Native American and African American children. One can hardly overstate the impact of Katharine Drexel’s work. At a time when most white Americans were indifferent, or even hostile, toward minorities, Katharine, the SBS, and the Catholic Church were determined to tear down the barriers of racism and civil inequality that were so much a part of American society during the first half of the twentieth century. Some communities were so hostile to the education of minorities that the order was forced to resort to third parties, also known as “straw buyers,” to purchase land and materials for the schools. Yet, in spite of such opposition, tens of thousands of black and Native American children were given the tools with which to lift themselves out of poverty and become contributing members of their communities. In 1939, Katharine was awarded an honorary doctorate by Catholic University. By then it was obvious to all that her health was failing. Having suffered a

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heart attack in 1935, she was forced to give up the day-to-day running of the SBS but remained its inspiration and soul. She continued to receive many visitors, including bishops of dioceses in which the order had founded schools, papal representatives, friends, and family. Katharine Drexel died on March 3, 1955. She was beatified on November 20, 1988, and canonized on October 1, 2000. Joseph C. Harmon References and further reading Baldwin, Lou. 2002. “Giving It All: Mother Katharine Drexel’s Habit of Charity.” Philanthropy 13 (MarchApril): 13–15. Burton, Katharine. 1957. The Golden Door: The Life of Katharine Drexel. New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons. Duffy, Consuela Maria. 1966. Katharine Drexel: A Biography. Philadelphia: Reilly. Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, http://www. katharinedrexel.org/. Tarry, Ellen. 1990. Katharine Drexel: Friend of the Oppressed. Nashville, TN: Winston-Derek.

E Eastman, George (1854–1932)

acquired the necessary equipment, and began to enjoy his new hobby. The 50 pounds of photographic equipment required to take pictures soon inspired him to develop a simpler method for capturing pictures. Eastman’s inventions and his company’s products made photography affordable for millions. Compared to his philanthropy and personal life, Eastman’s business accomplishments are well known. Aside from the city of Rochester, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was the largest recipient of Eastman’s wealth. Because Eastman wanted to support the school where many of his chemists received their training, he provided MIT with an initial gift of $2.5 million to build a new chemistry building. The gift was given on the condition that the donor would remain anonymous. Ultimately, the mysterious “Mr. Smith,” as the MIT president called him, gave $11 million in total to the school. The three other educational institutions benefiting from his generosity were Tuskegee Institute, Hampton Institute, and the University of Rochester, where his donations made possible the School of Music. Eastman never married or had any children. Throughout his very private life, his time was primarily divided between his business, his musical interests, and his philanthropic projects; he approached each project with intense scrutiny. By the early 1930s, Eastman’s physical health had declined. Not wanting to

Through the lens of a camera, George Eastman became one of the largest, most enigmatic philanthropists in the United States during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Eastman’s importance in the history of philanthropy lies in his decision to give away his amassed fortune during his own lifetime. As the founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, Eastman became one of the wealthiest individuals of the Industrial Revolution. He donated approximately $125 million to institutions of higher education, medical and dental health, the arts, and the city of Rochester, New York. Born on July 12, 1854, in Waterville, New York, George Eastman was the youngest child and only son of George Washington and Maria Kilbourn Eastman. He learned the meaning of philanthropy at an early age through the influence of his abolitionist parents, who were active in the Underground Railroad, and the entrepreneurial spirit of his father, who started a small business college in Rochester, New York. In 1862, two years after moving the family to Rochester, his father died, leaving the family with little money. George Eastman the younger worked diligently throughout his adolescence and eventually made enough money to relieve his mother of the financial responsibilities for their home. From an inherent sense of adventure and curiosity, Eastman became intrigued with photography, quickly

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Economic Theories of Nonprofits

Traub, Carol G. 1997. Profiles: Philanthropists and Their Legacies. Minneapolis: Oliver Press.

Economic Theories of Nonprofits Most philanthropy flows through private nonprofit organizations, defined as organizations that can make profits but cannot distribute them to the board of directors or others in control of the organization. As such, they stand between the philanthropist and the ultimate beneficiaries of his or her largesse. Why are organizations necessary to mediate these transactions? And why is the nonprofit form selected for these organizations? These questions lie at the core of economic theories of nonprofits, which elaborate on the supply and demand of alternative institutional forms, the effects of institutional form on organizational behavior, and the effects of government policies on institutional choice and behavior.

Inventor and industrialist George Eastman (1854–1932) (Corbis)

live in such a debilitating state, Eastman took his life at age seventy-eight in 1932. His estate was valued at $25 million and was designated for immediate distribution to charities that he had supported in the past. Ashley M. Magdovitz References and further reading Ackerman, Carl W. 1930. George Eastman. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. American Council of Learned Societies. 2002 [1944–1958]. “George Eastman.” In Dictionary of American Biography, Supplements 1–2: To 1940. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. Brayer, Elizabeth. 1996. George Eastman: A Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Collins, Douglas. 1990. The Story of Kodak. New York: Harry N. Abrams. DeVinney, James A. 2000. The Wizard of Photography. WGBH Educational Foundation, Green Light Productions. Distributed by PBS Home Video. Public Broadcasting Service. “People and Events: George Eastman,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eastman/ peopleevents/pande02.html (cited November 6, 2002).

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Why Organizations Are Needed Organizations are formed to economize on “transactions costs”—the costs of arranging production and distribution. Consider the transaction costs faced by a lone philanthropist seeking to help a group of people. First, the philanthropist must identify potential beneficiaries and determine their worthiness. Second, the philanthropist must develop a plan to help these beneficiaries. Can beneficiaries be trusted to use cash gifts effectively, or should they be provided with specific services and counseling? What is the most efficient and effective way to provide those services? Third, the philanthropist must coordinate his or her plans with others who care about the same beneficiaries. Will gifts by one philanthropist add to the pot, or will they simply lead other philanthropists to make corresponding reductions in their gifts? Will some potential beneficiaries receive more help than they need while others go unserved? Organizations economize on these transaction costs. One organization serves many philanthropists, eliminating duplication of effort by collectively identifying the beneficiaries, providing them with effective and efficient services, and coordinating the allocation of total donations across beneficiaries. Instead of each donor developing expertise in each of these subjects,


donors need only learn about the quality of the mediating organization. If that quality is found lacking, the philanthropist can seek to improve it, search for a better one, found a new organization, or resign themselves to individual action. Transaction costs govern this choice as well. In order to found a new organization, the philanthropist must identify and assemble a collection of other philanthropists who care about the same beneficiaries, determine whether their collective desire to help is sufficient to cover the costs of helping, and establish a governance mechanism that ensures that the stakeholders will trust the organization with their donations.

Consequences of Nondistribution What defines an organization as nonprofit, and why do philanthropists employ them? Nonprofit organizations can and do retain financial surpluses as reserve funds or endowments, so the definition does not lie in a prohibition on profit making. Instead, a nonprofit is defined as an organization that is constrained by laws, regulations, or internal structure from distributing its financial surplus to those who control the organization. This definition is implicit in most legal codes, practices, and common understandings of the term and serves as the foundation of most subsequent analysis by economists. Nonprofit organizations cannot pay dividend checks to board members or stockholders; suppliers of at-risk capital must instead take their rewards in other forms, such as the warm glow of knowing that they have helped others or as nonfinancial perks and other private benefits. Suppose a philanthropist is dissatisfied with existing opportunities to help and decides to form a new organization. This organization could be created as either a for-profit or a nonprofit, in accord with the wishes of the founding entrepreneur. It seems puzzling that founders ever select the nonprofit form, because this choice means that they will never receive a dividend check no matter how popular the venture proves to be. However, by selecting the nonprofit form, the founder makes it more likely that other philanthropists will contribute toward the cause. Other philanthropists do not have to worry that their gifts will benefit owners rather than the intended beneficiaries, because profit distributions are prohibited. If ex-

pected profits are modest and potential gifts by others are large, the founder will rationally choose the nonprofit form. Nondistribution of profits implies that nonprofits are different from for-profit firms in four important ways. First, nonprofits receive a far greater volume of donations and volunteer labor for the reason explained above. Second, they cannot raise capital by selling shares of stock that return dividends to the owners. Instead, they rely, at least initially, upon donations. This difference in the market for ownership leads to the third distinction: Nonprofits are not subject to takeover bids by financially motivated stockholders. With no fear of takeover bids, nonprofit organizations are free to pursue goals other than profit maximization, although they may still seek to maximize profits from some activities in order to finance unprofitable mission-related activities. Fourth, the kinds of people who choose to found, run, and contribute to nonprofit organizations, on average, will be different from the kinds that start and manage forprofit firms. Nonprofit stakeholders presumably care more about nonfinancial performance than do forprofit stakeholders. This combination of financial structure, freedom from takeovers, and stakeholder sorting allows nonprofits to differ from for-profits in both good and bad ways. On the plus side, nonprofits may provide “collective goods,” defined by economists as goods or services that benefit a group of people regardless of whether each member of the group pays for that service. For example, charity care for the indigent benefits all potential philanthropists who care about that group, regardless of whether each of those philanthropists donates to the charity or directly pays for services for the poor. Art museums preserve aesthetic experiences for future generations who cannot pay for that option today. Those aesthetic experiences are preserved regardless of whether future generations choose to pay museum admission fees. Another advantage of the nonprofit form is that surpluses generated from one activity or group of customers may be used to finance lower prices or free provision of mission-related services. We see this when colleges offer financial aid (in effect, reducing the price), when day-care centers offer sliding-scale

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fees based on ability to pay, or when medical clinics offer free vaccinations. The last advantage of the nonprofit form is that these organizations can act less opportunistically in situations where for-profit firms would exploit consumer ignorance. For example, for-profit nursing homes might skimp on the invisible aspects of quality in order to reduce costs and enhance profit distribution. The problem is worse when philanthropists pay a for-profit firm to feed starving residents of a foreign country. It would be difficult enough for philanthropists to confirm that the paid-for food is provided, but nearly impossible to confirm that more food is provided when one’s own donation is added to the pool of donations by others. For-profits would rather use the philanthropists’ money to increase the size of their dividend checks, and could safely do so. Contracts protect consumers, but only when the consumers can confirm whether the terms of the contract have been met. Thus, the cases cited above are examples of “contract failure.” Nonprofits help remedy contract failure because they cannot pay dividend checks and because they attract workers who are less motivated by financial payoffs. Consumers and donors know this, so nonprofits are both more trustworthy and more trusted (although there is dispute about how important and widespread this advantage is in practice). Unfortunately, nonprofits sometimes depart from profit-maximizing behavior in three ways that are less desirable. First, scarce resources might be wasted or improperly used, resulting in higher costs and lower levels of service. Managers and employees may not work as hard as they would in the for-profit sector, may not keep their training up to date, and may spend too much money on enhancing their working environment. Second, cross-subsidies and price discrimination are sometimes used to accomplish what is arguably a wrong-way redistribution from the poor to the rich. All students (including those who are less well-off ), for example, may be charged a higher tuition in order to finance athletic scholarships or to provide financial aid to the sons and daughters of well-off alumni. Third, nonprofits may be less nimble, because of both their differing objectives and their inability to issue shares of stock to finance expansion.

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They may react to increases in demand by becoming more selective rather than by increasing capacity. Nonprofits may also be slow to cut back when the need for their services diminishes.

Comparing the Behavior of Nonprofit and For-Profit Firms Although nonprofits differ from for-profit firms, there are many similarities. For-profit firms rely chiefly on revenues from sales of goods and services. This is also true for nonprofit organizations, although the share of revenues coming from sales is low in some charitable subsectors. When the charitable mission requires the nonprofit to provide particular services, financial or programmatic considerations may require that they charge a fee. Job training, psychological counseling, and substance-abuse services provide illustrations of mission-related services. Under the U.S. tax code, such “related income” is tax-exempt. Sometimes, the organization sells one service just to generate profits that can be devoted to its charitable mission. Museum shops and health spas are examples, and the income generated from them is taxed by an “Unrelated Business Income Tax.” Nonprofits behave just like for-profits when they seek unrelated business income. In contrast, when organizations seek related income, the charitable mission may war with the need to remain solvent. The organization may wish to provide low-cost services to those who cannot afford them at market prices or to expose the largest possible audience to symphonic music. In these cases, nonprofits use market prices and donations to obtain the revenues needed to offer sliding-scale fees or other need-based discounts, special days when admission is not charged, and free care for selected clients. Mission also wars with solvency when the organization selects its location. Nonprofits may locate where the need is greatest, rather than where the profit potential is greatest, selecting inner-city and rural sites that for-profit health clinics would avoid. Thus, nonprofits behave very differently from forprofits when they seek related income. Like for-profits, nonprofits must engage in advertising and other forms of marketing. However, nonprofits do so in a distinctive way. In addition to marketing sales of items that generate unrelated business


income, nonprofits market the importance of their cause when seeking gifts, grants, and volunteers. Sometimes, the charitable mission requires “social marketing” as well—communications designed to change detrimental behaviors—as in public service announcements designed to reduce drunk driving, smoking, or unsafe sexual practices. Finally, organizations that provide public education or advocacy turn to their own brand of marketing. Like for-profits, nonprofits must consider the strategic interactions among their activities. For-profits must consider whether a new product line will prosper at the expense of competitors’ products or their own existing product lines. Nonprofits must consider sales interactions, but must also consider interactions between sales and donations. There are many reasons to suspect that individual donations would change when the organization starts a new commercial venture, either related or unrelated to its mission, or when it receives a foundation grant or a government contract. Government money has both positive and negative effects on donations. On the plus side, donors are assured that their gifts will be well spent by organizations that have received the government’s seal of approval in the form of a major contract or grant. The government’s pregrant review process and ongoing grant monitoring are designed to insure that funded organizations are professionally run, well managed, accountable, and efficient. In addition, government may fund services that are complementary to donor wishes. For example, government may pay for the symphony hall, making it more sensible for donors who want to improve the quality of the orchestra to give generously. Finally, government money may allow the organization to realize economies of scale so that donations may be used more efficiently. On the minus side, government grants and contracts often require the recipient to compromise their charitable mission. For example, faith-based organizations may have to limit their proselytization of clients when they accept contracts to provide social services, and organizations that provide shelter for the homeless may be required to curtail their client and program advocacy efforts in the legislature and the courtroom in return for government money. Such compromises would

generally discourage donors who supported the original mission. Even when government money supports a charity’s mission, it may cause donors to believe that other charities, those without a governmental patron, need their contributions more. In this sense, government money crowds out private donations. There are also positive and negative effects of commercial activity. Donors, especially foundation grantmakers, may view it as a positive sign that the programs they support with seed money will eventually be self-sustaining through cross-subsidization. However, donors may also worry that managers will devote too much attention to unrelated business income generation at the expense of accomplishing the organization’s core mission. Similarly, they may fear “mission creep” as the organization hires managers with commercial expertise but less understanding and devotion to nonfinancial objectives. Finally, commercial activity may cause donors to feel that their help is no longer needed.

Private or Public Nonprofits? Governments are also constrained against the distribution of profits. What distinguishes them from private, nonprofit organizations, and what determines the public/private division of responsibilities? The answer is that government finances collective goods at a level supported by political consensus. People who want more of the collective good than government provides will support and contribute to nonprofit organizations to supplement public finance and provision. In societies where there is a reasonable consensus about the amount to spend on collective goods, the privately financed part of the nonprofit sector is relatively small. In more diverse societies, those who object to low levels of government finance will look for opportunities to supplement public provision, and nonprofit organizations provide an ideal outlet for that desire. Note that societal diversity does not explain whether services are provided by government or private nonprofits, only whether they are financed by the two sectors. Political consensus may support government grants to or contracts with nonprofit organizations, so that publicly financed private nonprofits play a prominent role in more harmonious societies.

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Environmental Movement

Diverse demands for collective goods are necessary but do not suffice to explain a large nonprofit role in the financing of collective goods. For one thing, the government must be willing to tolerate private action for the public good. Some extremely diverse communities find private action threatening to the legitimacy of government and so suppress the nonprofit sector. Another problem arises when no one is willing to take on the entrepreneurial role of founding and running nonprofit organizations. This problem is less severe if existing nonprofits provide seed money and leadership for new organizations. New ventures are an important strategy when nonprofits compete for members and legitimacy. In particular, religious denominations compete for converts and increase the commitment of their members by founding faith-based social-service agencies, hospitals, and educational institutions. Thus, societal diversity, religious competition, and tolerance for private action explain much of the public/ private division across societies and time. Richard Steinberg See also Commercialism in the Nonprofit Sector; Federated Fundraising; Nonprofit Management; Public Philanthropy; Social Marketing References and further reading Ben-Ner, Avner, and Theresa Van Hoomissen. 1991. “Nonprofits in the Mixed Economy: A Demand and Supply Analysis.” Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 62: 519–550. Bilodeau, Marc, and Al Slivinski. 1996. “Volunteering Nonprofit Entrepreneurial Services.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 31: 117–127. ———. 1997. “Rival Charities.” Journal of Public Economics 66: 449–467. ———. 1998. “Rational Nonprofit Entrepreneurship.” Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 7: 551–571. Frech, H. E., III. 1980. “Health Insurance: Private, Mutuals, or Government.” In The Economics of Nonproprietary Organizations, edited by Kenneth W. Clarkson and Donald L. Martin, 61–73. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Hansmann, Henry. 1980. “The Role of Nonprofit Enterprise.” Yale Law Journal 89: 835–901. ———. 1987. “Economic Theories of Nonprofit Organization.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, edited by Walter W. Powell Jr., 27–42. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. James, Estelle. 1983. “How Nonprofits Grow: A Model.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 2: 350–366.

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———. 1993. “Why Do Different Countries Choose a Different Public-Private Mix of Educational Services?” Journal of Human Resources 28: 571–592. James, Estelle, and Susan Rose-Ackerman. 1986. The Nonprofit Enterprise in Market Economics. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic. Ortmann, Andreas, and Mark Schlesinger. 2003. “Trust, Repute, and the Role of Nonprofit Enterprise.” In The Study of the Nonprofit Enterprise: Theories and Approaches, edited by Helmut K. Anheier and Avner Ben-Ner, 77–114. Dordrecht: Kluwer/Plenum. Rose-Ackerman, Susan, ed. 1986. The Economics of Nonprofit Institutions. New York: Oxford University Press. Steinberg, Richard. 1993. “Public Policy and the Performance of Nonprofit Organizations: A General Framework.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 22: 13–32. Steinberg, Richard, and Bradford Gray. 1993. “‘The Role of Nonprofit Enterprise’ in 1992: Hansmann Revisited.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 22: 297–316. Steinberg, Richard, and Burton A. Weisbrod. 1998. “Pricing and Rationing by Nonprofit Organizations with Distributional Objectives.” In To Profit or Not to Profit: The Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 65–82. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wedig, Gerard. 1994. “Risk, Leverage, Donations and Dividends-in-Kind: A Theory of Nonprofit Financial Behavior.” International Review of Economics and Finance 3: 257–278. Weisbrod, Burton A. 1975. “Toward a Theory of the Voluntary Nonprofit Sector in a Three-Sector Economy.” In Altruism, Morality, and Economic Theory, edited by Edmund S. Phelps, 171–195. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ———. 1988. The Nonprofit Economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Young, Dennis R. 1983. If Not for Profit, for What? Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.

Environmental Movement Philanthropy is not new and neither is our concern for nature, clean air, and water. However, the term “environment” is relatively recent. Although “environ” has meant “surroundings” since the fourteenth century, and “environment” assumed a similar meaning in the nineteenth, it wasn’t until the 1960s that the latter came into general usage as a term for ecosystems and natural habitats.


American naturalist George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938) helped found the Audubon Society. (Corbis)

Precursors to today’s environmental groups, organized as hiking clubs, such as the Williamstown Club, established in 1863, and the Appalachian Mountain Club, founded in 1876, were influenced by Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden (1854). New groups rose throughout the country in the late nineteenth century to combat the destruction of wilderness and pristine natural areas brought about by the growth and expansion of the Industrial Revolution. Among the organizations involved in the study, exploration, and advocacy for the protection of nature were the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club. The Audubon Society was formed in 1886 when George Bird Grinnell, editor of Forest and Stream, encouraged his readers to join him in forming the country’s first bird preservation organization. In only three months, more than 38,000 people joined the society. The Sierra Club was founded in 1892 by John Muir and in the early years relied on membership support for its activities, though sometimes personal

contributions were made to make up deficits. Club members explored the Sierra, opening new routes and leading outings, and advocated for the protection of the wilderness. After World War II, the traditional conservation and preservation movement became more broadbased among the middle class. Efforts to protect America’s threatened species and natural wonders, to increase national park and wilderness protection systems, and to promote local greenbelts and residential zoning expanded and increased. New conservationists spearheaded efforts to protect national treasures from development. David Brower, for example, led the Sierra Club in a successful effort to stop the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation from flooding part of the Grand Canyon in the 1960s. Beginning in the 1970s, the so-called “environmental decade,” a newly emerging wing of the ecology movement began organizing around issues of environmental quality, industrial pollution, toxic waste sites, nuclear power, pesticides, and environmental health. Inspired by the dire warnings by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring (1962) and the struggle led by Lois Gibbs and the residents of Love Canal against the contamination of their community, the environmental health movement initiated new organizing efforts— often linking the occupational health and safety and public health movements into ad hoc coalitions—that included working-class Americans. Environmentalists also joined consumer health and safety organizations led by advocates such as Ralph Nader that were concerned with the proliferation of dangerous household products, unsafe automobiles, drugs, foods, pesticides, and other commodities. Traditional conservation organizations such as the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and the National Wildlife Federation increased in popularity and a host of new, nationally based environmental organizations sprang forth, including the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Policy Institute and Friends of the Earth (now merged), Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Environmental Action (Faber and O’Connor 1993, 14). By 1975, 5.5 million people contributed financially to nineteen leading national environmental organizations and perhaps another 20 million donated to more

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The Greenpeace ship MV Greenpeace, shown at the Esmark Glacier in Spitsbergen in the north Arctic Sea in August 1999, protests the spread of polluntants to the most remote and pristine regions of the planet. (jre/Greenpeace/Photo by John Cunningham, Reuters; Reuters/Corbis)

than 40,000 local groups (Sandbach 1980, 13). Environmentalism had arrived as a mass-based movement. Today, the environmental movement remains one of the largest and more influential social movements in American society. There are currently more than 10,000 environmental advocacy organizations operating in the United States. These organizations have a combined membership of between 19 million and 41 million members, employ approximately 28,000 staff, have an income of $2.6 billion a year, and possess assets of $5.8 billion (Brulle 2000, 114).

The Environmental Movement and Philanthropy Americans are a generous people when it comes to supporting the environment. According to Giving USA 2003, of the estimated $241 billion donated to charity in 2002, environmental causes of all kinds, including wildlife and habitat conservation, garnered nearly $6.59 billion (or 2.7 percent). The total dollar

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amounts donated to such causes have steadily grown in recent years. In fact, contributions to the environment increased by 68 percent from 1996 ($3.81 billion) to 2001 ($6.41 billion). Individuals account for nearly 75.8 percent of the contributions, with the rest coming from foundations (12.2 percent), corporations (4.3 percent), and bequests (7.7 percent). Out of this total, approximately two-thirds goes to environmental advocacy organizations that make up the environmental movement. The remainder goes to wildlife preserves, zoos, aquariums, and natural history museums. Giving to environmental advocacy organizations, such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, or the Natural Resources Defense Council, totaled approximately $2.7 billion in 1995 (Brulle 2000, 103). Foundation support plays a particularly important role in sustaining the environmental movement (Walker 1983, 1991; Cockburn and St. Clair 1994). It is estimated that 5.4 percent, or $1.23 billion, of total foundation giving ($22.8 billion) went to the environ-


ment in 1999 (Faber and McCarthy 2001a). In a 1992 national survey of environmental organization leaders, these leaders rated foundation funding as second in importance to membership contributions (Snow 1992, 64). Foundation support made up 21 percent of environmental organization funding, whereas membership dues provided 24 percent of environmental group income (ibid., 63). Another study also found that foundation grants were the second largest source of income, making up between 22 and 29 percent of total organizational income (Brulle 2000, 251–253). By providing approximately 20 percent of the total funding of the environmental movement, foundations play a key role in the maintenance of these organizations (ibid., 255–256). However, this funding is not uniform. Although the total pool of environmental funding has grown rapidly, by almost fivefold per decade since the 1970s, it has been concentrated on a relatively small number of large movement organizations involved in political advocacy work (Brulle and Jenkins forthcoming). For example, both the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club Foundation remain membership organizations and receive the majority of their funds from gifts and bequests. In 2001, the Audubon Society reported that nearly 67 percent of its annual operating revenues of $68 million were received as contributions and bequests, and only 11 percent in membership dues. The Sierra Club Foundation in 2001 received over 90 percent of its operating revenues of over $73 million from contributions and bequests (ibid.). These two examples illustrate the role of philanthropy in supporting environmental organizations. The bulk of foundation funding goes to a handful of politically moderate national environmental organizations. Most are professional movement organizations with at most a “paper” membership of direct mail contributors who lack participatory mechanisms. A comprehensive analysis of environmental movement funding between 1970 and 2000 showed that over 80 percent of foundation funding goes to staff-dominated professional movement organizations that lack a grassroots base, and over 90 percent to organizations that rely exclusively on institutional tactics rather than base building and community organizing (ibid.).

Foundation funding thus bypasses some of the most vital and innovative sectors of the environmental movement. Instead of investing in the environmental justice, deep ecology, eco-feminist and ecotheological wings of the movement, foundations have focused their efforts on the environmental mainstream, making them more prominent and visible in the movement. A small group of alternative foundations, representing less than 1 percent of total foundation funding for the environment, are the only significant supporters of more innovative and politically informed environmental discourses. These alternative foundations also fund more participatory environmental organizations.

Potential Impacts of Foundation Support Critics charge that the impact of such a heavy reliance on foundation support has been to channel the environmental movement into moderate discourses and conventional forms of action. Although there are notable cases of foundations attempting to directly control movement activities, the general pattern is a more indirect process of creating incentives for specific discourses, styles of organization, and tactics that draw the movement into the institutional system. Because so little environmental funding goes to participatory membership associations, rather than being governed by citizens, the environmental movement has become increasingly controlled by foundations that represent large corporate wealth and rationalized power in the U.S. political economy. This serves to systematically limit the range of viewpoints represented in the public arena and restricts the participation of citizens in environmental governance. Foundation funding thus significantly influences the priorities and institutional structures of the U.S. environmental movement. It promotes organizational competition by selecting organizations that fit foundation priorities and, in the process, significantly shifts the agenda of the movement. By funding movement organizations with particular discourses, foundations in effect promote particular environmental viewpoints and hinder others. In addition, foundation funding strongly encourages the growth of professional organizational forms. Taken together, these effects have blunted the movement’s impact. At the

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same time, foundation funding is not monolithic. Some foundations have funded the more radical environmental discourses and membership organizations.

Environmental Grantmakers Association In 1987, a number of foundations banded together to form the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA). This organization has grown to a membership of several hundred foundation and corporate givers that provide a large majority of foundation grants to ecological causes (Cockburn and St. Clair 1994, 761). To realize these purposes, the EGA schedules annual retreats for its members at which representatives of the various foundations are given briefings on selected environmental issues by leading government officials, congressmen, scholars, and representatives of different environmental movement organizations. The EGA also helps coordinate funding for environmental organizations through the formation of working groups on specific issue areas. The Evolution of the Environmental Justice Movement The environmental justice movement represents a new wave of grassroots environmentalism in the United States. In poor African American and Latino neighborhoods, on Native American reservations, and in Chicano and Asian American communities across the country, populations traditionally relegated to the periphery of the mainstream environmental movement have created autonomous organizations committed to reversing past decision-making practices that place disproportionately large ecological and economic burdens onto people of color. Although mainstream environmentalism tends to focus on single issues without addressing the larger social context of environmental problems, the environmental justice movement aims to address both by focusing on the connections between ecological abuse, poverty and economic inequality, racism, the lack of democracy, and the consolidation of corporate power. The environmental justice movement also charges mainstream environmentalism with adopting corporate-like advocacy models that inhibit broad-based citizen empowerment and participation by people of color (Bullard 1994; Faber 1998). In essence, the base-building goals

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and grassroots organizing efforts of the movement aim to fortify the mobilization of community residents to fight through the systemic barriers that bar poor people of color from directly participating in the identification of environmental and health-related problems and solutions—so that they may speak and act for themselves (Alston 1990). The contemporary environmental justice movement is grounded in the convergence of six formerly independent social movements: (1) the civil rights movement, in that it focuses on issues of environmental racism and the disproportionate impacts of pollution in communities of color, the racial biases in government regulatory practices, and the glaring absence of affirmative action and sensitivity to racial issues in the established environmental advocacy organizations; (2) the occupational health and safety movement, because it promotes labor rights and opposes job hazards faced by nonunion immigrants and undocumented workers; (3) the indigenous lands movement, as it joins struggles by Native Americans and other marginalized, indigenous communities to retain and protect their traditional lands; (4) the environmental health movement, which largely developed out of the mainstream environmental movement in general, and the antitoxics movement in particular; (5) community-based movements for social and economic justice, which have expanded their political horizons to incorporate issues such as lead poisoning, abandoned toxic waste dumps, the lack of parks and green spaces, poor air quality, and other issues of environmental justice into their agenda for community empowerment; and (6) the human rights, peace, and solidarity movements, particularly those campaigns that first emerged in the 1980s around apartheid in South Africa and U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and Central America (Faber and McCarthy 2001b). The environmental justice movement first emerged over the course of the 1980s as hundreds of community-based organizations began to address the disparate social and ecological hardships borne by communities of color. These organizations, however, were largely isolated or loosely connected to one another and focused on local issues. With the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, a recognition developed of the need to build


stronger institutional linkages between these local community-based groups. As a result, a number of strategic, regionally based networks, as well as national constituency-based and issue-based networks for environmental justice, were created and consolidated during the 1990s. The regionally based environmental justice networks include the Southern Organizing Committee (SOC), Southwest Network for Economic and Environmental Justice (SNEEJ), and the Northeast Environmental Justice Network (NEJN). The Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), and the Farmworker Network for Economic and Environmental Justice (FWNEEJ) constitute the national constituency-based networks. In the new century, the movement is entering a third stage of development as a new infrastructure for building intergroup collaboration and coordinated programmatic initiatives emerges. This shift was evident at the 2002 National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit II. New organizational entities, such as the Environmental Justice Fund and the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and consolidation of the regional and national constituency-based networks are leading initiatives that are taking the movement beyond the local level to have a broader policy impact at the state, national, and international levels (Faber and McCarthy 2001b).

The Environmental Justice Movement and Philanthropy In contrast to mainstream environmentalism, the foundation community largely neglects environmental justice. Given the high number of organizations and the large size of the constituencies being served, the environmental justice movement is currently one of the most underfunded major social movements in the country. It is estimated that only $27.498 million in grants came to the environmental justice movement in 1996, and that this number rose to just over $49 million in 1999 (Faber and McCarthy 2001a). The lack of resources for organizations serving people of color and low-income communities is particularly noticeable given the funding of the traditional environmental organizations. In comparison,

just eight mainstream environmental organizations, including the Leadership for Environment and Development, the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund/Conservation Foundation, the Golden Gate National Parks Association, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Audubon Society, the Population Council, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, received 212 foundation grants totaling over $48 million in the year 2000—an amount equivalent to all 200-plus grassroots environmental justice organizations in the country. In 2001, foundations provided 22 percent, or $8.93 million, of the $40.598 million in income received by the Natural Resources Defense Council. To provide another, more extreme example, the Nature Conservancy alone received approximately $97 million in foundation grants in 1994, a figure significantly higher than the amount received by any other environmental organization in the country. Although funding for environmental justice has increased recently at Ford, Liberty Hill, Hewlett, San Francisco, and other foundations, grantmaker support for the movement remains insufficient. It is estimated that only 0.2 percent of all foundation grant dollars are dedicated to the environmental justice movement. Well over four-fifths of the actual grant dollars offered to environmental organizations are provided by Environmental Grantmakers Association members, and the grants are concentrated in a handful of (mostly) EGA foundations. In fact, estimates are that out of 47,000-plus foundations in the United States, just twelve foundations alone—Beldon, Bullitt, Charles Stewart Mott, Jessie Smith Noyes, Needmor, New World, Norman, Public Welfare, Solidago, Tides, Turner, and the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock (Veatch)— provided $34.858 million (20.5 percent) out of the estimated total of $169.923 million in funding for the environmental justice movement between 1996 and 1999. With a couple of exceptions, most of the current foundation backers are providing maximum levels of funding and cannot be expected to increase support. The ability of the environmental justice movement to grow and prosper depends on the future grantmaking of the entire philanthropic community. The

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resource disparities plaguing the movement relative to mainstream environmentalism has resulted in growing resentment by organizations led by people of color toward the foundation community. The June 10, 2002, protests at Stone Mountain, Georgia, reflected this disillusionment. Activists are calling for the overall funding base of the environmental justice movement to be enhanced through the creation of a broader base of EGA and non-EGA member supporters. One of the primary obstacles to this goal is the lack of racial diversity in the philanthropic community in general, and in the EGA membership in particular. In response, the foundation community is beginning to develop policies for promoting greater diversity and inclusiveness in philanthropic circles. In the early 1990s, several environmental grantmakers organized a group called Funders Concerned about Minorities and the Environment, which sponsored briefings, workshops, and meetings at foundation events and published a newsletter with the intended goal of raising the profile of environmental justice organizations led by people of color. More recently, the EGA management and program committees have consciously placed people of color in leadership roles at the EGA annual fall retreats and have promoted greater inclusion of environmental justice leaders and environmental professionals of color as plenary speakers, facilitators, and workshop participants. Robert J. Brulle, Daniel Faber, and Femida Handy See also Muir, John References and further reading Alston, D. 1990. “We Speak for Ourselves.” In We Speak for Ourselves: Social Justice, Race, and Environment, edited by R. Bullard and D. Alston, 3. Washington, DC: The Panos Institute. Bastian, A., and D. Alston. 1993. “An Open Letter to Funding Colleagues: New Developments in the Environmental Justice Movement.” New York: New World Foundation. Brulle, R. 2000. Agency, Democracy, and Nature: The U.S. Environmental Movement from a Critical Theory Perspective. Cambridge: MIT Press. Brulle, R., and C. Jenkins. Forthcoming. “Foundations and the Environmental Movement: Priorities, Strategies, and Impact.” In Foundations for Social Change: Critical Perspectives on Philanthropy and Popular Movements,

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edited by D. Faber and D. McCarthy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bullard, R., ed. 1994. Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Cockburn, A., and J. St. Clair. 1994. “After Armageddon: Death and Life for America’s Greens.” The Nation, December 19, 760–765. Faber, D., ed. 1998. The Struggle for Ecological Democracy: Environmental Justice Movements in the United States. New York: Guilford Press. Faber, D., and D. McCarthy. 2001a. Green of Another Color: Building Effective Partnerships between Foundations and the Environmental Justice Movement. Boston: Philanthropy and Environmental Justice Research Project, Northeastern University. ———. 2001b. “The Evolution of the Environmental Justice Movement in the United States: New Models for Democratic Decision-Making.” Special issue of Social Justice Research: Applying Social Justice Research to Environmental Decision-Making 14 (4): 405–421. Faber, D., and J. O’Connor. 1993. “Capitalism and the Crisis of Environmentalism.” In Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice, edited by R. Hofrichter, 12–24. Philadelphia: New Society. May, Elizabeth. 2002. “Environmental Movement: The Rise of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs).” In Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change, edited by P. Timmerman. West Sussex, UK: Wiley. Sandbach, F. 1980. Environment, Ideology, and Policy. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun. Snow, Donald. 1992. Inside the Environmental Movement: Meeting the Leadership Challenge. Washington, DC: Island Press. Walker, Jack L. 1983. “The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America.” American Political Science Review 77: 390–406. ———. 1991. Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions, and Social Movements. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

E-philanthropy “E-philanthropy” is the use of the Internet to foster charitable aid or donations that promote human welfare. It includes efforts that build and enhance relationships with supporters of nonprofit organizations using an Internet-based platform, including the online contribution of cash or real property or the purchase of products or services to benefit a nonprofit organization. In addition, e-philanthropy includes the

E-philanthropy

storage and usage of electronic data or the use of electronic methods to communicate with donors and others and to support fundraising activities. The term is often used interchangeably with “Internet fundraising,” though the latter term is limited to fundraising efforts. Since the late 1990s, a growing number of nonprofit organizations have been turning to the Internet to improve supporter relationships, find new efficiencies in their operations, advocate on issues, and better inform their key publics as well as raise funds. The use of the Internet for philanthropic purposes transcends the geographical boundaries that have traditionally circumscribed a nonprofit organization’s reach and brings into question the jurisdictional authority in regulating these activities. Lawmakers, however, are only now coming to grips with the legal ramifications of these online activities. The National Association of State Charity Officers (http://www.NASCOnet.org) issued a document known as the Charleston Principles: On Charitable Solicitations Using the Internet in 2001. These principles, which stem from a dialogue that began in October 1999 among state charity officials, provide guidelines and standards for charities, professional fundraisers and counsels, and commercial coventurers to help state officials enforce regulations more efficiently and effectively as they relate to e-philanthropy. Initiatives such as this, and others around the world, will continue to drive the search for new regulatory solutions to the problems raised by the use of new technology in fundraising and philanthropy. On one hand, traditional regulatory measures dealing with the activities of charities are being shown to be inadequate for dealing with the Internet activities of nonprofit organizations. On the other hand, regulatory measures designed to deal with Internet technology have tended to be more effective in the private and public sectors than in the voluntary sector. In addition to the efforts of governments, the ephilanthropy Code of Ethics, a self-regulatory model, was established by ePhilanthropy Foundation, a nonprofit foundation based in Washington, D.C., in 2000. The ePhilanthropy Foundation believes that if nonprofit organizations voluntarily follow these principles, they can be confident that their online efforts are consistent with sound ethical practices—and,

more important, will send a signal to donors that they are knowledgeable about and committed to the ethical use of the Internet in their cultivation and solicitation of support. As nonprofit organizations began to recognize that they could effectively and efficiently use Internetbased services, they began to integrate the new methods with the use of other, more traditional and proven fundraising techniques. More and more organizations have copied this integrated pattern. Many e-philanthropy techniques and tools have been developed to cover the wide range of philanthropy activities, including cultivation and stewardship of donor relationships, invitations to advocate on behalf of a charitable cause, and the solicitation of contributions online. Taking the time to plan ahead can often mean the difference between making costly errors and developing a successful e-philanthropy strategy. The exact mix of strategies and techniques that will work are as varied as the number and types of nonprofits that deploy them. Generally, e-philanthropy techniques fall into six categories: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Communication, education, and stewardship Online donations and membership Event registrations and management Prospect research Volunteer recruitment and management Relationship building and advocacy

As the tools and services for each organization will vary widely, organizations should always evaluate options and test assumptions. Incremental improvements and the gradual introduction of new services will help supporters and staff become accustomed to using the new technology and communicating via the Internet. Only by testing, however, can the organization learn which techniques perform the best. E-philanthropy came of age on September 11, 2001. In the days and weeks following the terrorist attacks on the United States, the world turned to the Internet as a vehicle for its charitable response to the tragic events. The level of online philanthropic activity in the weeks following these events was so amazing that the experience has become a defining moment in American philanthropy. In the two months

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following the disaster, more than 1.3 million contributors donated over $128 million online. Online donations were made to both for-profit and nonprofit Web sites. In the case of for-profit Web sites—for example, banking sites or the sites of private technology corporations—the prior relationship that online customers already had with the for-profit companies provided both the comfort level and mechanism donors needed to create an unprecedented outpouring of online giving. The American Red Cross reported that for the first time in its history online, electronic donations had outnumbered those given via their 800 number, by a three-to-one margin. The short time frame in which so many gifts were made online helped to coin a new phrase under the rubric of e-philanthropy— “flash philanthropy.” But it is important to realize that nonprofit organizations around the world are using the tools surrounding e-philanthropy to raise money and improve donor relations without a shocking world tragedy. Organizations that have no connection to emergency relief are raising money as well. Flash philanthropy is just one part of the phenomenon of e-philanthropy. The movement of nonprofits to use the Internet for e-philanthropy was furthered by the launch of http:// www.networkforgood.org—a joint for-profit effort led by AOL Time Warner Foundation and AOL; the Cisco Foundation and Cisco Systems; and Yahoo! in partnership with more than twenty nonprofit foundations and associations. This multifaceted and free charity portal was aimed at empowering nonprofits and donors to make use of the Internet to benefit charitable causes. The true power of e-philanthropy-based methods lies in their ability to do more than simply act as a novel way in which to raise money. It is in the areas of communication and relationship building that the Internet is having its most significant impact in philanthropy. In fact, these are the real drivers of fundraising success both offline and online. The Internet is viewed by many as an ideal platform from which to reach, inform, and engage potential donors, many of whom may be beyond the radar of normal fundraising channels. Charities should approach the Internet as a communication and stewardship tool first and a fundraising tool second.

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The Internet gives donors easy access to numerous philanthropic choices. As the e-philanthropy revolution builds steam, more and more people have turned to the Web to fulfill their charitable intentions. As ephilanthropy has emerged, organizations have discovered that consistent and deliberate e-mail communication and a well-organized and informative Web site have become the keys to success. E-philanthropy techniques have brought to the nonprofit world an unprecedented opportunity to leverage technology for the benefit of the charity and the convenience of the donor. Every organization spends time and resources recruiting and retaining charitable support. This support is based on relationships and fulfilled missions. Hundreds of options exist for using the Internet in each of the six categories of e-philanthropy outlined above. The Internet enhances the efforts of nonprofit organizations by providing efficient and effective communication tools tied to robust, secure online services. These services, in turn, empower donors to utilize information and support charitable causes anytime and anywhere. Ted Hart References and further reading ePhilanthropy Foundation Homepage: http://www .homestead.com/ephilanthropyfoundation Johnston, Michael. 1999. The Fund Raiser’s Guide to the Internet. New York: Wiley. Warwick, Mal, Theodore R. Hart, and Nick Allen, eds. 2002. Fundraising on the Internet: The ePhilanthropy Foundation.Org Guide to Success Online. 2d ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ethics and Philanthropy In their simplest formulations, ethics (being good) and philanthropy (doing good) seem closely related. However, the relationship is complex, both conceptually and in practice. As philanthropy expert Paul Ylvisaker warned, “When you put two words like ethics and philanthropy together, you’re in trouble: each of them resists definition, and when combined they can be totally elusive” (1999, 318). The connection was noted as far back as Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics (Book 4, Chapters 1 and 2), which discussed “liberality” (philanthropy in general) and “magnificence” (large-gift philanthropy) as moral


virtues. Many other philosophical and religious traditions have affirmed this connection; for example, the Bible clearly views charity and philanthropy as moral imperatives. It is hazardous to define “ethics,” since philosophers have been debating its meaning and source for 2,000 years (Becker and Becker 1992). The common understanding is that ethics is the study of the moral rightness or wrongness of human actions. Some philosophers have placed more emphasis on ethics as a body of thought, others on ethics as a thoughtful framework for moral action. “Philanthropy,” literally “love of humankind,” connotes altruism, generosity, and effort to benefit humanity. For example, Robert Payton defined philanthropy as “voluntary service, voluntary association, and voluntary giving for public purposes” (1988, 1). As its etymology shows, “philanthropy” is not a neutral word: it envisions acts motivated by selfless love for others, especially “others in general” rather than the beggar at one’s feet. The most visible form of philanthropy is that of major gifts of money and other resources. Gifts that are large, have some social distance between giver and receiver, and are intended to have significant and long-lasting effects are more likely to be called philanthropic than, for example, weekly contributions to one’s church or clothing given to a needy neighbor, often termed “charity.” How does ethics relate to “philanthropy” in this sense? From the perspectives of three major ethical theories (Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and the utilitarians), the moral status of such acts is not self-evident. This is especially clear in Kant, who held that the maxim or principle underlying one’s action was all-important: An apparently philanthropic act done from a base motive would be immoral, not moral. Aristotle bases the morality of philanthropic and other acts partly in the subjective realm: To be virtuous, an act must not only be of a certain type, it must also come from a man who knows what he is doing and chooses the act as good; further, the act must emanate from a “formed and stable character” of virtue developed over time by acts of that type. Only the utilitarian approach gives clear support to a presumption of morality on objective grounds: Whatever the character or intent of the

actor, an act is good if, on balance, it brings more pleasure than pain to all affected people. From the utilitarian viewpoint, it doesn’t matter whether John D. Rockefeller’s philanthropy was altruistically motivated by his lifelong Baptist faith and a genuine love of humankind or driven by cold, calculated economic and public relations concerns. All that matters is whether his acts brought more pleasure than pain to the millions of people affected. In other words, the ethics of large-gift philanthropy depends on the ethical framework used to make the assessment. There is more consensus on whether to give in the first place. Virtually all philosophical and religious traditions hold that some giving is required at least from people of means. This moral obligation flows from the nature of humans, society, and property. Human beings are inescapably interdependent, from birth and nurturing to old age. This social dimension of human existence creates ethical responsibilities to each other, some of which are carried out through formal mechanisms of taxation and government programs but others of which depend on individual, thus ethical, decision making. Also, in most philosophical and religious traditions, property is not an absolute, unconditional value or right; in certain circumstances, others have prior moral claims on some of “our” property. Not only individuals but also institutions do philanthropy. The latter include grantmaking foundations, corporations, federated funds such as United Way, and churches. As with individual philanthropy, ethics looks at both subjective and objective aspects of institutional giving. In one sense, ethical assessment is simpler here. Most institutional philanthropy—twothirds, in the United States—comes from private foundations, which are required by federal law to give about 5 percent of their asset value in grants every year, so the ethical question of whether to give doesn’t even arise. Also, institutional philanthropy, unlike individual philanthropy, is usually accompanied by public documents about mission, values, and purpose, which facilitates assessment of intent. However, there is always room for discussion and debate about “real” intent, perhaps especially with corporate giving. On the objective side, assessing the effect of institutional philanthropy is ethically somewhat

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complex, even using the utilitarian standard of the greatest good for the greatest number. For example, most grantmaking foundations focus on short-term start-up grants, whereas grantseeking nonprofits typically want operating funds. Both sides offer persuasive professional and even ethical reasons for their preferences. Another example is the collective impact or nonimpact of institutional philanthropy in various areas of need. Funders have devoted billions of dollars to improving health care, eliminating poverty, alleviating racial tensions, advancing education, and promoting international understanding. In all these areas, funders must choose between root causes and immediate needs, with ethical arguments on both sides. To move this tension up one level, what would our ethical judgment be if all or nearly all institutional philanthropy went to basic research on such things as language systems, climate change, and interstellar physics? It is clear that funders have the legal freedom to give as much as they wish to any cause within the broad legal definition of “charity,” but do funders also have total ethical freedom in their giving? Critics of philanthropy have long raised questions about the purposes and effects of institutional giving, and many of these questions have been ethical in nature. Ethics has relevance not only to individual and institutional philanthropy but also to philanthropic work. In the United States, most such work is carried on by nonprofit organizations recognized as “charities” under Section 501(c)(3) of the federal Internal Revenue Code (IRC). Included are churches, universities and schools, hospitals, environmental agencies, international relief efforts, and countless social assistance and advocacy groups. “Philanthropy” here refers not to donors but to organizations doing what donors support. In what sense does ethics apply to the work of these organizations? Although one must reject the common but misguided notion that philanthropic organizations uniquely represent society’s moral element—all major human groups, families, businesses, governments, and nonprofits are to some extent moral agents—there is a sense in which philanthropic organizations have special ethical dimensions because of their mission, clients, supporters, and staff.

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An organization manufacturing rubber bands has certain ethical responsibilities related to product safety, decent treatment of employees, honesty in dealing with clients, and so forth. But an organization whose mission relates to human rights, education, health care, or counseling assumes, by the fact of its mission and work, expanded ethical responsibility. The fact that most nonprofits focus on human and social welfare issues makes it clear why these organizations are properly seen as having special ethical dimensions. Closely allied to the organization’s mission and work is the type of staff required by that work. Since philanthropic organizations are centered in the professions—religion, medicine, education, social work— staff members bring with them a tradition of ethics and ethical codes, unlike workers in many for-profit companies and even government agencies. Thus the ethical valence of philanthropic work is further reinforced by the internalized values of professional staff members in these organizations. Not only the missions and staffs but also the clients of philanthropic organizations have ethical relevance. The organization-client transactions of Safeway and Macy’s entail basic considerations of honesty and product safety, but buying and selling apples and socks are not transactions fraught with ethical challenge. By contrast, the clients of many philanthropic organizations—children, poor people, victims of discrimination, the physically or psychologically ill—are highly and continually vulnerable. Agencies working with such clients have great power over them and thus great ethical responsibility to them. There are other ethical dimensions of philanthropic organizations. Board members have ethical and legal responsibilities to monitor management, exercise due diligence over financial matters, avoid conflicts of interest, and above all, ensure that the organization fulfills its charitable purpose. Fundraisers are ethically bound to use appropriate techniques, refrain from excessive pressure, maintain the confidentiality of private information, and respect donor intent as to the use of funds. Volunteers must behave in accordance with the mission and work of the agency—for example, in mentoring children through Big Brothers

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Big Sisters or in helping distraught callers to a suicide prevention hotline. Michael O’Neill See also Moral Philosophy and Philanthropy References and further reading Becker, Lawrence C., and Charlotte B. Becker, eds. 1992. The Encyclopedia of Ethics. New York: Garland. Boris, Elizabeth T., and Teresa J. Odendahl. 1990. “Ethical Issues in Fundraising and Philanthropy.” In Critical Issues in American Philanthropy: Strengthening Theory and Practice, edited by Jon Van Til, 188–203. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Briscoe, Marianne G., ed. 1994. Ethics in Fundraising: Putting Values into Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. INDEPENDENT SECTOR. 1991. Ethics and the Nation’s Voluntary and Philanthropic Community: Obedience to the Unenforceable. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. O’Neill, Michael. 1997. “The Ethical Dimensions of Fund Raising.” In Critical Issues in Fund Raising, edited by Dwight F. Burlingame, 58–64. New York: Wiley. ———. 2001. “Administrative Ethics in Nonprofit Organizations.” In Handbook of Administrative Ethics, 2d ed., edited by Terry L. Cooper, 623–628. New York: Marcel Dekker. Payton, Robert. 1988. “Philanthropy in Action.” In Philanthropy: Four Views, edited by Robert Payton, Michael Novak, Brian O’Connell, and Peter D. Hall, 1–10. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Ylvisaker, Paul. 1999. “Ethics and Philanthropy.” In Conscience and Community: The Legacy of Paul Ylvisaker, edited by Virginia M. Esposito, 318–328. New York: Peter Lang.

dowed hospices situated along pilgrimage routes and at temple sites. The vast wealth of imperial Rome enabled emperors such as Antoninus Pius (86–161) and Marcus Aurelius (121–180) to establish foundations for the assistance of orphans and poor children. Lesser officeholders and private individuals in the farthest reaches of the empire also created endowments, embellishing their towns with civic monuments and supporting games and festivals. Pliny the Younger (62–113) left one of the fullest accounts of his giving, which was concentrated in his native town of Como. He endowed Como’s library and public baths and promised to donate one-third of the expenses of a new school if the students’ parents would contribute the rest. Other Romans undertook largescale public works projects, often constructing and endowing public baths or building bridges, aqueducts,

European Foundations Although the general-purpose grantmaking foundation is often considered to be a twentieth-century American invention, endowments established for educational, religious, and other public purposes have existed in Europe for nearly 2,500 years. The antecedents of contemporary foundations in both the United States and Europe can be traced to ancient beginnings. Plato set aside funds to sustain the Academy after his death. Epicurus wrote a will leaving properties that supported his school for some 600 years. Theophrastus made a bequest to maintain the Lyceum of Aristotle. And throughout the ancient world there were countless other less famous institutions; most common among them were the many en-

Epicurus (342?–270 B.C.); undated engraving (Bettmann/Corbis)

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theaters, race courses, and markets. When he died in 180, Herodes Atticus, the tutor of Marcus Aurelius, left an endowment to provide yearly a fixed sum of cash (one mina) to each Athenian citizen. These ancient benefactors expected their gifts to be honestly managed and hoped that their institutions would last in perpetuity. Gradually, a body of law took shape that protected donors’ intentions; by the first century, Roman law recognized the “legal personality” of these incipient foundations. The Emperor Constantine and the other Christian emperors of the Byzantine east continued to encourage charitable activity, promulgating protective laws while founding their own charitable institutions. In the sixth century, the Emperor Justinian granted the first recorded tax exemptions, offered assistance for the construction of new charitable institutions, and voiced continuing concerns about sound and honest management of charities while asserting the emperor’s responsibility for overseeing charitable institutions. At the same time, the founding charters (typika) of monasteries and hospitals began to set out extremely detailed statements of charitable purpose, often specifying numbers of staff and their particular duties. During the fourth century, Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea, had established one of the most renowned foundations of any era, the Basileas. It was an institution, though called a hospital, that had much wider purposes: sheltering travelers, taking in the poor and elderly, and housing lepers and those with other illnesses. A Byzantine chronicler was so impressed that he compared the Basileas to the pyramids of Egypt, the gates of Thebes, and the other great wonders of the world. Other philanthropic institutions also flourished in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, some of them surviving well into the fifteenth century. They grew more specialized: Xenones or xenodichia served as hostels for travelers and pilgrims and could be found in cities and provincial towns; ptocheia were established for the poor and others who could not work; gerocomeia housed the elderly; and orphanotropheia, as the name suggests, took in orphans. While the East flourished, the economy of the western half of the Roman Empire deteriorated. There, monasteries began to play a major role in confronting rural poverty and meeting the needs of trav-

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elers. Arguably, these were the first foundations in Western Europe. They possessed many of the traits of the modern foundation: created by deed or charter and governed by an explicit body of rules, usually Benedictine or Augustinian monastic regulations; holding assets, albeit in the form of income-producing land; reflecting the pious intentions of donors; and pursuing charitable objectives through regular distributions to the poor, hospitality for travelers, care for the sick, and regular prayer for all. With the gradual expansion of commerce and the revival of towns beginning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, endowments of many and diverse types were created. Hospices and hospitals sprang up along trade, pilgrimage, and crusade routes. Although a number of these early hospitals cared for lepers, more often than not hospitals were intended to offer hospitality rather than medical care. The early founders were princes and other nobility, but soon their charitable establishments were augmented by those set up by an increasingly prosperous merchant class. Their foundations included homes for the elderly, specialized hospitals for the blind, beguinages for unmarried women, orphanages, and schools. Charitable activity also began to take collective and communal forms in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Religious confraternities, trade or craft guilds, and urban parishes organized a variety of institutions to serve their memberships. They might provide funds for burials and funeral masses, financial assistance to widows and orphans, and in-kind distributions to the poor; some operated their own hospitals and almshouses. Managed by laymen, and accountable variously to clerical supervisors and increasingly to municipal officials, these institutions signaled an increasing secularization of charitable purposes and a growing sense of governmental responsibility for regulating charitable practices. Common alms funds, which were overseen by municipal authorities and received private bequests and donations, began to appear in the fourteenth century. They can be viewed both as rudimentary community foundations and as primitive municipal welfare offices. They helped poor pupils to attend school, made cash and in-kind donations to the needy, and provided low-interest loans to workers. In some instances, they


also supervised the accounts and activities of older charitable institutions. The process of secularization and increasing governmental regulation and control accelerated in the sixteenth century, partly a product of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and partly the work of humanist lawyers and reformers. Many older foundations had seen their revenues decline. Their charitable purposes became outmoded and their administration became lax and inefficient. Some sixty or seventy cities sought to reform these medieval charitable structures, centralizing assistance to the poor and assuming control of the hodgepodge of medieval institutions. Both King Francis I of France and Emperor Charles V took measures in their respective territories to bring about such wholesale reforms. For the most part, however, supervision of charitable institutions remained a local matter, the responsibility of municipal governments. The most enduring national reform initiative from this era, certainly the one with the greatest influence on American charity, was the Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses (1601). It set out standards of public benefit and created a framework for ad hoc commissioners to investigate charitable abuses and enforce reforms. This supportive legal framework shaped England’s burgeoning philanthropic sector in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Approximately half of the new trusts created in the eighteenth century were set up to assist the poor; others paid apprenticeship fees, supported schools, made loans to workers, paid dowries, or left land for public purposes. England’s culture of philanthropy came to differ significantly from that on the continent: Charitable purposes were defined in expansive terms following the 1601 statute; trusts and endowments could be relatively easily set up; legal mechanisms protected donors’ intentions and prevented abuses; and Chancery Court proceedings were being continually simplified. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the course of state-building on the European continent yielded philanthropic sectors with very different shapes and sizes. In France and several other Catholic countries with strong monarchies, patterns of state centralization began to curtail the role of private

foundations as early as the seventeenth century. Neither French Physiocrats such as A. J. R. Turgot nor the even more radical Jacobins of the revolutionary era saw any public use for foundations. They were troubled by the “dead hand” of resources held in trust and suspicious of any mediating institutions that might stand between the individual citizen and the central state. Church and other charitable assets were seized and sold off, and intermediary associations and foundations were banned by the Le Chapelier Act of 1791. In France, foundations were effectively curtailed for nearly two centuries until the passage of new legislation in 1987. These revolutionary ideas also influenced other countries. The charitable sector has had a limited role in Belgium since the early nineteenth century, and a liberal, secular regime in Spain passed laws in 1823 and 1836 dissolving that nation’s medieval foundations and banning new ones. The English and French foundation sectors represent the two extremes of European historical experience. Other countries fall somewhere in between. Never having suffered the bitter struggles of the Reformation and later religious wars, Denmark and Sweden arrived at an accommodation between church and state that allowed older foundations to survive and, ultimately, for supportive legal structures to emerge. In the nineteenth century, foundations became important instruments for popular social movements to advance their causes, and both countries have a substantial philanthropic heritage. It is more difficult to generalize about foundations in Germany and Italy. Prior to national unification, their respective stories are rooted in extremely diverse municipal and regional contexts. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, Germany was experiencing a period of foundation growth spurred on by wealthy industrialists who created recognizably modern foundations to support higher education, research, and new policy approaches to the problems of industrial society. Two world wars, hyperinflation, reconstruction, and a half century of national division put an end to these promising beginnings. Northern Italy in the nineteenth century continued its long-standing practices of civic engagement, sustaining its older charitable institutions, witnessing new acts of public patronage, and benefiting from a robust associational

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life. Mutual aid societies and cooperatives flourished in the north. In the much poorer south, civil society and foundations remained underdeveloped. The second half of the twentieth century, but especially the 1980s and 1990s, have been an extraordinarily expansive period for European civil society generally and for the foundation sector in particular. Foundations have proliferated in a Western European environment that has benefited from increasing economic prosperity and political stability and that is now searching for institutional alternatives and adjuncts to “statist” approaches to many different public tasks, whether providing new approaches to social welfare delivery, health care, arts and culture, or education. Foundations have also been rediscovered in Eastern Europe following the demise of totalitarian regimes and the rapid attempts to construct marketdriven economies and civil societies. Today, both the role of foundations and the scale of their activities differ markedly from country to country. With the exception of the United Kingdom, where almost all the foundations are grantmaking, the majority of foundations in Europe either operate their own programs or have a mixed style of operating programs and making grants to other organizations. Their predominant fields of activity also vary considerably. Education, research, and social services are the principal areas of interest for foundations working in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and Turkey. Health and medical research are of primary interest to foundations in France, where the Institut Pasteur and the Institut Marie Curie have such distinguished histories. Arts and cultural foundations predominate in Spain, and Ireland expends a disproportionate amount on housing issues. By 2001, there were an estimated 80,000–90,000 foundations in Europe. Country by country, the raw numbers range from highs of 20,000–30,000 foundations in Sweden and 14,000 in Denmark, most of them quite small, to lows of a mere 30 in Ireland and a few hundred in Belgium and France. The sectors have remained smallest in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, and in Central and Eastern Europe. The sectors are slightly larger in Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. In sheer numbers of

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foundations, the sectors are moderate-sized in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom. The numbers have grown largest in Italy, Lichtenstein, Sweden, and Switzerland. Foundation assets per capita tell a slightly different story. They are highest in Lichtenstein because of offshore assets held in foundations chartered there; next highest in Italy because of the banking assets that went into private foundations during the 1990s; and next highest in the United Kingdom and Germany, where substantial corporate assets have gone into foundations. Although this overall growth reflects general economic prosperity and, in some cases, the advent of new democratic regimes, it has been further spurred in recent years by country-specific factors. Legal changes in Italy (1990), Spain (1994), and Portugal (1977) have aided the growth of the sector in those nations. Financial and technical assistance from the United States and Western Europe have been instrumental in building foundations and civil society organizations in Central and Eastern Europe. Where the sectors are small and growth is minimal, namely Austria, Belgium, and France, the reasons are largely legal and bureaucratic and reflect long historical experience. Divergent national experiences make it risky to talk about twenty-first-century “European” foundations. The word “foundation” in its linguistic variations— fondacion, fundaçao, fonds, stichting, Stiftung, stiftelse, saatio—refers to widely differing sorts of institutions. Many organizations that are called “foundations” are actually membership associations with few assets; some depend heavily on government subventions, and some function as private investment trusts for families and have only limited charitable purposes. Increasingly, though, the term is being used to refer to institutions that share certain characteristics and are accepted as important players in democratic societies. Foundations, whether old or new, are now understood to be entities that hold some sort of asset, have been formally created by deed or charter, are legally separate from government, are privately governed, distribute no profits, and are able to serve important public purposes. James Allen Smith


References and further reading Anheier, Helmut K., and Stefan Toepler, eds. 1999. Private Funds, Public Purpose: Philanthropic Foundations in International Perspective. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Cavallo, Sandra. 1995. Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy: Benefactors and Their Motives in Turin, 1541–1789. New York: Cambridge University Press. Constantelos, D. J. 1991. Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare. New Rochelle, NY: Aristide Caratzas. Geremek, Bronislaw. 1994. Poverty: A History. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Hands, A. R. 1968. Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Henderson, John. 1994. Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mollat, Michel. 1986. The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Owen, David. 1964. English Philanthropy, 1660–1960. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Schluter, Andreas, Volker Then, and Peter Walkenhorst, eds. 2001. Foundations in Europe: Society, Management and Law. London: Directory of Social Change. Schneewind, J. B., ed. 1996. Giving: Western Ideas of Philanthropy. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

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ginning of the twenty-first century, new issues are emerging.

See Charitable Choice

From Community Federations to United Funds Although the combined fundraising appeal is viewed as particularly American, it came to Denver from England. At a time of social and economic change, religious and business leaders were influenced by the “Liverpool system” and in 1887 planned a joint campaign for fifteen social service agencies (Watson 1922). The Charity Organizations Society foundered after a few years, but in the early twentieth century federated fundraising campaigns appeared in cities across the country, including Elmira, New York; San Antonio, Texas; and later, Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati, Ohio (Lubove 1969). Jewish federations arose in Boston in 1895 and spread elsewhere. Some community-wide federations later made special arrangements with these Jewish organizations and other religious groups. What has been described as the first modern financial federation was created in 1913 by the Chamber of Commerce in Cleveland (Lubove 1969; United Way of America 1977). The Cleveland Federation of Charities and Philanthropies involved a larger group of city officials and businessmen and, unlike the Charity Organizations Society, employed professional staff. In addition to joint fundraising for a selected group of charities, the Cleveland Federation soon encompassed

Federated Fundraising Federated fundraising organizations provide support for community-based programs and services throughout the United States and are associated with core values of voluntarism. For most of the twentieth century, federated fundraising in this country was identified with the community chest/United Way system. The first community organization of this type in the United States appeared in Denver, Colorado, in 1887. Jewish federations also emerged in the late nineteenth century; however, they focused on a specific group of donors rather than the whole geographic community and, unlike United Ways, never established a prominent connection to corporate and workplace giving. United Way’s primacy in the field of federated fundraising was generally accepted until a new pluralism in fundraising organizations and activist causes developed after the social upheavals of the 1960s. Local United Ways faced intense challenges from a changing workplace and a greatly expanded field of financial federations. The historical evolution of financial federations was therefore characterized by a growth of diversity in the latter half of the twentieth century. This growth gave way to new issues of accountability and management in the 1990s. At the be-

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monitoring of agency budgets and consideration of community-wide service needs. During World War I, financial federations spread along with war chests. By 1919, there were thirty-nine federated campaigns in the United States and Canada and their numbers were increasing rapidly (Brilliant 1990). By the 1920s, the core elements of federated fundraising had been established: a single communitywide campaign for a member group of local social welfare agencies; review of agency budgets with regard to efficient use of funds and community needs; increased involvement of professional staff along with community volunteers; and a strong connection to business, with a promise that donors would have “immunity” from other appeals from agencies in the combined campaign (Watson 1922). In some cities, there were separate councils of social agencies concerned with broader community needs; despite tensions, they usually worked closely with financial federations.1 By 1918, professionals in councils and federations had sufficient common identity to form the American Association for Community Organization. This national organization later became the United Way of America. As corporate contributions became increasingly important to federation campaigns, the tax status of these gifts began to matter. During the Great Depression, corporate leaders and federated funds were successful in obtaining legislation that established a charitable deduction for corporate contributions of up to 5 percent of profits (Brilliant 1990). Federated campaigns organized special mobilizations in the Depression, but after the federal government took over direct relief, federated funds shifted to family services and character-building agencies (United Way of America 1977). Meanwhile, as federations became more professional, their structures also changed. By this time, most had evolved from true partnerships with member agencies into what were defined later as “independent” federations with strong central management organizations (Provan 1983). Corporate donors were major stakeholders; many staff professionals, in federations as well as councils, were social workers. Fundraising in the workplace became increasingly significant after the 1930s. Informal appeals to employees for mutual support (for birthdays or illness, for example) existed before then; in World War I more or-

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ganized war-related appeals were held. In the 1920s, John L. Lewis promoted aid to workers in the miners union through a “check-off ” for Red Cross donations (Brilliant 1990). Early in the Depression, a foreman obtained permission from the Cincinnati Milling Machine Company to solicit contributions from workers as they received their pay envelopes and other chests. By then, formal workplace campaigns had already taken place in Indianapolis (Aft 2003). However, at a time when residential campaigns were generally preeminent, Rochester, New York, was the exemplar for the “business type” campaign. Building on the war chest concept, by 1931 Rochester had developed a carefully structured campaign focused on workplace solicitation, including a suggested amount of deduction from wages of one hour’s full earnings a week for ten weeks (Association of Community Chests and Councils 1932). World War II brought about more changes. In 1941, two labor leaders were put on the national federation board (Community Chests and Councils); in 1943, federal legislation established payroll withholding for taxes. During a period of labor unrest, contracts negotiated in the late 1940s by the United Automobile Workers union and the Ford Motor Company in Michigan included a check-off (withholding from pay) for contributions to federated funds, along with the check-off for union dues. In an effort to consolidate charitable appeals, a new unified statewide fund included national agencies and health causes. In October 1949, the local Detroit United Foundation/Torch Drive used this United Fund model successfully to support the Michigan Heart Association and a Red Cross chapter in workplace solicitation (United Way of America 1977). In the 1950s, newly defined United Funds spread across the country, promising to eliminate multiple appeals in the workplace. Restrictions on workplace organizing in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 permitted some “beneficent” activities, but in the next decades limited charitable access generally meant United Way monopoly in workplace fundraising.

Federations, the Combined Federal Campaign, and Inclusiveness After World War II, health-related appeals expanded along with medical knowledge. The American Cancer


Society, the American Heart Association, and the March of Dimes became major competitors with federated community-wide campaigns. Health charities formed their own federations, and by the 1960s, “health wars” erupted. Some other national agencies, such as the American Red Cross, were ambivalent about joining local federations in this period (Brilliant 1990). Meanwhile, the federal government began to bring order to the many campaigns in its workplaces across the country. These campaigns would later develop parallel to, but structurally different from, those in corporate workplaces. Years of incremental initiatives led to a first Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), which began in 1964 with four groups: National Health Agencies, United Funds/community federations, a loose group of (two) International Voluntary Agencies (later the International Service Agencies), and the American Red Cross (where not part of a local community federation). By 1971, the CFC was permanent. It had national policies and oversight but functioned through local campaigns. United Ways managed campaigns; funds were distributed by formula and designation, and United Ways received the largest amounts (Brilliant 1990; U.S. Office of Personnel Management 2002). Through the mid-1970s, United Funds (now United Ways) still largely followed the model of earlier decades. Community-based federations undertook fundraising and provided for citizen reviews for budgeting and allocation of funds, including some planning for local human service needs—either through their own organizations or through related community councils. Most United Ways funded a standard core of member agencies—many with national affiliations: family service agencies, recreational and character-building services (YMCAs and YWCAs, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Boys and Girls Clubs) as well as the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, and some local agencies and health causes, such as the American Cancer Society. United Ways still enjoyed a monopoly in corporate workplaces; they generally avoided controversial causes and served both as buffer and connection between corporations and community human services. Although federated funds evinced a notable degree of continuity, the social transformations of the 1960s

caused enormous changes in the society around them. Federal funds supported new programs and also a new role for government in community planning. United Ways were criticized for including only a small part of all community services and for their elite leadership. Moreover, as civil rights gained new recognition, coercive techniques of fundraising became less acceptable to workers; they were challenged successfully in the CFC (Brilliant 1990). New and emerging advocacy federations, such as Women’s Way in Philadelphia, began to seek entry to local United Ways or more directly to the workplace itself. Pressure from competitive funds developed in California from such groups as Associated In-Group Donors–United Givers and the Brotherhood Crusade of Los Angeles (a Black United Fund) (Brilliant 1990). By the early 1980s, significant changes occurred first in the national CFC, and later in state and local employee campaigns. Although the U.S. Supreme Court stopped short of mandating a fully “open” federal workplace campaign in 1985, an accumulation of lower court decisions and congressional action in the end resulted in a restructured, more open campaign, including hundreds of groups with different viewpoints (U.S. Office of Personnel Management 2002; National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy 1987, 1989, 1990). Although a National Labor Relations Board decision in 1982 had affirmed exclusive access for United Ways in corporate workplaces (Brilliant 1990), the growing demands for choice in giving continued. The United Way was soon forced to modify its paradigm, first to include donor designation (both within the United Way member group and for outside causes) and later to highlight new modes of giving for areas defined as community priorities, such as child welfare or crime. At the end of the twentieth century, about sixty corporations also allowed workplace access to other federations, and United Way was placing more emphasis on large individual gifts (Billiteri 2000; Varchauver 2000; United Way of America 2001). In the last decade of the twentieth century, problems multiplied. As designations grew in number and amounts, the citizen review process lost its preeminence. United Ways’ stewardship role of funds was undermined by serious charges against the chief executive of United Way of America, William Aramony,

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in 1992 (Glaser 1993), and in subsequent years by the malfeasance of professionals in local United Ways (for example, United Way of the National Capital Area in 2002). Corporate demands for accountability increased, and United Way of America attempted to standardize reporting methods and centralize payroll deductions of local United Ways (Beene 2001; Strom 2002).

Alternative Funds, a New Pluralism, and Future Issues Beginning in the mid-1960s, there was an explosion in the number of voluntary agencies in the United States (Weisbrod 1988), and growth in charitable organizations continued into the twenty-first century. Most charitable organizations are not part of federated funding groups; nonetheless, the number and variety of groups defined as “alternatives” to the United Way system has expanded constantly. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy helped to create the alternative funding movement, serving as an umbrella organization for traditional health funds as well as for advocacy and social justice groups such as women’s funds, Black United Funds, and environmental groups. Although alternative funds raise a relatively small amount of money compared to United Ways, their continuing growth threatens United Way hegemony in workplace giving (Beene 2001; United Way of America 2001). United Way claims to have 17 million givers; however, in the workplace fewer donors are giving larger (average) gifts. In fall 2001, alternative funds raised more than $222 million (National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy 2003); for essentially the same period, the approximately 1,400 United Ways reported revenues of $3.95 billion (United Way of America 2003). There is, however, some duplication in these figures since United Way revenues include funds designated to other groups. In the late 1980s, the burgeoning group of progressive workplace funds and federations created their own national trade association, the National Alliance for Choice in Giving (NACG). In 2002, NACG had fifty-two member organizations with campaign revenues of over $13.5 million (National Alliance for Choice in Giving 2003). NACG included an Asian

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Pacific Community Fund, the United Latino Fund, two women’s federations, and some other social justice funds. Most of its members were progressive, true member-based federations, such as community-based Community Shares and state environmental federations (or Earth Shares). These social change federations are in local, state, and federal public employee campaigns; a few have even replaced United Ways as managers of these campaigns. However, they have less access to the corporate workplace. The universe of alternative funds is larger than National Alliance membership. Among other alternative funds are some from the old CFC and from state employee campaigns, including the International Service Agencies, the former National Health Agencies, now affiliated with local health federations and known as Community Health Charities, and America’s Charities, formerly the National Service Agencies and now a federation with more than 100 diverse members. In addition, there are a variety of other loosely affiliated federations, such as Independent Charities of America, which targets corporate access, as well as United Arts Funds, Black United Funds, more than ninety women’s funds in the national Women’s Funding Network (National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy 2003; Women’s Funding Network 2003), and a new Union Community Fund, which directly challenges United Way–labor relationships. These last three groups have social change ideologies. Three women’s funds, and some arts funds, function as federations. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the growing numbers of federations and funds constitute a diverse, highly competitive marketplace. United Ways still dominate corporate workplaces but have changed. They now are more like foundations than federations; they provide only a small amount of support for affiliated agencies and are shedding the concept of membership. They are trying to recapture the community problem-solving role they enjoyed in the middle years of the last century and seeking new methods of outcome-related accountability. In addition, United Way and other workplace federations are operating in a highly uncertain business environment characterized by less manufacturing and more serviceoriented businesses, continuing globalization of industry, and destabilized workforces (dispersed workers

Filer Commission

and displaced workers). These factors make fundraising more difficult. Finally, increased donor choice, together with the emerging use of high tech e-giving, suggests even greater transformations ahead. Personal relationships between donor and recipient will surely be weakened. Questions must be raised about whether e-giving could eliminate the need for workplace campaigns or result in less money for competing causes, which now include more than health and welfare agencies. Moreover, quixotically, as federations market their diverse ideologies and purposes there will almost certainly be a felt need to re-create a new sense of local community. Meanwhile, the United Way and some other groups, such as the women’s funds, are spreading their nets internationally. Eleanor L. Brilliant Notes 1. Names have changed frequently in this area of philanthropy: financial federations became community chests, United Funds, and later the United Way; councils of social agencies have used even more names over time and in different places, including health and welfare councils, planning councils, and community councils. References and further reading Aft, Richard. 2003. Interview with author, February 25. Association of Community Chests and Councils. 1932. Community Chest Campaigns. New York: Association of Community Chests and Councils. Beene, Betty S. 2001. “Perceptions of Organizational Structure and a Nonprofit System’s Operations in a Changed Environment: A Descriptive Case Study.” Ph.D. dissertation, George Washington University. Billiteri, Thomas J. 2000. “United Ways Seek a New Identity.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy, March 3, 1, 21–26. Brilliant, Eleanor L. 1990. The United Way: Dilemmas of Organized Charity. New York: Columbia University Press. Glaser, John S. 1993. The United Way Scandal: An Insider’s Account of What Went Wrong and Why. New York: Wiley. Lubove, Roy L. 1969. The Professional Altruist: The Emergence of Social Work as a Career, 1889–1930. New York: Atheneum. National Alliance for Choice in Giving (NACG). 2003. Appendix A, “NACG: A Brief History,” and attached documents, including “Chronology of Workplace Giving Federation and Fund Development, 1971–2001,” and “Democratizing Philanthropy in the American Workplace.”

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. 1987. The Workplace Giving Revolution. Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. ———. 1989. “President Signs CFC Legislation; Ends 11Year Charity Drive Battle?” Responsive Philanthropy (Winter). ———. 1990. Special Report on Workplace Giving Alternatives: 10% and Growing. Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. ———. 2003. Charts with data on amounts raised by non–United Way, alternative funds and federations, provided to the author. Provan, Keith G. 1983. “The Federation as an Interorganizational Linkage Network,” Academy of Management Review 8 (1): 79–89. Strom, Stephanie. 2002. “Questions Arise on Accounting at United Way.” New York Times, November 19. United Way of America, http://national.unitedway.org (cited January 19, 2003). ———. 1977. People and Events: A History of the United Way. Based on the manuscript of Elwood Street. Alexandria, VA: United Way. United Way of America, Task Force on Strengthening the United Way System. 2001. The Case for Action. Draft Report (Spring). U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Combined Federal Campaign. “Charitable Fundraising within the Federal Service,” http://www.opm.gov/cfc/html/ cfc_hist.htm (cited May 26, 2002). Vorchaver, Nicholas. 2000. “Can Anyone Fix the United Way?” Fortune Magazine, December 27, 171. Watson, Frank Dekker. 1922. The Charity Organization Movement in Social Work. New York: Macmillan. Weisbrod, Burton A. 1988. The Nonprofit Economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Women’s Funding Network. 2003. Membership List, February.

Filer Commission The Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, known as the Filer Commission because of its chairman, John H. Filer (chairman and CEO of Aetna Life and Casualty, Hartford, Connecticut), was incorporated in September 1973. It was the second of two commissions initiated by John D. Rockefeller III that focused on charitable tax deductions and the role of philanthropic activity in American life (the first was the Peterson Commission). The Filer Commission idea grew out of discussions in

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Rockefeller’s philanthropic advisory group about possible new tax reform legislation in the early 1970s. Initially conceived as an advisory committee to the House Ways and Means Committee, the privately funded commission was launched with the support of the U.S. Treasury Department. Leonard L. Silverstein, a well-known tax expert and Washington attorney for the Rockefeller family, was executive director. In February 1974, Gabriel Rudney, an economist, was loaned from the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis to be director of research. In its final report, the commission listed twenty-eight members, including businessmen, civic leaders, former government officials, representatives of religious groups, a union leader, and one foundation executive. There were three black commissioners and one Hispanic member; four commissioners were women. A large separate advisory group had less diversity in its membership. The commission brought in outside experts and members of the advisory committee to inform discussions around key topics such as the structure of tax preferences in the law, the impact of tax incentives on giving, nonprofit accountability and the role of the Internal Revenue Service, and regulatory alternatives. More than ninety papers were commissioned on these and related topics, including the history and role of philanthropy and voluntary activity, as well as descriptions of specific subsectors of the voluntary “third sector” in the United States. In 1975, the commission issued a report called Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector, which made recommendations regarding new and continuing tax incentives, nonprofit accountability and regulatory policy, and the creation of a permanent national Commission on the Voluntary Sector, which some considered its most important recommendation. After the report was issued, a follow-up group continued meeting with Treasury officials. The Treasury Department published the six volumes of the commission’s Research Papers in 1977, but that same year the follow-up advisory committee was disbanded as part of the new Carter administration’s move to streamline government. The commission’s major accomplishments have been summed up as: (1) producing the first extensive body of research on the third sector, including econo-

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metric studies of motivations for giving; (2) drawing attention to the significance of the third sector in American life and inspiring a new academic field of nonprofit research; (3) providing arguments for preserving tax preferences for charitable donations and preventing more draconian changes in the tax laws; and (4) influencing some philanthropic reforms, such as reducing the excise tax on foundation income (to 2 percent), and (for a brief period after 1981) allowing nonitemizers to take charitable tax deductions. The commission did not deal with more fundamental issues related to social needs and private-public relationships. There was, however, an unexpected and significant outcome of the commission process. After the commission was called elitist and criticized for inadequate representation of women and minorities, a “Donee Group” was formed. This marked a beginning of recognition for new perspectives and alternative voices in the American philanthropic arena. Additional papers and a separate “Donee Group Report” were funded by the commission and also included in the commission’s Research Papers. The group was formalized as the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in 1976 and still exists. After Rockefeller’s death in 1978, another voluntary organization, INDEPENDENT SECTOR, was created; it undertook some of the functions proposed for the permanent national commission, such as encouraging research, gathering data, and convening foundations and other nonprofit organizations around common issues. Eleanor L. Brilliant References and further reading Brilliant, Eleanor L. 1990. Private Charity and Public Inquiry: A History of the Filer and Peterson Commissions. New York: Columbia University Press. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. 1964–1980. Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives, University Library, Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis, Indiana. ———. 1975. Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector. Washington, DC: Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. ———. Research Papers. 1977. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Treasury. Council on Foundations Records. 1973–1978. Series 2, Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs files. Rockefeller Archive Center, Pocantico Hills, New York.

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Eisenberg, Pablo. 1983. “Accountability, Accessibility and Equity in Philanthropy: Filling the Research Gap.” In Working Papers for the Spring Research Forum: Since the Filer Commission. New York: INDEPENDENT SECTOR, May 3, 139–162. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 1992. Inventing the Nonprofit Sector and Other Essays on Philanthropy, Voluntarism and Nonprofit Organizations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. 1991. The Rockefeller Conscience. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Knauft, E. B. 1983. “Functions of the Nonprofit Sector: The Place of the Filer Commission in the Scope and Activity of the Third Sector.” In Working Papers for Spring Research Forum: Since the Filer Commission . . . New York: INDEPENDENT SECTOR, May 3, 119–137. Rockefeller, John D., III. Papers. Rockefeller Archive Center, Pocantico Hills, New York. Schwartz, John J. 1994. Modern American Philanthropy: A Personal Account. New York: Wiley.

Food and Antihunger Charities Donating food to the needy is surely one of the oldest forms of giving, and it is one of the most common forms of charity in the United States. A 1992 national survey of registered voters found that 79 percent had donated food, money, or time to at least one of the thousands of food kitchens, pantries, and other nonprofits providing food relief (Eisinger 1998). Despite the economic growth of the late 1990s, direct-service food charities, which grew rapidly in number and size during the 1980s, continued to expand. Critics worry that this growth represents a deterioration in state responsibility for citizens. Others see the food charity sector as a complement to government services. Direct-service food charities include food kitchens (or “soup kitchens”), which serve sit-down meals, and food pantries, which provide bagged or boxed goods. Food banks receive massive quantities of food from corporate donors and government-purchased surplus and serve as suppliers to these other organizations. Food rescue organizations collect surplus foods from farms or markets for pantries and kitchens. The most exhaustive survey of food charities, conducted in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), found approximately 5,300 food kitchens, 32,000 pantries, 400 food banks, and more than 200 food res-

cue and other emergency food providers operating in the United States (Ohls and Saleem-Ismail 2002). These organizations encompass nonprofits ranging from small, all-volunteer food pantries to food banks with large budgets, professional staff, sophisticated food storage facilities, and distribution systems serving large geographic regions. In addition to these charities, more than 100 nonprofits, which largely grew out of the gay and lesbian community and have their own national association, provide tailored, home-delivered food services to AIDS patients. Finally, thousands of child-care and drop-in centers, after-school programs, domestic violence shelters, youth clubs, private schools, and other nonprofits—some with national associations of their own—utilize millions of dollars in federal reimbursements each year, in addition to philanthropic resources, to serve meals to children, the elderly, and the homeless. According to the survey cited above, approximately two-thirds of pantries and kitchens are associated with religious organizations, whereas food banks are less likely to be religiously affiliated. Over one-half of all kitchens and pantries rely solely on volunteers. In 2000, the average kitchen served more than 100 lunches per day and the average pantry served fifteen people each week. However, it is hard to generalize about the size of these charities because of the vast variation in makeup. It is worth noting that the geographic distribution of these nonprofits, compared to the need, is uneven. The USDA survey found emergency food services less commonly in rural areas despite high rates of poverty in rural America. Food charity organizations utilize both private and public sources for funding and food. Although the government’s food and nutrition programs dwarf these charities both in the value of benefits and number of participants, a small subset of people eligible for government aid appear to prefer private food assistance alone, perhaps on account of its relative ease. Even then, clients of food charities are also truly recipients of government support, as the majority of these providers make extensive use of the Emergency Food Assistance Program and other state and federal sources of commodities.

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In subsistence or primitive societies, giving food was a means of securing one’s own future: Monday’s donor might be Friday’s recipient in a community of hunter-gatherers. In modern economies, however, donations of food are less likely motivated and regulated by rules of reciprocity. Indeed, donors may be far removed from recipients. Volunteering to feed the poor may be deemed a charitable requirement for religious adherents or a response to perceived social injustice or governmental indifference for political activists. The pantries and free meals provided by the Catholic Worker movement provide an example of a combination of both motives. The omnipresence of food charities can partly be attributed to modern agricultural science and the magnitude of the U.S. food market, both of which provide an abundance of opportunities for inventive activists to secure donations. In some communities, groups called “gleaners” gain permission to scour fields for marginal produce farmers would not bother to sell. Other sources of food contributions come from damaged goods (such as dented cans), perishable foods that cannot be sold (such as overstocked vegetables), and government commodities that USDA buys from agribusiness and gives to schools and charities. Leftover produce, baked goods, and all manner of items from restaurants and hotels are also part of the enormous food rescue strategy of many urban food kitchens and homeless shelters. Some food rescue operations have even added job-training programs that utilize donations from the hospitality business to train low-income adults for catering or cooking careers. Although religious and political identities provide potential donors, advances in agriculture generate large surpluses, and the sheer size of the U.S. food economy provides an abundance of cast-off food, it is important to recognize that the design of the modern food charity system is also heavily conditioned by political factors dating back at least to the 1930s. During the Great Depression, enormous crop and livestock surpluses threatened the stability of agricultural markets. It was not politically tenable for vast quantities of food to be purchased by the government and then dumped to save agribusiness while many U.S. citizens were going hungry. In response to what observers have forever since called the paradox of hunger

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amidst plenty in the United States, the federal government began experimenting with purchasing mass quantities of surplus commodities for distribution, often by nonprofits, to the poor. Another political factor quickly came into play when retailers felt that commodity programs threatened their business. Pressure from store owners, plus concerns over corruption and the inadequacy of food commodities, led to experimentation with vouchers that the poor used to purchase certain items at stores (an early form of what is now the food stamp program). Over the following decades, public interest in hunger waxed and waned. The emphasis in federal antihunger policy vacillated between commodity and voucher systems. In addition, new federal and state partnerships to deliver surplus food, and finances for food purchases, were developed. However, weak congressional interest and poor program design frequently resulted in low participation in voucher and commodity programs compared to the need. Arbitrariness in what was supplied and how it was rationed also plagued the commodity programs. Increased interest in malnutrition in the United States from foundations, politicians, the media, and activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s finally cemented the establishment of food stamps as a universal program, making it the nation’s primary safety net for nutrition assistance to the poor. Still more programs were developed to target commodities or federal reimbursements to specific subgroups, such as food delivery for the home-bound (Meals on Wheels), congregate meals for the elderly and children, and vouchers and food packages for pregnant women, infants, and young children. Most notably was the creation of the school meals system, which provides both public and private nonprofit schools with surplus commodities and reimbursements for purchased meals. In the 1980s, cutbacks in federal programs, high unemployment, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and renewed interest in government-purchased commodities as a way to support agricultural interests spurred an increase in the number of food charities. Eventually, the professionalization of the sector developed with the advent of food banks and their own peak associations. Why the sector did not

Homeless people line up for a free Christmas dinner at the Los Angeles Mission on Christmas Eve 1990. (Joseph Sohm; ChromoSohm Inc./Corbis)

Ford, Henry, and Ford, Edsel

decline during the drop in poverty and unemployment in the 1990s is not clear, but increased use, especially by families and the employed, is a common finding of informal surveys of these nonprofits. Once viewed as a temporary measure, the food charity sector—which delivered 3 billion tons of foodstuff in 2000—appears both permanent and still growing. Nonprofits as policy advocates and researchers, as well as providers of government-funded services, have a profound effect on federal nutrition programs, which now number fifteen, with total spending at $30 billion annually. At the national level, America’s Second Harvest serves as the peak association for the vast majority of food banks, whereas the Food Research and Action Center serves as the major hub for the policy and advocacy work of what has been dubbed the “hunger lobby”—concerned nonprofits, policy activists, and other interests. The hunger lobby includes dozens of groups at the state and national levels that influence the budgeting, reimbursement rates, and policy making for all these direct and indirect federal government services. At the local level, some food banks and policy activist organizations also serve an advocacy role both for individual families (for example, navigating food stamp applications) and for the community as a whole (for example, influencing social policy). Other nonprofit associations playing a major policy role in federal nutrition programs represent interests such as child- and adult-care providers, school food service employees, and food manufacturers. Douglas R. Hess References and further reading America’s Second Harvest, http://www.secondharvest.org. Berry, Jeffery. 1984. Feeding Hungry People: Rulemaking and the Food Stamp Program. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Eisenger, Peter. 1998. Toward an End to Hunger in America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Food Research and Action Center, http://www.frac.org. Nord, Mark, Nader Kabbani, Laura Tiehen, Margaret Andrews, Gary Bickel, and Steven Carlson. “Household Food Security in the United States, 2000.” Food and Rural Economics Division, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, http://www.ers.usda. gov (cited February 2002). Ohls, James, and Fazana Saleem-Ismail. 2002. “The Emergency Food Assistance System—Findings from the Provider Survey, Volume 1: Executive Summary.” Food

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and Rural Economics Division, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Poppendiek, Janet. 1986. Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance and the Great Depression. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ———. 1998. Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement. New York: Penguin. Riches, Graham, ed. 1997. First World Hunger: Food Security and Welfare Politics. New York: St. Martin’s.

Ford, Henry (1863–1947), and Ford, Edsel (1893–1943) Henry Ford and his son Edsel were both automobile manufacturers and generous givers. By putting the nation on wheels, they transformed its social fabric; in their philanthropy, they sought to preserve the past and jointly founded one of the world’s largest private charitable foundations. Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, in Dearborn, Michigan, the son of William and Mary Litogot Ford. He was an inveterate tinkerer, and sometime during the spring of 1896 he succeeded in building the quadricycle, a buggy powered by an internal combustion engine. Ford failed in his first two attempts to commercialize his vehicle. It was not until 1903 that the Ford Motor Company was established with the clear mission of building a motor car for the multitudes. By 1921, Ford had captured 55 percent of the U.S. market for automobiles. His first major philanthropic project was the establishment of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit in 1915, which aimed to provide medical care to all at a reasonable charge. Although he was a notorious anti-Semite, Ford was generous to African Americans, in terms of both offering good jobs and in philanthropy. The ruling passion of Henry Ford’s last thirty years was the preservation of the past. In 1923, he embarked upon his first major venture in historical preservation, the Wayside Inn near South Sudbury, Massachusetts. The inn, immortalized in a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was in imminent danger of demolition when Ford purchased and refurbished it. Ford’s crowning achievement was the creation of the Edison Institute in Dearborn, consisting of Greenfield Village, the Edison Institute Museum, and

Ford, Henry, and Ford, Edsel

Scientist George Washington Carver of Tuskegee Institute, flanked by Henry Ford (left) and his son, Edsel Ford, receives Henry Ford’s gift of a fully equipped laboratory for food research and experiments. (Bettmann/Corbis)

the Edison Institute Schools. He filled his museum with millions of artifacts, ranging from old buttons to working locomotives. He moved every historical building that caught his fancy to Greenfield Village, including the Wright brothers’ bicycle shop and the buildings at Menlo Park, New Jersey, where Thomas Edison had operated his first laboratory. Ironically, Henry would not allow automobiles on the grounds of the Edison Institute, which in 1953 renamed its museum in his honor. Edsel Ford joined the Ford Motor Company after graduation from high school in 1912 and became president by age twenty-five in 1919. He began his philanthropy by sponsoring the polar expeditions of

Commander Robert Byrd, who became the first to reach the North Pole by airplane. Edsel supported the Detroit Institute of Arts, where his greatest gift consisted of twenty-seven fresco murals by Diego Rivera. Edsel was also deeply involved in the founding and operation of the Edison Institute. In 1936, Edsel and Henry Ford launched the Ford Foundation. Undertaken as part of Henry’s estate planning, the foundation was initially small and local in scope. The deaths of Edsel in 1943 and Henry in 1947 dramatically changed this picture. Between the two of them, they had owned nearly all of the stock of the Ford Motor Company. They left about 10 percent of that stock to their heirs; the remaining 90 percent

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went to the Ford Foundation. This windfall made the Ford Foundation the largest and most influential charitable foundation in the United States, a position it was destined to hold for nearly the remainder of the twentieth century. Edsel died from cancer at the age of forty-nine on May 26, 1943. Henry lived on until April 7, 1947. Both Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, believed in a brand of philanthropy that focused on giving a “hand up” rather than a handout. They offered these hands up on a massive scale: From 1917 to 1943, nearly onethird of Henry Ford’s net taxable income went to charities. And in launching the Ford Foundation, they guaranteed that their philanthropic influence would extend indefinitely into the future. Joel J. Orosz References and further reading Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz. 1987. The Fords: An American Epic. New York: Summit Books. Greenleaf, William. 1964. From These Beginnings: The Early Philanthropies of Henry and Edsel Ford, 1911–1936. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. McDonald, Dwight. 1956. The Ford Foundation: The Men and the Millions. New York: Reynal. Nielsen, Waldemar A. 1985. The Golden Donors: A New Anatomy of the Great Foundations. New York: E. P. Dutton. Orosz, Joel J. 2002. “Henry and Edsel Ford.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 92–98. Westport, CT: Oryx Press.

Ford Foundation Since its founding in 1936, the Ford Foundation has made more than $12.5 billion in grants and programrelated loans. For most of the period following World War II, it was the largest foundation in the United States. An independent, nonprofit institution, the foundation’s goals are “to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement” (Ford Foundation 2003). Its program and structure reflect a belief that the best way to confront challenges is by supporting the efforts of those closest to the problems. About half of the foundation’s grant budget is devoted to international issues, most of which are administered by a long-standing network of offices in

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Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Russia. The foundation is headquartered in New York City. Over time, the Ford Foundation has successfully helped to establish and cultivate a global network of human rights organizations and promoted democratization in many countries. In the United States, it has fostered inner-city revitalization and the development of the public broadcasting system and pioneered programs that led to the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts. Along with other foundations, it established a network of international agricultural research centers that helped to foster and spread the “Green Revolution,” and since the 1980s it has supported the spread of communitybased management of natural and agricultural resources worldwide. It has played a major role in the development of several generations of leaders in the United States and abroad. Its most recent initiative in this regard is its International Fellowship Program, which will provide $280 million over ten years in graduate fellowships for thousands of individuals from around the world, including many members of marginalized groups. Today, most grants are made within the context of larger initiatives. The foundation uses a wide range of approaches that include research, program-related investments, and grants contributing to everything from small projects to endowment campaigns. In the 1950s and 1960s, particularly outside the United States, the Ford Foundation worked as an operating foundation by providing technical assistance to government agencies. It now works almost exclusively through making grants, largely to nonprofit organizations and universities. The foundation remains committed to diversity internally, in grantee organizations and in the fields it supports. When Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, established the foundation in 1936, it initially made grants on a modest scale in Michigan. Following the deaths of Edsel and Henry in the 1940s, and the settling of their estates, the foundation’s assets grew dramatically through several gifts of Ford Motor Company stock. In 1950, with Henry Ford II as chairman of the board, the foundation formally separated from Ford family control. In 1955,

Forten, James

the trustees announced a long-range policy of diversification of foundation holdings through the sale of Ford Motor Company stock, which led to tremendous growth and relative stability in the portfolio. Members of the Ford family remained on the board until 1976. The foundation’s board of trustees sets institutional policy and delegates authority for grantmaking and operations to the president and staff. Within budgetary parameters set by the board, program staff have considerable autonomy in making grants. Alan Divack and Rusty Stahl References and further reading Ford Foundation. 2003. “Who We Are,” http://www.ford found.org/about/mission.cfm (cited January 20, 2004). Greenleaf, William. 1958. The Ford Foundation: The Formative Years. Unpublished manuscript, Ford Foundation Archives. Macdonald, Dwight. 1956. The Ford Foundation: The Men and the Millions. New York: Reynal. Magat, Richard. 1979. The Ford Foundation at Work: Philanthropic Choices, Methods and Styles. New York: Plenum.

Forten, James (1766–1842) Known as a colored man of wealth and intelligence and a philanthropist, James Forten applied his energy and resources to abolish slavery. Born in Philadelphia to free African Americans Thomas and Margaret Forten on September 2, 1766, James Forten was exposed to sail making in early life by observing his father, who died of an unknown cause when his son was just seven. Forten received his early education at the Friends’ African School under Jacob Lehre. At the age of fourteen, he left school to join Captain Stephen Decatur Sr., on the privateer Royal Louis to fight the British in the Revolutionary War. The ship was captured on its second voyage, and Forten survived seven months on the British prison ship Jersey. Released by the British in 1782, Forten soon began working—as his father had—for Robert Bridges as a sail maker. In 1786, at the age of twenty, he was promoted to foreman, overseeing both black and white workers. Bridges retired in 1798 and arranged for Forten to purchase the business. By 1832, James Forten em-

ployed about forty workers and had amassed a fortune of about $100,000. Forten used his influence as a businessman, activist, and philanthropist to promote abolition, women’s rights, and equal rights for blacks. He often spoke at public gatherings where freedom or equality was at issue and helped draft several petitions to legislators to end discriminatory legislation prevailing at the time. Forten openly opposed the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act of Pennsylvania, which allowed alleged runaway slaves (and often free blacks) to be returned to masters in southern states. In 1813, when a bill was before the Pennsylvania Senate to bar the immigration of free blacks from other states, he wrote and published a pamphlet entitled Letters from a Man of Colour, successfully persuading lawmakers to uphold the words of equality in the Constitution and defeat the bill. He became a fierce opponent to colonization—a movement designed to repatriate blacks to West Africa—and founded and served as president of the American Moral Reform Society, a group promoting education, temperance, economy, and universal liberty. A friend of noted abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, Forten also supported Garrison’s antislavery publication The Liberator with funding and by soliciting subscriptions. With Garrison and others, Forten helped found a chapter of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in 1833. James Forten and his wife, Charlotte Vandine, had three daughters (Mary Isabella, Margaretta, and Sarah) and three sons (Robert Bridges Forten, Thomas Francis Willing Forten, and James Forten Jr.). He died on March 4, 1842, at the age of seventy-six. Steve Gilliland References and further reading Doughty, Ester M. 1968. Forten the Sailmaker: Pioneer Champion of Negro Rights. Chicago: Rand McNally. Logan, Rayford W. 1982. “James Forten.” In Dictionary of American Negro Biography, edited by Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, 234–235. New York: W. W. Norton. Thomas, Lamont D. 2002. “Paul Cuffe and James Forten.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 61. Westport, CT: Oryx Press.

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Winch, Julie. 2002. A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten. New York: Oxford University Press.

Foundation Center Founded in 1956, the Foundation Center is a leading authority on institutional philanthropy. Describing itself as the “Gateway to Philanthropy,” the Foundation Center is dedicated to serving grantseekers, grantmakers, researchers, policy makers, the media, and the general public by supporting and improving institutional philanthropy and promoting understanding of the field. The Foundation Center fulfills its mission by providing educational and research support and broad-based access to information pertaining to the nonprofit sector. The center collects, organizes, and disseminates information about philanthropy in the United States, conducts and facilitates research on trends in the field, and provides education and training for grantseekers. It accomplishes these goals through a variety of training programs and publications. Headquartered in New York City, the Foundation Center maintains field offices in Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. It operates a network of five professionally staffed libraries and learning centers with comprehensive research collections and offers information free of charge. Additionally, the libraries offer free and fee-based educational programs on topics including, but not limited to, grantseeking, proposal writing, and foundations, and they collaborate with representatives from the nonprofit sector to present programs of interest to the philanthropic community. Foundation Center publications include The Foundation Center’s Guide to Proposal Writing, The Foundation Directory, and The National Directory of Corporate Giving, among others. In addition to the five libraries, the Foundation Center supports a network of 217 Cooperating Collections located in public libraries and nonprofit resource centers. The Cooperating Collections offer free access to core Foundation Center print and electronic resources, and many sponsor local training programs. The Foundation Center’s educational programs are not limited to those offered throughout the United States at on-site locations. The center’s content-rich

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Web site has become the principal means by which it delivers information and services to the nonprofit community and the general public. It assembles news from foundations, corporations, public charities, and other members of the nonprofit sector; publishes trend analysis; provides searchable access to Foundation Center databases, including Literature of the Nonprofit Sector, The Foundation Directory Online, and Foundation Fundamentals; supplies access to its Online Bookshelf; and offers instruction and technical assistance in the online Learning Lab. A range of available electronic research tools includes Foundation Finder, Sector Search, Grantmaker Web Sites, and 990-PF Search. Visitors requiring additional assistance can send e-mail reference questions to an online librarian. The premier source for current news on philanthropy, the online journal Philanthropy News Digest (PND) containing job postings, conference notices, and a message board, is available via the center’s Web site, as is the RFP Bulletin, which contains abstracts of requests for proposals from private funders and governmental agencies. Site visitors can obtain indepth information by and about private foundations through links to its GrantSmart Web site; connections to the Associates Program Online extranet, a controlled-access site, enables direct communication with center staff. The Foundation Center funds more than half of its expenses through income earned from publications and services. Approximately 600 foundations and corporations provide annual support, and special project grants fund the development of new services. The Foundation Center is not a membership organization; donors to the center, however, receive discounts on fee-based services and publications. Lisa Browar References and further reading Foundation Center, http://www.fdncenter.org.

Foundation Payout Foundation payout has been called the “engine that drives philanthropic grantmaking” (Rosa 2001, 4). Indeed, payout refers to the amount distributed annually

Foundations

by foundations and other grantmakers—typically as grants. Only private foundations, though, are required by law to meet specific payout guidelines. The Internal Revenue Code (IRC) specifies that the minimum payout required of a private foundation is 5 percent of net investment assets. This 5 percent payout is called a “qualifying distribution” and includes grants as well as administrative expenses related to program, program-related investments, and amounts set aside for future charitable projects. The payout requirement of 5 percent sets a mandatory minimum distribution for all private foundations, assuring that a minimum amount of cash and/or property is distributed for charitable purposes each year. The rate is reasonable enough to allow for adequate support of charitable activities by foundations while still allowing foundations to maintain their ability to exist over the long term. The payout requirement must be met no later than twelve months following the end of the tax year in question. Any shortfall is subject to a penalty of 15 percent of the undistributed amount in addition to the required distribution. Private foundations may pay out an amount in excess of their required distribution without penalty, carrying such amounts forward and applying them in up to five later years. Payout is calculated as 5 percent of the average value of the private foundation’s assets, including the fair market value of all investment assets (based on readily available market quotations), the foundation’s monthly cash balances, and all other assets not used directly in carrying out the foundation’s tax-exempt purpose. Distributions by the foundation counting toward the 5 percent requirement are defined by the IRC as qualifying distributions and include any amount paid to accomplish the foundation’s charitable purpose, including grants, reasonable administrative expenses, and program-related expenses. If the foundation has prior approval from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), some amounts set aside for specific projects in the future may also count as qualifying distributions. Foundations may meet their payout requirements with distributions of cash and/ or property. Prior to 1969, the IRC did not specify a required amount of payout, rather holding that a private foun-

dation would lose its tax-exempt status if it accumulated, in aggregate, income that was unreasonable to carry out charitable activities. Deemed vague and ineffective, this rule was changed by Congress through the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which not only established the initial payout requirements for private foundations, but also stipulated rules against excess business holdings and self-dealing. The act also created the excise tax on private foundation income and the requirements for private foundations to report annually to the IRS (via Form 990 PF). Until 1981, foundations were required to pay out the equivalent of their adjusted net income if such an amount was greater than the required payout percentage. This requirement greatly influenced the investment activities of foundations and was ultimately removed in 1981. The payout rate changed several times between 1969 and 1981 (ranging between 4.125 percent and 6 percent) before ultimately settling on 5 percent in 1981. Debate about the most appropriate rate of payout for private foundations is common within the foundation community. During the late 1990s, the National Network of Grantmakers and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy led a campaign to encourage private foundations to voluntarily raise the rate of payout to 6 percent. This campaign was generally unsuccessful in the wake of poor stock market performance and lowered foundation investment returns in the early 2000s. Generally, foundations agree that the 5 percent payout rate is adequate to make charitable distributions and maintain the assets of the foundation over the long term. Kym Mulhern References and further reading Freeman, David, and the Council on Foundations. 1991. The Handbook on Private Foundations. New York: Foundation Center. Hopkins, Bruce. 1998. The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations. New York: Wiley. Rosa, Julio, ed. 2001. Payout for Change. San Diego: National Network of Grantmakers.

Foundations See Community Foundations; Grantmaking; History of American Foundations; Institutional Foundations

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Foundations and the Labor Movement

Foundations and the Labor Movement See Union Movement and Philanthropy

Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790) Recognized as one of America’s most important founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin is hailed for his work as an author, printer, scientist, and diplomat. He is less recognized as an important early figure in American philanthropy, even though he constantly exhibited and promoted the value of collective voluntary action and associational life. Born to Josiah and Abiah Folger Franklin in 1706, Benjamin Franklin grew up in Boston. Although the rest of his male siblings received training in trades, Franklin obtained some schooling in preparation for a career in the ministry. Unable to pay for more education, twelve-year-old Franklin apprenticed at his brother’s printing business and pursued self-education in his spare time. In 1723, Franklin moved to Philadelphia, where he ultimately became famous for his Poor Richard’s Almanac and the newspaper the Pennsylvania Gazette. In 1730, he began a commonlaw marriage with Deborah Reed. The couple had two children, and Franklin also fathered one illegitimate child. In the 1740s and 1750s, Franklin’s wealth allowed him to focus on science. He became famous for numerous discoveries and inventions, including advances in the study of electricity. While Franklin was becoming a successful businessman, he started the Junto Club in 1727. Influenced by Daniel Defoe’s An Essay upon Projects (1697) and Cotton Mather’s Bonifacius: An Essay upon the Good (1710), this mutual benefit society comprised Philadelphia tradesmen who attended a weekly meeting for socializing, self-improvement, and the betterment of their city. On the latter aspect, Franklin and his group implemented—over subsequent decades— numerous community improvements. With an evergrowing city and a weak government, they brought about the Library Company of Philadelphia (the first American subscription library), paved roads, a volunteer fire department, a city police force, and street lighting. Demonstrating his love of science, in 1744 Franklin founded the American Philosophical Soci-

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Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) (Perry-Castaneda Library)

ety, an association of scientists who shared ideas and results in the hope of producing benefits for society at large. Franklin also devoted substantial time to the creation of the Philadelphia Academy (later the University of Pennsylvania), which opened in 1751. Through innovative fundraising, offering private donors a matching grant from the Pennsylvania Assembly, Franklin also opened the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1752. As the American Revolution developed, Franklin served in the Second Continental Congress and then traveled to France to acquire that country’s crucial support for the colonists’ cause. After the war, Franklin participated in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. That same year, he served as the president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Originally a slave owner, he became an abolitionist late in life. At his death in 1790, Franklin’s will established two funds (for Boston and

Friendly Societies

Philadelphia) that would offer loans to young apprentices for the next 200 years. Unfortunately, Franklin could not have anticipated the societal changes that brought about the dramatic decline in apprenticeships, and thus his funds’ inability, at times, to help anyone. Although Franklin is praised for exhibiting the virtues of associational life, philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and others have criticized his last charitable act as a prime example of the perils of “dead-hand” philanthropy. Robert T. Grimm Jr. References and further reading Brands, H. W. 2000. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Doubleday. Grimm, Robert T, Jr. 2002. “Benjamin Franklin.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 99–103. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Wright, Esmond. 1986. Franklin of Philadelphia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Friendly Societies Friendly societies evolved in the nineteenth century in the industrial cities of Europe. As the name implies, the societies institutionalized networks of friends, neighbors, and coworkers. An important purpose was to pool resources and to manage the most damaging risks a working-class family could encounter—an incapacitating illness, a severe accident, or even the death of the breadwinner. Many households in the new factory towns had no extended families to help and no investments or possessions to sell if a tragedy befell the primary wage earner. The lack of family help or financial reserves was also acute among immigrants in the United States, whether they settled in the cities or rural areas. Friendly societies, or fraternal societies, as they were called in the United States, held out the promise of creating new communal bonds and financial support systems. Shared experiences took the place of kinship ties. The same religion, the same nationality, or work in the same industry generated trust on which the new self-help or mutual aid endeavors could be built. Over the years, the small-scale efforts were replaced by large health and life insurance programs as well as pension plans offered by the private sector.

Governments also took over some of the societies’ roles through social security systems and publicly funded health care programs. However, some friendly or fraternal societies have remained financially viable into the present time. In Britain, a series of laws provided the legal and organizational framework. The Friendly Societies Act of 1974 defines friendly societies as “voluntary, mutual organizations whose main purposes are assisting members (usually financially) during sickness, unemployment or retirement, and the provision of life insurance.” The Friendly Societies Act of 1992 provides a comprehensive legal framework for the purposes and powers of friendly societies as well as for the organizational structure and mechanisms for governmental oversight. In the United States, federal law regulates the taxexempt status of all nonprofit entities, including fraternal societies, and state laws cover incorporation issues. Table 1 shows the two types of fraternal societies recognized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Section 501(3)(8) entities under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), called fraternal beneficiary societies and associations by the IRS, are primarily set up to manage personal risks through fraternal insurance programs and to provide for the elderly through annuity plans while also promoting brotherhood or sisterhood bonds through local lodges, clubs, or chapters. They may also conduct charitable or educational activities, contributions to which are tax-deductible if they are dedicated for purposes covered by 501(c)(3). Section 501(c)(10) organizations, so-called domestic fraternal societies and associations, cannot offer insurance or other benefit plans to their members. Their major purpose is to offer conviviality through their lodge system or other local arrangements. Net earnings may go to charitable causes or other activities, and contributions are tax-deductible if they fall under the 501(c)(3) purposes. There are similarities and differences between British friendly societies and American fraternal beneficiary societies. Both types of organizations subscribe to the self-help and mutual-aid principle in managing certain household risks, such as severe illnesses, catastrophic accidents, or the death of a family member. In addition to life and health insurance

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Table 1 Fraternal Societies in the Internal Revenue Code Section Code

Types of Organizations

501(c)(8)

Fraternal beneficiary societies and associations

501(c)(10)

Domestic fraternal societies and associations

Nature of Activities

Contributions Tax-Deductible?

Lodge providing for payment of life, Yes, if made for certain Sec. sickness, accident, or other 501(c)(3) purposes* benefits to members. Yes, if made for certain Sec. Lodge devoting its net earnings to 501(c)(3) purposes* charitable, fraternal, and other specified purposes. No life, sickness, or accident benefits to members.

*

Sec. 501(c)(3) purposes: religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, to foster national or international amateur sports competition, or prevention of cruelty to children or animals. Source: U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization, Publication 557 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Internal Revenue Service, 2001), p. 57 (http://www.irs.gov/forms_pubs/).

plans, some societies offer mortgages and annuities to their members. In both countries, early societies included a strong community-building dimension. Trust was important for a breadwinner to hand over a share, even a small one, of his meager income to a common pool in the expectation of some benefit in the unknown future. Even today, friendly or fraternal societies market themselves as deserving of trust by highlighting their longevity and the size of their membership. A noteworthy difference between the British and American societies can be observed in the leadership as well as in the background of the members. In Britain, some of the impetus to form friendly societies came from the outside. One study found that members of the ruling elite perceived the poor as a threat to their own privileged lifestyle and supported selfhelp efforts as a way to reduce poverty (Gosden 1961). Favorable legislation encouraged industrial workers to join friendly societies, and trade unions, which did not enjoy such a favorable status, used the friendly society legislation to strengthen their own organizations (ibid.). In contrast, the leadership to form fraternal societies in the United States came from the ranks of the members, who were farmers, professionals, and businessmen in addition to industrial workers. Also, some fraternities modeled their organizational structure on the secrecy and rituals of the Freemasons. Over the years, two types of fraternities evolved: “fraternal secret societies,” which did not offer insurance benefits

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to their members, and “fraternal benefit societies,” which focused on insurance programs. The different paths are reflected in the distinction made by the IRS between fraternal beneficiary societies and domestic fraternal societies. The number of fraternal societies presently in the United States is difficult to gauge. The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities—Core Codes, developed by the National Center for Charitable Statistics, has separate codes for fraternal beneficiary societies and domestic fraternal societies but publishes the data under the broad category of mutual/membership benefit organizations, which includes a diverse field of Section 501(c)(5) to 501(c)(27) entities. The comprehensive inventory of fraternal organizations taken by Alvin Schmidt in 1980 identifies about 450 societies. The number is not exact because information about some fraternities is difficult to obtain. They may not exist anymore, or they may be protective of their secret status and reluctant to share information. In contrast, other fraternal societies make good use of the Internet as a marketing tool. This is seen as a necessity to attract new members. Whether a society falls into the fraternal benefit camp, the fraternal secret group, or somewhere in between, many have experienced stagnation or even a decline in membership. Future viability and vitality will depend on the ability of these societies either to make their present mission appealing to the next generation or to adapt their mission to meet new needs. Siegrun Fox Freyss

Fundraising

References and further reading Beito, David T. 2000. From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Gosden, P. H. J. H. 1961. The Friendly Societies in England, 1815–1875. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ———. 1973. Self-Help: Voluntary Associations in Nineteenth-Century Britain. London: Batsford. Hernandez, José Amaro. 1983. Mutual Aid for Survival: The Case of the Mexican American. Malabar, FL: Krieger. Hopkins, Eric. 1995. Working-Class Self-Help in Nineteenth Century England: Responses to Industrialisation. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Hunt, Kimberly N. 2002. Encyclopedia of Associations, 38th ed. Vol. 1, National Organizations of the U.S. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. Registry of Friendly Societies, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/ additional/rfsweb.pdf Schmidt, Alvin J. 1980. Fraternal Organizations. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Fraternal Societies See Mutual Benefit Organizations

Fundraising Fundraising can be traced back to biblical times (for example, the building of the tabernacle in Exodus), to classical Greece and Rome, to accounts of the Middle Ages, and to charitable acts and activities of Elizabethan England. In a mostly European and JudeoChristian context, America grew up with the spirit of philanthropy. Private gifts from the wealthy in countries of origin helped to develop and sustain not just America’s colonies but also its early institutions. Government support was also highly influential, but private generosity built the foundations of a philanthropic tradition in the United States. Some authorities consider the fundraising efforts for the establishment of Harvard College in 1641 as the foundation of professional fundraising. Others also point to the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and still others believe that Jane Addams and the establishment of Hull-House in Chicago in 1889 signaled the beginning of organized philanthropy and fundraising.

Although philanthropy played a significant role in the history of the United States, fundraising as an organized and organizational function only dates back to the early 1900s. The early twentieth century is usually identified as the starting point of the professionalization of fundraising. This was partly due to the growth of paid staff, which changed the philanthropic landscape from one directed by volunteers to one of professionals who then directed volunteers. Scott M. Cutlip, who wrote the most definitive history of fundraising in the United States, said, “Organized philanthropy supported by systematic fundraising is a twentieth-century development in the United States. Philanthropy, in America’s first three centuries, was carried along on a small scale, largely financed by the wealthy few in response to personal begging appeals” (Cutlip 1990 [1965], 3). According to Cutlip, World War I provided the foundation for organized fundraising; others, however, believe that the YMCA movement, which began in the early 1900s, actually provided the roots for modern fundraising. Some researchers identify distinct eras in twentieth-century fundraising, delineating both change and continuity in a historical context, but others give generational views or ignore the historical context altogether. Much of what is considered to be standard practice in fundraising actually began as innovative techniques created to meet certain needs. Prior to World War I, fundraising was still quite unorganized and haphazard. Philanthropy was usually the domain of the wealthiest. During this period, the need to reduce the requests to the few identifiable donors caused federated fundraising agencies to emerge. Eventually, fundraising began to involve increasing numbers of citizens, particularly in the area of social welfare where organizations and people had already been active (for example, in black churches and through women volunteers). At this time, fundraising was the function of nonspecialists and volunteers. Among those who began to lay the groundwork for formalized fundraising were Lyman L. Pierce and Charles Sumner Ward, who have been credited with developing the campaign method for the Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCAs). Others active during this era were individuals who served as leaders of alumni associations, such as William

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Fundraising

Lawrence, volunteer president for Harvard’s association. Included in this era should be evangelists such as Dwight L. Moody and Frederick T. Gates. The latter was able to solicit John D. Rockefeller for a major gift to establish a major institution—the University of Chicago. The first commercial fundraising firm was established by Frederick Courtenay Barber in 1913, but because he charged a commission, his place in the historical annals is usually discounted. The progenitors of today’s consulting firms were established in approximately 1919. In spite of ongoing activity prior to World War I, fundraising was mostly associated with YMCAs. Only as Ward and Pierce began to tutor others did the understanding of fundraising as a function and service expand. Ward is quoted in Cutlip as having said, “I would leave this work immediately if I thought I were merely raising money. It is raising men that appeals to me” (1990 [1965], 43). The American Red Cross War Council was created at the beginning of the war with the purpose of conducting fundraising for relief efforts. Ward and Pierce, on loan from the YMCA, were hired to help with this effort, and they raised record amounts of money. Another significant figure emerged during this time, John Price Jones, the first to combine experience in newspapers and public relations with fundraising. The YMCA’s form of fundraising, which focused on Christian values and stewardship, and Jones’s businesslike approach to fundraising now joined to provide a foundation for modern fundraising—a combination of vision and mission with commercial overtones. After World War I, consultants became more predominant in fundraising. In September 1919, the firm of Ward, Hill, Pierce and Wells was established. This team included recognizable, famous names, and therefore business was brisk. Others who had gained experience in the YMCA and Red Cross campaigns now became the first wave of fundraising counsel— the pioneers. At this time several changes took place in the fundraising field. First, the fixed fee, rather than commission-based fundraising, became accepted. Second, in spite of the name recognition of many who established or worked for fundraising firms, the idea that the consultant must remain in the background so that attention could be focused on the organization

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came into fashion. Third, the literature in fundraising received a boost in 1966 when Harold “Si” Seymour, who worked for the John Price Jones company, codified a standard practices volume that became the first training manual in fundraising history (Seymour 1993). This era of fundraising consultants slowed down with the Great Depression. The campaigns, which had taken an identifiable format, faded, although Americans still gave, particularly for relief programs. Philanthropy now ceased to be the domain of the wealthy, and the average citizen joined with government to provide relief. Because these were desperate days, fundraising practices took on some questionable aspects. As a result, the American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) was established in 1935 to preserve the integrity and promote the dignity of fundraising. The founders of the AAFRC, pioneers of fundraising as an organized activity, attempted to position fundraising as a philanthropic effort, an endeavor that saw a merging of ideological and philosophical ideals with sound business practices. Fundraising matured greatly between the two world wars. At the beginning of World War II, the Red Cross began a blood donor program; this was the result of increasing government intervention in relief funding, which meant the Red Cross’s traditional services were no longer required. Because the Red Cross adapted to change and raised great sums of money, Cutlip called it the greatest fundraiser of modern times (1990 [1965]). After World War II, the example of the Red Cross caused many other institutions to begin raising money, and for the first time in-house staff began to be hired. This was particularly true for colleges and universities, where administrators saw the need for more funds and increased goals and recognized the need for professionalism to accomplish this. During the post–World War II period, the need for fundraising campaigns soared and organizations began to seriously compete for charitable dollars. Much happened in fundraising, perhaps too much and too fast. There was little understanding of professional fundraising in the general public. America’s ongoing discrepancy of opinion and feeling—sympathy for

Fundraising

causes but antipathy for fundraisers—may have begun at this point. Lack of standards caused an understandable mistrust of fundraisers, although the public usually exercised its charitable impulses anyway. The 1950s saw an increase in federal funding programs. The government poured out funds in greater amounts than philanthropy had contributed, yet when the funding programs closed down, private donors who had become accustomed to government programs were not ready to close the gap. The nation did not recover from this effect until the late 1970s. In 1960, an influential and significant organization was established to serve the growing number of practitioners—the National Society of Fund Raisers, renamed the National Society of Fund Raising Executives in 1978 and renamed again in 2001 as the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). This organization ushered in the era of staff fundraisers, which continues until today. Nonprofit organizations set up development departments and conducted annual and capital campaigns, many of them multimillion-dollar ones. The practice of placing resident consultants from fundraising firms at institutions began to fade with this influx of permanent staff, and consultants became campaign advisers instead. More associations were also founded during this era, with the most recognizable being the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, established in 1967. One final landmark of the 1960s was the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which subjected charitable organizations to new regulations. An expansion of fundraising strategies, such as telethons and door-to-door methods, characterized the 1970s. The Council for the Advancement and Support of Education was formed in 1974, and in that same year The Fund Raising School was established by Hank Rosso, Joe Mixer, and Lyle Cook. This was probably the first formalized training available for fundraising practitioners. In the 1970s there was also an increase in government oversight. These highlights of fundraising history show that the knowledge about philanthropy and the organizations that employ fundraisers increased considerably. The 1980s brought an influx of fundraisers into the nonprofit arena. Much of this was due to government funding cutbacks. Public educational institutions

began to seek support from private funds, something many initially resisted, and the race to compete became fierce. The fundraising function was internalized by this time, with consultants serving an advisory role. In 1980, INDEPENDENT SECTOR was established. This organization has been successful in representing donors and fundraisers and has served in an advocacy role. Its formation marked a turning point for donors and fundraising professionals, who began to work more collaboratively to achieve their mutual goals. Many changes occurred in fundraising in the 1990s, including the following: • Increased professionalism in fundraising, with a proliferation of courses and training programs • Development of a body of research and literature providing a theoretical and practical base for the profession • Intensified demand for accountability by nonprofits • Consistent increases in philanthropic giving (although never higher than 2 percent of the gross domestic product [GDP]) • Growth in the number of nonprofit organizations • Greater public interest in philanthropy and understanding of the nonprofit sector • More scrutiny of the sector and its organizations, and therefore increased criticism • A vast jump in the number of publications related to the nonprofit sector and philanthropy • A shift in how individuals enter the profession; that is, increased participation in formal educational programs in fundraising as a way of entering the profession • Greater use of technology in fundraising, particularly the Internet • Changes in the characteristics and behaviors of donors The professionalization of fundraising began to receive serious attention in the 1990s. Considerable headway has been made in the fundraising field to

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bolster the argument that it is a profession. There is a growing, credible pool of knowledge on which fundraisers base their practice; professional development opportunities are numerous; the need for special skills is readily acknowledged; collegiality is generally an expected behavior and organizations such as AFP and other professional associations foster this; ethical practice is a qualification for membership in professional associations; and more attention is placed on the service aspect of fundraising than ever before. Most people enter the fundraising field because it is an environment that serves human needs—needs that are not served by the business and government sectors. People want to heal, to educate, to preserve cultures, to shelter the abused, to inspire, and to preserve. Other objectives may certainly be worthwhile, such as career advancement, involvement in a specific field of interest, and working in a field that has such a significant impact on nonprofit causes, but belief in the causes that a fundraising professional serves is of primary importance. Fundraising should touch souls, not just of those served, but of the professional as well. Fundraising, or development, as some prefer to call it, is a fundamental part of the process that makes institutions successful. For the fundraiser, satisfaction is derived from results, often intangible or invisible for some time into the future, not from recognition. An orientation to public service is critical and should be a significant motivation for entering the profession. Idealism and enthusiasm must be balanced with accountability, businesslike behavior, and practical action. At the bottom of all is this reality: Most work in the nonprofit sector, whether it is advocacy, healing, educating, entertaining, preserving, or some other activity, will not just happen unless someone brings in money. And the more fundraising is integrated into the entire organization, the more successful it will be. In this integration process, the roles fundraising plays in an organization can be several. Kathleen S. Kelly’s (1998) qualitative study on fundraising roles explaining how practitioners carry out job responsibilities identified four variations in practitioner behavior—liaison, expert prescriber, technician, and problem-solving process facilitator. The liaison role is a traditional one in which the practitioner coordinates,

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facilitates, and interprets when organizational representatives meet with prospective donors. The expert prescriber assumes responsibility for raising money and does it with great skill, but others are left out of the process. The technician is not part of the management team but produces and implements the techniques and strategies needed in the process, such as use of the Internet for fundraising. The problem-solving process facilitator is a member of the management team and is knowledgeable about as well as involved in the organization’s management. Although Kelly called for more research to verify and substantiate these findings, seasoned professionals would acknowledge that every fundraiser must, at one time or another, function in all four roles. Perhaps this is one of the challenges of fundraising as a career. But it is also one of its benefits. Various roles are appropriate for various organizations, and a person’s strengths can be utilized in more than one way. Lilya Wagner References and further reading Broce, Thomas E. 1986. Fund Raising, 2d ed. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Ciconte, Barbara Kushner, and Jeanne G. Jacob. 1997. Fund Raising Basics: A Complete Guide. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen. Cutlip, Scott M. 1990 [1965]. Fundraising in the United States: Its Role in America’s Philanthropy., New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Duronio, Margaret A., and Eugene Tempel. 1996. Fund Raisers: Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and Accomplishments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gurin, Maurice G. 1985. Confessions of a Fund Raiser. Rockville, MD: Taft Group. Kelly, Kathleen S. c. 1998. Effective Fund-raising Management. Mahwah, NJ: Lawerence Erlbaum Associates. ———. 1998. “Four Organizational Roles of Fundraisers: An Exploratory Study.” Paper presented at the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, 27th Annual Conference, Seattle, November 5. Mixer, Joseph R. 1993. Principles of Professional Fundraising. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Olcott, William A. 1998. Make a Note of It: Wit and Wisdom from Fund Raisers for Fund Raisers. Chicago: Bonus Books. Tempel, Eugene R., Sara B. Cobb, and Warren F. Ilchman, eds. 1997. “The Professionalization of Fundraising.” New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising no. 15 (Spring).

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Rosso, Henry A. 1996. Rosso on Fund Raising: Lessons from a Master’s Lifetime Experience. New York: Jossey-Bass. Schwartz, John J. 1994. Modern American Philanthropy: A Personal Account. New York: Wiley. Seymour, Harold J. 1993. Designs for Fund-Raising, 2d ed. Rockville, MD: Fundraising Institute (a division of The Taft Group). Wagner, Lilya. 2001. Careers in Fundraising. New York: Wiley.

Fundraising as a Profession Fundraising in the twenty-first century is practiced according to proven technical standards and guided by generally accepted ethical standards. Fundraising is more formal and pervasive in the U.S. philanthropic world than in most other countries but is growing globally as well. Historically, fundraising was an informal, volunteer activity, and informal, volunteer fundraising at the grassroots level continues today. However, formal, organized fundraising, involving volunteers and managed by paid professionals, has become an important structure in nonprofit organizations. Fundraisers today, whether volunteer or paid, use a variety of techniques that evolved from early practices. The case statement, a presentation of needs for potential donors, is a key tool. The technique was being used as early as 1643, when two volunteers used a piece called “America’s First Fruits” as a case statement to raise funds in England for Harvard College. Benjamin Franklin raised funds for libraries, a hospital, and a university by asking colonists to give according to their means and seeking the largest gifts first. Two important technical standards used today, the gift range chart and sequential solicitation, evolved from this practice. Many of the management practices used in modern fundraising can be traced to Charles Sumner Ward and Lyman L. Pierce, who raised funds for the Young Men’s Christian Association at the turn of the twentieth century. Their “campaign” methods were followed by others, and fundraising at the turn of the twenty-first century is indebted to their innovations. The last quarter of the twentieth century saw a doubling in the number of nonprofit organizations in the United States and significant growth in paid pro-

fessional fundraising. Fundraising began as a consultant relationship to nonprofit organizations but is primarily an organization-based practice today. The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) (formerly the National Society of Fund Raising Executives) grew from 1,899 members in 1979 to 24,429 members in 2000. It has chapter members in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and around the globe. Similar organizations exist in Austria, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, and other countries. What began as a male-dominated activity has become a femaledominated activity today. More than 60 percent of those doing fundraising are women, and women are entering the field at a rate of three to one compared to men. Although women did much of the fundraising work for charitable organizations forty or fifty years ago, they did so as volunteers; today, they have professional careers in fundraising that often require college degrees. Scholars from such disciplines as history, marketing, sociology, psychology, and philosophy have built a knowledge base to support the technical and ethical standards that fundraisers practice. Sophisticated marketing techniques often influence direct mail, telemarketing, and e-mail solicitation of small gifts from large numbers of individuals around the globe. Standards exist for approaching professionally run corporate giving and foundation grantmaking programs, and theoretical models, such as the philanthropic identification model (Schervish 1997), support fundraising structures. Fundraisers disagree about whether fundraising is a profession or a field striving toward being a profession. Fundraisers are not yet able to control entry to the field as some professions can, and only the most senior practitioners have the influence and autonomy that is usually accorded a profession. But on many other fronts, fundraisers have achieved professional status. They tend to have a service mentality and are more generous than other individuals with their time and money. They utilize a growing body of knowledge. And there are university-based programs to help new fundraisers become educated about philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, nonprofit management, donor behavior, and fundraising.

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Common to all fundraisers around the globe is the acceptance of a code of ethics. The AFP code of ethical standards was adopted in 1964. Fundraising groups around the world have adopted or adapted the AFP code, and the AFP Ethics Committee penalizes those who violate it. But not all fundraisers belong to a professional organization, and volunteers and amateurs practice in the same arenas as those who consider themselves professionals. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the profession faces opportunities and challenges. Growing wealth and income in the United States and other countries have created opportunities for increased philanthropy, and nonprofit organizations are recruiting fundraisers to secure philanthropy. The supply of available fundraisers, however, cannot meet the demand. This has meant both increased salaries for fundraisers and increased needs for training and acculturation as practitioners from other fields have been recruited to fundraising positions. There is evidence that the traditional models of fundraising are challenged by new donors. In the past, the philosophy of fundraising was based on a worthy case for support, and fundraisers represented organizations with a good cause in search of donors. Today, in

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contrast, donors with an interesting idea or project often seek a willing organization to carry it out. Concepts such as venture philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and supply-side philanthropy are becoming more widespread and need careful study by fundraisers. Eugene R. Tempel References and further reading Burlingame, Dwight F., and Lamont J. Hulse. 1991. Taking Fundraising Seriously. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Duronio, Margaret A. 1997. “The Fund Raising Profession.” In Critical Issues in Fund Raising, edited by D. F. Burlingame, 37–57. New York: Wiley. Duronio, Margaret A., and Eugene R. Tempel. 1997. Fund Raisers: Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and Accomplishments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schervish, Paul G. 1997. “Inclination, Obligation, and Association: What We Know and What We Need to Learn about Donor Motivation.” In Critical Issues in Fund Raising, edited by D. F. Burlingame, 110–138. New York: Wiley. Tempel, Eugene R., and Matthew J. Beem. 2002. “The State of the Profession.” In New Strategies for Educational Fund Raising, edited by M. Worth. Washington, DC: American Council on Education/ Greenwood Publications. Wagner, Lilya. 2002. Careers in Fundraising. New York: Wiley.

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the first to receive funds from a state legislature (Fenner 1944, 51). That money, combined with support from private subscriptions, led to the opening of the first permanent school for the deaf on April 15, 1817. Originally named the American Asylum at Hartford for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, the school today is known as the American School for the Deaf. Gallaudet served there as principal from 1817 until 1830 and then resigned in order to write children’s books and return to preaching. As Gallaudet entered the twilight of his life, two of his sons took up his beloved cause of educating the deaf. Thomas, the eldest son, founded St. Ann’s Church for the Deaf in New York; the younger son, Edward Miner Gallaudet, founded the Columbia Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind in Washington, D.C. The only location for higher education of deaf students in the world, the Columbia Institution was later named Gallaudet University in honor of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. He only accepted having the school named after him because of a petition signed by graduates urging him to do so. Gallaudet continued to champion various education reforms, especially that of professionalizing the vocation of teaching. He served as chaplain at the Retreat, a Harvard insane asylum; while there, Gallaudet came to believe that proper education in hygienic facilities could help prevent insanity among the young (Fenner 1944, 56).

Born in 1787 in Hartford, Connecticut, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet is most remembered for his charitable work in educating the deaf. He attended Yale and the Andover Theological Seminary and intended to become an itinerant preacher until, upon returning to his boyhood home in 1814, he encountered his neighbor’s nine-year-old deaf daughter, who was unable to read or communicate in any way. Cognizant of the value of quality education, Gallaudet was inspired to learn how to teach the deaf. His neighbor convinced him to travel to Europe to study how the deaf were taught in England and France. In London, Gallaudet met the Braidwood family, who ran a school for the deaf, but they insisted that Gallaudet would have to spend three years learning their secret method and then swear to keep the secret to himself. Dissatisfied with this option, Gallaudet sought the guidance of Abbe Sicard, head of the Institut Royal des Sourds-Muets in Paris, who was in London to demonstrate his school’s method. Sicard was willing to teach the method to Gallaudet. In France, Gallaudet made close acquaintance with two deaf faculty members at the Institut Royal—Laurent Clerc and Jean Massieu—the former of whom would return with him to Hartford. The school that Gallaudet established is unique in the history of charitable institutions because his was

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Garcia, Hector Perez (1914–1996)

Thomas Gallaudet (1787–1851) (Corbis)

Well-regarded by his peers, humble in his actions, and compassionate toward the disadvantaged, Gallaudet was a model for nineteenth-century Christian benevolence. He continued to write numerous articles and deliver lectures until his death on September 10, 1851. Emily M. Hall References and further reading Degering, Etta. 1968. Gallaudet, Friend of the Deaf. New York: D. McKay. Fenner, Mildred Sandison, and Eleanor C. Fishburn. 1944. Pioneer American Educators. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat. Neimark, Anne E. 1983. A Deaf Child Listened: Thomas Gallaudet, Pioneer in American Education. New York: Morrow. “Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.” Gallaudet University Web site, http://pr.gallaudet.edu/visitorscenter/ GallaudetHistory/ (cited December 13, 2002).

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Dr. Hector Perez Garcia led the Latino civil rights movement a decade before there was national recognition of minority rights. Having grown up in a hostile Texan border town, Dr. Hector, as he was commonly known, held fast to the founding documents of American democracy. Spurred by his deeply held belief in equal rights for all under the laws of the nation, he was moved to action by the injustices he experienced as a young man and, later, as a military physician. Born in 1914 in Llera, Tamaulipas State, Mexico, Garcia was four years old when his family immigrated to Mercedes, Texas, to flee the Mexican Revolution. He and five of his siblings earned medical degrees at a time when the average Mexican American in Texas earned only a third-grade education. By the time the United States had entered World War II, Dr. Hector had earned his M.D. and completed his surgical residency. As an army doctor stationed in Italy, Garcia was awarded a Bronze Star medal with six battle stars. Upon the conclusion of the war, he returned to Texas to help veterans receive their military benefits. To many Mexican American veterans who could not access the military health system, Dr. Hector was more than a medical adviser, he was an advocate. The story of Army Private Felix Longoria exposed the pervasive and accepted bigotry of Texans in the national media. Private Longoria had died during a volunteer mission in the Philippines in 1944 and was scheduled by his family to be reinterred in his Texas hometown. Yet, when his wife tried to have his funeral services at the local cemetery, the funeral director upheld the long-standing policy of separate facilities for Mexican Americans. Private Longoria had died serving his country yet was barred from a respectful funeral service on account of racial prejudice. His wife could not stand for it and immediately contacted Dr. Hector, who had by this time established himself as a champion of veteran rights in the community. After involving the national press, Dr. Hector received the support of then-Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson. With the backing of Senator Johnson, Private Longoria was eventually buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Mrs. Longoria’s experience in putting her husband to rest was simply one of the many indignities that

Garrett, Mary Elizabeth

Mexican Americans endured in 1940s Texas. In order to ensure civil rights for all veterans and their families, Dr. Hector founded the American G.I. Forum. The agency started with veteran rights as its focus but quickly expanded to include other basic interests such as access to education, human rights, and voting rights. During the Johnson presidency, Dr. Hector served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He was appointed U.S. alternate ambassador to the United Nations in 1967. Among his numerous awards, Dr. Hector received the Medal of Freedom in 1984, becoming one of only three Hispanics to receive this honor. Until his death on July 26, 1996, Dr. Hector continued to serve as a Latino advocate. Two years later, Congress chartered the American G.I. Forum, placing the agency side by side with organizations such as the American Legion. The Mexican government bestowed the Aztec Eagle, its highest award, upon him in the same year. The American G.I. Forum is now headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Its membership, which exceeds 160,000, carries the civil rights torch— lighted by Dr. Hector—to this day. Susan Haber References and further reading Avila, Alex. 1997. “Freedom Fighter.” Hispanic ( January/February): 18. Harris, Joyce Saenz. 1990. “Hector P. Garcia: When It’s Time to Pull Some Strings, They Call Him ‘Dr. Hector’; Civil Rights Leader and Founder of the American G.I. Forum.” Dallas Morning News, August 19, 1990, 1E. Hector Perez Garcia. Papers. Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Special Collections and Archives Department, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, Texas, http://www.sga .utmb.edu/ulams/drgarcia.

Garrett, Mary Elizabeth (1853–1915) Mary Elizabeth Garrett was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 5, 1853. A strong supporter of education for women, she was instrumental in building institutions that encouraged financial and political independence for women and “used her wealth as a bargaining chip to push for women’s suffrage and to advance women’s roles in medicine and higher education” (Sander 2001). Her parents were both from mer-

Mary Garrett (1853–1915) (Bettmann/Corbis)

cantile families in Baltimore, and her father was president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Garrett studied with private tutors and traveled widely abroad with her parents, sometimes serving as her father’s secretary. Garrett was a volunteer to the Woman’s Industrial Exchange, a national effort to improve women’s financial status through the sale of clothing, baked goods, and other items made by women. She became the founding director of the Woman’s Industrial Exchange of Baltimore in 1880. Garrett inherited onethird of her father’s fortune as Baltimore and Ohio Railroad titan upon his death in 1884, becoming at age thirty-one one of the wealthiest single women in the United States. She then began to fund other philanthropic interests. Along with a group of women friends who shared her interest in education, social change, and philanthropy, including M. Carey Thomas, Mary Mackall Gwinn, Elizabeth T. King, and Julia Rogers, she helped to establish Bryn Mawr

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School for Girls, a girls’ college preparatory school, in 1885. Named after the women’s college of which Thomas was then dean, Bryn Mawr School increased the educational opportunities for young women in Baltimore. Garrett donated $400,000 for the project and was involved in the school’s construction. Garrett was also instrumental in opening Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1889, making her gifts contingent on the school being open to women from the beginning. This was the university that, ten years earlier, in 1877, had rejected her friend Thomas from attending classes. Garrett’s first offer of a donation of $35,000 with these contingencies was rejected. This did not stop her from fighting for admission of women to the medical school. Thomas’s father and Garrett’s father were both trustees of Johns Hopkins; Gwinn’s father was the executor of Johns Hopkins’s will. Garrett and Thomas organized the Women’s Medical School Fund in 1890 with notable key women supporters such as First Lady Caroline Scott Harrison; writer Sarah Orne Jewett; Jane Stanford, wife of Leland Stanford (the founder of Stanford University and a U.S. senator); and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, among others. Garrett’s practice of “coercive philanthropy,” making gifts with conditions and restrictions, eventually had results. When she personally added to her initial gift offer more than $300,000, the school finally accepted her conditions and agreed to enroll women. Her stipulations for her final gifts to Johns Hopkins included equal admissions policies and privileges for women and men in medical education; the admissions prerequisite of a bachelor’s degree with a background in the sciences and languages; and a graduate, four-year degree program. Her coercive philanthropy had the effect of raising the qualitative level of U.S. medical schools in the late nineteenth century, which until then included few requirements and provided limited medical training. In 1906, Garrett became a director of Bryn Mawr College. She gave approximately $350,000 to the college in her lifetime, most of it after 1894, when Thomas was named college president. Her contributions constituted 10 percent of Bryn Mawr’s annual budget, made up for deficits, and supported many endeavors at the college (Horowitz 1994, 257, 276). Garrett was also a suffragist. She was active in the fundraising effort for a permanent endowment for the

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National American Woman Suffrage Association, raising $12,000 a year for five years. In addition, she served as chairperson of the finance committee of the national College Women’s Equal Suffrage League. In her lifetime she donated more than $1.5 million to causes promoting women’s suffrage and high standards for education for women and men. Garrett died of leukemia in 1915, leaving her mansion to the Hopkins School of Medicine. In 1923, the mansion became the first home of the Baltimore Museum of Art. She left the remaining $500,000 of her fortune to M. Carey Thomas. Rebecca Roth References and further reading “Garrett, Mary Elizabeth.” Women in American History, Encyclopedia Britannica, http://search.eb.com/women/ articles/Garrett_Mary_Elizabeth.html. “History of Bryn Mawr,” http://www.brynmawr.pvt.k12. md.us/about/history.aspx (cited December 3, 2002). Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. 1994. The Power and Passion of M. Carey Thomas. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. James, Edward T., Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer, eds. 1971. Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. “Mary Garrett.” http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/ speccol/photos/philanthropy/html/mgarrett.htm (cited December 3, 2002). McCall, Nancy, and Elizabeth M. Peterson. 2002. “Mary Elizabeth Garrett.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 107–112. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Rossiter, Margaret W. 1982. “Doctorates for American Women, 1868–1907.” History of Education Quarterly 22 (Summer): 159–183. Sander, Kathleen Waters. 2001. “Trailblazer for Women Doctors: Mary Garrett and the Women’s Medical School Fund Transformed Medical Education.” The Baltimore Sun, March 4, 1C. Worthington, Janet Farrar. 1998. “The Other Feminist.” Hopkins Medical News (Fall): http://www.hopkins medicine.org/hmn/F98/feminist.html (cited December 3, 2002).

Garvey, Marcus Mosiah, Jr. (1887–1940) Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was born in 1887 to Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. and Sara Jane Richards in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. His father was a mason and his

Garvey, Marcus Mosiah Jr.

Marcus Garvey Jr. (1887–1940) (Library of Congress)

mother a domestic worker. Coming from extremely modest means, Garvey was forced to leave school at the age of fourteen to work as a printer’s apprentice. As a captivating black leader who organized the first American black nationalist movement and “awakened a race consciousness that made Harlem felt around the world” (Powell 1938, 71), Garvey was able to establish and fund several nonprofit organizations and schools in order to propel blacks to the forefront of the world society during the early part of the twentieth century. Mostly self-taught, his early education was obtained from Standard 6, a Church of England school in Jamaica. As a young adult in London, he attended Birbeck College. There, and in Jamaica and Central

America over the next few years, Garvey published many pamphlets and articles in order to cultivate and express his thoughts on the plight of blacks throughout the world. It was not until coming to the United States on March 24, 1916, however, that his homegrown ideology became an accepted philosophy, “Garveyism.” A fusion of personal success with racial uplift, it quickly grew in popularity among American blacks. In July 1918, Garvey organized the New York chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). This organization began with thirteen members in a small Harlem lodge and within five years catapulted to a million members. Garvey preached economic independence and the return to Africa as a solution for “Negro” preservation. In August 1919, the UNIA laid the foundation for a steamship company, the Black Star Line (BSL), which made several voyages to the Caribbean and Central America. The purposes of BSL were to supply a means of transportation for the “Back to Africa Movement” and to give blacks an entity in which they could invest and take pride. The UNIA also created the Negro Factory Corporation to promote businesses within the black community. The Universal Black Cross Nurses, Universal African Motors Corps, and the Black Flying Eagles were prominent examples. The first to introduce large-scale ethnic pride philanthropy, Garvey was not only a motivator and leader but an excellent fundraiser in the black community and also among whites. He was able to raise funds for the UNIA’s capital fund program from prominent people such as the president of Columbia University, banker William C. Ritter, physicians, and many other philanthropists. Through his charismatic personality, Garvey was able to make several tours throughout the United States to raise funds in order to support racial pride among black races. Garvey was immensely popular and able to motivate the masses emotionally and financially. U.S. government officials feared his efforts and the influence he had in the black community. On January 12, 1921, he was arrested and convicted for alleged mail fraud. He spent two years in an Atlanta prison and was then deported back to Jamaica. After his deportation, Garvey went to London to establish a temporary Universal Negro Improvement

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Association headquarters. Between 1928 and 1935, he traveled back and forth from London to Jamaica and published a newspaper called New Negro World. In 1935, Garvey, with his wife and children, settled in London. He died there on June 10, 1940. Mamie L. Jackson References and further reading Hill, Robert A., ed. c. 1983. “The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers.” Vols. 1–7. Berkeley: University of California Press. “History.” Marcus Garvey Cultural Center, University of Northern Colorado, http://www.unco.edu/garvey/ history.htm (cited October 27, 2001). “The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project.” University of California at Los Angeles, http://www.isop.ucla.edu/ mgpp/default.htm (cited October 27, 2001). Powell, Adam Clayton, Sr. 1938. Against the Tide: An Autobiography. New York: Richard R. Smith.

Gates, William H., III (1955–), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation William H. Gates III, history’s youngest self-made billionaire and cofounder of Microsoft Corporation, did not intend to pursue philanthropy actively until he retired, but his visits to Africa and a 1993 World Development Report about massive health inequalities around the globe led him to found the world’s largest foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($23 billion in assets in 2002). By the age of forty-five, Bill Gates had already donated—in today’s dollars— more than seven times what Andrew Carnegie gave in his lifetime. Bill Gates was born to William and Mary Maxwell Gates on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. His father was an attorney with Preston, Gates and Ellis, and his mother, now deceased, was a schoolteacher, a University of Washington Regent, and chairwoman of United Way International. Bill Gates, or “Trey,” as his family called him, grew up with two sisters and attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School, where he and close friend Paul Allen discovered computers. By the age of thirteen, they were earning money writing programs, a passion they continued through college. As a junior at Harvard University, Gates wrote a version of the pro-

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gramming language BASIC for personal computers, then dropped out to found Microsoft with Allen. Gates continues as chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corporation. In 1994, Gates married Dallas native Melinda French, a program manager at Microsoft. They have three children, Jennifer (1996), Rory (1999), and Phoebe (2002). At a bridal luncheon for the couple, Bill Gates’s mother challenged them: “From those who are given great resources, great things are expected” (Strouse 2000, 61). As the thirty-eight-yearold Bill told Playboy magazine later that year, he intended to eventually give away 95 percent of his wealth, but not until he was in his fifties. He did, however, establish the William H. Gates Foundation in 1994, focusing on global health and projects in the Pacific Northwest, which his father managed out of cardboard boxes in his basement. In 1997, Gates tapped former Microsoft executive Patty Stonesifer to head a second foundation, the Gates Learning Foundation, dedicated to providing computers with Internet access to every public library serving low-income communities in the United States and Canada. Despite some critics’ concerns that this initiative was aimed merely at creating future Microsoft customers, the foundation pursued its goal of Internet access in every community by 2003. In 1993, Bill Gates was “stunned” by a World Development Report that showed that 11 million children die every year from preventable causes (Gates 2002). Further reading and visits to Africa in the mid1990s brought home to the Gateses the health inequalities of developing nations. “The world’s poorest 2 billion people desperately need health care, not laptops,” Bill Gates said (Sims 2000). Bill and Melinda Gates had found a focus for their philanthropy. “I saw a cause I believed in. Seeing how urgent the needs are changed my time line,” Gates said (“Saint Bill,” 2001, 16). In 1999, the two Gates foundations were folded into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on four areas: global health, education, libraries, and Pacific Northwest giving. The informal structure of the original organizations remain. Bill and Melinda Gates personally read and approve all grants of more than $1 million, and both travel and speak widely on behalf of the founda-

Gates, William H., III, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Bill Gates (right) tours a library that has received a gift of Gates Foundation–funded computers. (Reuters/Jeff Christensen; Reuters/Corbis)

tion. Meanwhile, day-to-day operations are handled by cochairs Stonesifer and William Gates Sr., an “allin-the-family approach” to grantmaking (Strouse 2000, 61). There is no outside board of directors, and Stonesifer works without pay in a nondescript office building near a dock on Lake Union in Seattle. The staff is lean in comparison with many other major foundations because it uses outside experts to supplement internal expertise as needed. The foundation does not generally fund operating costs or endowments. It “prefers to attack problems by developing ‘tools’ that will have long-lasting impact”—such as AIDS vaccines or inexpensive ways to prevent diarrhea (McCarthy 2000, 154). The foundation focuses on issues where it can use the “catalytic

dollar,” leveraging additional private and public funding from partners that may range from developing country governments and United Nations’ agencies to corporations and academic institutions (Strouse 2000, 62). The Gates Foundation also uses the “push” and “pull” approach to innovation, for example, by “pushing” new advances in AIDS research through grants for scientific work that otherwise would not happen and “pulling” investments by pharmaceutical companies by promising distribution avenues once such research is successful (ibid., 63). The work of the Gates Foundation has not been without its critics. Some individuals charge that the foundation is a public relations ploy to soften Bill Gates’s image after the U.S. government’s antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in

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Gifts

2000. One thing is certain: It is too early to assess the long-term impact of the world’s largest foundation— or its richest donor. Meanwhile, Gates generally avoids discussing the motivations for his philanthropy. He credits the example of his parents and the counsel of such philanthropic luminaries as Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York. He may simply be driven by the realization that he can make a difference. As he told eighty world leaders at a United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children, “I hadn’t planned on getting involved in philanthropy until later in life; when I was in my sixties; when I could devote full time to it. But the more I learned, the more I realized there is no time. Disease won’t wait. . . . I believe together we will take care of our children. We can do it—and nothing on earth is more important” (Gates 2002). Mary Jane Brukardt See also Law of Charity References and further reading “The Bill Gates Interview.” 1994. Playboy, July, 55. Cowley, Geoffrey. 2002. “Bill’s Biggest Bet Yet.” Newsweek, February 4, 44. Gates, Bill. 2002. “U.N. Secretary General’s Luncheon,” a speech presented at the United Nations, New York, May 9. McCarthy, Michael. 2000. “A Conversation with the Leaders of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program: Gordon Perkin and William Foege.” The Lancet, July 8, 153–155. McMahon, Patrick. 2001. “Melinda Gates Approaches Giving Aggressively.” USA Today, July 31, A8. “Saint Bill.” 2001. The Economist, June 16, 16. Sims, David. 2000. “Media Agape at Gates’ Conversion.” The Industry Standard (electronic version), November 6, http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,19959,00. html (cited August 9, 2002). Strouse, Jean. 2000. “How to Give Away $21.8 Billion.” The New York Times Magazine, April 16, 56.

Gifts See Philanthropy and the Good Samaritan; Stewardship

Girl Scouts of America See Low, Juliette Gordon

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Girard, Stephen (1750–1831) Stephen Girard was born as the second of ten children on May 20, 1750, in the Bordeaux region of France. His father was a former French naval officer who operated a successful shipping business. Girard eventually became a multimillionaire in the United States through his successful shipping business and other ventures. He is most remembered for the will he left at his death, which gave a large portion of his estate to the City of Philadelphia. These funds eventually were used to establish Girard College, a K–12 college preparatory boarding school. Girard spent much of his youth at the shipyards and developed an early interest in navigation. At age fourteen, expressing a desire to escape the limited opportunities he perceived among family and friends in Bordeaux, he convinced his father to let him sign on as a cabin boy in one of the family’s merchant ships. By the early 1770s, Stephen had left the family business, earned his master’s license, and was responsible for large cargoes on transatlantic voyages. In 1774, Girard had to sell his cargo for a huge loss on the French Caribbean island of St. Dominique. Fearful of imprisonment for debt if he returned to France, he became a sailor on a boat to Britain’s American colonies. Disgraced, penniless, and cut off from his family, the twenty-four-year-old Girard disembarked in New York, eager to earn enough money to pay off his creditors and return to his previous business. Revolutionary fervor enveloped New York in 1774. Merchants chafed at the restrictions and duties that England imposed upon colonial shipping. The times were ripe for a daring sea captain to profit from the circumstances. Girard never lacked courage and began to engage in smuggling ventures. By the time the British imposed a wartime blockade, Girard was an adept blockade-runner and privateer. Operating now out of Philadelphia, he amassed enough money to pay off his debts, marry, and assume a comfortable lifestyle. By 1782, Girard joined his brother in the shipping business. They profited handsomely from innovations such as warehousing nonperishable products, insuring cargo, and paying captains by the trip, increasing their desire to make quick voyages. The success of Girard’s shipping business gave him the financial opportunity

Girard, Stephen

Stephen Girard (1750–1831) (Corbis)

to diversify. In the early 1800s, he owned extensive property in Philadelphia, coal mines, a stake in potential railroads, and the largest bank in Pennsylvania. By the early 1820s, some estimate Stephen Girard’s financial holdings to have been in excess of $40 million—an immense fortune at that time. At home, Girard maintained a decent library and was well read in Enlightenment philosophy and political theory. He supported Thomas Jefferson for the presidency in 1800 and contributed to Republican candidates throughout his life. His personal relationships evinced his devotion to Enlightenment reason. He considered merit, not need, the basis for all business dealings, even when it came to paying his house staff. He did not recognize biblical truths and considered much of Christian ethics to be only a rationalization of weakness. As a self-made man, he expected others to exert the effort necessary for their own success. The controversial will he left at his death was but the final act in a long series of philanthropic activities.

Girard joined the Masonic Order and donated time and money to its charitable causes. During his lifetime, he supported numerous other charitable groups, such as the Society for the Relief of Distressed Masters of Ships and Their Widows, the Public School Fund of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, organizations tending to animal welfare, and the Orphan Society. When Philadelphia suffered from terrible yellow fever epidemics in 1793, 1797, 1798, 1802, and 1820, Girard became a pivotal figure. Doctors of the time seemed powerless to stem the spread of the disease, prescribing explosions of gunpowder in town squares and the bleeding of patients. Infected sufferers were scorned and sometimes driven out of town. Philadelphia purchased an old mansion on the city’s outskirts on Bush Hill to house yellow fever “patients,” who were ensconced there while they waited to die. Girard, who visited Bush Hill for the first time in September 1793, found this solution unacceptable. It seemed at once to exacerbate the fears of residents and visitors and to relinquish control over life and death to some power that man did not understand. He donated money to improve the provisions of the makeshift Bush Hill Hospital and spent countless days there tending to the patients and the business needs of the facility. Although many other men of means left the city, Girard actually bathed and cared for the victims. His greatest charitable concern, however, was to aid the orphans who roamed the city streets, stealing, begging, and prostituting themselves while subject to the taunts and blows of passersby. In Philadelphia, as in other major U.S. cities in the early 1800s, there were high numbers of abandoned children. Epidemics, the death of mothers in childbirth, and an unprecedented rise in illegitimate births, which coincided with the decline in Christian morality and the rise of liberalism in early nationhood, took their toll. As early as 1810, Girard conceived of founding a large boarding school to shelter and educate these children. When he died in 1831, Stephen Girard left $140,000 to various relatives, provided for the lifetime support of a onetime slave and long-term housekeeper, and distributed about $1 million among the various charities that he had supported during his life.

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Global Nonprofit Sector

The bulk of his estate, approximately $7 million, he donated to the City of Philadelphia to found a school for poor boys. Reflecting Girard’s adherence to the liberal philosophical doctrines of the Enlightenment, he prescribed that the school’s instructors be chosen on merit to teach their practical knowledge of geography, grammar, reading, writing, mathematics, astronomy, and experimental philosophy. He prohibited the teaching of religion or the hiring of any priest or minister as a teacher. As Girard expected, his heirs challenged the will, using his expressions against religious teaching as a means to attack the document’s validity. They hired the noted Daniel Webster to represent them, and the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1844. The great orator told the court that “public policy” required that the will be voided, noting that its irreligious sentiments threatened morality and encouraged license. Justice Joseph Story’s decision for the Court was an important legal pronouncement on the law of philanthropy in the United States. First, the Court confirmed that in order to receive property, the benefactor of a will must be a legal entity—that is, either a person or a corporation. Second, a corporation may take public or private form, but either way it is bound to act in strict accordance with the decedent’s or testator’s intent if it accedes to the funds. Third, the Court found the will not to be inconsistent with public policy and therefore ruled that the state (the City of Philadelphia) was able to take the bequest if it was willing to follow Girard’s instructions for its use. In 1848, Girard College opened its doors. Today, Girard College continues as a private but full-scholarship K–12 boarding school, with a college preparatory curriculum, for children of limited financial means. Mark McGarvie See also Law of Charity References and further reading Abbott, Edith. 1963. Some American Pioneers in Social Welfare. New York: Russell and Russell. Adams, Donald R. 1978. Finance and Enterprise in Early America: A Study of Stephen Girard’s Bank, 1812–1831. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 1978. “Portfolio Management and Profitability in Early-Nineteenth-Century Banking.” Business History Review (Spring): 61–79.

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Girard, Stephen. Papers. Girard College, Philadelphia, and Archives and Manuscripts, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, PA. Husband, Joseph. 1920. Americans by Adoption. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press. Keats, John. 1978. “Consider the Curious Legacy of Stephen Girard.” American Heritage (Fall): 38–47. McGarvie, Mark D. 2002. “Stephen Girard (1750–1831), Merchant, Misunderstood Republican Idealist, Donor of a Landmark Bequest, and Founder of Girard College.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 116–121. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Miller, David S. 1988. “The Polly: A Perspective on Merchant Stephen Girard.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, April, 189–208. Minnigerode, Meade 1927. Certain Rich Men. New York: Putnam’s. Taylor, Michele Taillon. 1997. “Building for Democracy: Girard College, Educational and Architectural Ideology.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Vidal, Girard, et al. v. Philadelphia, 43 U.S. 126 (1844).

Global Nonprofit Sector The global nonprofit sector consists of the vast assortment of hospitals, universities, social clubs, professional organizations, day-care centers, environmental groups, family counseling agencies, religious congregations, sports clubs, job training centers, human rights organizations, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, foundations, and other organizations that occupy the social space between the market and the state in countries throughout the world. Despite their diversity, these entities share important common features that justify thinking of them as a distinctive set of institutions, an identifiable social “sector” (Salamon et al. 1999). In particular, they are all • organizations, that is, they have some structure and regularity to their operations, even if they are not formally or legally constituted; • private, that is, they are not part of the apparatus of the state, even though they may receive support from governmental sources; • not profit distributing, that is, they are not primarily commercial in purpose and do not


exist primarily to distribute any profits they may earn to their managers or to a set of “owners” but rather devote them to furthering the organization’s mission; • self-governing, that is, they have their own mechanisms for internal governance, are able to cease operations on their own authority, and are fundamentally in control of their own affairs; • voluntary, that is, membership in them is not legally required or otherwise obligatory. Although it has been common to think of such institutions as peculiar to the United States, in fact they are present in many countries, though their scale and importance have been obscured by a widespread lack of basic data and information. Fortunately, this situation has been improving in recent years as researchers gain a clearer picture of the immense scope of the global nonprofit sector.

Historical Background The presence of nonprofit-type institutions throughout the world is by no means just a recent phenomenon. To the contrary, these institutions have deep historical roots in a wide range of societies and cultures. In part, these roots are religious. Virtually every major religious tradition emphasizes the obligation individuals have to make charitable contributions (Constantelos 1978, 222–225; White 1987, 214–216). Institutions to collect and make use of these contributions have long existed in a wide assortment of settings. The Koran, for example, mentions the obligation to give no less than thirty-two times, and Islamic waqfs, or charitable endowments, predate their Western foundation counterparts by several centuries. Indeed, one school of thought sees religion as perhaps the most potent source of incentives to forge such institutions. According to this so-called supply-side theory, the formation of such institutions requires social entrepreneurs, and religious convictions motivate such entrepreneurs to come forward not only to fulfill religious obligations but also to win adherents to a particular creed ( James 1987). This leads to the conclusion that such institutions are likely to be most prevalent where religious diversity, and religious con-

flict, heighten the need of religious groups to maintain and extend their member base. But religion is by no means the only source of the impulse to form nonprofit institutions. Social movements, the desire to secure a range of “collective goods” not otherwise available from the market or the state, patronage from powerful donors or political elites, cultural or professional interests, and many other factors have also played a role at different times and places. The result is a richly varied international structure of private nonprofit institutions. Though they have deep historical roots, however, nonprofit organizations seem to have grown enormously in recent years. Indeed, a veritable “global associational revolution” appears to be under way in many parts of the world, a massive upsurge of organized private, voluntary activity (Salamon 1994). Though the evidence is admittedly far from precise, such organizations appear to have expanded impressively over at least the past three decades in Western Europe, North America, and the Far East; in Latin America, Africa, and South Asia; in Central Europe; and in the Middle East, Central Asia, and China. In fact, the rise of the nonprofit sector may well prove to be as significant a characteristic of the late twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries as the rise of the nation-state was of the late nineteenth and early twentieth. That these organizations are developing so rapidly seems due to four interrelated developments. The first is the widespread questioning of the capacity of states to handle the combination of social welfare, development, environmental, and related functions that have been thrust upon them in recent years. Closely related is the growing realization that the market cannot solve these problems either. Because of their unique combination of private structure and public purpose, their generally smaller scale, their connections to citizens, their flexibility, and their capacity to tap private initiative in support of public purposes, nonprofit organizations have surfaced as strategically important participants in the worldwide search for a “middle way” between sole reliance on the market and sole reliance on the state to cope with social, economic, and environmental problems (Giddens 1998, 78). Also contributing to the growth of civil society organizations have been the dramatic breakthroughs

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in information technologies. These developments have awakened people to the realization that their circumstances may not be inevitable, that opportunities may be better elsewhere, and that change is possible. This awareness has stimulated citizen activism, awakened gender, environmental, and ethnic consciousness, and prompted heightened interest in human rights. In addition, these technologies have vastly simplified the task of forming and sustaining the resulting organizations. A third factor contributing to the surge has been the worldwide spread of literacy and the emergence in distant regions of educated elites with the skills to organize nonprofit groups. The lack of economic opportunity and the presence of political repression in many places have stimulated individuals in this group to form nonprofit organizations as a response. The educated elites thus form a key leadership cadre for the growing sector that has been so striking a feature of recent global life. These impulses have been encouraged, finally, by a variety of external actors that have provided important moral and material support for the expansion of the global nonprofit sector. Included have been liberal elements in the Catholic Church, which, for example, played an important role in stimulating the formation of grassroots community groups throughout Latin America in the aftermath of the Castro revolution of 1960, Western charitable foundations committed to grassroots democracy and poverty alleviation, and multinational corporations eager to rally organized citizen support in order to ensure a “license” to operate in faraway lands.

Terms and Concepts Despite their growing presence and importance, nonprofit organizations remain the lost continent on the social landscape of our world, largely invisible to most policy makers, business leaders, the press, the public at large, and even many people within the sector itself. Even the most basic information about these organizations—their numbers, sizes, activities, economic weight, finances, and roles—has been lacking in most places, and a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to their growth and decline has been almost nonexistent. Instead, social and political dis-

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course has been dominated by a “two-sector model” that acknowledges the existence of only two major social sectors outside of the individual and the family— the market and the state, or business and government—but not of a “third sector” made up of private nonprofit institutions. In part, this lack of information reflects the considerable conceptual confusion that has long persisted about the defining features of this range of organizations. Indeed, a plethora of terms denoting the types of organizations that constitute the sector adds to the confusion. Each of these terms—“nonprofit organization,” “charity,” “voluntary organization,” “nongovernmental organization (NGO),” “social economy,” and “civil society”—highlights a particular feature of this class of organization while downplaying others, and each therefore focuses attention on a particular subset of entities. Different constituencies therefore favor different conceptions of the field. The common term used in the United States, and in economic discourse, is “nonprofit” organization or sector. This term emphasizes what is often a central feature of these organizations—that they do not exist to earn a profit. But strictly speaking, nonprofit organizations in most countries are permitted to earn a profit; what is typically forbidden is the distribution of such profits to a group of owners or members. Many of those who object to the negative connotations of the term “nonprofit” prefer to refer to these organizations as “charities” or “voluntary organizations.” This terminology is most common in the Anglo-Saxon countries, where the Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses first gave legal standing to a broad class of organizations serving what were considered to be “charitable” purposes. But the term “charity” has come to suggest that these organizations are supported chiefly by private charitable gifts, and the term “voluntary” has come to suggest that they are staffed chiefly by volunteers. Neither of these conditions turns out to hold in a substantial number of cases. What is more, the term “charity” has come to have a connotation of paternalism that is also resisted by many activists in the field. These considerations have led many, particularly in the developing world, to coin the term “nongovernmental organization,” or NGO, to refer to this range


of nonstate/nonmarket institutions (see, for example, Fisher 1993, 8–10). This term conveniently emphasizes the position of these organizations outside the sphere of state action, and in many cases opposed to it. It has also served to identify a particular class of these organizations, those engaged in grassroots development work with a significant empowerment component, and thus to differentiate them from the more traditional charitable and assistance-oriented institutions that exist in third world countries, often as a residue of the colonial era. But these restrictions make the term “NGO” a highly subjective one dependent on an observer’s judgment about the objectives the organization is really pursuing. A somewhat different concept has surfaced in continental European treatments of this set of institutions. Here the focus has been on a broader set of institutions imbued with a solidarity, or social, perspective. The term most often used to depict these institutions is the French term economie sociale, or “social economy.” Included within the economie sociale are not only associations and foundations but also mutuals and cooperatives, organizations that violate the prohibition on the distribution of profit that is so central to the nonprofit concept. Advocates of this conceptualization emphasize that although mutuals and cooperatives distribute profits to their members, they are still not primarily profit-oriented institutions but rather “place service to [their] members or the community ahead of profit” (Defournoy and Develtere 1999). This definition brings the social economy concept much closer to the nonprofit one, though this depends on how strictly one interprets the strictures on service over profit (for example, is a huge French mutual insurance company truly a part of the social economy, or is it in the business sector?). Finally, in the wake of the citizen movements that led to the collapse of the Communist regimes in Central Europe and Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, another term—“civil society”—has gained currency to depict this range of institutions. This concept, which has its philosophical roots in the Scottish Enlightenment and in the work of Hegel (Seligman 1992), was used by advocates of reform in Central Europe to justify the creation of a sphere of social action, and an accompanying set of organizations, that

citizens could enter outside of state ownership and control. The term has since been extended to refer to any social institution, indeed any form of individual or joint action, that is not primarily or exclusively economic in orientation and that engages individuals in their capacity as citizens or that supports them in this capacity. So defined, however, the term embraces an immense array of social phenomena—not just voluntary associations and foundations, but also a free press (which can also be a part of the business sector) and an independent judiciary (which can also be a part of government).

Scope and Structure In the face of this definitional turmoil, a group of researchers affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project has identified a set of structural or operational features that seem to capture most of the key ideas embodied in the preceding concepts but that translate them into objective and operational terms suitable for empirical analysis (Salamon and Anheier 1997). This definition identifies nonprofit organizations as social institutions that share the five crucial characteristics noted earlier—they are organizations, whether formal or informal; they are private, that is, not part of the structures of government; they are not profit distributing, or at least do not primarily operate to distribute profits to their owners or members; they are self-governing and in reasonable control of their fate; and they are voluntary in the sense that individuals are free to join them or not. This definition embraces a broad array of the institutions commonly considered to be part of the “third” or “nonprofit” sector. It includes NGOs as well as more charitably oriented institutions, advocacy agencies as well as service providers, and organizations oriented chiefly to the poor as well as others that serve a broader clientele (for example, symphonies or operas). As applied in practice by the Hopkins researchers, it even includes some mutuals and cooperatives where community objectives clearly outweighed profit-seeking ones in the opinion of local researchers. Armed with this definition, the Hopkins team, including local associates in more than thirty countries, developed the first systematic, empirical picture of

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this “global nonprofit sector” in some thirty-five nations (Salamon et al. 1999; Salamon et al. 2003). The resulting data have already transformed the traditional understanding of this set of institutions internationally. Four of these findings seem especially worth noting here. Scope In the first place, these data make clear that the global nonprofit sector is a considerable economic force. In the thirty-five countries for which data have been assembled through the Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (see Figure 1), nonprofit organizations as defined above had estimated expenditures of US$1.3 trillion as of the late 1990s. What this means in practice is that if this set of institutions, in just these thirty-five countries, were a separate national economy, it would be the seventh largest economy in the world, ahead of Italy, Brazil, Russia, Spain, and Canada and just behind France and the U.K. The nonprofit sector in these thirty-five nations looms large in employment terms as well, with a total workforce of 39.5 million full-time equivalent workers, including both paid and volunteer staff. This means that nonprofit organizations employ 4.4 percent of the economically active population, or nearly one out of every twenty economically active persons, in these countries. This is ten times more people than are employed in the utilities or textile industries in these countries, five times more people than are employed in the food-manufacturing industry, and 20 percent more people than are employed in the entire transportation and communications industry. Of these 39.5 million full-time equivalent employees, 22.7 million, or 57 percent, are paid employees, and 16.8 million, or 43 percent, are volunteers. These nearly 17 million full-time equivalent volunteers translate into 170 million actual people involved with these organizations, however, since the typical volunteer works only three to five hours each week. Variations Although the nonprofit sector is a generally larger presence than is commonly recognized, its scale varies considerably from place to place. Thus, as Figure 1 shows, the nonprofit workforce—volunteer and

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paid—varies from a high of 14 percent of the economically active population in the Netherlands to a low of 0.4 percent in Mexico. These data also make clear that the nonprofit sector is by no means exclusively, or even chiefly, an American phenomenon, as is sometimes believed. To the contrary, four of the countries for which data were assembled—the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, and Israel—have larger proportions of their economically active populations employed by nonprofit organizations than does the United States. With volunteers added, three countries—the Netherlands, Belgium, and Ireland—still outdistance the United States with regard to the share of their economically active populations engaged with the nonprofit sector. Especially notable is the huge scale of the nonprofit sector in many supposedly “welfare states” of Western Europe. This suggests that our conception of the Western European welfare state may be seriously flawed: What exists in many of these countries is not a “welfare state” but a “welfare partnership” in which government provides the funding for welfare services but relies extensively on private, nonprofit institutions to deliver the needed services. Activities Most of the total workforce of nonprofit organizations—60 percent—is primarily engaged in service activities, that is, the delivery of direct services such as education, health, housing, economic development, and the like. Of these, by far the most important are education and social services. At the same time, at least a third of the sector’s workforce is engaged in essentially expressive functions such as culture, the arts, religious worship, and the representation of political perspectives or occupational or professional interests. Generally speaking, volunteers are proportionately more likely to be engaged in the sector’s expressive functions and paid staff in its service functions, though the majority of the workforce in both categories of activity is paid staff. Differences also exist among countries in the extent to which service or expressive functions absorb the largest share of the nonprofit workforce. Thus, although service functions dominate in most places, in the Nordic countries the expressive functions are clearly the most important.

Figure 1 Civil Society Organization Workforce as Percent of Economically Active Population, by Country All Countries*

4.4

Netherlands

14.4% 10.9%

Belgium Ireland

10.4%

U.S.

9.8%

U.K.

8.5%

Israel

8.0%

France

7.6% 7.2%

Norway Sweden

7.1%

Australia

6.3%

Germany

5.9%

Finland

5.3% 4.9%

Austria

4.8%

Argentina Spain

4.3%

Japan

4.2% 3.8%

Italy

3.4%

South Africa Egypt

2.8%

Peru

2.5%

South Korea

2.4%

Columbia

2.4%

Uganda

2.3%

Kenya

2.1%

Tanzania

2.1%

Czech Rep.

Paid Staff Volunteers

2.0%

Philippines

1.9%

Brazil

1.6%

Morocco

1.5%

India

1.4%

Hungary

1.1%

Pakistan

1.0%

Slovakia

0.8%

Poland

0.8%

Romania

0.8%

Mexico

0.4% 0

2

* 36-country unweighted average

4

6 8 10 12 Percent of economically active population

14

16

Source: Global Civil Society: Dimension of the Nonprofit Sector, Vol. 2


This reflects the fact that the Nordic welfare states have vested more responsibility for human service delivery, and not just finance, in the hands of government agencies. Contrary to widespread belief, however, a substantial nonprofit sector still exists in the Nordic countries, but it is largely volunteer based and concentrated in the expressive functions, including sport and recreation. Revenues A fourth, somewhat surprising finding of this research is that private philanthropy—including contributions from foundations, individuals, and corporations—accounts for a considerably smaller share of nonprofit revenue than is widely recognized. In particular, philanthropy ranks third behind service fees and government support in the financing of nonprofit organizations around the world, with an average of 12 percent of the revenue as opposed to 53 percent from fees and 35 percent from government. In no country, in fact, does private philanthropy constitute the major source of nonprofit income, and this includes the United States, where fees and charges dominate. The one major deviation from the general pattern is in Western Europe, where public-sector payments outdistance fees and charges in the revenue base of the nonprofit sector. When volunteer inputs are factored into the equation and treated as a part of charitable contributions, this overall pattern changes somewhat. With volunteers included, the philanthropic share of total nonprofit support swells from 12 percent to 30 percent. In other words, contributions of time, even when valued conservatively, outdistance contributions of cash to nonprofit organizations by 2.5 to 1. Even with volunteers included, however, fees and charges remain the major source of nonprofit income in most places, accounting, on average, for 43 percent of the total support.

Issues for the Future For all its recent dynamism and growth, the global nonprofit sector remains a fragile organism, vulnerable to external threats, unsure of its sources of support, imperfectly rooted and legitimized, and not sufficiently appreciated or understood even by many of its

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own supporters. As a result, the success of the global associational revolution, and the potential contribution it can make to the solution of social and economic problems, are far from assured. Serious challenges exist. What is more, these challenges take a number of different forms. First there is the challenge of legitimacy. Information about the global nonprofit sector remains highly fragmented and incomplete, public awareness is limited, and legal structures are often not very supportive. In some countries, for example, the formation of associations requires an affirmative act from whatever ministry has responsibility for its field of endeavor. Second is the challenge of effectiveness. Training of third-sector leaders is still in its infancy in many places and the support institutions for these organizations have only begun to develop. Given the important social responsibilities nonprofit organizations are assuming globally and the complexity of the organizations that are resulting, it is imperative that the same kind of training that is available for business and government leaders be established for civil society organizations as well. A third critical challenge is sustainability. Philanthropy alone does not seem capable of generating the support these organizations need to perform the social roles of which they are capable and to carry out the important work they do both in financial and human terms. Boosting such support, but also supplementing it from other sources, thus becomes an important priority. Finally, there is the challenge of partnership, the need to connect civil society organizations to other major social actors in business and government. This is important not only for reasons of fiscal health but also because of the need for collaborative approaches to the serious problems that confront societies. In such an environment, a “new governance” is needed, one that goes beyond older notions of conflicts among the three sectors (government, business, and nonprofit) and instead emphasizes the opportunities for collaboration (Salamon 2002).

Conclusion The nonprofit sector is thus a major social and economic force throughout the world at the present time.

Goff, Frederick Harris

Once considered to be present only in a handful of countries, these organizations stand revealed as a global force, with a significant presence in virtually every country and region. This is not to say that important variations are not present in the size, composition, and financing of this set of institutions from country to country. To the contrary, the variations are immense, reflecting the distinctive cultures, traditions, and political histories of different places. Indeed, one of the strengths of the comparative approach is precisely that it highlights these differences and brings them into better focus. Nevertheless, the ubiquity of the global civil nonprofit sector turns out to be one of its most salient features. Lester M. Salamon References and further reading Anheier, Helmut K., and Lester M. Salamon, eds. 1998. The Nonprofit Sector in the Developing World: A Comparative Analysis. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Constantelos, Demetrios J. 1987. “Charity.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade, 222–225. New York: Macmillan. Defourny, Jacques, and Patrick Develtere. 1999. “The Social Economy: The Worldwide Making of a Third Sector.” In L’economie sociale au Nord et au Sud, edited by J. Defournoy, P. Develtere, and B. Foneneau, 1–30. Brussels: DeBoeck. Fisher, Julie. 1993. The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development and the Nongovernmental Movement in the Third World. Westport, CT: Praeger. Giddens, Anthony. 1998. The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. James, Estelle. 1987. “The Nonprofit Sector in Comparative Perspective.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, edited by Walter W. Powell, 397–415. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kramer, Ralph.1989. Voluntary Agencies in the Welfare State. Berkeley: University of California Press. McCarthy, Kathleen D., Virginia A. Hodgkinson, Russy Sumariwalla, and Associates. 1992. The Nonprofit Sector in the Global Community: Voices from Many Nations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Salamon, Lester M. 1994. “The Rise of the Nonprofit Sector.” Foreign Affairs 73, no. 4 ( July/August): 109–122. ———. 2002. The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance. New York: Oxford University Press. Salamon, Lester M., and Helmut K. Anheier. 1997. “Toward a Common Definition.” In Defining the Nonprofit Sector: A Cross-National Analysis, edited by

Lester M. Salamon and Helmut K. Anheier, 29–50. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Salamon, Lester M., Helmut K. Anheier, Regina List, Stefan Toepler, Wojciech Sokolowski, and Local Associates. 1999. Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. Salamon, Lester M., Regina List, Stefan Toepler, Wojciech Sokolowski, and Local Associates. 2003. Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. Seligman, Adam. 1992. The Idea of Civil Society. New York: Free Press. White, Charles. 1987. “Almsgiving.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade, 214–216. New York: Macmillan.

Goff, Frederick Harris (1858–1923) Frederick Harris Goff was a lawyer and banker who is considered the innovator of the community trust. Born in Blackbury, Illinois, to Frederick C. and Catherine Brown Goff on December 15, 1858, he moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1864 after a short residence in Evanston, Illinois, and, as a teenager, to Kansas. As a youth, Goff worked as a crew member on a Great Lakes vessel and as an assistant to a survey team. After his brief stay in Kansas, he returned to Cleveland, where he attended the Hudson Street School. In 1874, he went to Ann Arbor, where he completed high school and enrolled in the University of Michigan. After graduation in 1881, he returned to Cleveland and studied for the bar. He was admitted in 1883 or 1884. Goff quickly developed an expertise in corporate reorganization and estate law. He first served as a partner in the firm Carr and Goff. In 1890, he was a partner in Estep, Dickey, Carr, and Goff and later in Kline, Tolles, and Goff. His rise to legal prominence was rapid and his reputation and ability such that John D. Rockefeller purportedly asked him to serve as his legal counsel. Goff is said to have refused the offer because of his desire to remain in Cleveland. By 1900, Goff was a highly regarded and wealthy member of Cleveland’s legal community. He changed careers, however, in 1908, sacrificing a good deal of his annual income to become the president of the Cleveland Trust Company, a position he held until

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his death. Under his guidance, Cleveland Trust became the city’s largest bank, increasing its assets by nearly 600 percent. Goff ’s business activities were linked to and complemented by involvement in civic issues. In 1903, he became mayor of Glenville, the upper-class suburb east of the city in which he resided. As mayor he ended gambling at the local harness racing track, thereby angering some of the well-to-do racing fraternity but paving the way for the suburb’s annexation to Cleveland. In 1907, as the legal representative of the major private traction company in Cleveland, he handled negotiations with the city’s reform mayor, Tom L. Johnson, centering on municipal ownership of the city’s street railways. Initially adversaries, Goff and Johnson became close friends. The plan they negotiated was a masterful compromise between private ownership and public benefit and control. Later, in World War I, Goff served as vice chairman of the Capital Issues Committee in President Woodrow Wilson’s War Finance Corporation. The experience that Goff had gained as an estate lawyer and banker, and his interest in civic betterment, formed the basis of his most noteworthy achievement, the creation of the community trust. As a lawyer Goff had been troubled by the creation of legacies and trusts locked to purposes that were antiquated or no longer viable. He first dealt with the issue as the head of the Cleveland Trust Company, where he created a series of “living trusts” through which donors oversaw the disposition of portions of their funds during their lifetime. He moved the concept further in 1914 and created the Cleveland Foundation, the nation’s first community trust. The trust pooled individual bequests and had a governing board to determine the best use of the funds for the civic good. The board (or distribution committee) of the Cleveland Foundation was originally composed of five members: Two were appointed by the bank (in this case, Cleveland Trust) that held the principle and three by public officials. Goff married Frances Southworth in 1894. They had three children: Frederika, William S., and Frances M. He died on March 14, 1923, and is buried in Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery. John Grabowski

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See also Community Foundations References and further reading Frederick Harris Goff: A Memorial. 1924. Cleveland: Cleveland Trust Co. “Goff, Frederick H.” 1987. In The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, edited by David D. Van Tassel and John J. Grabowski, 2d ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, http://ech.cwru.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=GFH1 (cited January 20, 2004). Grabowski, John. “Frederick Harris Goff.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 121–124. Westport, CT: Oryx Press.

Goodrich, Pierre Frist (1894–1973) An intensely private man, Pierre Frist Goodrich deeply believed in the power of education, ideas, and liberty. He was a gifted lawyer, an astute businessperson, and an accomplished philosopher and philanthropist who believed in funding efforts to explore the concept of liberty. Goodrich was born in the small western Indiana community of Winchester in 1894 to Cora and James Goodrich. After graduation from Winchester High School, he attended Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1916 with a bachelor’s degree in humanities. He than matriculated to Harvard Law School and attended for one year before spending two years serving his country in World War I as a second lieutenant in the Army Quartermasters Corps. He returned to Harvard and finished his law degree in 1920. After graduation, Goodrich returned to Winchester and began to practice law, forming an association with John Macy under the firm name Macy and Goodrich. He also began to take part in the many business ventures of his family, such as the banking, utility, and grain companies. In 1923, Goodrich moved to Indianapolis and became a member of the firm Haynes and Mote, which became Mote and Goodrich after the 1923 death of Paul Haynes. Goodrich quickly became one of the most well-respected corporate lawyers in Indiana. Goodrich regularly worked twelve-hour days and occasionally worked all day and night just to prove he could. This work ethic, coupled with his keen intel-

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lect, played an important role in the success of the Goodrich business empire. Goodrich became an innovator of various business practices that are now commonplace among similar companies. For instance, he initiated, at Peoples Loan and Trust, fee-based services long before any other bank considered the practice. At the Ayrshire Collieries Coal Corporation, he instituted the practice of reclaiming the strip-mined coalfields (not required by state and federal law for another thirty years). In another visionary act, Goodrich outlawed smoking in all of his office buildings in 1960. In the mid-1940s, the success of the Goodrich family–owned businesses, which included Ayrshire Collieries Coal Corporation, Peoples Loan and Trust the Indiana Telephone Corporation, City Securities, and Central Newspapers, allowed Pierre Goodrich to pursue his intellectual and philanthropic interests. These were closely interrelated, which spurred his involvement with the Great Books Foundation, the Foundation for Economic Education, the China Institute of America, the Mont Pelerin Society, and the Institute of Humane Studies. Goodrich also was dedicated to several local nonprofit organizations. He was a longtime Wabash College trustee, founder of the Winchester Community Foundation, and a participant in many other local nonprofit organizations supporting music and education. Goodrich created his lasting legacy, the Liberty Fund, in 1960 in Indianapolis. According to James Buchanan, advisory general director of the Study of Public Choice at George Mason University and 1986 Nobel laureate in economics, “Liberty Fund is the permanent embodiment of Pierre Goodrich’s faith in the power of ideas and his personal belief that ideas are more exciting and more important than things” (Starbuck 2001, xvi). The Liberty Fund Basic Memorandum written by Goodrich serves as the detailed operating manual for the foundation. In the 129-page confidential memorandum, Goodrich stated that he created the fund with the intent that “some hopeful contribution may be made to the preservation, restoration, and development of individual liberty through investigation, research, and educational activity” (ibid., 414). Currently, the Liberty Fund conducts more than 175 conferences a year that allow scholars from around

the world to congregate, study, and discuss issues related to liberty. The conferences are based upon the great works and ideas of the past, with topics ranging from “Jefferson, Madison, and the Constitution of a Liberal Republic” to “Liberty in Melville’s Moby Dick.” The fund also publishes approximately twenty classic books a year, including American Political Writing during the Founding Era: 1760–1805 and Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun. Goodrich passed away on October 25, 1973, with little publicity in comparison to some of his contemporary philanthropists but with an enduring legacy in the Liberty Fund. W. David Lasater References and further reading Hubbard, Kin. 1929. The Indiana Biographical Association. James O. Jones. “Liberty Fund.” 2000. Brochure. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. The National Cyclopedia of American Biography. 1980. N.p.: James T. White. “Pierre F. Goodrich Dies; Business Executive Had Diversified Career.” 1973. Indianapolis Star, October 26, A1. Starbuck, Dane. 2001. The Goodriches: An American Family. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Governance of Nonprofits Governance is the process of providing strategic leadership to a nonprofit organization. It entails the functions of setting direction, making policy and strategy decisions, overseeing and monitoring organizational performance, and ensuring overall accountability. Nonprofit governance is a political and organizational process involving multiple functions and engaging multiple stakeholders. The meaning of “governance” is relatively different for nonprofit and governmental settings. Public-sector (government) governance refers to the political process of policy and decision making for communities and political jurisdictions, whereas nonprofit governance refers to the process of providing leadership, direction, and accountability for a specific nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization. In the United States and many other nations, an incorporated nonprofit organization must have a gov-

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erning board and, as a matter of law, this board constitutes “the organization.” It is common for boards to hire staff to actually do the work of the organization, often with support from volunteers. Nonetheless, it is the governing board that ultimately is accountable for all acts undertaken in the name of the organization, whether or not those acts are formally approved or implemented by the board itself. This accountability exists regardless of the size or nature of the organization and regardless of whether the organization employs staff, and members of nonprofit governing boards must recognize that they have certain legally enforceable duties and obligations by virtue of their membership on the board. (These duties and obligations are relevant only to the official governing board itself and do not apply to nongoverning bodies such as advisory boards or councils.) Nonprofit governance is primarily the province of an organization’s governing board, often known as a board of directors or board of trustees. However, in larger organizations that employ staff, it is not unusual for others to be a part of the governance process as well. In particular, it is common for the chief executive or staff officer of the organization to play a very active role.

Governance, Strategy, and Leadership Effective governance is integral to the success of the nonprofit organization. Governance is essentially a decision process grounded in the assumption that organizations can cause desired results to occur by choosing appropriate courses of action. Fundamentally, governance and strategic leadership are about making informed organizational choices: choices about why the organization exists, what the board wants to accomplish, the best ways to achieve those results, the resources it will need to do these things and how it will secure them, and how the board will know whether the organization is making a difference. Strategy is the process of selecting among competing courses of action and implementing them to achieve chosen goals and outcomes. The process involves gathering information and using it to inform the decision process, with the expectation that effective strategy choices will result in organizational success. Unlike the for-profit world, where these choices

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are largely grounded in options for making money for someone, nonprofits essentially always begin with a focus on doing good—and making choices about how best to have an impact. Effective governance and strategy are integral to the sustainability and long-term effectiveness of a nonprofit operating in today’s complex and competitive world. To succeed, nonprofits (like all organizations) must continuously renew the link between what they do and the needs and interests of the community they serve. They must ensure they are providing the services needed and valued by their clients and constituents in ways that are consistent with the organization’s core values and principles. As the organization serves its clients, governance involves making judgments about how well or poorly the organization is doing and then making choices about how it can be more effective.

Approaches to Understanding Governance Much has been written in recent years about the organization and practice of nonprofit governance. This writing typically has taken one of two general approaches. The first is the normative approach, which tends to be prescriptive about how nonprofit governance should be organized and practiced. The second approach is descriptive or analytic and focuses on explaining how nonprofit governance actually is practiced in nonprofits. Each approach has positive and negative aspects. The Normative Approach The normative literature on nonprofit governance offers recommendations and prescriptions for how governing boards ideally should work. All are grounded in the core principle that the governing board has (and should have) the authority and accountability for organizational decisions and actions (Houle 1997; Carver 1997). The board is the premier authority to which all other actors in the organization are responsible and accountable. In other words, these models assert that it must be the board that governs the organization; all other actors (such as executive directors, staff members, and volunteers) are subordinate to it, and their roles in the governance process are to support the board.


It is recognized that many boards do not operate as these models prescribe, and the orientation of this literature is that governing boards are more effective when they implement these prescriptions for design and practice. Overall, these models encourage governance approaches by which a board will govern without falling into either of the traps of becoming (1) a meaningless “rubber stamp” to the chief executive’s or others’ decisions or (2) too operationally involved and thus micromanaging the affairs and operations of the organization. According to these models, both types of dysfunctional behavior reflect a lack of understanding or competence by the board and/or the executive about the board’s function of governance and how it must be executed. In general, these models explain that an effective board will 1. determine the mission, vision, values, strategic directions, and goals for the organization (using the principles and methods of rational strategic planning); 2. establish policies to guide all subordinate organizational decisions and actions to implement the chosen mission, goals, etc.; 3. serve as a key and relatively independent link connecting the organization and its primary stakeholders, and monitor the organization’s overall operating environment to ensure that the organization is attentive and responsive to it; 4. supervise, monitor, and assess the performance of the organization with regard to its chosen mission, goals, directions, and policies, particularly through the systematic management of the chief executive’s performance. The normative approaches place a strong emphasis on the rational process of strategic planning as the way to set direction and enable strong organizational performance (Bryson 1995; Allison and Kaye 1997). Such strategic planning involves a logical process of making informed choices. Specific direction, goals, and priorities are determined through a process that starts with a clear understanding of the organization’s

mission, the needs and interests of its owners (the community or a group of members), and the conditions of the organization and its operating environment. Through a rational assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, and the opportunities and threats posed by these conditions and the organization’s future operating environment, the governing board (usually with the advice of executive staff, sometimes with advice from volunteers or other key stakeholders) will make choices about what to accomplish (that is, it sets goals) and how to best achieve them (that is, it identifies strategies). Performance goals are established as a part of this process and serve as the basis for assessing the organization’s performance. The formal document that articulates this information is the strategic plan, and this plan becomes the guide for management and staff. The logical culmination of this planning cycle occurs when, after allowing a time period to execute the plans (often annually), the board (usually with executive involvement) reviews and assesses the organization’s performance and uses this information to refine or change its plans for the next cycle. The effective board also will use this information to evaluate and document the performance of the organization and its chief executive and to administer rewards or sanctions based on their assessment of performance. Critics of the normative literature argue that it tends to be overly rational and restrictive and observe that such models reflect neither the reality nor the range of possibilities that may be appropriate to the complex world of nonprofit organizations (Herman and Heimovics 1991; Holland 2002). Some highlight the complexity of community organizations and explain that the behavior of boards and other decision makers in such settings is not necessarily rational. Others point to the reality that it is chief executives who often are expected to lead the governance process. Some question whether it is realistic to believe that organizations have goals; only the people associated with them have goals, and their goals often differ from those of the organization. It also has been observed that, regardless of their desirability, few organizations actually implement these processes as designed. In the “real world” of nonprofits, factors such as interpersonal and organizational politics, time

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and other resource constraints, lack of knowledge and skill, low motivation, incomplete execution, and many other dynamics often interfere with and sometimes entirely derail such well-intended and well-designed processes. It has been argued that it is more useful to understand and articulate the actual dynamics of boards; as a result, several writers have taken the descriptive approach. The Descriptive Approach The governance literature that takes a more descriptive or analytic approach focuses on the ways that nonprofits actually implement the governance process. While acknowledging the legal reality that the governing board holds ultimate accountability for the organization’s behavior, the advocates of this approach strive to be more realistic in explaining the less precise yet very real dynamics of the typical nonprofit’s governance process and to accurately reflect what happens when the messiness of nonprofit organizational life interacts with the organization’s governance processes. The descriptive writing on governance documents the reality that, regardless of the specific balance of roles, governance responsibility usually is shared between the board and the chief executive, often with important involvement from other key stakeholders (Herman and Heimovics 1991). It is relatively unusual for the governance process of a nonprofit organization to be as board-driven as the normative perspective advocates. In reality, nonprofit boards play a range of roles with varying degrees of engagement or involvement in governance. Likewise, in reality, chief executives also play a range of roles with varying degrees of engagement and involvement. These executives (and sometimes other staff, as well) are quite heavily involved in the governance and strategy development of their organizations, often at the insistence of the board. Neither they nor their boards believe they are usurping or interfering with the legitimate work of the board. Indeed, they often are seen as advancing governance by bringing a complementary perspective, important information, and essential leadership to the process. Recent research describes a range of ways that boards and executives share strategy-setting and deci-

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sion-making roles in nonprofit governance, sometimes involving other stakeholders (see, for example, Bradshaw et al. 1992; Taylor et al. 1996). In general, there are four typical patterns of involvement: (1) in many established nonprofits, governance has evolved to the point that the chief executive dominates the governance process by developing decisions that the board merely ratifies; (2) in many large nonprofits that are dominated by professional work (such as hospitals), the professional staff tends to dominate the governance process, and the chief executive and board take leadership roles only on certain administrative and infrastructure matters; (3) in smaller and more volunteer-driven organizations, it is more common to see boards driving and dominating governance and the chief executive only staffing the process; and (4) in organizations such as advocacy and communitybased, grassroots nonprofits, it is not uncommon to observe a collegial or collective governance approach that actively involves most or all of the organization’s significant stakeholders in governance decisions. Depending upon the circumstances, any of these may be appropriate. In varying settings and at different times, governing boards may be the actual decision makers, decision influencers, or ratifiers of decisions of others (Galbraith 1983). Some of the variables that appear to affect such patterns include organizational size, history, culture, the professional content of the organization’s work, and the organization’s stage of development as well as the interests and competence of the board, its members, and the chief executive. Some scholars and writers (such as Mintzberg 1994) have taken issue with whether it is realistic to expect organizations to take the rational approach to strategic decision making that is prescribed by normative writers. These writers observe that strategic plans often have rather little impact on organizational action and rarely provide the intended strategic guidance. It has been noted that major changes in strategy often are triggered by dramatic circumstances, not an orderly choice process. Likewise, it is not very common for nonprofit boards to use strategic plans as the basis for systematic organizational performance evaluation (Murray and Cutt 2000). Further, even when evaluations are im-


plemented, it is only occasionally true that they result in any overt change in the strategy and policy decisions of an organization’s governing board. Nonetheless, recent research affirms a positive relationship between strategic planning processes and nonprofit organization effectiveness, suggesting that the rational approaches do have value for some organizations that use them well (Stone et al. 1999). Interestingly, several of the descriptive scholars have gone on to write in a rather normative tone, drawing on their findings about common practices to explain what should be done to enhance nonprofit board effectiveness. These emerge as relatively prescriptive reports, grounded in the judgment that the most common practices reflect the best practices of effective nonprofit organizations. This may or may not be valid, and there is little reason to assume that certain approaches or strategies are valuable simply because they are common in practice. The Relationship between Governance, Board Effectiveness, and Nonprofit Effectiveness It is widely accepted that effective governance is integral to organizational effectiveness and success, whether in the business or nonprofit worlds. Organizations that fail to act strategically to adapt to a changing environment become irrelevant. Of course, governance alone does not accomplish anything—it is the effective execution of a well-chosen strategy that gains the results the organization seeks. Governance is at the front end of the process and provides the focus for all that follows. However, in spite of legal requirements for governing boards, there has been debate in recent years about whether governing boards are actually necessary or add value to the organization’s effectiveness (Ryan 1999). Nonprofit experts have long argued that board effectiveness is essential to nonprofit effectiveness, generally for the reasons that governance and strategy are understood to be essential to organizational success. Most nonprofit boards and executives share this view, though there are those who have come to question the value of boards in today’s complex and fastchanging world. Board detractors complain that boards interfere with organizational agility and responsiveness, meddle in matters about which they

know little, and interfere with staff work. Board proponents argue that competent and well-designed boards work in partnership with talented executives to add unique value that enhances organizational agility and responsiveness, focus on the matters they are best equipped to decide, and meet organizational needs the staff is not equipped to address. Both perspectives have anecdotal evidence to support their positions. Recent research on boards affirms that board effectiveness is positively related with nonprofit organizational effectiveness (Herman and Renz 2000; Green and Griesinger 1996), and there is direct evidence that organizations with effective boards are more successful than others. In fact, one recent study found a clear link between improved board performance and organizational financial performance ( Jackson and Holland 1998). However, none of these studies explains which causes which. Does board effectiveness lead to organizational effectiveness, or vice versa? In all likelihood, these are very interrelated. It is entirely likely that effective organizations make sure they develop effective boards, and that these effective boards do all they can to develop an effective organization.

Boards of Directors The board of directors (sometimes known as the board of trustees or the governing board) is the primary group of people entrusted with and accountable for the leadership and governance of the nonprofit corporation. Governance is a central responsibility of the board, yet the typical board’s work goes beyond that of governance alone. For example, it is common for boards and their members to also serve as • ambassadors who build relationships and generate goodwill; • sponsors and representatives who advocate on behalf of the organization; • trusted advisers and consultants who offer guidance and serve as sounding boards for the chief executive and staff; • resource developers who help the organization secure essential resources. In certain membership organizations, board members may also serve as representatives who advocate

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on behalf of particular constituencies or membership groups in the governance process. However, this is not an appropriate role for a member of the board of a typical nonprofit organization. Legal Duties In the United States, the board of directors of a nonprofit corporation has the ultimate responsibility and accountability for the conduct and performance of the organization. Boards regularly delegate the work of the organization to executives, staff, and volunteers, yet they cannot delegate or reassign their responsibility for that work. Nonprofit corporations are entities authorized by a state to be formed for the purpose of engaging in public service, and each such corporation must have a governing body that oversees and ultimately is legally accountable for the organization. Over the past decade, there has been an increase in the attention paid to the legal responsibilities of nonprofit boards and their members. Both federal and state authorities have placed increased emphasis on the need for nonprofit boards to be accountable for the quality of their governance and oversight of their organizations. The increasingly competitive and demanding environment of nonprofits, including increased competition between nonprofits and forprofit businesses, likely will lead to even more legal accountability. Nonprofit boards have roles that go far beyond those legally required, yet there is no question that boards must be very attentive to the performance of their legal responsibilities. From a legal perspective, the nonprofit board and its members, individually, have three fundamental duties: 1. Duty of care, which is taking the care and exercising the judgment that any reasonable and prudent person would exhibit in the process of making informed decisions, including acting in good faith consistent with what the individual board member truly believes is in the best interests of the organization. The law recognizes and accepts that board members may not always be correct in their choices or decisions but holds them accountable for being attentive,

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diligent, and thoughtful in considering and acting on a policy, course of action, or other decision. Active preparation for and participation in board meetings where important decisions are to be made is an integral element of the duty of care. 2. Duty of loyalty, which calls upon the board and its members to consider and act in good faith to advance the interests of the organization. In other words, board members will not authorize or engage in transactions except those in which the best possible outcomes or terms for the organization can be achieved. This standard constrains a board member from participating in board discussions and decisions when he or she as an individual has a conflict of interest (that is, personal interests that conflict with organizational interests). 3. Duty of obedience, which requires obedience to the requirements of applicable laws, rules, and regulations as well as honoring the terms and conditions of the organization’s mission, bylaws, policies, and other standards of appropriate behavior. Board members are obligated to honor these standards with regard to all decisions and actions of the board, and those who do not may be subject to civil and even criminal sanctions (including sanctions imposed by the Internal Revenue Service [IRS] in cases of inappropriate personal benefit). Core Responsibilities Much has been written on the core responsibilities of the nonprofit board, and no one list is universally applicable to all nonprofit organizations. According to a list articulated for BoardSource (formerly the National Center for Nonprofit Boards), it is the board’s responsibility to 1. determine and articulate the organization’s mission, vision, and core values; 2. recruit and select the organization’s chief executive;


3. support and assess the performance of the organization’s chief executive; 4. ensure that the organization engages in planning for its future; 5. determine the set of programs that the organization will deliver to implement its strategies and accomplish its goals and monitor the performance of these programs to assess their value; 6. ensure that the organization has financial and other resources adequate to implement its plans; 7. ensure the effective management and use of the organization’s resources; 8. enhance the organization’s credibility and public image; 9. ensure organizational integrity and accountability; 10. assess and develop the board’s own effectiveness. Fiduciary Responsibility Boards and board members often are reminded that they have a fiduciary responsibility to the organization and, ultimately, to the larger community within which they serve. At its core, fiduciary responsibility is the responsibility to treat the resources of the organization as a trust, and the responsible board will ensure that these resources are utilized in a reasonable, appropriate, and legally accountable manner. Although the phrase often is used to refer especially to financial resources, it applies to the stewardship of all of the assets and resources of the organization. The appropriate exercise of fiduciary responsibility includes the following: 1. Adoption of a set of policies to govern the acquisition and use of financial and other resources 2. Establishment, on a regular basis (usually annual), of a budget that allocates financial resources to the programs and activities that will accomplish the organization’s mission, vision and goals, and outcomes (preferably, in alignment with a strategic plan)

3. Development and implementation of an ongoing system for monitoring and holding staff and volunteers accountable for their performance with regard to these policies and budgets 4. Development and implementation of an ongoing system to monitor, assess, and report on the overall fiscal condition and financial performance of the organization 5. Implementation of an external independent review process (that is, an audit) on a regular basis (usually annual) to assess the organization’s fiscal condition and health, including the effectiveness of its systems and policies for the protection and appropriate use of financial resource Unfortunately, many boards operate in much less systematic ways to ensure fiduciary accountability, and some become very enmeshed in the details of the organization and its management. In reasonably healthy organizations with competent staff, such micromanagement is counterproductive. It can create an inability to see the forest for the trees (that is, the board becomes so caught up in details that the important trends and issues are overlooked or obscured) and disrupts and alienates the executives and staff who experience the interference.

Typical Structures and Characteristics of Nonprofit Boards Nonprofit boards have specific positions (officers) and work units (committees and task forces) that help the board organize and accomplish its work. The typical nonprofit board in the United States has twelve to twenty-four members, and the average board size is seventeen members. Boards must meet regularly, but the frequency of meetings varies from quarterly to bimonthly or monthly. Officers The officers of the typical nonprofit organization are the key leaders for the organization. In most states of the United States, a nonprofit corporation must have certain officers. The most common positions are board chair (or president), vice chair (or

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vice president), secretary, and treasurer. The board chair is the chief voluntary officer of the organization and is responsible for organizing and conducting the meetings of the board. Further, it is the chair’s responsibility to facilitate the board’s work as a team and to ensure that meetings and other board activities are conducted in an effective manner. It is common for the board chair to oversee the performance of the organization’s chief executive on behalf of the board, although some organizations elaborate the process by involving both the chair and the executive committee in executive performance management. Committees and Task Forces Boards engage in much of their work as a full group and, ideally, all members work as a team to accomplish the work of the board. Nonetheless, most boards also develop committees and task forces to help the board do its work, and these entities are part of the governance system of the organization. For most boards, some of these units are permanent or “standing” structures, whereas others accomplish a specific task and then disappear. It is increasingly common for boards to refer to the permanent structures as committees and to the limited-term entities as task forces or ad hoc committees, although some organizations do use the labels interchangeably. It is common for board committees to be comprised entirely of board members, but it is increasingly common to also invite nonboard members with unique expertise or knowledge to serve. Often, the standing committees are specified in the organization’s bylaws, which explain their duties and responsibilities. For boards with elaborate committee systems, the following are among the most common types of committees: 1. Executive Committee: This committee is typically comprised of the officers and sometimes also includes committee chairs or selected other board members. It usually has the authority to act on behalf of the board between meetings and to address organizational emergencies. Some executive committees have the authority to act independently, but many are required to

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

have their actions reviewed and ratified by the full board. Nominating Committee: This committee has the responsibility for recruiting candidates for board and committee membership and preparing a slate of candidates or nominees for consideration and action by the full board. Some also nominate officers. It is increasingly common to define this committee’s responsibilities to include a year-round cycle of board development activities, including new member orientation, member self-assessment, board self-assessment and development, and the development of board training programs and retreats. When operating with this enlarged portfolio, such committees often are called board development committees. Fundraising or Development Committee: This committee usually is responsible for working with staff and board to organize and implement the organization’s fundraising events and activities, including the solicitation of major gifts and grants. Finance Committee: This committee is responsible for planning, monitoring, and overseeing the organization’s use of its financial resources, including developing a budget to allocate the organization’s funds. It develops for board action the financial policies the organization requires. Unless the organization has a separate audit committee, the finance committee also oversees and reviews the organization’s independent audit. Personnel Committee: This committee usually is responsible for planning, monitoring, and overseeing the organization’s use of its human resources (paid and volunteer). It develops needed personnel policies, including policies guiding performance management and supervision, employee compensation and benefits, and handling of grievances. Program Committee: It is common for nonprofits to have one or more committees

Government–Nonprofit Sector Relationship

to oversee the organization’s system(s) for delivering quality services to clients and to ensure that these services are provided in a timely and responsible manner. This committee may handle certain relations with community leaders and interest groups that have key interests in the programs of the organization and plan for program development or refinement to meet future needs. It is important that committees and task forces do only work that legitimately is the responsibility of the board, taking care that these structures do not interfere with the operations of the organization. Many boards have too many committees, and it has become a trend among some boards to minimize the number of standing committees and use task forces as needed to address issues of strategic importance. David Renz See also Nonprofit Governing Boards References and further reading Allison, Michael, and Jude Kaye. 1997. Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bradshaw, P., Vic Murray, and J. Wolpin. 1992. “Do Nonprofit Boards Make a Difference? An Exploration of the Relationships among Board Structure, Process and Effectiveness.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 21: 227–249. Brudney, J. L., and Vic Murray. 1998. “Do Intentional Efforts to Improve Boards Really Work?” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 8: 333–348. Bryson, John. 1995. Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Carver, John. 1997. Boards That Make a Difference, 2d ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Galbraith, Jay. 1983. Designing Complex Organizations. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Green, J. C., and D. W. Griesinger. 1996. “Board Performance and Organizational Effectiveness in Nonprofit Social Service Organizations.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 6: 381–402. Herman, Robert D., and Richard Heimovics. 1991. Executive Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations: New Strategies for Shaping Executive-Board Dynamics. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Herman, Robert D., and David O. Renz. 2000. “Board Practices of Especially Effective and Less Effective Local Nonprofit Organizations.” American Review of Public Administration 30: 146–160.

Holland, Thomas. 2002. “Board Accountability: Lessons from the Field.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 12: 409–428. Holland, Thomas P., and D. K. Jackson. 1999. “Strengthening Board Performance: Findings and Lessons from Demonstration Projects.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 9: 121–134. Houle, Cyril O. 1997. Governing Boards: Their Nature and Nurture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ingram, Richard T. 1996. Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards, 2d ed. Washington, DC: National Center for Nonprofit Boards. Jackson, D. K., and Thomas P. Holland. 1998. “Measuring the Effectiveness of Nonprofit Boards.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 27: 159–182. Mintzberg, Henry. 1994. The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. New York: Free Press. Murray, Vic, and James Cutt. 2000. “An Overview of Rhetoric and Reality of Organizational Performance Evaluation by Nonprofit Boards.” Unpublished paper presented at Innovation, Change, and Continuity in Nonprofit Organization Governance conference, Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, University of Missouri–Kansas City, April 6–7. Murray, Vic, and Bill Tassie. 1994. “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Nonprofit Organizations.” In The JosseyBass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, edited by R. D. Herman, 303–324. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ryan, William P. 1999. “Is That All There Is?” New England Nonprofit Quarterly 6, no. 2 (Summer): 8–15. Stone, Melissa Middleton, B. Bigelow, and W. Crittenden. 1999. “Research on Strategic Management in Nonprofit Organizations.” Administration and Society 31, 378–423. Taylor, Barbara E., Richard P. Chait, and Thomas P. Holland. September–October, 1996. “The New Work of Nonprofit Boards.” Harvard Business Review 74 (5): 36–43.

Government–Nonprofit Sector Relationship The government-nonprofit relationship is at the center of a host of major, high-profile policy concerns in the United States. President George W. Bush’s FaithBased and Community Initiative has been hotly contested, in part because of disputes on the appropriateness of government funding of sectarian organizations. The successful implementation of welfare reform hinges to a great extent on the capacity of nonprofit service agencies funded by government to place welfare

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recipients in permanent jobs. The enduring concerns on the disposition of money raised by the American Red Cross and other charities in the wake of the September 11, 2001, tragedy is directly related to the proper role of government in maintaining accountability over nonprofit organizations. And the widespread concern about the decline in American civic life is rooted in part on the argument that without participation in voluntary associations and groups, the engagement of Americans in the “public sphere” will continue to erode. Central issues of the twenty-first century, including democratic participation and social rights, are directly connected to the government-nonprofit relationship. The government-nonprofit relationship has important implications for policy and practice. In brief, government and the nonprofit sector interact along three dimensions: legal structure, the policy role, and the service delivery role. In regards to the legal structure, nonprofits exist within legal rules and regulations established by government. These rules profoundly affect the character of nonprofit organizations and their accountability to government. Second, nonprofit organizations are deeply involved in trying to influence public policy. Indeed, one of the key reasons for the importance placed upon nonprofit organizations by many scholars and policy makers is their ability to represent citizen interests before government (Berger and Neuhaus 1977; Meyer 1982). This representative role includes a wide variety of nonprofits—from local chapters of the Parent-Teacher Association to the World Wildlife Fund and the Children’s Defense Fund. Third, nonprofits are increasingly essential to the delivery of an array of public services, especially in the social and health areas. Often, these nonprofit agencies are supported extensively by public funds. However, many of the smaller nonprofit service agencies frequently depend upon private, donated funds. Good examples include soup kitchens, food banks, and emergency shelters. President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative would increase the service delivery role of nonprofit agencies even further by encouraging many faith-based organizations to expand their services and apply for government funding. Along each dimension, the relationship between government and nonprofits has become more com-

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President George W. Bush speaks at a conference on faithbased and community initiatives in Philadelphia, December 12, 2002. During his speech, Bush rebuked Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott for recent comments appearing to endorse the past segregationist policies of Senator Strom Thurmond. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/Corbis)

plicated and intensive in the past twenty-five years. In part, this shift is related to the sheer increase in the size and scope of the nonprofit sector. The number of 501(c)(3) organizations under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) is up over fivefold since 1967 (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 2002). Many nonprofit agencies providing services such as health care and foster care receive millions of dollars in public funds. This growth has generated public pressure to monitor and evaluate the performance of these organizations and to ensure greater financial and operational accountability. Performance-based contracts between government and the nonprofit service agencies have now become the norm for many federal, state, and local funding programs.


Further, the growth of the sector has brought increased scrutiny to the tax benefits received by nonprofit organizations and to the services they offer, especially to ensure that services are consistent with an organization’s mission and tax status. For example, many policy makers and scholars argue that nonprofits should provide a certain level of charity care if they are to retain their nonprofit tax status. Members of Congress, including Republican Representative Ernst Istook of Oklahoma, have proposed legislation that would restrict the political activity of nonprofit organizations, contending that publicly chartered charities should not engage in any significant amount of political activity. Each dimension of the government–nonprofit sector relationship is also quite varied. The legal frameworks governing the role of nonprofit organizations and their prerogatives have varied considerably over time (Hall 1987). Indeed, in the nineteenth century, the boundary between ostensibly public and private organizations was quite blurry. Substantial variation also exists from state to state on the laws regulating nonprofit organizations and the procedures necessary to obtain tax-exempt status. The types of nonprofits taking an interest in influencing public policy range from neighborhood associations, interest groups, and grassroots organizations to umbrella coalitions of social service agencies and social movements such as the AIDS movement. The latter pressured government to respond to the growing AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The resultant AIDS policy provided extensive funding to nonprofit AIDS service agencies and also enlisted AIDS advocacy organizations in an ongoing relationship with government. This AIDS example is typical of a larger and more widespread pattern where the growth of government facilitates the expansion of the policy and service role of nonprofit organizations. At the state level, for instance, the number of advocacy organizations representing human service agencies has increased sharply in recent years as government contracting of nonprofit agencies has risen. Moreover, some scholars have theorized that the growth of advocacy organizations was directly tied to the growth of the state (Salisbury 1984; Walker 1991; Skocpol 1999).

The use of nonprofit agencies by government to provide public services has a long history in the United States. But the extent of government funding of nonprofit agencies in a whole range of service categories—from home health to museums to child welfare—has increased sharply since the 1960s. Further, the growth of government funding for public services has been a central factor in the big jump in the number of nonprofit organizations. Just since 1977, for example, the number of nonprofit social service agencies has tripled (Smith 2002). The tools by which government supports this public service function of nonprofit organizations have greatly diversified. Initially, government support for nonprofit organizations expanded primarily through direct grants and subsidies. However, in recent years, government has supported nonprofit service agencies through loans, tax credits, vouchers, and tax-exempt bonds. For example, nonprofit child-care agencies are supported primarily through vouchers and tax credits (and client fees) rather than through direct government grants. The growing interconnections between government and the nonprofit sector have focused sharp attention on this relationship in terms of its impact on government, nonprofit agencies, and society more generally (Smith and Lipsky 1993; Grønbjerg 1993; Salamon 1987; Saidel 1991; DeHoog 1984). Nonprofits are especially attracted to government funding because of the relative scarcity of private donations, particularly in many controversial or complex services such as programs for the mentally ill. Government funding often allows nonprofits to pursue their mission and have an impact on the broader community. However, in the process of receiving government funding, nonprofits may be encouraged (and sometimes forced) to become more formalized as organizations, including adopting a higher level of professionalization. The receipt of government funds may convey enhanced organizational legitimacy, which may then be useful in obtaining additional public and private grants as well as attracting new board members, volunteers, and staff. Government funding draws nonprofits into the public policy process and gives them a stake and a voice in important policy concerns related to their organization’s services.

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But these very benefits can also lead to negative consequences. Managing contracts is a very time-intensive and complicated task, especially in the current era of government accountability and performance management (Smith 2002; Grønbjerg and Smith, forthcoming; Kettl 2000). Increasingly, government contracts and grants do not provide adequate support for the program administration. The result is to squeeze nonprofits financially; indeed, many contracts actually lose money for the organization if all of the administrative and overhead costs are considered (Smith 2002). But the implications of government funding and contracts for nonprofits go well beyond the direct financial consequences. Government funding of nonprofits in social and health policy tends to be targeted on certain people or services and can be accompanied by a range of program and budgetary requirements and expectations. Consequently, the management flexibility of nonprofit executives and staff may be significantly circumscribed. Conflicts may arise between nonprofits and government as nonprofits strive to serve a community of interest as they define it in order to fulfill their mission and government attempts to treat citizens with equity (Smith and Lipsky 1993). The proliferation of more indirect means of government funding, such as vouchers and tax credits, may under some circumstances lessen this inherent dilemma. However, some types of tax-credit and voucher programs are also subject to extensive government regulation (Smith 2002). Government funding may also encourage nonprofits to organize themselves internally in line with government expectations and funding streams (Grønbjerg 1993). This type of management structure may help nonprofits cope with the demands of government funding but may actually undermine the sustainability of nonprofits by discouraging revenue diversification and long-term strategic planning. Also, substantial government funding may inadvertently weaken the governance capacity of nonprofit boards because board members are often unprepared to oversee the complexity of government funding. Further, board members may believe that substantial private fundraising is unnecessary if government is providing most of the funding (Smith and Lipsky 1993).

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Nonprofits are particularly attractive to government agencies as public service providers for several reasons. First, purchasing services from nonprofit organizations may allow government to more quickly start services than if it had to provide these services internally. Second, nonprofit agencies are usually nonunion and thus may offer government officials greater flexibility in program design and implementation. Third, and related to these considerations, contracting may appear to be cheaper than providing government services (although the transaction costs of contracting may actually mean that it is more expensive than direct public services). Fourth, government funding of nonprofits may be a way for government to support a favored constituency group or association. This may also help government win support of public programs in times of fiscal distress or problems. In practice, these putative advantages of government support of nonprofits may be difficult to realize. Once funding is awarded, governments find it difficult to move money around and reallocate it to other organizations, partly because nonprofits will mobilize politically if they believe their funding is threatened. Further, government officials are faced with a principal-agent problem (Pratt and Zeckhauser 1985; Donahue 1989). That is, government, as the “principal,” relies upon nonprofit organizations to be their agents. But in this situation, government may find it difficult to know whether the agent is implementing policies according to the objectives and priorities of government. Government also faces pressures to respond to emergent needs, which is complicated by the investment of government in existing programs and services. Faced with this challenge, government officials may be tempted to further regulate existing contracts and grants in order to achieve new priority objectives. And while contracting shifts the risk of program implementation to the nonprofit agency, government may find it difficult to take full credit for successful programs; in the long run, government-supported activities may undermine support for government, even among citizens who benefit from them (Smith 1993). The impact of government funding and policy on nonprofit organizations is perhaps most evident in organizations that depend heavily upon government dollars, especially in highly visible services such as


child protection, mental health, and job training. But government policy also affects many other types of nonprofit organizations, even those without substantial public funding, such as arts and culture organizations. Many museums, orchestras, and zoos receive direct and indirect public subsidies. These subsidies have greatly encouraged the growth of such institutions in the past twenty years and has facilitated their investment in new physical infrastructure. This growth and development leads to greater formalization of programs and services, which in turn leads to changes in the management and mission of these organizations. The increasingly intertwined and complicated relationship between government and nonprofits presents many daunting challenges that will need to be addressed if government and the nonprofit sector are to have a productive and a mutually satisfactory relationship. The growing dependence of government on nonprofit agencies—many of them relatively young and undercapitalized—means that government has a great interest in the management infrastructure of nonprofit organizations. Thus, government and the nonprofit sector need to work together to develop innovative ways of supporting and enhancing nonprofit management capacity. Needed reforms and initiatives include more flexible payment systems, new technical assistance strategies and models, and realistic and appropriate performance measures. Nonprofits, for their part, need to improve their strategic planning, strengthen their board governance, and diversify their funding sources. Also, many nonprofit agencies receiving government funds are actually not very well connected to their communities. Thus, they are often quite vulnerable to government influence and pressure. And the lack of strong community connections may seriously hamper an agency’s resource and board development strategies. Nonprofits also need to recognize that in an era of tight government budgets, creative partnerships between nonprofits, including mergers and formal collaborations, may be necessary. The successful adoption of these initiatives will require a new way of thinking among nonprofits, that is, a shift away from the focus on organizational growth and development to think more broadly about community needs and problems.

Further, nonprofits need to become better advocates for their own organizational interests as well as those of the community. Many nonprofits—especially those receiving government funds—are reluctant to undertake political advocacy owing to concerns about the potential impact of advocacy and lobbying on their tax status and their existing or future government contracts and grants (Berry 2003). But nonprofits could do much more advocacy without jeopardizing their tax situation or their relationship with government. Nonprofit staff and volunteers, including board members, need to be much more knowledgeable about the laws and regulations governing advocacy and must become more proactive in developing both collective and individual strategies to effectively represent their interests. To be sure, some nonprofit organizations exist independent of government. But these organizations tend to be small, with little capacity to influence public policy, provide extensive services to people in need, or promote citizen participation in societal affairs. Thus, if we as a society want nonprofit organizations that are sustainable and vital, we need to be prepared to invest in both the public and nonprofit sectors and squarely address the challenges in managing the relationships across sectors. Steven Rathgeb Smith References and further reading Berger, Peter L., and Richard J. Neuhaus. 1977. To Empower People. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Berry, Jeffrey, with David A Arons. 2003. A Voice for Nonprofits. Washington, DC: Brookings. DeHoog, Ruth Hoogland. 1984. Contracting for Human Services: Economic, Political, and Organizational Perspectives. Albany: State University of New York Press. Donahue, John D. 1989. The Privatization Decision. New York: Basic Books. Grønbjerg, Kirsten. 1993. Understanding Nonprofit Funding. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Grønbjerg, Kirsten, and Steven Rathgeb Smith. Forthcoming. “The Scope and Theory of GovernmentNonprofit Relations.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, 2d ed., edited by Walter W. Powell and Richard Steinberg. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 1987. “A Historical Overview of the Private Nonprofit Sector.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A

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Research Handbook, edited by Walter W. Powell. New Haven: Yale University Press. INDEPENDENT SECTOR. 2002. The New Nonprofit Almanac and Desk Reference. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Kettl, Donald F. 2000. The Global Public Management Revolution. Washington, DC: Brookings. Meyer, Jack A., ed. 1982. Meeting Human Needs: Toward a New Public Philosophy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Pratt, Jon W., and Richard J. Zeckhauser, eds. 1985. Principals and Agents: The Structure of Business. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Saidel, Judith. 1991. “Resource Interdependence: The Relationship between State Agencies and Nonprofit Organizations.” Public Administration Review 51 (November–December): 543–553. Salamon, Lester M. 1987. “Partners in Public Service: The Scope and Theory of Government-Nonprofit Relations.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, 99–117. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Salisbury, Robert H. 1984. “Interest Representation: The Dominance of Institutions.” American Political Science Review 78 (1): 64–76. Skocpol, Theda. 1999. “How America Became Civic.” In Civic Engagement in American Democracy, edited by Theda Skocpol and Morris P. Fiorina, 27–80. Washington, DC: Brookings. Smith, Steven Rathgeb. 1993. “The New Politics of Contracting: Contracting and the New Nonprofit Role.” In Public Policy for Democracy, edited by Helen Ingram and Steven Rathgeb Smith, 198–221. Washington, DC: Brookings. ———. 2002. “Social Services.” In The State of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 149–186. Washington, DC: Brookings. Smith, Steven Rathgeb, and Michael Lipsky. 1993. Nonprofits for Hire: The Welfare State in the Age of Contracting. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Walker, Jack L. 1991. “Interests, Political Parties, and Policy Formation in the American Democracy.” In Federal Social Policy: The Historical Dimension, edited by D. T. Critchlow and Ellis W. Hawley, 141–170. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Grantmaking The term “grantmaking” describes the core business of charitable foundations, namely, awarding gifts of cash (grants) to private, not-for-profit organizations in support of projects meant to enhance the common good. Whether conducted by the trustees of small,

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unstaffed foundations or by paid staff at larger foundations, grantmaking implies an element of choice on the part of grantmakers. In short, grantmakers decide which of the nonprofit organizations applying for grants receive them, for which purposes, and for what amounts. This ability to choose grantees confers considerable power on grantmakers, which leads to temptations for poor behavior on their part. The power imbalance has led to the development of “A Grantseeker’s Bill of Rights” defining basic standards of professional grantmaking behavior.

History Although the history of charitable bequests is a long one, traceable at least as far back as ancient Greece, the history of grantmaking is a relatively recent phenomenon. The reason for this apparent dichotomy is simple. Most of the early philanthropic institutions—ancient Roman municipal endowments, medieval British ecclesiastical foundations, colonial American charitable societies—were limited by their donor or by state charter to the support of specified institutions or causes. Trustees of such “proto-foundations” had little or no discretion in their giving; their role was to ensure that the donor’s or state’s giving directions were faithfully followed. Such giving was charitable, to be sure, but it was not grantmaking, for the trustees lacked the ability to make alternate choices as to recipients. In grantmaking, some degree of flexibility is essential as times and conditions change and in light of the success, or lack thereof, of a foundation’s original plan. For example, the Magdalen Society, one of the earliest proto-foundations in the United States, was founded in Philadelphia in 1800 to “ameliorate the distressed condition of those unhappy females who have been seduced from the paths of virtue, and are desirous of returning to a life of rectitude” (Weaver 1967, 22). Despite their best efforts, the trustees of the Magdalen Society could not find many prostitutes “desirous of returning to a life of rectitude,” and the Magdalen Society was eventually reorganized as today’s White-Williams Foundation, focusing on youth development, which in the year 2000 became the first private foundation in the United States to celebrate its bicentennial.

Grantmaking

Although some nineteenth-century charitable institutions gave their trustees a degree of discretion in making grants, the advent of grantmaking on a broad and systematic scale did not occur until the establishment of the great general-purpose foundations, the Carnegie Corporation of New York (1911) and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913). These foundations were unprecedented in the United States in terms of both the size of their assets and the scope of their ambition. They pioneered a new approach to philanthropy, one that did not tie the organization to fixed charitable purposes but rather allowed their trustees—and even the hired staff—discretion in selecting, and, from time to time, changing, the causes that the foundation supported. Grantmaking, with all of its human ingenuity and human frailty, became the core activity of general-purpose foundations.

Grantmaking Styles The style of grantmaking adopted by general-purpose foundations depends upon the theory of change that they embrace. A theory of change is a set of beliefs about the most effective ways to create social movement toward the common good. Over the years, two broad camps developed in the American foundation world. One camp believes that foundations should remain flexible in order to seize upon unforeseeable opportunities. They should avoid rigidity in thinking and methods of operation. The other camp believes that foundations should create their own opportunities in a systematic fashion. In order to do this, they must be highly strategic, focusing with discipline upon defined targets. Out of these two great camps arose four main grantmaking styles. Each style has its own particular strengths and weaknesses and its own set of vexing tradeoffs. Therefore, although individual foundations may prefer one style over another for their own operations, it is impossible to say that any one of these styles is more effective than any other. The four styles, and their various characteristics, are as follows: 1. Passive foundations have enormous flexibility and a great breadth of interests. They are able to quickly seize opportunities and to change directions as circumstances

evolve. Passive foundations usually do not have a strategic plan, however, so they do not typically have a strong sense of direction. Nor can they go into much depth on any one subject. They accept unsolicited proposals—in fact, they make no efforts to solicit proposals at all—and merely fund the best of those proposals that they receive. 2. Proactive foundations also have considerable flexibility and a breadth of interests, but they also announce defined areas of operation. Within these areas of interest, they may do some strategic planning and go into some depth. They may even solicit some proposals through a “request-for-proposals” process. Proactive foundations, however, always remain substantially open to receiving unsolicited proposals and to seizing unexpected opportunities. 3. Prescriptive foundations have only a limited amount of flexibility and breadth of interests. They have chosen to become quite focused in their operations and very strategic in their planning. This strategic stance allows them to go into considerable depth within their restricted areas of operation, but it also makes them less able to respond to unexpected opportunities. Prescriptive foundations solicit most of their proposals through carefully defined request-forproposals processes and generally do not have much flexibility, or even interest, in responding to unsolicited proposals. 4. Peremptory foundations have very little flexibility and a very limited breadth of interests. They create a highly disciplined strategic plan from which they do not deviate. This plan allows them to go into enormous depth in very tightly defined areas of operation. The tradeoff is that they have almost no ability to respond to unforeseen opportunities. They solicit all proposals through requests for proposals (or sometimes choose grantees without requiring them to even apply). Most peremptory foundations will not even

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Grantmaking

Figure 1 Four-P Continuum

consider unsolicited proposals, much less fund one. (Orosz 2000, 25–27) Given the fact that the names of all these styles start with the letter P, their qualities can best be understood by constructing a “Four-P Continuum” (ibid., 26). This continuum, shown in Figure 1, suggests that each of the four styles has strengths and weaknesses that make them appropriate and useful in some grantmaking contexts but inappropriate and useless in others. This tradeoff holds true, as well, for six qualities of foundation work that are valued, to a greater or lesser degree, across the charitable foundation field. These qualities are flexibility, breadth, opportunism, discipline, strategy, and depth. It is instructive to convert the FourP Continuum into a matrix expressing the level of these qualities within each grantmaking style (see Table 1). As the matrix demonstrates, grantmaking styles inevitably entail tradeoffs. Passive foundations have great flexibility to seize opportunities but lack the discipline to be strategic and focused. Peremptory foundations have the discipline to be highly strategic but lack any flexibility to seize opportunities. Moreover, a foundation cannot move from one style to another without giving something up. A passive foundation, for example, cannot become more strategic without becoming less flexible, cannot achieve greater depth without sacrificing breadth, and cannot become more disciplined without sacrificing the ability to seize opportunities. Thus there is no one “ideal” style of grantmaking. Each style has strengths that make it appealing, but each also has drawbacks that make it unappealing.

Passive

Proactive

Prescriptive

Peremptory

The Human Factor: Attributes and Temptations There is no “hard science” of grantmaking; it is more of an art or a calling than it is a science or a profession. At every stage in the grantmaking process, from the theory of change on the front end, to the yes or no decision at the midpoint, to the management and closing of the project at the end, human personalities and judgments intrude and determine the course that the grant will take. Therefore, as Alan Pifer, a former chief executive officer of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, noted, the “human factor” is the most important element in grantmaking (Pifer 1973, 3). What attributes should a grantmaker possess? Many have attempted to create checklists of such attributes, and the terms chosen vary from list to list. At least six of these attributes, however, appear to be absolutely essential. They are as follows: 1. Integrity: All transactions between grantmakers and grantseekers ultimately depend upon trust. A mendacious grantmaker, therefore, ultimately cannot be effective. 2. People skills: Grantmaking is a human enterprise, and it is absolutely essential that grantmakers be empathic and respectful listeners, articulate speakers, clear writers, and intuitive and sensitive observers.

Table 1 Four-P Continuum Matrix

Flexibility Breadth Opportunism Discipline Strategy Depth

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Passive

Proactive

Prescriptive

Peremptory

Great Great Great Little Little Little

Considerable Considerable Considerable Some Some Some

Some Some Some Considerable Considerable Considerable

Little Little Little Great Great Great

Grantmaking

3. Analytical ability and creativity: Program officers must have the ability to analyze ideas, test their internal logic, and rate their external value. At the same time, program officers must have the ability to grasp the possibilities of ideas, to envision how they might develop, and to take leaps of faith. Effective grantmakers, in short, possess a good balance of “head” and “heart.” 4. Spirituality: Grantmaking, at its best, demonstrates a love for fellow humans, provides an avenue to transform faith into action, and satisfies a craving to connect to others in a profound way. 5. Sense of balance and proportion: Grantmakers are offered endless opportunities to do good; if all were accepted, the foundation would quickly run out of money and the grantmaker would quickly run out of time. Grantmakers must learn how to say no to good ideas from worthy applicants and to avoid becoming personally overcommitted, overstressed, and overwhelmed. 6. Compassion: Grantmaking is more than the making of grants. It is also the breaking of hearts. Many, if not most, of the proposals that must be declined come from good people who are doing good things, and the last thing an applicant needs when absorbing this disappointment is to have a grantmaker heap insult upon injury by being disrespectful or insensitive. (Orosz 2000, 48–52) Grantmakers also face a number of temptations as they go about their duties. Their success depends upon their ability to resist the blandishments of temptations such as those listed below: 1. Succumbing to flattery: Grantmakers typically receive very little criticism, whether constructive or otherwise, but receive a great deal of flattery from individuals and organizations hoping to get grants. Grantmakers need to develop an “internal gyroscope” to gauge the true value of their

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

performance because outside feedback is an unreliable guide. Becoming arrogant: The paucity of criticism and the abundance of flattery can cause grantmakers to begin to believe that they truly are as good as the flatterers say, and this can lead to a sense of power or even infallibility. Grantmakers must consciously struggle against this temptation in order to keep their perspective and effectiveness. Becoming cynical: It necessary to discount the flattery in order to counter the arrogance, but this discounting can be taken to an extreme. Grantmakers who do this are likely to think that every kind word they receive is undeserved and that the only reason that they receive praise is that they work for a foundation. Believing none of the flattery, therefore, is just as dangerous as believing all of it. Forgetting the stewardship: Grantmakers are notorious for forgetting that they are employed by a foundation and starting to think that the foundation’s money is their own. They must remember that their role is one of stewardship of money for the benefit of society. This cannot be done if they make grantseekers feel as if the proposal request is a plea for a personal loan. Believing that all grantseekers are unworthy: When a grantmaker becomes too analytical—that is, when the “head” takes over the “heart”—it seems that all grantseekers are unworthy. Believing that all grantseekers are worthy: The mirror image of the previous peccadillo is to have one’s “heart” completely rule one’s “head.” All foundations receive more proposals than they can possibly fund. Grantmakers who find so much value in every proposal that they want to fund all of them are doing a service to no one. Program officers simply must make hard decisions and disappoint good people. Taking the easy way out: Grantmakers soon discover that well-written proposals are

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easier to fund than poorly written ones, but it is not always the case that well-written proposals describe better ideas than poorly written ones. The danger is that grantmakers, who always carry a heavy workload and are always pressed for time, will be tempted to fund well-written proposals that describe mediocre ideas over poorly written proposals that describe great ideas. Excellence in grantmaking is no accident; it is achieved by a lot of hard work. Program officers who merely develop mediocre ideas could (and should) be replaced by cash machines. (Orosz 2000, 39–45)

A Grantseeker’s Bill of Rights Grantseekers are on the other side of the equation from grantmakers. Given the power disparities between the two, it might be more accurate to say grantseekers are on the other side of the tracks. Grantmakers who do not have the proper human attributes, or who succumb to the temptations of philanthropy (or both), can exacerbate these disparities and treat grantseekers very poorly. It is important to note that grantseekers have rights as well as obligations. In fact, the rights have been systematized in “A Grantseeker’s Bill of Rights.” The rights are as follows: 1. The right to receive a clear statement of the foundation’s funding interests 2. The right to have all communications answered 3. The right to an explanation of, and an estimated timeline for, the foundation’s proposal review process 4. The right to a prompt acknowledgment of receipt of the proposal 5. The right to have all proposals read in full and seriously considered 6. The right to a timely and unambiguous funding decision 7. The right to receive an explanation of the reasoning behind funding decisions 8. The right to have all requirements for the grant relationship clearly spelled out, in writing (including the right to have any

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components of the grant required by the foundation paid for by the foundation) 9. The right to have all reports completely read and carefully considered 10. The right to be informed if continued funding is a possibility (Orosz 2000, 46–47) Living up to the standards presented in “A Grantseeker’s Bill of Rights” is an essential element of professional practice for any grantmaker, but not an onerous task. It simply requires a commitment to open and honest communication with all grantseekers.

A Grantmaker’s Bill of Rights Although grantmakers have the advantage in the power disparity, the grantmaking process is an equation, and grantseekers, too, have an obligation to behave honorably toward grantmakers. Moreover, grantmakers also have rights as well as obligations. These rights have been systematized in “A Donor’s Bill of Rights,” developed and endorsed by several prominent nonprofit and fundraising organizations. Donors’ rights are listed below: 1. The right to be informed of the organization’s mission, of the way the organization intends to use donated resources, and of its capacity to use donations effectively for their intended purposes 2. The right to be informed of the identity of those serving on the organization’s governing board, and to expect the board to exercise prudent judgment in its stewardship responsibilities 3. The right to have access to the organization’s most recent financial statements 4. The right to be assured that their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given 5. The right to receive appropriate acknowledgement and recognition 6. The right to be assured that information about their donations is handled with respect and with confidentiality to the fullest extent provided by the law

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7. The right to expect that all relationships with individuals representing organizations of interest to the donor will be professional in nature 8. The right to be informed whether those seeking donations are volunteers, employees of the organization, or hired solicitors 9. The right to have the opportunity for their names to be deleted from mailing lists that an organization intends to share 10. The right to feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful, and forthright answers (Light 2000, 66–67) Living up to “A Donor’s Bill of Rights” is an essential element of professional practice for any grantseeker, but not an onerous task. Grantmakers and grantseekers alike must strive for open and honest communications with each other.

Conclusion Grantmaking is the essential core skill in the operation of charitable foundations across the United States. It is crucial, therefore, that it be done wisely and well. The ultimate end of charitable foundations—positive social change—will never happen unless there is all-around excellence in grantmaking. Or, to put it negatively, shoddy grantmaking leads directly to shoddy outcomes. The last word on this subject belongs to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who stated in Book 2 of Nicomachean Ethics, “Anyone . . . can give away money or spend it; but to do all this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way, is no longer something easy that anyone can do. It is for this reason that good conduct [in such matters] is rare, praiseworthy, and noble” (Orosz 2000, 1). Joel J. Orosz See also History of American Foundations References and further reading Council on Foundations. 1986. Principles and Practices for Effective Grantmaking, rev. ed. Washington, DC: Council on Foundations. Ford Foundation, http://www.grantcraft.org. Kibbe, Barbara, F. Setterberg, and Cole Wilbur. 1999. Grantmaking Basics: A Field Guide for Funders.

Washington, DC: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Council on Foundations. Light, Paul C. 2000. Making Nonprofits Work: A Report on the Tides of Nonprofit Reform. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute and Brookings Institution Press. Orosz, Joel J. 2000. The Insider’s Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Philanthropic Research, Inc. “Doing Business As Guidestar,” http://www.guidestar.org. Pifer, Alan. 1973. “President’s Message.” Annual Report of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York. Weaver, Warren. 1967. U.S. Philanthropic Foundations: Their History, Structure, Management and Record. New York: Harper and Row.

Grantseeking Grants represent a small but significant portion of support available for eleemosynary endeavors. They are awarded by two types of entities: foundations and government agencies or programs. Foundation grants constitute approximately 10 percent of private philanthropy, as tracked by the American Association of Fundraising Counsel’s Giving USA. Grant funding awarded by government sources has not been quantified but represents a relatively small portion of public funds. The foundation world is divided into two categories, private and public. The category that a particular foundation falls into depends on the source of the funds that compose its asset base. Private foundations, those in which the assets derive from private sources, are divided into three types. The two of greatest interest to grantseekers are the independent foundation and the corporate, or company-sponsored, foundation. Independent foundations, also called family foundations, make up 88 percent of all private foundations in the United States. The third type of U.S. legal entity classified as a private foundation is an operating foundation, a public charity that operates its own program and does not generally make grants to other organizations. The balance of foundations are public, and of these, the category of greatest interest to grantseekers is that of the community foundations, entities that exist to support activities in a specifically delimited geographic area. Public foundations also include women’s funds and other funds related to specific populations and activities, such as funds created

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by the sale of hospitals that become “new health” or “health care conversion” foundations. According to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, the federal government provides fifteen different kinds of financial support, of which only two are grants. Formula grants are allocations of money to states, counties, or municipalities that provide support for initiatives mandated by law and open to local interpretation. Currently there are 173 such programs. Project grants represent the other category, and there are currently 889 different programs that include support of a wide variety of activities—fellowships, research, construction, experimentation and demonstration, evaluation, and planning.

The Grantseeking Process The process by means of which grants are sought and won has seven steps. Step 1: Initiation What constitutes the first step depends on whether the grantseeker is taking an active or responsive role. If the grantseeker is initiating the process, the first step consists of conducting research on grant opportunities. The repository of much information on private sector grantmaking is the Foundation Center Library, with national, regional, and local collections as well as substantial information available through the Foundation Center’s Web site at http://www.fdn center.org. If the grantseeker is investigating publicsector opportunities, one place to start is the Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance, which details all forms of public funding. If the grantseeker is responding, he or she will mostly likely do so in response to a request for proposals (RFP) in which the grantmaker invites grantseekers to compete to accomplish a specific goal. Step 2: Preliminaries In the case of proactive grantseeking, research consists of identifying those foundations and corporate entities that make grants to support work in the discipline of the eleemosynary organization, such as education, social services, or the arts; in the geographic area in which the organization is located; and for a purpose consistent with the endeavor being contemplated, for example, a special project, scholarship, capital ex-

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pense, or general unrestricted operating funds. Once appropriate foundation prospects are identified, representatives of the grantseeking organization map their contacts, reviewing the names of individuals who are involved in the foundation to identify relationships that exist between grantmaker and grantseeker. If the grantseeker is reacting, the preliminary step usually consists of either speaking with a representative of the foundation informally or attending a formal technical assistance session sponsored by the grantmaker. In either case, the grantseeker should learn about the purpose of the request for proposals and the eligibility and selection criteria. Step 3: Introduction For grantseekers taking the initiative, the introductory phase consists of a meeting between representatives of the grantseeking and grantmaking organizations. At this meeting, the grantseeker learns the details of the specific grantmaker’s decision-making process and presents information to position his project or activity as attractive to the grantmaker. Ideally, this meeting results in the grantmaker inviting the grantseeker to submit a formal proposal. For grantseekers responding to a grantmaker’s RFP, the introductory phase consists of the preparation and submission of a letter of intent (LOI), usually a brief document outlining the plan for the project and the ways in which the grantseeker’s project addresses the grantmaker’s agenda. Usually, grantmakers screen and review LOIs and invite some applicants to continue to the next phase of the competition. Step 4: Development of the Plan The preparation of a grant proposal or request is an exercise in planning and positioning. The development of a compelling, cogent proposal involves securing and documenting the “buy-in” of key participants, forecasting schedules, estimating resources required, and calculating costs. In addition, the project or organization must be positioned so that it is presented as an attractive opportunity or partner for the grantmaker. Step 5: Submission Once the proposal or formal request document has been prepared in compliance with the criteria outlined

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by the grantmaker, the grantseeker must submit it in a timely fashion.

9. Budget: the revenue and expense plan to support the activities

Step 6: Advocacy In competitive situations, decision makers often may be swayed by further advocacy on behalf of the grantseeking organization. Once a proposal has been submitted, grantseekers work to convince decision makers or those who influence decision makers that their application merits support.

Proposals are often preceded by an introductory cover letter and an executive summary providing an overview of the proposal. Grantseekers also often include appendices and attachments to the proposal for documents supporting or amplifying their argument. As noted above, prior to developing and submitting a proposal, grantseekers often submit a letter of intent, which is customarily structured as a mini-proposal. Another document grantseekers often prepare during the preliminary phase of the process is a “white paper,” a discussion of issues of shared interest for both grantmaker and grantseeker. Susan L. Golden

Step 7: Stewardship Once a grant has been awarded, the funds have been disbursed, and project implementation is in process, the relationship between grantseeker and grantmaker moves to another level. Regular communication in the form of timely reports and updates from grantseeker to grantmaker pave the way for positive responses to future requests.

Documents Associated with Grantseeking To maintain preferential tax status, grantmakers must have documentation of grant requests. A proposal is the primary record of a grantseeker’s appeal for a grant and generally consists of nine components, as follows: 1. The background of the organization: the organization’s mission, experience, and qualifications for conducting the project 2. The statement of need, or problem description: an outline of the circumstances that make the project necessary or desirable 3. Objectives: the changes toward which the work described is aimed 4. Methods: the activities by means of which change will be effected, and often, a timeline for events related to the project or activity 5. Outcomes: the results hoped to be accomplished through the project or activity 6. Personnel: the people who will conduct the project and their qualifications 7. Evaluation: the plan by means of which the grantseeker will determine the effectiveness of the project or activity 8. Future funding: the plan for support after the grant being sought runs out

References and further reading Brown, Larissa Golden, and Martin John Brown. 2001. Demystifying Grant Seeking. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Burke, Jim, and Carol Ann Prater. 2000. I’ll Grant You That. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Carlson, Mim. 1995. Winning Grants Step-by-Step. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Clarke, Cheryl A. 2001. Storytelling for Grantseekers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Golden, Susan L. 1997. Secrets of Successful Grantsmanship. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hall, Mary. 1988. Getting Funded, 3d ed. Portland, OR: Continuing Education Publications. Kiritz, Norton J. 1980. Program Planning and Proposal Writing. Los Angeles: The Grantsmanship Center. McIlnay, Dennis P. 1998. How Foundations Work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. New, Cheryl Carter, and James Aaron Quick. 1998. Grantseeker’s Toolkit. New York: Wiley. Orosz, Joel J. 2000. The Insider’s Guide to Grantmaking. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Grassroots Associations A grassroots association (GA) is a local, nonprofit, volunteer group using the associational form of organization, which typically involves a set of volunteer members and one or more elected volunteer leaders pursuing the group goal. GAs are the most frequent form of nonprofits in the United States and often form a local base for national or international associations.

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Although poor in average economic resources, they are rich in volunteerism and hence philanthropy. The group goal may be any one (or more) of a wide range of possible objectives but most commonly concerns leisure or occupational interests. Although some GAs have nonmember service goals (for example, Parent-Teacher Associations and Lions Clubs), most focus on member service, peer-helping, or self-help goals (for example, lodges of Freemasons, local trade unions, Boy Scout troops, bowling leagues, or Alcoholics Anonymous chapters). In either case, voluntary altruism is present in the sense that members are helping other people outside their own immediate families. GAs first began to flourish around 8000 B.C. in settled, horticultural, preliterate societies, which contrasted with the earlier nomadic, hunting-gathering, preliterate bands that had dominated most of human existence. These early common interest associations were men’s clubs, secret societies, age group clubs, or economic guilds. Later, in ancient agrarian civilizations such as Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome, local religious congregations and occupational guilds existed from about 3000 B.C. With the coming of industrial society in the United States, as in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe from about A.D. 1800, GAs became even more common as factory workers unions and employers associations began to flourish. But there were also now political parties, road associations, sects and cults, social clubs and fraternities, arts associations, social movement groups (for example, antislavery and women’s suffrage groups), health and service associations, amateur sports and hobby clubs, and so on. The twentieth century was the heyday of American GAs, with some decline of traditional GAs in its latter decades and a trend toward self-help and support groups. The concept of the GA in social science seems to date from early in the twentieth century, especially with the Progressive movement, although the broader concept of association saw some use earlier.

Prevalence and Interorganizational Relations The raw numerical prevalence of GAs in U.S. states, counties, municipalities, and other territorial units is strongly affected by the population of the unit in

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question. The population-standardized prevalence has been about 30 GAs per 1,000 population in the latter part of the twentieth century, making the United States a leader, but not foremost, in GA prevalence. Given the current U.S. population, one can estimate that there could well be more than 8 million GAs in the nation. A higher population-standardized prevalence in individual territorial units results from such factors as a higher degree of permissiveness of political control (civil liberties), higher levels of modernization and socioeconomic status, greater prevalence of nonassociational organizations (businesses, government agencies, nonassociational nonprofits), more ethno-religious heterogeneity, more aggregate resource mobilization (such as technical assistance or umbrella groups), more aggregate social cohesion (informal social bonds among people), and unique cultural or historical factors. About half of the GAs in the United States are monomorphic, that is, not affiliated with a higherlevel territorial unit such as a parent or umbrella group. The other half are polymorphic with affiliation to a state, regional, national, or international umbrella group or federation. Many GAs also have local affiliations with a nonprofit, governmental, or for-profit organization that provides space for meetings or other activities and may sponsor or control the GA in some ways. Church-based or school-based GAs are common examples. Nonreligious GAs with $5,000 or more in annual revenues are required to register with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and nonreligious GAs with $25,000 or more in annual revenues are required to file annual financial reports with the IRS (Form 990). About 10–20 percent of GAs are registered with the IRS and have formal tax-exemption letters. The polymorphic GAs receive tax exemption through their parent/umbrella organization. Aside from these three kinds of affiliations, most GAs have little in the way of direct interorganizational relationships. Nonetheless, GAs are typically affected by competition for members in the sociodemographic pool of eligible potential members in their communities.

Impact and Effectiveness GAs may have either or both of two types of impact: an internal impact, on their members, or an external


impact, on their environments—both social and biophysical. GAs tend to have the internal impact of social support, peer helping, and self-expression and sometimes the related external impact of nonmember helping or service (for example, post-disaster aid, firefighting, emergency medical services, or crime control). They usually have the internal impacts of providing both experiential knowledge of group processes and information related to their activities. Many GAs also provide information to nonmembers. Most provide some sociopolitical activation to members, resulting in psychological empowerment and more individual political activity. Many also have the external impact of creating sociopolitical influence, sometimes affecting public issues. GA volunteer activities generally have an imputed (attributed) economic value in U.S. society of roughly $200 billion annually at present, and GAs also sometimes help members with job contacts and job skills. Many GAs specifically provide economic system support (for example, farmers groups, unions, merchant associations, and professional groups). GAs often promote greater happiness/satisfaction and physical and mental health. This is especially true for self-help groups but to some extent for GAs generally. The large and varied cumulative impact of GAs is significantly related to the fact that the United States is a participatory democracy with a large and active voluntary, nonprofit sector. The effectiveness of GAs is influenced by several factors. Those that have greater impact tend to have (1) better resource mobilization for means (activities) and ends (goals) (for example, sufficient recruitment of active members, high internal activity, and sufficient internal funding); (2) better ideology, incentives, and values; (3) better maintenance, or internal control (for example, sufficient internal democracy, high internal cohesion, persistence over years); and (4) better, more fruitful relationships and interactions with their environment (for example, substantial autonomy, participation in a supralocal federation or umbrella group, informal cooperation with other local groups). Effectiveness factors for internal impact–seeking GAs also include having a member sponsorship system for new members, using comember peers as a reference group for personal change, having members feel accepted and affirmed as persons, and the like. Effectiveness factors for

external impact–seeking GAs also include creating a greater sense of local community, having an optimal mix of external and internal goals, avoiding internal divisiveness and factionalism, and so on.

Structure and Processes As contrasted with paid-staff nonprofits, GAs tend to be characterized by founder or formational choices that lead to groups that have mostly member-benefit goals, an informal group style, high internal democracy, some sociodemographic membership criteria, and more diffuse goals. GAs tend to have internal guidance systems that involve stronger sociability incentives, stronger purposive incentives (satisfactions from pursuing group goals), stronger service incentives, and weaker utilitarian incentives (money or goods received for work) than paid-staff nonprofits. GAs also tend, in comparison with paid-staff nonprofits, to have internal structures that emphasize mainly volunteer workers, informal tax exemption (no IRS registration), informal organization, internal democracy, member-benefit goals, linkage to a supralocal federation or umbrella group, substantial sociodemographic homogeneity, and few economic resources. The internal processes of GAs (vs. paid-staff nonprofits) tend to emphasize evening and weekend timing of activities, intermittent activities, low external funding, broad and intermittent political activity, low or moderate prestige, informal recruitment, informal socialization of newcomers, volunteer termination of membership, and younger age of the group itself. Unlike paid-staff nonprofits, the leadership of GAs tends to be mainly elected (vs. appointed), unpaid, low in professionalism, higher in charisma, higher in consideration (attention to emotional needs) of followers, lower in supervision of followers, looser in priority setting, usually promoted from inside, low in selectivity, and higher in leader quality problems. GAs also tend to have fewer government relations than paid-staff nonprofits. Like paid-staff nonprofits, GAs tend to increase in internal complexity (bureaucratization, formalization, specialization, and so on) and size with age, although GAs are more likely to consciously resist increasing complexity than are paid-staff nonprofits.

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Individual Participation and Exceptional Individuals About 40 percent of U.S. adults report being active in one or more GAs, and 60–70 percent report being members of one or more (not counting local religious congregations, which would raise the figure by another 10–15 percent). Children aged twelve to seventeen also report high levels of membership and activity. The determinants of individual GA participation vary according to the measure of participation used. The number of GAs belonged to tends to be associated with particular variables. These include: 1. Contextual variables (higher average income or education of neighborhood, small community of residence, employment in a larger corporation) 2. Dominant-status sociodemographic variables (higher education, income, and occupational prestige if employed, marriage, full-time employment, more school-age children, moderate age) 3. Active-effective character on personality variables (greater sense of efficacy and internal locus of control, morality, empathy, emotional stability, self-esteem or ego strength, extraversion, emotional warmth, assertiveness) 4. Favorable attitudinal variables (greater perceived efficacy of GAs, greater perceived benefits of GA participation and fewer costs, more altruistic attitudes/values, greater sense of civic duty, greater perception of GA attractiveness) 5. Favorable situational variables (being asked or encouraged to join a GA, having friends or acquaintances in GAs) Membership in a given GA is predicted by living close to the GA, having sociodemographic characteristics similar to members of that GA, having favorable attitudes toward the specific GA, and experiencing favorable situational variables (such as being asked to join the GA or having friends or acquaintances in the GA). Greater participation in a GA, once someone is a member, is predicted by higher socioeconomic sta-

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tus (education, income, occupational prestige), a more active-effective character on personality variables, more favorable general attitudes about GA participation, more favorable attitudes toward the specific GA (more perceived benefits and fewer costs from participation, greater satisfaction with participation), and more favorable situational variables. Greater length of membership in a GA is predicted by favorable specific attitudes about the GA (such as continuing to receive more benefits and less costs from participation, satisfaction with participation) and favorable situational variables. Deciding to exit a GA is predicted by less favorable specific attitudes toward the GA and less favorable situational variables (moving of residence, getting a new job, conflict with educational pursuits). In general, greater prediction of GA participation results from inclusion of predictors from more domains. More GA membership and more participation in a GA once a member are positively associated with other socioculturally approved forms of leisure social participation, such as neighborhood interaction, friendship activity, political activity, outdoor recreation and sports activity, print media activity (for example, reading newspapers and books), informal helping behavior, volunteer program activity, and charitable giving. This positive association across types of socioculturally valued leisure activities in U.S. society represents a leisure general-activity pattern of broad importance. Exceptional individuals tend to have more impact on GAs than on paid-staff nonprofits, making more of a difference to the success of the former. GA founders tend to be high in active-effective character and favorable attitudes toward GA participation, often being charismatic leaders. Some exceptional GA activists found several GAs in their lifetimes.

Values and Futures GAs are shown to make cumulative positive contributions to U.S. society when evaluated by such standards as participatory democracy, political pluralism, quality of life, the general welfare, the public interest, civil society, and positive social capital. In an authoritarian state or dictatorship, by contrast, GAs are usually seen by the societal leadership as threatening and dangerous unless tightly controlled; hence such

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societies tend to suppress GAs and carefully control the ones allowed to exist. A small minority of GAs in the United States, perhaps 1–5 percent, are fundamentally deviant from societal norms in their principal goals and/or (especially) their means of accomplishing these goals (for example, delinquent youth gangs, witches’ covens, some social movement groups, some communes, underground militias, nudist groups, some cults and sects, terrorist groups, hate groups). In general, these deviant GAs cause relatively little social harm, although some of them do substantial harm. They constitute collectively part of the price democratic societies pay for freedom of association and other civil liberties—that is, a voluntary society. The future of GAs in the United States is, in one sense, guaranteed by the fundamentally democratic nature of the society. GAs will probably continue to flourish in the new century as in the prior one. However, there is likely to be a continuation of the decline of many traditional GAs and a rise of more social support and self-help GAs. There may also be a continuation of the shift of volunteering from GAs to volunteer programs (volunteer departments of paid-staff nonprofits, government agencies, or even certain forprofit organizations such as proprietary hospitals), as in the past few decades. If there is a catastrophe of national scope (for example, a plague or epidemic, an environmental disaster, or widespread terrorism), participation in GAs and numbers of GAs will likely decline. David Horton Smith See also Mutual Benefit Organizations; Nonprofit Sector; Voluntarism References and further reading Ellis, Susan, and Katherine Noyes. 1990. By the People: A History of Americans as Volunteers, rev. ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 1992. Inventing the Nonprofit Sector and Other Essays on Philanthropy, Volunteerism, and Nonprofit Organizations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Milofsky, Carl, ed. 1988. Community Organizations: Studies in Resource Mobilization and Exchange. New York: Oxford University Press. Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Smith, David Horton. 1994. “Determinants of Voluntary Association Participation and Volunteering: A Literature Review.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 23 (3): 243–263. ———. 2000. Grassroots Associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wuthnow, Robert. 1998. Loose Connections: Joining Together in America’s Fragmented Communities. New York: Free Press.

Gratz, Rebecca (1781–1869) Rebecca Gratz was a devout Jew who dedicated her life to serving those less fortunate. Born the seventh child of twelve to a wealthy and well-connected Philadelphia family on March 4, 1781, Gratz became a beloved legend for her charitable deeds and devotion to her community. Most likely educated at the Young Ladies Academy in Philadelphia, she was familiar with literature, geography, philosophy, some Christian teachings, and republican political values of post–Revolutionary War America. Through her studies, she developed a strong sense of patriotism. Though she never married, she helped establish charitable organizations and educational centers with funds provided by her father and brothers. At the age of twenty, she helped to establish the Female Association for the Relief of Women in Reduced Circumstances. The organization provided goods and services directly to women whose families were suffering after the Revolutionary War. Fourteen years later, in 1815, Gratz helped to establish the nondenominational Philadelphia Orphan Asylum. Serving as its secretary, she was able to champion her causes in a quiet way through the publicly distributed minutes of the meetings. Forty years later, Gratz would be instrumental in establishing the Jewish Foster Home and Orphan Asylum. The asylum provided an answer for orphans who were the result of the rise in Jewish immigration and poverty in the Philadelphia area of the time. Gratz was persuaded to assume the role of vice president. By the end of 1817, Gratz had established an informal Hebrew school in her home for anyone desiring to attend, including her nieces and nephews. Although the school did not endure, the idea of the Hebrew home school was paired with the Protestant

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Sunday school to create the Hebrew Sunday School in 1838. Gratz served as its superintendent and assisted in the development of its curriculum. In 1819, Gratz established the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, the first independent Jewish women’s organization. The group’s mission was carried out primarily in Philadelphia and eastern Pennsylvania but was as far reaching as Alabama and Kentucky. Gratz was often referred to as “the foremost Jewess of her day,” and many believe that her beauty, wit, and devotion to her faith inspired Sir Walter Scott’s heroine Rebecca in his novel Ivanhoe. Gratz died on August 27, 1869, having outlived all of her siblings save for her youngest brother, Benjamin. Today, she is recognized as one of the most important women in U.S. history. Kristine M. Haskett References and further reading Ashton, Dianne. 2002. “Rebecca Gratz: 1781–1869.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 129–133. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Henry, Sondra, and Emily Taitz. 1986. Written Out of History: Our Jewish Foremothers. Fresh Meadows, NY: Bilblio. Jewish Virtual Library, http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/ biography/Gratz.html. Jewish Women’s Archive, http://www.jwa.org/. Wagenknecht, Edward. 1993. Daughters of the Covenant. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Guggenheim Family The Guggenheims had more diverse interests—art, aerospace, literature, and science—than most of the great philanthropic families. The Guggenheim fortune began with Meyer Guggenheim (1828–1905), who emigrated to America from Switzerland in 1848. Guggenheim began his career operating a pushcart in the streets of Philadelphia; he then invented a stove polish that didn’t blacken hands and used the profits from this invention to invest in Colorado silver mines. By 1895, Guggenheim had become an international entrepreneur, with mines in the U.S., Mexico, and Latin America. In 1895, Guggenheim’s competitors decided to form American Smelting and Refining, a giant copper trust

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that Guggenheim refused to join. Guggenheim and his rivals then fought a business war, which ended in 1901 when Guggenheim took over American Smelting and Refining. Later named Asarco, the firm remained the source of the Guggenheim mining fortune. Meyer Guggenheim had seven sons. Four of them formed foundations. The smallest was formed by Murry Guggenheim, who started a small foundation that provided free dental care for the poor. The other three foundations, those of Daniel, Solomon, and Simon Guggenheim, discussed immediately below, are more substantial. Daniel Guggenheim (1856–1930) first practiced philanthropy after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, when he sent $500,000 in cash, which was hauled around the San Francisco streets in two pushcarts and dispensed to the unfortunate. But his great love was airplanes. When the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics was created in 1926, notes Guggenheim family biographer John H. Davis, it was seen by the philanthropic world as “little more than a manifestation of technological exhibitionism.” When President Calvin Coolidge heard that someone was giving $2.5 million to make airplanes go faster, he said, “What’s the use of getting there quicker if you haven’t got anything to say when you arrived?” But during the foundation’s short life (it was liquidated in 1930, shortly after Guggenheim’s death), it funded important advances. Guggenheim money funded the research of Robert Goddard, the pioneering American rocket designer, and Theodore von Karman, who helped develop the DC-3. Guggenheim money also helped fund the first commercial passenger flight in 1929. Solomon Guggenheim (1861–1948) spent his first sixty-five years leading an utterly conventional life, delighting in fancy clothes, stately mansions, and Old Master paintings. In 1937 Guggenheim met Baroness Hilla Rebay von Ehrenwessen, who spent several weeks painting his portrait. She convinced him that modern art, specifically the works of Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, and Rudolf Bauer, was important. By 1939, Guggenheim had accumulated several hundred modern paintings, and created “The Solo-

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mon R. Guggenheim Collection of Non-Objective Art,” an exhibition that toured in several cities. In 1944, he decided to create a museum in New York City and hired architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design the building. But while land had been purchased for the museum and Wright had completed his design, construction had not started by Guggenheim’s death. Simon Guggenheim (1867–1941) became a philanthropist when his oldest son, John Simon Guggenheim, died at seventeen after complications from pneumonia. He consulted with American Smelting and Refining general counsel Carroll Atwood Wilson, who recommended consulting Swarthmore College president Frank Ayledotte and Henry Allen Moe. Wilson, Ayledotte, and Moe were all Rhodes scholars, and they helped to create the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1925 as a Rhodeslike organization that awards one-year fellowships to scholars in a wide variety of fields. Under Moe’s leadership, the Guggenheim Foundation gave fellowships to most of the American composers, painters, and novelists who flourished between 1925 and 1975. Of the second generation of Guggenheims, the most important is Harry Guggenheim (1890–1971), son of Daniel. He succeeded his uncle as president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and overcame very high obstacles imposed by New York City planners to ensure that construction of the museum was begun in 1956 and completed in 1959. Guggenheim also continued his father’s interest in aeronautics, being the principal patron of Robert Goddard. Together with his wife, Alicia Patterson, Guggenheim helped create Newsday; the wealth from this newspaper was used to create the Alicia Patterson Foundation and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, which studies ways of preventing violence. Marguerite “Peggy” Guggenheim (1898–1979), was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who drowned on the Titanic. Though her estate never amounted to more than $450,000, she nonetheless proved one of the most dynamic and influential patrons of modern art. Her “Art of This Century” gallery (1942–1945) discovered many important American

modernists, most notably Jackson Pollock. She also was a patron of (and eventually married) surrealist Max Ernst. Her collection and her Venice mansion were absorbed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation after her death. Martin Morse Wooster References and further reading Davis, John. H. 1978. The Guggenheims. New York: Morrow. Gill, Anton. 2002. Art Lover. New York: Harper Collins, 2002. Guggenheim, Peggy. 1979. Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict. New York: Universe Books. Lomask, Milton. 1964. Seed Money. New York: Farrar, Straus. Weld, Jacqueline Bograd. 1986. Peggy: The Wayward Guggenheim. New York: Dutton. Wooster, Martin Morse. 1997. “The Guggenheim Foundation’s Slide towards Irrelevance,” Foundation Watch.

GuideStar The GuideStar Web site, http://www.guidestar.org, is an online database providing information about nonprofit organizations classified as public charities, private foundations, or private operating foundations under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). The database derives most of its information from digitized copies of the tax filings of these nonprofits and from other public documents. Nonprofits are also encouraged to join the GuideStar project by submitting additional information. Over half a million tax forms are entered into the database annually with the intention of keeping three years of tax filings available online. The Web site crossed the 2 million visitor mark in the year 2000. The Web site is the major project of Philanthropic Research, Inc. (PRI), located in Williamsburg, Virginia. Arthur W. Schmidt, who continues to serve as its president, formed PRI in 1994. PRI is registered as a public charity. Its own entry in the database is a model of the information PRI would like to have for every entry. The mission statement of PRI is to promote philanthropy by providing information to donors, nonprofit boards, grant administrators, the government and the general public. PRI states that

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the “progress in American philanthropy and nonprofit practice is constrained by the absence of information about the practices of nonprofit organizations” (GuideStar). It earns more than one-third of its revenues from the sale and licensing of information de-

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rived from its database but provides the Web site as a public service. Fred Westcott References and further reading GuideStar, http://www.guidestar.org.

H Habitat for Humanity International

“homeowners”) are considered partners in the sense that they contribute to the building of their own homes through their hours of “sweat equity,” and ultimately, they purchase these homes. No doubt this self-help quality largely accounts for Habitat’s popularity. Moreover, Habitat creates other partnerships that make it possible for the homeowners to purchase their homes. Specifically, typically middle-class volunteers provide much of the labor the organization needs, local governments help make inexpensive or foreclosed properties available, and construction-related organizations provide labor and building materials at reduced prices or as donations. As a result, the homes are very inexpensive (the average Habitat home in the United States is $46,000). Another important characteristic of Habitat is its reliance on nonsectarian religious values that enable it to cull volunteer and financial support from a wide array of American congregations. For instance, the notion that religious faith must be acted out in pragmatic ways is a major theme at Habitat that is attractive to various religious communities. Likewise, Habitat’s “theology of the hammer” denotes the prevalent attitude within the organization that theological differences are far less important than the value of service to others that different faith traditions have in common. Finally, Habitat has effectively packaged and promoted its volunteer opportunities such that they appeal to a broad range of people. Its Covenant Church pro-

Habitat for Humanity International is a grassroots, nonprofit organization that builds houses. Founded in 1976 by evangelical Christians Millard and Linda Fuller, the organization is headquartered in Americus, Georgia, but has more than 1,500 separately incorporated local affiliates throughout the United States and 300 additional affiliates located within eighty-three different countries. Habitat International provides leadership, coordination, promotional, and some financial resources to the affiliates, and the affiliates, through volunteer labor, accomplish most of the actual building. To date, Habitat has built or renovated approximately 125,000 houses worldwide (of which about 40,000 are in the United States), and in doing so, the organization estimates that it has housed close to 625,000 people. This success seems to be accelerating. It took fifteen years for Habitat to build its first 10,000 homes. The next 10,000 took only two years, the following 10,000 took fourteen months, and the organization expects eventually to begin building 20,000 homes per year. Certain organizational characteristics account for this success as well as for securing Habitat’s place among the best known and most widely respected nonprofits in the United States. The first of these is its emphasis on “partnership,” a word used ubiquitously at Habitat. Rather than mere clients, the lower-income people whom Habitat serves (that is, the

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Hart Case

Former president Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter saw lumber for a house for Habitat for Humanity. The Carters lead the Jimmy Carter Work Project (JCWP) for Habitat for Humanity International one week each year. (Mark Peterson/Corbis)

gram taps the support of church-based constituencies. Its Campus Charters mobilize college students, especially those seeking an alternative spring break experience. The Global Village program attracts those who can afford the time and money to volunteer for twoand three-week periods in a developing country. Former president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, have been visible spokespeople for the Habitat cause. Special events, such as the annual, week-long Jimmy Carter Work Project, are important for building many houses at one location and, since they gain significant media attention, for raising the public’s awareness of housing issues and of Habitat itself. These characteristics and initiatives—along with the hands-on, tangible, and at times exciting nature of Habitat projects—have helped the organization grow significantly during its first quarter century of operation. Jerome P. Baggett

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References and further reading Baggett, Jerome P. 2001. Habitat for Humanity: Building Private Homes, Building Public Religion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Fuller, Millard. 2000. More than Houses: How Habitat for Humanity is Transforming Lives and Neighborhoods. Nashville: Word Publishing. Gaillard, Frye. 1996. If I Were a Carpenter: Twenty Years of Habitat for Humanity. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair. Habitat for Humanity International, http://www.habitat.org (cited August 16, 2002).

Hart Case See Law of Charity

Health and Nonprofits Overwhelming size, diverse makeup, constant change, and controversy—these descriptors characterize the

Health and Nonprofits

intersection of the health industry and the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit healthcare organizations generate a sizable proportion of the nonprofit sector’s revenues, and they do so in a highly competitive, capital-intensive industry. The nonprofit healthcare subsector includes a diverse mix of service providers—long-term care facilities, hospices, community clinics, mental health facilities, and health plans. Additionally, related organizations include advocacy, research, and professional service organizations. Few industries experience the level of public scrutiny currently focused on health care. Health services costs and financing, consumer safety, patient privacy, and research and treatment ethics all currently drive changes in the constitution of the industry, intersector dynamics, and government regulation. Additional causes of change drivers include medical and information technology capabilities. Health care is an integral part of the nonprofit sector, although its presence is constantly challenged and its makeup constantly changing. This discussion focuses on the health services industry; professional services organizations such as the American Medical Association exert strong influences on the industry, as do research, patient support, and advocacy organizations.

Historical Development Organizations offering new services often organize as nonprofit entities—for example, the first institutionalized U.S. hospitals and the first prepaid healthcare plans were nonprofit organizations (Metcalf 2002). Recent examples of this phenomenon include outpatient dialysis, hospice, and home healthcare services. The industry’s roots lie with the private physician, a largely unconnected network of services provided by individuals, and public policy that allocates care of the needy and sick to their families. This system left a rapidly expanding, unmet need during the Industrial Revolution,which was eventually addressed by charitable facilities (almshouses) that sought to address the needs of the poor. Such facilities originally provided little health care and simply served as a shelter for those in need or whom society deemed unseemly. Only after the understanding of contagious disease developed did facilities resembling contemporary hospitals develop. Still, hygiene and treatment capa-

bilities of the time resulted in such inpatient facilities being viewed as “death houses,” and their use was limited to individuals who had no alternatives for care. Some religious orders, however, saw the suffering of the sick poor as a way to provide good works in the service of God. This provided the origins of an orderly and educated approach to nursing and the churchsponsored hospitals that still dominate the industry. The situation changed dramatically early in the twentieth century. Improvements in hygienic and surgical practices and the discovery of antibiotics and vaccines changed the hospital environment from one of resigned death to one of optimism and cures. This change shifted the focus of health care for all individuals from the physician’s office and the patient’s home and more toward the hospital—the age of scientific medicine had arrived. This shift, made possible by technologic advances, was facilitated by changes in healthcare financing and public policy. In 1929, the Great Depression forced hospitals to experiment with health insurance plans. One of these, at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, Texas, developed into the model for the Blue Cross Hospital Insurance. The nonprofit Blue Cross plans, and later the medical expenses Blue Shield plans, can be credited with revolutionizing access to health care for middleclass Americans. Such plans were broadly established by the mid-1920s. Initially, covered individuals primarily financed their own insurance plans. This changed, however, in 1939 during World War II when worker shortages resulted in employers adding healthcare coverage to their employee benefit packages. More middle-class Americans now had financial access to better-quality medical care—and expectedly, its use increased. The federal government was also involved in this major expansion of the healthcare industry. Through funding initiatives and tax policy, the U.S. government has impacted industry growth and the ownership mix in health care—primarily through its access to capital (Needleman 2001). The most obvious of these include: 1. The Hill-Burton Hospital Construction Act of 1946, which intended to expand access of hospital facilities to unserved or underserved

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geographic areas. This act was tremendously successful in increasing hospital capacity, particularly for nonprofit facilities, by financing capital expenses and included a requirement for charity service to the facility’s community. 2. The Medicare and Medicaid programs. Medicare has consistently provided incentives to private, for-profit industry entry by providing a known funding source for services (such as hemodialysis). More recently, however, Medicare and Medicaid funding constraints have pushed out some for-profit managed care plans. 3. The Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, which hoped to contain health costs by supporting the development of health maintenance organizations (HMOs). 4. The Internal Revenue Service’s withdrawal of an organization’s 501(c)3 charitable taxexemption status. Such tax concerns, particularly when combined with an organization’s concerns about access to capital, have either mandated or resulted in organizations’ conversion from nonprofit to for-profit status. This abbreviated history of nonprofit healthcare organizations almost directly mirrors the history of the sector overall—the two are inseparably intertwined. What remains unstated, and perhaps unknown, is how the dynamic nature of the ethics, technology, and politics differentially impact the sectors.

Scope of the Healthcare Industry’s Nonprofit Sector Healthcare services are a dominant subsector of nonprofit organizations. They have the largest total revenue of all nonprofit subsectors and the largest number of paid employees, and they pay the most in wages and salaries. Given the rapid growth in other nonprofit subsectors, growth of any sort has been minimal in the number of healthcare organizations. Hospitals constitute the bulk of nonprofit healthcare organizations, and trends in both the subsector and its relationship to the

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overall nonprofit sector mirrors this fact. Sixty-one percent (2,998 of 4,908) of the United States’ community hospitals were nonprofit organizations in 2001 (American Hospital Association 2002). By contrast, only 24 percent (1,156 of 4,908) were state or local government owned, and 15 percent (754 of 4,908) were investor owned. Although some growth occurred in the number of for-profit hospital facilities in the late twentieth century, this growth slowed by the beginning of the twenty-first century. During this same period, the numbers of public and nonprofit facilities declined substantially (Salamon 1999). Health services organizations generate the largest total revenue of all nonprofit subsectors (49 percent [326.3 billion of 664.8 billion total for the entire sector] in 1997) (Weitzman et al. 2002). They generate this revenue primarily from fees (89.1 percent in 1997), which strikingly differentiates them from other nonprofit subsectors (Weitzman et al. 2002). Trends in revenue mirror the decline in reimbursements from government and managed care plans. Given the dominance of health care in most areas, it received only 10 percent of the private contributions in 1998—a proportion that has remained relatively stable during the past three decades. To provide perspective on the impact of the nonprofit healthcare subsector, the Bureau of Labor reports that approximately 9.3 percent (10.3 million people in 2001) of all U.S. nonfarm private-sector workers were employed in health service positions. Within the nonprofit sector, health services employed 43 percent of the sector’s paid employees in 1998; of these, 72 percent were employed by hospitals (see Table 1). This percentage is down from the past as more health care is delivered outside hospital walls. The health services subsector paid 54 percent ($141 billion of the nonprofit sector’s total $259 billion) of total wages and salaries within the nonprofit sector. Hospital employees earned 77 percent of the healthcare service’s wages. Although this percentage is lower than previous years, this reflects the change in how healthcare services are delivered, as other nursing and personal care facilities and other health services have increased their shares of the subsector’s wages. Volunteers play a relatively small role in the healthcare sector when compared to the large number of employed


Table 1 Employment within the Health Services Subsector (1998)

Health Service Category

Number (1,000)

Percent (within subsector)

Nursing and personal care facilities Hospitals Other health services Medical and dental clinics Total

572.5 3,347.2 557.3 204.0 4,681.0

12 72 12 4 100

Source: Adapted from Weitzman 2002, 41.

staff. Still, 11.4 percent of adults report volunteering to a health-related organization during 1998, with 69.4 percent of these volunteers giving time to nonprofit health organizations (15.7 percent to for-profit and 14.5 percent to public organizations) (Weitzman et al. 2002).

The Mixed Healthcare Services Market Communities and patients or clients often have inaccurate perceptions of the ownership status—and the subsequent impact of that status—of their healthcare service organizations. In a 1998 survey, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that approximately half of respondents thought that the majority of health services (hospitals, nursing homes, and health insurance plans) were for-profit companies (Kaiser Family Foundation 1998). For example, 49 percent of respondents responded that most hospitals were for-profit entities when in reality only 15 percent are. Interestingly, however, the public often favors nonprofit ownership when asked if it impacts their choice of healthcare service providers, but a majority believe that for-profit facilities are more efficient and provide better quality care. Nonprofit providers are viewed as being more community oriented and as low-cost providers. Research supports the belief that for-profits are more efficient service providers, depending upon the service. Research also supports the perception that nonprofits tend to charge patients less for comparable services and that nonprofits are more community oriented. Although research has rarely found that for-profit providers provide higher quality care, it has consistently found that nonprofit providers offer higher quality care for some services. Although

researchers do disagree, a general interpretation of research findings suggests that either ownership does not impact care quality or that nonprofits provide better quality care (Schlesinger and Gray in press). Explanations and justifications for a mixed healthcare market abound. Some theorists point to economic theory and a functional market’s requirement for full consumer information as the justification for government intervention through favorable tax treatment of nonprofit healthcare facilities. Consumers’ heavy reliance on trust and their inability to fully judge service quality in the transaction between consumer and provider underlies this market failure. Others look at historical trends in access to capital to explain the relative proportions of ownership forms over time (Needleman 2001). Both the charitable roots of health services and public policy impacted access to capital. Another method of explaining the mixed market focuses on the particular service’s life cycle (Schlesinger and Gray in press). New, low-demand, relatively high-cost services are commonly organized as or by nonprofit organizations. As demand for such services increases beyond these organizations’ capacity, incentives for entry by investor-owned firms increase. Certain events—such as regulatory, legislative, or financing changes—can dramatically stimulate growth in the number of for-profit providers and subsequently increase competition for existing nonprofit providers. Price competition forces for-profit and nonprofit organizational behavior to converge, and as performance pressures rise, organizations merge or leave. This pressure impacts for-profit providers more heavily than nonprofit providers, resulting in an increase in the proportion of nonprofit providers in a service. Recent examples of this cycle include longterm care facilities, psychiatric hospitals, and home healthcare services.

Current Challenges Many of the difficulties faced by nonprofit health organizations challenge the industry as a whole. Demographic trends, such as an aging population and shifts in the ethnic composition of clientele, result in both increased demand for services and changes in the types of services required. Some healthcare facilities are now operating at or close to capacity; additionally,

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many facilities face aging physical plants. Financial constraints due to inadequate Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, managed care, and competitive markets force difficult decisions on who to serve, what services to offer, and how to deliver those services. Services to the underinsured, uninsured, and unprofitable services become greater burdens on facilities when operating margins are small. Volatile equity markets create additional pressures. Advances in both medical technologies and information systems require additional capital investments. Labor shortages cause increases in labor costs to facilities and force some facilities to curtail services. Regulatory changes, such as the Health Information Protection and Portability Act of 1996, force facilities to adjust operating procedures and often require financial investments. Challenges specific to nonprofit health organizations mirror those seen elsewhere in the nonprofit sector but are often intensified by the healthcare market. Questions exist as to whether there should be a continued role for nonprofit facilities in health services and specifically whether public policy should continue to support their existence (Needleman 2001). The profit motive and its potentially distorting impact on socially desirable outcomes in human health are a constant concern to individuals and policy makers. Access to health care remains a national concern. Nonprofit institutions, on average, provide more charity care and charge lower fees for their services. Service quality may also be impacted by the need to meet shareholders’ influence to increase profits. Again, if there is a difference in quality, nonprofit providers tend to provide higher quality services. Competition does tend to drive a convergence in the behavior between for-profit and nonprofit institutions, but most studies find that ownership differences persist even in intensively competitive markets. For example, research suggests that the gap in charity care provision between nonprofit and for-profit facilities is widening (Schlesinger and Gray in press). Critics of the nonprofit presence often target nonprofit hospitals, which appear very similar to their forprofit counterparts, as economic drains on communities—“investments” that do not provide adequate returns to their community “investors.” Beyond Inter-

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nal Revenue Service (IRS) challenges to 501(c)3 status, some local communities view these facilities’ taxexempt status as a drain on the community and have challenged this status in court, with the result that several hospitals now pay their municipalities direct payments in lieu of taxes to preempt such challenges. Facilities, at a minimum, now painstakingly document activities that benefit their communities (for example, charity care and health education). One factor in the community benefit issue is an institution’s commitment to its community. Locally owned nonprofit facilities show greater commitment to their local communities, which results in institutions that view their mission as serving not just their patients but their community. System affiliation, increasingly relevant as nonprofit facilities merge or join networks, does impact organizational behavior. Effects are larger on for-profit than nonprofit organizations, and they tend to magnify the ownership-related performance differences. The increasingly complex nature of health services delivery and current fiscal constraints have caused the need to develop creative arrangements to ensure access to capital or simply to ensure institutional survival. Hospitals have both created and, in some cases, later devolved comprehensive vertical healthcare delivery systems that included everything from physician practices to long-term-care facilities. Joint ventures between for-profit and nonprofit providers, created with various legal and organizational arrangements, challenge the IRS to define organizational boundaries and when a nonprofit’s activities will benefit private parties. Nonprofit to for-profit ownership conversion has become relatively commonplace. Nonprofit health insurance organizations (for example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations) used conversion to mutual ownership as a means to increase access to equity. Some hospital trustees have questioned the relative benefit of such large amounts of community assets being held as hospital physical plants. Such questioning has led to experiments where a hospital’s physical assets are sold to create a foundation to address community health in ways other than directly providing health care— with mixed success. Autumn Workman

Higginson, Henry Lee

References and further reading American Hospital Association. 2002. “Fast Facts on U.S. Hospitals from Hospital Statistics™.” Available at http:// www.hospitalconnect.com/aha/resource_center/fastfacts/ fast_facts_US_hospitals.html (cited May 19, 2003). Goddeeris, John H., and Burton A. Weisbrod. 1998. “Conversion from Nonprofit to For-Profit Legal Status: Why Does It Happen and Should Anyone Care?” In To Profit or Not to Profit: The Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 83–104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gray, Bradford H., and Mark Schlesinger. 2002. “Health.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 65–106. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Kaiser Family Foundation. 1998. “Survey of Americans about Health Care and the Stock Market.” January. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation. Available at http://www.kff.org/content/archive/1359/facts.html (cited November 5, 2003). Marmor, Theodore R., Mark Schlesinger, and Richard W. Smithey. 1987. “Nonprofit Organizations and Health Care.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, edited by Walter W. Powell, 221–239. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Metcalf, Marcia. 2002. “The McNerney Forum: Advancing the Role of Nonprofit Health Care.” Inquiry 39 (2): 96–100. Needleman, Jack. 2001. “The Role of Nonprofits in Health Care.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. 26 (5): 1113–1130. Salamon, Lester M. 1999. America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer, 2d ed. New York: The Foundation Center. ———. 2001. “The Nonprofit Sector at a Crossroads: The Case of America.” In Third Sector Policy at the Crossroads: An International Nonprofit Analysis, edited by Helmut K. Anheier and Jeremy Kendall, 17–35. New York: Routledge. Schlesinger, Mark, and Bradford H. Gray. Forthcoming. “Nonprofit Organizations and Health Care.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, edited by Walter W. Powell and Richard S. Steinberg. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sloan, Frank A. 1998. “Commercialism in Nonprofit Hospitals.” In To Profit or Not to Profit: The Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 151–168. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Til, Jon. 2000. Growing Civil Society: From Nonprofit Sector to Third Space. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Weitzman, Murray S., Nadine T. Jalandoni, Linda M. Lampkin, and Thomas H. Pollak. 2002. The New

Nonprofit Almanac and Desk Reference: The Essential Facts and Figures for Managers, Researchers, and Volunteers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Higginson, Henry Lee (1834–1919) Henry Lee Higginson was a complex personality who overcame a variety of personal disappointments in his early life to ultimately achieve lasting recognition as a successful banker, founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and patron of Harvard University. Born in New York City on November 18, 1834, Higginson and his family moved to Boston four years later after his father lost a large sum of money in the panic of 1837. Higginson experienced a series of failures in his early adult life. His desire to study at Harvard was cut short after only a few months on account of illness. He aspired to be a concert pianist, a dream that was tragically halted by inept medical treatment for a hand injury. His subsequent attempts at business also proved fruitless. With the onset of the Civil War, he followed the path of many of his Boston social elite, abolitionist peers, joining the ranks of the Union Army in a crusade to extinguish slavery. Although he served honorably, glory and higher rank eluded him. He was gravely wounded in his only battle and sustained a prominent scar on his cheek from that action. That scar and the title of major were very personal badges of honor that remained with him for the rest of his life. This string of personal setbacks culminated just after the Civil War in a disastrous attempt to operate a Georgia cotton plantation with recently freed slaves as paid laborers. Higginson and his partners lost more than $90,000 in the venture, a gigantic sum for that era, and were forced to sell the business. Higginson’s life began to take a positive turn in 1868 when, at the age of thirty-four, he somewhat reluctantly joined his family’s banking firm. Here, his steady character, honesty, and skill in dealing with the firm’s clients brought him wealth, recognition, and stability. In 1873, after only five years with the firm and with a fortune estimated at between $750,000 and $1 million, he began to realize some of his earlier dreams of collaborating with the arts and higher education. As the driving force and sole underwriter of the Boston Symphony, Higginson created the first per-

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manent symphony orchestra in the United States in 1881. In the course of his nearly forty-year relationship with the symphony, Higginson donated more than $1 million. His work on behalf of the symphony was equaled by his efforts in furthering education, predominantly at his alma mater, Harvard. In addition to financing the Harvard Student Union Building, he endowed a professorship and secured the properties that became the sites of the school’s medical and business schools. Higginson also donated much of his personal art collection to the Harvard University Museum of Fine Arts. Perhaps his most personal donation came in the form of Soldiers Field, which he presented to the university in memory of six fallen comrades who were killed in action in the Civil War. Higginson believed that on the playing grounds of Soldiers Field, the future leaders of our country would be molded through the competition and teamwork associated with sports. Higginson lost consciousness during surgery on November 14, 1919, and was buried one day before what would have been his eighty-fifth birthday. Douglas M. Czajkowski References and further reading Czajkowski, Douglas. 2002. “Henry Lee Higginson (1834–1919), Banker and Founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 145–147. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Higginson, Henry Lee. 1866. “Charles Russell Lowell.” Harvard Memorial Biographies. Cambridge: Sever and Francis. Meyerhuber, Carl I., Jr. 1974. “Henry Lee Higginson and the New Imperialism.” Mid America 56 (3): 182–199. Perry, Bliss. 1921. Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press.

Higher Education and Philanthropy See Women, Higher Education, and Philanthropy

Hispanic Philanthropy Who Are Hispanics? The term Hispanic refers to people in the United States who are descended from Latin American,

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Spanish-speaking cultures. Hispanic is an ethnic category, not a racial one; Hispanics may be of any race. Hispanics often refer to themselves as Latinos, which is derived from the Spanish word for Latin American, Latinoamericano. The term Hispanic is more popular with government and other agencies that follow the lead of the U.S. Census Bureau. The bureau established “Hispanic origin” as a new demographic category in the 1970s, thereby bringing the term into widespread use. Hispanics are the largest of the nation’s racial and ethnic minority groups, and this group is growing relatively fast. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that by 2050, Hispanics will number 98.2 million, comprising 24.3 percent of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). Hispanics are a young population. The proportion under eighteen years of age is 35 percent, compared to 25.7 percent for the nation as a whole (Guzmán 2001, 7). Hispanics are a long-established part of U.S. life and culture. Some Hispanic families have been rooted in the Southwest since the seventeenth century. One out of five Hispanics lives in western states, but every state has a Hispanic population, ranging from 5,500 Hispanics in Vermont to 11 million in California. Chicago, Houston, and San Antonio have more than half a million Hispanic residents each. A new pan-Hispanic or Latino ethnic identity is emerging in the United States, encouraged not only by U.S. political culture and institutions, but also by the desire for cultural identity among children born of intermarriage among Hispanic national origin groups and by increased mass marketing to Hispanics by commercial advertisers. Hispanics, on average, are poorer, less educated, and unemployed more often than the rest of the U.S. population. Despite above-average labor-force participation rates, Hispanics’ poverty rate of 21.4 percent is nearly triple that of non-Hispanic whites (Ramírez and de la Cruz 2003, 6). Among Hispanics between sixteen and twenty-four years of age, 27.8 percent have dropped out of high school (National Center for Education Statistics 2001). Of the Hispanic youth who have graduated from high school, only 16.5 percent have continued on to college and earned a bachelor degree (FIFCFS 1997, 92). Despite those disadvantages, the number of wealthy individuals in the

Hispanic Philanthropy

Hispanic population is increasing. Typically, they are newly successful business entrepreneurs. Thus, in addition to Hispanics’ traditional forms of giving, volunteering, and social responsibility, there is growing potential for major philanthropic gifts, including giving by newly affluent Hispanics of humble origins.

Do Hispanics Give and Volunteer as Much as Other People? Periodic surveys conducted by INDEPENDENT SECTOR find that Hispanics give less to nonprofit organizations, and less often, compared to U.S. residents in general. For example, one survey found that while 72 percent of U.S. households contributed money to charity, only 53 percent of Hispanic households did. Of those who gave, Hispanics on average tended to give smaller percentages of their household income (Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1992). But those findings can be misleading, as the following paragraphs explain. Ethnicity does not cause Hispanics to be less philanthropic. Other factors account for Hispanics’ lower reported rates of giving and volunteering to nonprofit organizations. Some are due to the population characteristics described above. Hispanics have less income and wealth, on average, and have larger families to support. Hispanics have less formal education and so are less familiar with the idea of public support for nonprofit organizations. Many Hispanics are immigrants from other countries with different traditions of giving and helping. In most Latin American countries, churches are practically the only formal organizations that receive voluntary contributions from the public at large. Instead of giving cash gifts to officially recognized public charities (other than churches), Latin Americans are more accustomed to giving cash and other assistance to individuals who are members of the donor’s extended family or kinship network. Hispanics give and volunteer at about the same rate as everyone else in the United States, if (a) we define giving and volunteering broadly enough to include informal assistance given through personal networks and (b) we disregard differences in giving explained by differences in income, education, and recency of immigration. A survey of Californians by Michael

O’Neill and William Roberts (2000) found that when giving and volunteering are broadly defined and the influence of income, education, and immigration is statistically controlled, there are no significant differences in how often, and how much, Hispanics give and volunteer in comparison to other Californians. Another study by Rodolfo O. de la Garza and Fujia Lu reached similar conclusions for Mexican Americans—the largest national origin segment of the nation’s Hispanic population (Campoamor, Díaz, and Ramos 1999).

Distinctive Philanthropic Traditions Hispanics give as much as anyone else, all things considered. But Hispanics give in different ways. Hispanic cultures have different philanthropic traditions, according to a research team led by Bradford Smith (Smith, Shue, Vest, and Villarreal 1999). Their study of Guatemalans, Mexicans, and Salvadorans living in the San Francisco Bay area found, for example, that the Mexican tradition of god-parenthood is an important vehicle for involving nonrelatives in patterns of giving within extended family and kinship networks of individuals. Those networks facilitate philanthropy both large and small. For example, informal networks facilitate the transfer of large amounts of money and goods from immigrants in the United States to small rural communities in Mexico. Mexican immigrants in the study sometimes shared their homes with relatives and friends in need. However, the Mexicans rarely contributed time or money to nonchurch and non-Mexican organizations outside their personal networks. Guatemalans in the study had a tradition of providing food and lodging to newly arrived immigrants from their home country. In contrast to Mexicans, the Guatemalans were more likely to help nonrelatives whom they did not know well. The Guatemalans also tended to fault mainstream U.S. philanthropic and nonprofit organizations for being impersonal, greedy, and ignorant of Guatemalan traditions of community responsibility. Salvadorans were found to give to well-established mainstream nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay area, even though Salvadorans in the study expressed distrust of large charitable organizations. Salvadorans

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Hispanic Philanthropy

also practiced a tradition of sheltering other Salvadorans in need. Despite variations in their national cultural traditions, the three groups had some philanthropic behaviors in common. The Guatemalans, Mexicans, and Salvadorans all contributed relatively little time and money to mainstream charities, except for churches. All three groups typically sent money to family, kin, and communities outside the United States. They provided caretaking services to the young and old, instead of leaving their care to government, nonprofit, or commercial agencies more commonly used by other U.S. residents. Relatively affluent members of all three groups tended to help newcomers to the United States. Charity among the Hispanics studied included an element of traditional Latin American personalismo, in which personal, intimate, one-to-one relationships shaped the nature and extent of giving. And finally, all three groups tended to distrust formal institutions, including philanthropic and nonprofit organizations, as well as the government and large firms.

What Fundraising Strategies Work with Hispanic Donors? Researchers and other writers (Campoamor, Díaz, and Ramos 1999; Wagner and Deck 1999) report that Hispanic philanthropy reflects strong traditions of compassion and social responsibility, combined with distrust of formal institutions other than the church. However, in a study that included many U.S.-born Hispanics, de la Garza and Lu did not find the distrust noted by others (Campoamor, Díaz, and Ramos 1999). Hispanics appear to have much in common with other potential donors. When deciding whether to give to nonprofit organizations, Hispanics are probably influenced most by people they trust. Immigrants and other Hispanics are less experienced and educated, on average, about the U.S. nonprofit sector. Their experiences in other countries could discourage trust in both government and private organizations in the United States. Hispanics would therefore tend to rely more on trusted members of traditional extended family and kinship networks when deciding whether to give, and to whom. Trustworthy leaders of nonprofits based in local Hispanic communities may be better positioned to

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cultivate and promote U.S.-style philanthropic gift giving by Hispanic donors (as I proposed in Wagner and Deck 1999). But interviews of affluent Cuban Americans and other donors by Ana Gloria RivasVázquez warn us not to overgeneralize (Campoamor, Díaz, and Ramos 1999). Rivas-Vázquez demonstrates that Hispanic philanthropy is shaped by a wide variety of worldviews, interests, priorities, community commitments, and experiences, as well as the variety of national cultural and ethnic traditions noted by other observers. The effects of Hispanic ethnicity and cultural diversity on U.S. nonprofits and philanthropy, and the implications for fundraising among today’s and tomorrow’s Hispanic donors, remains a source of unanswered questions for future research. Mike Cortés References and further reading Campoamor, Diana, William A. Díaz, and Henry A. J. Ramos, eds. 1999. Nuevos Senderos: Reflections on Hispanics and Philanthropy. Houston: University of Houston/Arte Público Press. Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (FIFCFS). 1997. America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being. Washington, DC: FIFCFS. Gallegos, Herman E., and Michael O’Neill, eds. 1991. Hispanics and the Nonprofit Sector. New York: Foundation Center. Gibson, Campbell, and Kay Jung. 2000. Historical Census of Population Totals by Race, 1790 to 1990, and by Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, for the United States, Regions, Divisions, and States. Population Division Working Paper No. 56. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Guzmán, Betsy. 2001. The Hispanic Population: Census 2000 Brief. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Hodgkinson, Virginia A., and Maury A. Weitzman. 1992. Giving and Volunteering in the United States: Findings from a National Survey. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. National Center for Education Statistics. 2001. Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Downloaded from http:// nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/droppub_2001 (cited October 20, 2003). O’Neill, Michael, and William Roberts. 2000. Giving and Volunteering in California. San Francisco: University of San Francisco Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management. Ramírez, Roberto R., and G. Patricia de la Cruz. 2003. The Hispanic Population in the United States: March 2002.

History of American Foundations

Current Population Reports. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Smith, Bradford, Sylvia Shue, Jennifer Lisa Vest, and Joseph Villarreal. 1999. Philanthropy in Communities of Color. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Therrien, Melissa, and Roberto R. Ramírez. 2001. The Hispanic Population in the United States: March 2000. Current Population Reports. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. Census Bureau. 2000. “Projections of the Total Resident Population by Five-Year Age Groups, Race, and Hispanic Origin with Special Age Categories: Middle Series, 2050–2070.” Table NP-T4-G, Population Projections Program, Population Division. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Downloaded from http://www.census.gov/population/projections/nation/ summary/np-t4-g.pdf (cited on October 20, 2003). Wagner, Lilya, and Allan Figueroa Deck, eds. 1999. Hispanic Philanthropy: Exploring the Factors That Influence Giving and Asking. New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising 24 (Summer).

History of American Foundations Philanthropic foundations are nongovernmental, not-for-profit organizations, with financial assets provided by a donor or donors, managed by trustees and officers, and expending its income on programs and projects formed to maintain and aid socially useful purposes. The modern U.S. foundation as an instrumentality for such giving has developed into what is in many ways a unique and complex social, economic, and political institution, though it has deep roots in the past. Forerunners of present-day foundations can be traced far back in history to ancient China, Egypt, and other civilizations of the Near East. Plato’s Academy, for example, was established in 347 B.C. with a bequest that helped to sustain its existence for some 800 to 900 years. The early records of the Hebrew people of the eastern Mediterranean show that they, too, set aside funds for worthy causes. By about A.D. 150, the growth of the Roman Empire witnessed the founding and operation of organizations bearing many of the hallmarks of foundations. This development culminated in the decrees of Emperor Constantine in 324–327 that recognized the growing Christian church as, in essence, a foundation.

Fostered by these early decrees and others promulgated by later state rulers of Christendom, the medieval Roman Catholic Church became the overwhelming philanthropic institution of the period in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, the Greek Orthodox Church played a similar role. Although numerous charitable organizations were set up under church auspices, emphasis in giving tended to be placed upon spiritual rather than secular purposes. The Islamic world, from the time of its founding by Mohammed in the seventh century to the present, has witnessed the establishment of numerous foundations (entitled wakif) for worthy charitable and philanthropic purposes

England and Europe England’s religious break with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1500s was accompanied by significant changes in English political, economic, and social structure. The change fostered an ever-increasing number of foundations under state rather than religious control and, at the same time, more foundations established for and devoted to secular rather than spiritual purposes. The wording of the 1601 Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses, uniformly referred to as the cornerstone of English law concerning foundations, clearly reveals this change. In contrast, other Western European countries, particularly France, adopted legal and economic measures that inhibited rather than encouraged the founding and operation of foundations. In ensuing centuries, Communist governments of Central and Eastern Europe adopted measures that essentially outlawed the formation or operation of foundations. European colonies established or controlled by England tended to follow its example of fostering foundations. The reverse was true, to a greater or lesser degree, by colonies established by the French and other countries sharing the French attitude. The United States The assemblies of the future U.S. states adopted English procedures regarding the few foundations established during colonial times, and these were carried over following independence. A few individuals, such

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as Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Girard, set up foundations prior to the Civil War. After the war, rapid accumulation of wealth provided the means for the first of the large U.S. foundations, with their wideranging national and international scope, to be established. Early notable ones were the Peabody Education Fund, founded in 1867, and the Russell Sage Foundation, founded in 1907. It was not, however, until the inauguration of the philanthropies of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, capped by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911, with initial assets of $125 million, and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913, with a corpus eventually totaling more than $180 million, that the modern U.S. philanthropic foundation came into its own. Some observers have advanced the theory that people create foundations and other nonprofit organizations for nonaltruistic and selfish reasons, such as selfglorification or a desire to avoid taxes. Although these factors may play a part in philanthropy, most observers maintain that other, more significant factors are at work. The latter believe that foundations are the modern expression of a real spiritual, religious, or humanitarian desire to perform good deeds with accumulated wealth. This rationale was advanced by Andrew Carnegie in his book The Gospel of Wealth (1900) and was shared to a large degree by John D. Rockefeller. This “gospel” holds that the socioeconomic-political system, that is, the capitalistic system, prevailing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provided an increasingly better way of life for the masses. This period also saw, however, the accumulation of great wealth by a relatively few individuals. These persons had three choices: leaving their wealth to heirs, giving it away for charitable purposes upon their death, or establishing foundations in their lifetime. Carnegie and Rockefeller chose the third way as the best means of disposing of their wealth, hoping to use it for the benefit of mankind. Influenced by such thinking and example, other wealthy individuals funded sizable foundations in the early decades of the twentieth century. Examples include the Commonwealth Fund (1918), the Duke Endowment (1924), the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (1938), and the Olin Foundation (1938). By the 1930s, there were some 200 to 300 foundations of real significance

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as to assets, grants, and scope of activities in the United States. These foundations were independent organizations set up by individuals or family members. Sometimes called “family foundations” or “general-purpose foundations,” they are the best known type of foundation in the United States and have the largest assets. Three other types of foundations, some with considerable assets, emerged in the twentieth century. These can be distinguished as: (1) company-sponsored or corporate foundations, (2) operating foundations, and (3) community foundations. Corporate foundations are those established by companies rather than private donors but are also devoted to philanthropic purposes. They are usually administered by those having an official relationship with the sponsoring business, and their grants are often concentrated in areas where the business or its transactions are located. The General Motors Foundation, for example, gives primarily in cities where the company has plants or significant operations. Operating foundations generally employ their own staff to carry out their programs, though they sometimes make grants to other entities. Many organizations, such as foundations supporting libraries, horticultural gardens, and museums, fall into this category. The Longwood Foundation’s principal activity, for example, is the support it provides for the operation of horticultural gardens open to the public. Community foundations are located in cities or other specific areas. Their funds are usually derived from multiple sources and their grants are usually made in the areas where they are located. The New York Community Trust, for example, gives priority to the funding of projects having particular significance for the New York City area. Foundations may be set up in one of three different ways. They may be: (1) perpetual—that is, the principal shall be held forever and only the income expended; (2) optional—with the option of expending principal as well as income; and (3) liquidating— where the principal and income must be expended by a specified time. Most foundations are of the perpetual or optional type. The Carnegie foundations generally fall into the former category, the Rockefeller foundations into the latter. The Julius Rosenwald Fund, which operated from 1917 to 1948, is a good


example of the liquidating type. Regardless of type, all U.S. foundations have been afforded broad freedom of action in carrying out the purposes for which they were set up and in carrying out wide-ranging programs. In cases where the specified program of a foundation becomes outmoded, U.S. courts can apply the cy pres (as near as possible) doctrine. One of the best known examples of such application is the Bryan Mullanphy Fund, which was set up in the 1850s to aid poor travelers from St. Louis to settle in the West. Owing to the cessation of such emigrants, the fund was eventually allowed to provide aid for St. Louis travelers in general. Most larger foundations and many smaller ones have embraced the concept of preventive rather than palliative giving. That is, rather than giving a coin to a beggar, foundations should attempt to change the conditions resulting in beggary. Concomitantly, their money should be used as venture or risk capital, that is, providing funds for worthwhile philanthropic projects that could only be financed with difficulty, or not at all, from other sources. Foundation giving on such principles has often been advanced as a major justification for their continued existence. Several examples of such venture-capital giving, among many that could be cited, are the Flexner Report of 1910, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which helped to revolutionize medical teaching and practice in the United States. Also, the discovery of the insulin treatment for diabetes by Dr. Frederick Banting was in large part the result of grants from several foundations. Another example is the Dorr Foundation’s 1954 grant for the marginal white striping of a Connecticut highway, which led to a dramatic fall in accident rates on that highway and eventually to the adoption of such striping across the United States and Canada. Following the Great Depression and after World War II, the United States witnessed a surge in the number of foundations being established. By the 1950s, more than 4,000 U.S. foundations were in existence with combined assets of about $3 billion, some seventy of the largest holding assets of $10 million or more each. By the year 2000, more than 40,000 foundations had been established with a wide geographical distribution across the United States and with

combined assets of about $400 billion. The fifteen largest each held assets in excess of $2 billion or more, and the next ninety, in size of assets held, each had $420 million or more. Heading the list as the largest foundation in the United States, and for that matter, throughout the world, was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with assets of about $24 billion. Accompanying this stupendous growth in numbers and assets was the change in the geographical distribution of U.S. foundations. Although foundations for many years were concentrated in the Northeast, the latest statistics show considerable expansion in the number of foundations founded and located in other sections of the country. Also, the foundation concept and method of operation has been copied by an increasing number of other institutions of various types in society. Although they do not meet the strict definition advanced earlier, colleges and universities, religious institutions, hospitals, labor unions, and even government institutions have named and incorporated foundations into their structures. Examples include the University of Mississippi Foundation, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Foundations, the Mayo Foundation, the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation, and the governmental National Science Foundation and National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities. These entities have, in large measure, been brought into existence because of the greater amount of administrative flexibility and other benefits afforded them as the result of operating under the foundation concept. Although most foundations are established under the laws of a particular state, they have been subject to relatively little state regulation. Because they were tax exempt until a national percentage tax was placed on them in the 1970s, more by accretion than by design governmental supervision of U.S. foundations has largely fallen under the oversight of the Treasury Department’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Although there has been advocacy in the past few decades to create a new public or private supervisory body for foundations, patterned to a greater or lesser degree on the British Charity Commission, to date the movement has gotten nowhere. Despite broad freedoms in carrying out their programs and projects both in the United States and abroad, foundations

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have been subject to a number of critical public and private investigations in some periods. These have included studies of foundations and their operations. The more important ones include those undertaken by the governmental Walsh Commission (1915– 1916), the Cox (1952–1953), Reece (1953–1954), and Patman (1961–1969) committees, the Treasury Department (1965), and the later the private Peterson (1969–1970) and Filer commissions (1973– 1977). Much of the critical attitude evinced in such studies and investigations, together with that emanating from some of the media and portions of the public in general, can be traced in large part to a lack of information and knowledge concerning foundations, which, in turn, can be traced to a dearth of research and publications about them. Perceiving this to be the situation, many U.S. foundation officials, particularly since the 1950s, have encouraged all foundations to provide more information about their aims and activities. Also, they have led in the establishment of organizations devoted to amassing information and producing publications about foundations. These have included the trailblazing Foundation Center and the Council on Foundations as well as programs at academic institutions for the study of foundations and other philanthropic organizations. Today, Harvard University, Duke University, Indiana University, the University of Mississippi, and some fifty other U.S. universities and colleges conduct such programs. Since the 1970s, several groups of scholars have been formed, such as the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and the International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR), which includes members who engage in research and writing about foundations both in the United States and abroad. Several other significant changes in U.S. foundations have occurred in the past fifty years, including the diversification of personnel by way of gender, race, and religion and an increase in the number, size, and scope of activities abroad. Up until World War II, the trustees and executives of foundations, particularly the larger ones, were in large measure white, AngloSaxon, Protestant, and male. Since that time, a virtual personnel revolution has taken place, much of it due to conscious efforts for change by foundation trustees

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and officers. In the past decade, a much more diversified personnel representation at all levels, but particularly at the trustee and executive level, has taken place in all foundations, not just those dealing with minority issues. A telling example of this change is the fact that in recent years the executive heads of some of the larger foundations have been women, nonwhites, foreign-born people making their home in the United States, and non-Christians. The international activities of U.S. foundations are probably the most salient and far-reaching aspect of their development since World War II. Prior to that time, while some other motives, such as Andrew Carnegie’s interest in his native Scotland, entered into such activities, a major hallmark for the relatively few foundations conducting programs and having a presence abroad was the fact that their founders had extensive business dealings there. Examples are Rockefeller in oil, Carnegie in steel, and George Eastman in photography. Two foundations, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation, dominated the international programs conducted by U.S. foundations in this period. Probably the best known were Carnegie’s various fellowship programs and peace efforts and Rockefeller’s many health and nutrition programs. In the late 1950s and 1960s, there was a significant increase in the number of foundations entering this arena together with a stepping up of activity among those already engaged there. The Tinker Foundation, set up in 1959, began to conduct a sweeping program promoting a broader understanding of Spain, Portugal, and Ibero-America. The W. K. Kellogg Foundation in the 1960s enlarged its agricultural and health programs in the countries of South America. U.S. foundation activities in the international arena have come in for a small amount of intermittent criticism at home and abroad. At home, the major criticism has been that foundation funds would be better spent alleviating problems in the United States rather than tackling foreign ones. Abroad, and concentrated in the years of the Cold War and since, there have been charges that some foundations are disguised agencies of the U.S. government. The major rebuttal in the first instance was that much of the money flowing into the foundation coffers abroad was derived


from profits made there. As to the second, although it may be true that a very few foundations have been used as a “cover” for U.S. intelligence purposes abroad, the number of such foundations has been minuscule when compared to the total number operating there. Furthermore, such conduct was and has been roundly condemned by many other foundation and governmental figures. Beginning with its reorganization in 1950 and continuing on into the 1980s, the Ford Foundation overshadowed all other U.S. foundations active abroad in terms of size, range, and scope. It concentrated a larger portion of its resources in foreign activities than any other American foundation. A burgeoning number of large and small foundations, however, are now devoting increasing resources abroad. Five large foundations in aggregate now exceed Ford giving abroad: the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Open Society Fund (founded by George Soros), and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. To encourage such activity among smaller foundations, the Rockefeller Foundations recently began conducting a course for them in the most effective methods to be utilized in foreign giving. The two primary aims of international foundation efforts are to foster more democratic and stable societies abroad and to help to bring about a more peaceful world. In pursuing these ends, U.S. foundations have encouraged the creation of indigenous organizations all over the world that share these same goals and provide support for their operation. Since the 1980s, U.S. foundations with these ideals have expanded into Central and Eastern Europe. Although the former Communist governments of that region had adopted measures essentially outlawing the formation of domestic foundations, as well as prohibiting the operation of foreign ones within their borders, with the breakup and liberalization of such governments in the late 1980s a growing number of U.S. foundations began allocating funds for projects there. Many programs, such as those of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the various Soros foundations, and the Ford Foundation, have fostered the creation of organizations in these countries resembling to a considerable

degree the structure of U.S. foundations—for example, the Information Center for Foundations and Other Not-for-Profit Organizations in Prague, Czechoslovakia. With such efforts, sponsoring foundations hope to aid in the development of more democratic and freer societies in the region. Support has also been provided for the establishment of other regional and international organizations of this type, such as the European Foundation Centre and CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Joseph C. Kiger See also Community Foundations; Grantmaking; Institutional Foundations References and further reading Andrews, F. Emerson. 1956. Philanthropic Foundations. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Carnegie, Andrew. 1900. The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: Century. Fosdick, Raymond B. 1952. The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation. New York. Harper and Bros. Fosdick, Raymond B., with Henry F. Pringle and Katherine Douglas Pringle. 1962. The Story of the General Education Board. New York: Harper and Row. The Foundation Directory. Editions 1–21. 1960–1999. 21st ed., 1999. New York: Foundation Center. Foundation News and Commentary. Vols. 1–42. 1960–1969. New York: Foundation Library Center. 1969–1971. New York: Foundation Center. 1971–2001. Washington, DC: Council on Foundations. Fremont-Smith, Marion R. 1965. Foundations and Government: State and Federal Law and Supervision. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Keppel, Frederick P. 1930. The Foundation: Its Place in American Life. New York: Macmillan. Kiger, Joseph C. 1954. Operating Principles of the Larger Foundations. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ———. 1987. Historiographic Review of Foundation Literature: Motivations and Perceptions. New York: Foundation Center. ———. 2000. Philanthropic Foundations in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe. 1989. The Politics of Knowledge: The Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy and Public Policy. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Nielsen, Waldemar. 1985. The Golden Donors: A New Anatomy of the Great Foundations. New York: Truman Talley, E. P. Dutton. U.S. Department of the Treasury. 1977a. Giving in America: Report of the [Filer] Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

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———. 1977b. Research Papers Sponsored by the [Filer] Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. 5 vols. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Weaver, Warren S. 1967. U.S. Philanthropic Foundations: Their History, Structure, Management, and Record. New York: Harper and Row. Whitaker, Ben. 1979. The Foundations: An Anatomy of Philanthropic Societies. New York: Pelican.

History of Philanthropy The history of philanthropy within Western civilization, after a period of long neglect, has become a topic of serious scholarly investigation over the past twentyfive years. An extensive scholarship on human charitable and philanthropic practices and institutions is now developing because historians, as well as investigators in kindred disciplines such as anthropology, law, and religious studies, now recognize the vital, formative roles that dynamic gift exchange and charitable action can take in human communities over time. Newer studies emphasize philanthropy’s dual capacity throughout history to affect and to effect systems of compassionate aid, ethics, government, status, and ritual. Consequently, widely accepted but vague definitions of “philanthropy,” as merely “the love of mankind”—manifest especially through private and voluntary giving for public benefit—are now open to criticism, revision, and expansion. Historical discoveries are uncovering the wide variety of human behaviors, power relations, obligations, and ambitions to which the term “philanthropy” and its cognates once applied. The historical dimensions of “philanthropy” are many. A human habit to conceive deities as givers of life and other benefits that must be acknowledged implies that principles of benevolent gift exchange fundamentally shape conceptions of the divine and form historic systems of religion and service. In these systems, the faithful emulate a generous God or gods by becoming givers themselves; giving is a religious duty and moral imperative of the highest order. This raises the question of whether philanthropic acts, especially those motivated by religious devotion, are ever the product of simple donor choice or voluntary subscription. Divinities, imagined as generous protectors of the most vulnerable members in human communities

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(orphans, widows, the sick, and so on), exhort the pious to exemplary charity for the weak. But changing popular convictions about the social utility or threat of the disabled can contradict such benevolent precepts. The history of philanthropy thus incorporates numerous, recurrent controversies over the real motives, right forms, and proper recipients of individual and collective aid. Given some donors’ expectations of recompense in this world or the next, philanthropy must be considered as a potential means to gratification, status definition, and power for individuals and social groups. Enduring early Christian reconceptualizations of charity as a donor’s payment to gain personal atonement and sanctification force scrutiny of giving as essentially self-serving and disciplinary in nature. From the third century of the common era (200 C.E.), Christian theologians argued that pious benefactors might better themselves, seek eternal preferment, and win entry to heaven with worldly gifts of the right kind. Here, the interests of givers greatly outweigh the needs of receivers in shaping philanthropy’s historical norms and forms. Medieval churchmen’s redefinitions of alms deeds to include fraternal correction and corporal punishment of sinners also expressly connect philanthropy and police for the preservation of Christendom. Under this regime of philanthropy, the conservation of God’s gift of grace, charity supreme, entails human generosity in the counsel, prosecution, and injury of sinners, whose evil acts diminish divine favor over all, threatening the salvation of others. The history of philanthropy must pay special attention to the dynamism of the subject demonstrated by past practitioners’ conflicting definitions and constant reinterpretations of the term and its meanings. Historically, the formation and expansion of political entities can be closely linked to how different competitors for civil power have employed their philanthropies as instruments of community consolidation, caste definition, imperial expansion, nation building, and colonialism. Concentrations of philanthropists and philanthropic institutions in ancient cities gave philanthropy a central role in the construction of civic culture and in the definition of civil society. Great territorial lords, such as kings from antiquity to early modern times, relied heavily on exclusive


and ceremonial presents to display their nobility and set strict limits to their own ranks. Monarchs tried to portray kingship itself as the superintendence of generosity in all things. Imperialists from Augustus Caesar to Queen Victoria coveted stature as supreme donors, endowing their dominions with waterworks, schools, libraries, stadiums, and markets that are the impressive infrastructure of empire. Innumerable private contributors gave to nineteenth-century explorer clubs and resolute missionary societies whose labors drove expanding European and American colonial empires throughout the Southern Hemisphere. And the precocious rise of the nation-state in the Western world gave philanthropists a new and demanding focus for their care to which they quickly responded. In modern times, patriotic donors and the trustees of philanthropic institutions often funded or modified private charities to serve what they believed to be the best interests of the state. Such widespread “nationalization” of private Western philanthropy starting in the eighteenth century compounds the political significance of the subject. It requires deeper investigation of philanthropy’s key role in building and changing power structures over time. Within kingdoms and states, social ranks and classes have differentiated themselves and reinforced group identity through their charitable practices. Distinctive forms of mutual aid and voluntary association, such as early modern friendly societies that amalgamated members’ small weekly donations to distribute upon unemployment or illness, have been crucial in sustaining laborers and working-class consciousness over time. Eighteenth-century non-noble businessmen capitalized upon their growing economic power and entrepreneurial skills to gain greater social recognition through their giving, especially by creating new charities, such as marine societies that trained orphans for naval or shipping careers. These new foundations more conspicuously served the economic and military interests of competitive nation-states while helping to advance the careers and fortunes of the donors. Operating settlement houses for needy transients and visiting the homes of the poor to distribute alms or advice also enabled nineteenth-century middle-class benefactors (male and female) to show off the virtuous habits of bourgeois domesticity

for wider public emulation. Middle-class women in Britain and the United States drew directly upon their experience running such charitable endeavors when they organized themselves in later suffrage campaigns to demand a vote in all elections—a transformation of experience demonstrating philanthropy’s historical importance as an apprenticeship to power. The multiplication of charity organization societies in Europe and America after 1860 came under the nearly complete direction of middle-ranking commoners. Here they promoted the belief that amateur, unfocused giving, especially indiscriminate largesse by society’s elite, must be replaced by coordinated, disciplined, and economical aid programs accountable for the real improvement of those being helped. Middleclass charity organizers demanded and developed “scientific philanthropy” as the only acceptable model of effective modern giving and service. This recent reconceptualization of philanthropy on scientific grounds has driven the accelerating professionalization of giving, fundraising, and foundation management in modern times. Contemporary philanthropists, now operating in bureaucratically streamlined charitable organizations, have also used their gifts to encourage the professionalization of other fields most useful to them. Seeking to comprehend and repair society’s problems more efficiently, major philanthropies have demanded and subsidized refinements in the social-scientific analytical skills applied by demographers, economists, sociologists, social workers, statisticians, and urban planners. The history of philanthropy must therefore push beyond descriptions of problems solved and people helped to include major alterations in socioprofessional ranks and status hierarchies caused by swifter circulation of gift capital and sharper competition over its efficient use. The subversive, insurrectionary, and liberating potentials of philanthropy in history are plainly evident and demand new attention. Benevolent associations, be they apostles, chivalric brotherhoods, or humane societies of various kinds, have often become potent agencies of change, challenging the status quo, empowering the meek, and freeing the disadvantaged from oppression. For good or ill, brotherly bands have driven schismatic religious movements in ancient and modern times, using exemplary care of others to fracture and

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renew creeds. Over time, benevolent voluntary associations have extended civil rights and protections, for example, by aiding immigrants, working to free slaves, and demanding better treatment for the mentally ill. Nor should the simple, emancipating power of ordinary people to make last wills and testaments be overlooked. This right to testamentary charity, exercised even by females in more patriarchal times, enabled propertied individual donors to make ultimate distribution of their own worldly goods. Since as early as the sixteenth century, European women, especially spinsters and widows, have adeptly used their legal right to make will gifts so as to thwart kinsmen’s efforts at controlling or despoiling them. Often with help from the independent philanthropic institutions their testamentary gifts enriched, aging benefactresses parlayed their estate donations into lifetime annuities invulnerable to family misappropriation and set up long-term pension plans under institutional guarantee for their unrelated girlfriends in surviving female support networks. Seen in this perspective, incidents of philanthropy have often liberated benefactors and beneficiaries from the dictates of authority and convention. A chronological overview of successive, interconnected regimes of philanthropy offers further examples of themes necessary for full historical analysis of the subject.

Judaism’s Philanthropies Charity is a moral imperative deeply structuring the daily rituals by which Jews must demonstrate their fidelity to one God, essentially defined by his abundant giving to the people of Israel. The earliest books of the Bible, comprising the Torah, or fundamental Jewish law, and dating from 900 to 600 B.C.E., state God’s possession of the universe and require the propertied to know themselves as merely stewards of the worldly goods donated for their use by Jehovah (Lev. 25:23: “for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me”). Mosaic descriptions of the divine as the special guardian of orphans, widows, and refugees entail Israelites, in turn, to render material and spiritual assistance quickly to the bereft (Deut. 10:19: “Love the stranger therefore; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”). Misanthropy is apostasy, unthinkable disobedience and renunciation of

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God. Rendering divine justice (tsedeq in Hebrew) to the weak and needy informs Jewish conceptions of charity or good works (tsedaqah), enhancing the imperative nature of such philanthropy. From the eighth through the seventh centuries B.C.E., the tribes of Israel thus established compulsory systems of community tithing at weekly, annual, triennial, septennial, and quindecennial rhythms for the help of the impoverished, the indebted, and the enslaved. Rites of giving organized ancient Jewish calendars and spaces of worship. From the era of the second temple (536 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.), Jews provided chambers for the collection and distribution of charity within the hallowed inner sanctum of the Jerusalem temple and other synagogues. Donors could leave their gifts secretly in one room, while beneficiaries collected the offering in a second room, unseen by contributors and thus immune to any shame that might sully that exchange in the eyes of God. Philanthropy informed the entire architecture of Jewish shrines and communities. Generations of rabbis taught their supporters to believe that biblical commandments entailed charitable assistance from rich to poor beyond customary gleanings and tithes for the needy. Lessons in this regard fill Talmudic literature compiled from 200 to 600 C.E. Voluntary givers who act anonymously, forswearing fame, who organize others in lasting systems of aid, and whose gifts reach recipients before they fall into destitution earn highest praise in this literature. Humane conduct of discretionary charity also long shaped the hierarchy of all Jewish virtues, as the later ethical writings of Maimonides (1135–1204 C.E.) attest. Charity here is not only an indispensable virtue in itself, it is the crucial action enabling other virtues of the Jews to manifest themselves: piety, compassion, love of justice, and devotion to communal survival. At the turn of the common era, accumulating rabbinical judgments stipulated acceptable material limits to charitable behavior, prescribed annulments to tithes and jubilees for the needy under certain conditions, and condoned closer scrutiny and wiser selection of recipients by donors offering aid. Field corners to be left for poor gleaners, for example, were set precisely at one-sixtieth of the surface area of each farmer’s holding. The superiority of tithes and chari-


Following ancient tradition, a kibbutz member (and rabbi) tithes some of his onions to the land, as the temple is no longer available. (Ted Spiegel/Corbis)

table acts accomplished at Jerusalem was reiterated. The hierarchical implications of Jewish charity, structuring social ranks and the protocols of priestly office, intensified to yield more seemly but also more debatable philanthropic acts. Jewish sectarians antedating the rise of Christianity took new inspiration from disputes over proper forms of giving. These controversies catalyzed broader dissent against established and intertwined political, religious, and charitable institutions. Breakaway Jewish sects, such as the apostolic movement of the Nazarene Jesus, employed a rebellious philanthropy to castigate opponents, succor new supporters, and win disciplined followers.

Greco-Roman Philanthropies The ancient Greek word philanthropia can be translated as “love for mankind.” But the Greeks and Romans assembled a much wider range of practical definitions for the term between 500 B.C.E. and the

beginning of the common era (1 C.E.). To the Greeks, philanthropy was first the attribute of gods, such as Prometheus, who took pity on lowly mankind and granted celestial gifts, in this case fire, given to relieve the darkness and raw misery of human existence. “Philanthropy” thus served as a special marker of godliness and divine benevolence and justified cosmic hierarchies with gods on top and subordinate humans below engaging in ritual worship of those deities. Ancient Mediterranean peoples, Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Christians, shared a conception of gods as great givers. From an early date in the West, philanthropy informed and shaped religious values and practices. The utility of gifts to mark and legitimate status distinctions captivated classical scholars and monarchs who cooperated to place “philanthropy” among the regal attributes of mortal kings. With wise gifts to underlings, noble leaders could become gods on earth, legitimating their worldly rule and more effectively

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eliciting their subjects’ obedience. The Greek philosopher and royal tutor Xenophon (c. 430 B.C.E.–c. 355 B.C.E.) extolled “philanthropist” as the best and most influential status for a true monarch. Later Hellenic kings and Byzantine emperors could thus be suitably addressed in Greek as “Your Philanthropy,” a more flattering title than “Your Majesty” and one showing that imperial rulership flowed from great gifts. The Greeks and the Romans described philanthropy as a compelling force in the power politics of human communities wielded cunningly by those who sought to dominate classical polities. For both peoples, “philanthropy” also came to mean trustworthy conduct in diplomacy, especially through proper reception and treatment of ambassadors, honest negotiation of alliances, and fidelity to the details of written treaties. The term accumulated very strong, normative, political and diplomatic connotations. Ancient city-state governments might confer “philanthropies,” meaning honorary titles, special privileges, and fiscal exemptions, upon residents for their outstanding military, diplomatic, or cultural achievements. Town governors extolled generosity in private gifts for broad public benefit as a necessary virtue of fortunate citizens. Rich townsmen took up this obligation, competing for the sociopolitical advantages donors could claim though gifts to fund city arsenals, to build up protective walls, to distribute grain cheaply, to erect temples, and to stage impressive civic events such as drama festivals. The entire corpus of great Greek plays, still performed to rapt audiences today, owes its creation to a multitude of ancient presents made by Greek private donors who built theaters, gave patronage to playwrights, hired or coached actors, and subsidized drama contests. Greek municipalities relied heavily on such donations to fund civic amenities and sought to make them the perennial responsibility of wealthy private givers. Lacking any blood aristocracy transmitting and monopolizing status by inheritance, Greek urban communities conferred prestige on a succession of wealthier private citizens who excelled in the open, competitive art of giving. For ambitious townsmen, failure to participate in these philanthropic contests killed their charisma. Parsimony became ignoble suicide. Aspiring patrons of public life in the Greco-

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Roman world thus confronted philanthropy not as a choice but as a duty that could be legitimately coerced via peer pressure, popular demand, and the adjudications of civic law courts. For the Greeks, “philanthropy” could also define the generous attitude of itinerant philosophers, such as Socrates, who shared their learning freely and “gave” correction to the arrogant and ignorant. Such generosity with their learning set philosophers apart (as more godlike) and introduced “philanthropy” as a signifier of superior human intellect and vision. This empowered the learned to probe convention, question established wisdom, and bid to direct education of the young. A jury of Athenian citizens condemned Socrates to death and executed him (in 399 B.C.E.) on a charge of “corrupting youth” through his gift for public teaching (supported by donations from students). This example demonstrates just how risky and dangerous the contentious lives of ancient “philanthropists” could become. Ancient idioms suggest that “philanthropy” could subdivide and factionalize as well as construct and sustain communities. As conquerors, heirs, and cautious copiers of the Greeks, the Romans assumed better apprehension and regulation of philanthropy to be among their greatest obligations as a civilized people. Roman efforts to systematize a practical ethics of giving to preserve society itself can best be seen in the works of Stoic philosophers such as Seneca, including his On Benefits, composed circa 60 C.E. This thorough analysis of gifts made and acknowledged well or ill asserts a direct linkage between faulty giving by amateur benefactors and rampant ingratitude among beneficiaries. And ingratitude, according to Seneca, is a terrible thing threatening the integrity of Roman civilization itself, held together only by the “glue” of gratitude binding beneficiaries to benefactors at all levels of society. Prospective donors must be instructed in the politics and psychology of how to give rightly to generate maximum gratitude from receivers. Seneca’s massive guidebook on the subject demands all patrons to choose their beneficiaries and their benefits with exacting premeditation. “No gift can be a benefit unless it is given with reason. . . . Thoughtless benefaction is the most shameful sort of loss” (Seneca 1989 [c. 60], 222).


Seneca requires donors to set clear priorities in giving. Selection and distribution of necessities for the needy must replace delivery of mere embellishments to life or frivolous entertainments. Indiscriminate Greek modes of giving are now condemned as grossly irresponsible, neither satisfying real public needs nor generating the deep gratitude between giver and receiver that holds entire communities together. Roman lawyers contributed to this timely, binding redefinition of philanthropy. They laid the basis for a Western law of wills and foundations in stratagems by which one generation of donors could secure funds in perpetuity for their own proper funeral and recurrent memorial rites. This arrangement better obligated successive generations of descendants to pious performance of these anniversary ceremonies. According to Seneca, correct Roman givers must also scrutinize and choose their beneficiaries very carefully. The donor’s easy comfort in judging the character of others in need becomes essential to the successful consummation of this highly political philanthropy. In Seneca, one thus finds classical anticipations of subsequent arguments that Western philanthropy must become a discriminatory science in which the calculations of the head regulate the impulses of the heart. Seneca’s treatise also prefigures later contentions that the state itself must be construed as the ultimate beneficiary of all discrete acts of private philanthropy.

Christian Philanthropies The Jesus movement was initially driven by iconoclastic, heart-felt forms of philanthropy. Historians of early Christianity have amassed evidence of a new church integrated by novel modes of giving inimical to Jewish, Christian, and Roman regimes of generosity in communal government. Ecumenical charitable practices appear to be the essential means by which Christians distinguished themselves from Jews, captured enthusiastic Greek disciples, built up church institutions, and blocked Roman attacks on the young sect. The striking variety of lessons about giving conveyed in early Christian literature attests to the importance of debates over proper charitable practices in the genesis of new faiths throughout the ancient world. Recent investigations of Christian origins in-

tensify the importance of selflessness, voluntary poverty, alms deeds, and hospitality in the life of Jesus and the church his acolytes constructed. Here, church members’ cathartic identification with small groups of brethren through loyal sharing and total devotion to care of the needy is seen as the foundation of a new creed. In the Gospel of Mark (composed c. 65 C.E.), Jesus distinguishes himself by engaging in repeated acts of healing, exorcism, and miraculous provision of sustenance (see Mark 6:38–44 for the famous multiplication of loaves and fishes). Jesus also heals the withered hand of a suffering man in a synagogue on the Sabbath, asking rhetorically: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good?” (Mark 3:4). He puts active service of human needs above rigid observation of Jewish law requiring rest on the holy day. Awed disciples and outraged Jewish priests witness Jesus’ subversive intensification of the individual charitable imperative that Judaism first championed. Jesus amplifies these calls for a more comprehensive benevolence in Mark by demanding that each follower become a “servant of all” (Mark 9:35) and prepare for discipleship by giving away all personal possessions to the poor (10:21). This order contradicts Talmudic rulings that no benefactor ever part with more than a fifth of his wealth in doing good nor ever become a charge on the community as a whole. The disciple’s willful impoverishment also makes rich, Greek-style largesse to gain honor impossible. The Gospel of Luke (6:27–31) also communicates Jesus’ command to love your enemies and to give to every beggar generously and without expectation of any return whatsoever. Early Christians’ total disinterest in the character of their beneficiaries and in their capacity to acknowledge or repay a benefit broke all the rules Stoical Romans set for politically correct generosity. A parable told in Luke (10:29–37) recounts how a wounded Jewish traveler, untouchable by a Hebrew priest and a Levite punctiliously observing caste purity laws, is saved by the Samaritan, a foreigner, whose charity thus transcends boundaries of tribal identity and social rank. This is the Christian role model of transcendent compassion. The Christian God embodied in Gospel parables as the Good Samaritan advocates a more universal charity that is

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not self-seeking or ostentatious. Such early Christian ideas about alms defeat momentarily the self-promoting purposes seen in Greco-Roman giving. Christian recruitment and growth in the power of church officials often proceeded through gifts to others: free weekly group meals to build solidarity, ransom payments to redeem captive brethren, and distribution of church alms in times of disaster. Converts to Christianity altered classical balances of power between benefactors and beneficiaries. The growing Christian church was not merely a refuge for the poor and miserable. Wealthier, more learned townsmen also joined new congregations, employing their administrative talents and personal gifts to strengthen and guide the church. Through their control of sacred offices, especially bishoprics, Christian notables competed directly with old pagan elites for the power and prestige within late antique cities. However, church officials, at the command of an authoritarian institution built to achieve doctrinal orthodoxy among adherents, also had to discipline their flocks. Christian authorities used pious giving to police ordinary believers while rewriting many times over their doctrines on the proper means and ends of philanthropy. By presenting themselves through impressive acts of public welfare as “lovers of the poor,” bishops relied upon acts of philanthropy to mobilize popular support for the extension of their own autocratic governing authority. Regular church food doles tended to keep the needy in one place, and ecclesiastical licensing of beggars helped to make the itinerant more tractable for intimidating call-up if need be to back their episcopal patrons in urban power struggles. Thus Christian bishops began to challenge pagan town governors’ former monopoly over the maintenance of public order and its rewards. Such clerical generosity, however, was neither disinterested nor directed unconditionally to the relief of suffering. Institutionalized Christian philanthropy here appears as a vital means by which great rival social and religious factions vying for political power contested and supplanted one another, occasionally at the expense of the poor. Success in this spirited police action required clerical patrons to exercise their disciplinary skills via charitable acts and to modify discourse about the proper objectives of Christian charity.

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Most crucial here was church supervision over the accumulation and strategic use of wealth, not direction for its abandonment. Selective charity gained significance as a means of personal preferment and containment of sin, habituating ordinary givers to the tutelage of their clerical superiors about salvation. Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo in 396–430 C.E., asserted that “almsgiving without purpose of amendment is useless” (Augustine 1978 [421], 74). According to Augustine, acceptable methodical alms included reproaches to the immoral and physical punishment of sinners. A good almsgiver could be one “who corrects with blows or restrains by any kind of disciplinary measure another over whom he has authority” (ibid., 72). High clerics’ advocacy of alms to protect and police entire Christian communities reconnected private philanthropy with the power politics of the public sphere.

Medieval and Renaissance Philanthropies Later Roman and Byzantine emperors accepted Christianity in part because they recognized the abundant social services churches could provide to their poorest subjects and saw the utility of churchmen in the charitable maintenance of public order. Emperor Constantine’s edict of 321 C.E. gave the Catholic Church the right to stand as heir and receive will gifts from all testators. Increased legacies to the church enabled construction of diverse affiliated charitable institutions, including hospitals, orphanages, almshouses, and monasteries. The collapse of the old urbanized Roman Empire in western Europe after 500 C.E. and the flight of populations to the countryside under the pressure of barbarian invasions demolished many of the established church charities. Rural monasteries as unrivaled institutional dispensaries of Christian charity would only endure as long as the bulk of the surviving western European population was rooted to the land under the feudal system. However, a slow recovery of long-distance travel, trade, and town life gathering force after 1000 C.E. promoted population shifts back to cities and human abandonment of fixed monastic care networks. Rising town populations after 1200 C.E., with a disproportionate increase in the numbers of the poor, presented westerners with new dilemmas over the management


and care of the needy and sick, whose numbers seemed to be dangerously increasing. Cities at this time became centers of innovative private initiative and institutional experiment in the practice of philanthropy. Urbanites took the lead through their own charities in prioritizing relief efforts and in discriminating more finely between the deserving and undeserving indigent. The miserable rapidly lost their once endearing status as the “poor of Christ.” In the towns of the Byzantine Empire, hospitals expanded to cope with an intensified urbanization of the population. They benefited from a propensity of Greek Christians to appreciate medicine as the finest form of love in action—philanthropy in a new and popular professional guise. Byzantine emperors permitted hospitals to accept gifts and legacies directly, freeing them from fiscal control by clerics and enabling them to pursue their own fundraising as secular foundations legally independent of the church. Emperors conferred exemptions from imperial taxation on these organizations, causing them to thrive. By medieval times, the noun “philanthropy” also came to mean the tax-exempt status imperial rulers conferred on select charities. From this early date, fiscal immunities became integral to the definition and ethos of Western philanthropic institutions. In European cities of the era, the provision of care became an arena of contention between venturesome benefactors who sought both to help more of the needy and to validate their own particular conception of true Christian charity. Participants in these philanthropic experiments included the reform-minded mendicant orders of the Catholic Church, Franciscans (founded 1209 C.E.), and Dominicans (1216 C.E.), who embraced poverty, became beggars themselves, and sought to vivify Catholic philanthropy with a return to the self-abnegating, “Samaritan” behaviors of Jesus and his early apostles. Urban lay confraternities of men and women became important contemporary competitors in collective efforts to practice a more meaningful charity. A confraternity was a club of ordinary citizens who joined together to accomplish pious and philanthropic works satisfying their need for immediate, personal enactments of neighborly Christian virtues. Some confraternities operated under priestly direc-

tion, but most had just a chaplain and were only loosely tied to clerical networks of influence. These voluntary associations used pooled, private donations to care directly for certain classes of the needy, to sponsor impressive rituals of communal peacemaking, and to patronize artists of all kinds. In Florence and other Italian Renaissance cities, volunteers flocked to confraternities, creating more than 100 such organizations by the fifteenth century. Adherents used these organizations in part to forge peaceable ties with other citizens across frightening boundaries of neighborhood and social rank. The psycho-social benefits accruing to donors and volunteers living in densely populated, conflicted cities became the chief motivating factors to innovative forms of secular philanthropic activity. But what the recipients of such aid actually got now depended more on what made donors feel better about themselves. Mendicant and confraternal revisions of Christian charity encouraged a proliferation of more individual philanthropic ventures, often paid for by newly enriched Renaissance merchants and business entrepreneurs. Private foundations of all kinds developed under the patronage and investment of these men and their womenfolk. They showed a penchant for practical forms of endowed philanthropy to earn personal spiritual benefit, committing productive agricultural lands or funds in perpetuity to set up and run hospitals, orphan homes, charity schools, apprenticeship programs, and asylums for the elderly throughout the cities and towns of Europe. Unfortunately, rampant inflation, currency debasements, fluctuating real estate values, and theft or misuse of funds by trustees sapped the resources and utility of endowed European foundations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the extravagance, obsolescence, and corruption of many endowments, among the most widespread forms of philanthropy, invited sweeping attacks on this venerable but outmoded agency of caring by statesmen, jurists, and determined charity organizers.

Early Modern Philanthropies The famous Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses (1601) represents one royal government’s effort to curtail the whim of patronage and arrest the rampant

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corruption of private charitable foundations. The wholesale confiscation and disbandment of Catholic charities by Tudor monarchs in the contemporaneous English Reformation made it imperative that all available philanthropic capital be employed productively to save the state the cost of supporting the old parish poor. The preamble to the Statute on Uses specified those charitable causes susceptible to legal endowment via trusts, including aid of the poor, care of veterans, advancement of learning, and promotion of religion. Parliament was determined to multiply the amount of private monies available to promote social welfare, so this bill stipulated in great detail how lawful commissions of inquiry under government aegis could be formed to discover “any breach of trust, falsity, non-employment, concealment or conversion” of endowed charitable funds. Delegating its powers of surveillance, the Elizabethan state partnered with lawyers and philanthropists in creating a more secure legal environment for the private service of public welfare. The statute not merely defined charitable uses but also announced the state’s prerogative to police an early semblance of the nonprofit sector. The Elizabethan Statute should be considered merely the earliest in a long series of royal edicts and parliamentary acts across Europe more carefully regulating charitable organizations and their property under state supervision. In the eighteenth century, new statutes of mortmain were enacted by many European kings and legislatures (England in 1735, France in 1749, Hapsburg Empire in 1755). The common purpose of this legislation was to restrict severely the capacity of donors to convey real estate or monies derived from landed wealth into the permanent endowments of charitable organizations. Such assets, it was argued, should not be locked in mortmain—immune to sale and market forces forever. These resources better belonged in the patrimonies of noble families and landed magnates whose dynastic material welfare and unimpeded commercial activity were more important to the sociopolitical stability of rapidly modernizing states. The creation of any new endowed foundations was also rendered far more difficult by this legislation, in part so as to diminish the amount of fixed charitable assets retarding development of more dynamic and productive commercial

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markets bankrolling the modernization of the state and economy. Statesmen contended that charities could better prosper through entirely ad hoc fundraising campaigns and more competitive solicitation of cash gifts from individual donors to meet immediate needs. Under a regime of more exacting charitable efficiency, donors themselves sought better investment of their gifts, ideally training needy people for productive selfsufficiency, which would be better for the social security of all. This historical process has been called a “capitalization of charity,” a tendency among early modern European and American philanthropists after 1600 to construe charitable donations as their own voluntary capital placements entitling them to tangible returns and to some degree of lifetime control over the employment of funds they provided to entrepreneurs running innovative philanthropies. The advent of charity as capital made the jobs of officers in philanthropic organizations harder. Charity as capital volatilized streams of private donations, accelerating the pace at which donors demanded hard evidence of positive welfare outcomes and shifted their support at will among numerous, more highly competitive relief organizations to maximize their gifts’ public benefit. Charity as capital also promoted a reconceptualization of philanthropy itself as a choice, not necessarily a duty or moral obligation of the propertied. Philanthropy’s ascription to voluntary action within the “voluntary sector” is thus a comparatively recent historical development. Charity administrators, especially a new cadre of middle-class trustees, now had to seek, elicit, and manage a mix of private donations, public subventions, and legitimate institutional earnings in order to accomplish their philanthropic missions. Thus, far from being outside the development of contemporary market economies and state instruments of police, post-Reformation European and American philanthropies, in their quest for operational efficiency, promoted the calculating and experimental attitudes of mind intrinsic to capitalism’s success in well-governed polities.

Modern Philanthropies The eighteenth century witnessed the interconnected capitalization, nationalization, and rationalization of

Hogg, Ima

philanthropy. This process was refined and globalized in the nineteenth century as leading benefactors promoted organized philanthropy as a science requiring higher degrees of expertise from its practitioners. Wholesale importation of efficient business methods into the running of charities, championed by earlytwentieth-century American captains of industry such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, resuscitated the endowed but newly agile foundation as a legitimate vehicle of modern scientific philanthropy capable of reinventing itself regularly to cure emergent social or cultural problems. The dynamism of the modern nonprofit sector may be recent history’s most impressive contribution to philanthropy. However, the conscience of modern philanthropists and their lingering obligatory sense of giving as justice may be rooted more deeply in the subject’s antiquity. Kevin C. Robbins References and further reading Andrew, Donna. 1989. Philanthropy and Police: London Charity in the Eighteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Augustine, St. 1978 [421]. Faith, Hope, and Charity. Translated by Louis Arand. New York: Newman Press. Brown, Peter. 2002. Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press. Cavallo, Sandra. 1995. Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy: Benefactors and Their Motives in Turin, 1541–1789. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Constantelos, Demetrios. 1991. Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare. New Rochelle, NY: Aristide Caratzas. Cunningham, Hugh, and Joanna Innes, eds. 1998. Charity, Philanthropy, and Reform. London: Macmillan. Davis, Natalie. 2000. The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Flynn, Maureen. 1989. Sacred Charity: Confraternities and Social Welfare in Spain, 1400–1700. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Henderson, John. 1994. Piety and Charity in Renaissance Florence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Himmelfarb, Gertrude. 1991. Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians. New York: Knopf. Kloppenborg, John S., and S. G. Wilson, eds. 1996. Voluntary Associations in the Greco-Roman World. London: Routledge. Lindberg, Carter. 1993. Beyond Charity: Reformation Initiatives for the Poor. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Loewenberg, Frank. 2001. From Charity to Social Justice: The Emergence of Communal Institutions for Support of the Poor

in Ancient Judaism. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Miller, Timothy. 1985. The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rickett, C. E. F. 1979. “Charitable Giving in English and Roman Law. A Comparison.” Cambridge Law Journal 38: 118–147. Safely, Thomas. 1997. Charity and Economy in the Orphanages of Early Modern Augsburg. Boston: Humanities Press. Seneca. 1989 [c. 60]. Moral Essays. Vol. 3, On Benefits. Translated by John Basore. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Veyne, Paul. 1976. Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism. London: Penguin Books. Weissman, Ronald. 1982. Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence. New York: Academic Press. Wilson, Peter. 2000. The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City, and the Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winter, Bruce. 1994. Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Hogg, Ima (1882–1975) Ima Hogg, philanthropist, collector, and patron of the arts, was the daughter of Texas governor James Stephen Hogg and his wife Sarah Ann. Fondly known as Miss Ima for most of her ninety-three years, she was born in Mineola, Texas, on July 10, 1882. She had three brothers. Miss Ima was eight years old when her father first took office as governor, and she spent many of her younger years in Austin, where the family resided. Ima’s mother died of tuberculosis in 1895 and Ima was sent to a boarding school at the Coronal Institute in San Marcos. In 1899, she enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, and two years later she went to New York City to study music. She had played the piano since the age of three. When her father became ill in 1905, Miss Ima stayed by his bedside and nursed him until he died from a heart attack in 1906. The following year, she left for Europe to continue her music studies in Vienna and Berlin. When she returned to live in Houston, she gave piano lessons to a select group of students and subsequently founded the Houston Symphony

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Orchestra, the beginning of her many philanthropic endeavors. She became ill in 1918 and spent the next two years in Philadelphia to receive care by a specialist in mental and nervous disorders, but returned to Houston in 1923. The family oil business had finally struck oil near West Columbia, Texas, and Miss Ima was widely involved in philanthropic activities. She founded the Houston Child Guidance Center in 1929 to provide treatment and counseling for troubled children and their families. Miss Ima’s older brother, William Clifford, died in 1930, leaving a bequest that facilitated Ima’s establishment of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Hygiene, which later became the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas. Miss Ima, a Democrat, played her hand in politics in 1943 and won an election to the Houston school board. There, she worked to create symphony concerts for children in school and to ensure equal pay for teachers regardless of sex or race. Before Ima became ill and left for Philadelphia in 1918, she was the president of the Houston Symphony Society, a position she returned to in 1946 and would hold for ten more years. She became the first woman president of the Philosophical Society of Texas in 1948. Miss Ima had been collecting American art and antiques since the 1920s, and in 1966 she presented her collection, as well as Bayou Bend, the River Oaks mansion that she and her brothers had built in 1927, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Thousands of visitors are drawn to the Bayou Bend Collection annually to see one of the most distinctive collected works of its kind. The Hogg family home at Varner Plantation near West Columbia was restored by Miss Ima in the 1950s and presented to the state of Texas as the Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historical Park. The next decade, she refurbished the Winedale Inn and gave it to the University of Texas. Winedale Inn was a stagecoach depot and livery at Round Top, Texas, in the 1800s. It now serves as a history center for the study of Texas’s past where an annual fine arts festival is held. In 1969, the town of Quitman, Texas, launched the Ima Hogg Museum in her honor. The museum was originally her parents’ home in Quitman.

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In 1953, Miss Ima was appointed by Governor Allan Shivers to the Texas State Historical Survey Committee, a body that gave her an award in 1967 to recognize her astounding work and commitment in preserving Texas history. In 1960, she served by appointment from President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a planning member of the National Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., which is now better known as the Kennedy Center. Two years later, Ima Hogg was asked by Jacqueline Kennedy to serve on an advisory panel to help find historical furniture for the White House. Miss Ima’s interest in gardens was also rewarded when the Garden Club of America honored her in 1959. Other honors she received came from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1966 and from the American Association for State and Local History in 1969. Ima Hogg’s contributions to the state of Texas and the University of Texas were recognized when she became the first recipient of the Santa Rita Award, given by the University of Texas system for her contributions to the university and higher education. The Academy of Texas honored Miss Ima, Oveta Culp Hobby, and Lady Bird Johnson as the first three women members in 1969. The academy honors outstanding recipients who expand and facilitate knowledge in any field of higher education. Miss Ima also received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Southwestern University in 1971, and the following year she was recognized for her contributions to America’s cultural heritage when she received the National Society of Interior Designers’ Thomas Jefferson Award. Ima Hogg left for London shortly after her ninetythird birthday to attend concerts and visit museums. She fell out of a taxi on the way to the theater, however, and broke her hip. She died soon thereafter, on August 19, 1975. She was buried on August 23 in Oakwood Cemetery, Austin. Her funeral was held at Bayou Bend, her beloved home, which she had long planned as a gift to the city of Houston. The Ima Hogg Foundation, a not-for-profit organization set up by Miss Ima in 1964 to enrich research, knowledge, and capacities for mental health, was the major benefactor in her will. Mark Neumeister

Hoover, Herbert Clark

References and further reading Bernhard, Virginia. 1984. Ima Hogg: The Governor’s Daughter. Austin: Texas Monthly Press. ———. 2002. “Ima Hogg.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 147–151. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. “Governor Daniel.” Note from Ima Hogg, Page 1, Texas State Library. Texas State Library and Archives Commission, http://castor.tsl.state.tx.us/governors/ modern/daniel-hogg-1.html (cited October 17, 2001). “Hogg, Ima.” The Handbook of Texas Online, http:// www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/ HH/fh016.html (cited August 30, 2001). Iscoe, Louise. 1976. Ima Hogg: First Lady of Texas. Austin: Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.

Hoover, Herbert Clark (1874–1964) Herbert Clark Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States, was born to Quaker parents in West Branch, Iowa, in 1874 but was orphaned at the age of ten with the death of his mother, his father having died from typhoid fever when Hoover was just six. After the death of his parents, he moved to Oregon to live and work with an uncle. Although Herbert Hoover did not attend high school, he was admitted to Stanford University in 1891 and graduated in 1895 with a degree in geology. He married his college sweetheart and fellow geology student Lou Henry in 1899, and together they had two sons, Herbert Jr. and Allan. After establishing himself as a premier mining scout and amassing a fortune of approximately $4 million, Hoover focused on his career as a public servant. He helped to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and employ the unemployed with various programs both domestically and abroad. His philanthropy, supported by his personal beliefs and practices of individualism, also encompassed his various political roles. His emphasis on the benefits of voluntary service was pervasive throughout his career. While running his mining business in London during the early 1900s, Hoover was a passionate observer of the society of several European countries at a crucial period in world history. As World War I broke out, he directed a program that helped thou-

sands of stranded American tourists to find safe passage back to the United States. Because of this successful mission, Hoover left behind his lucrative mining business to head the Commission for Relief Belgium (CRB), which was created in 1914 to help feed millions of starving Belgians and French citizens. Hoover successfully directed this vast food administration program and was personally in charge of international diplomacy and fundraising (Eckley 1980, 28). Hoover’s work during his stint in Belgium earned him an appointment as U.S. food administrator in 1917 by President Woodrow Wilson. Hoover accepted the position, seeing it as an opportunity to volunteer alongside his fellow Americans in the war effort. A war-ravaged Europe awaited the support of the United States at the end of World War I. Hoover was commissioned by President Wilson to redefine the mission of the Food Administration to create a new agency, the American Relief Administration, which would help to reconstruct Europe, and eventually it became a private agency. Facing imperialistic ideas among the leaders of key European nations, Hoover focused on those who were most devastated by the war, the children. Millions of orphaned, malnourished, and diseased children, including those of the former enemy, Germany, were fed through his efforts. In 1921, Hoover went on to become the secretary of commerce under President Warren Harding, a position he held for seven years. While in the cabinet, he consolidated organizations for the health and welfare of children into the American Child Health Association. He ran for president as a Republican in 1928 and won by 6 million popular votes and 375 electoral votes. Shortly thereafter, the stock-market crash of 1929 occurred. Hoover’s idealist individualism, which led him to argue against federal aid to alleviate the Great Depression, contributed to his loss of favor among the American people, and thus, his loss in 1932 to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Seeing his loss as emancipation, Hoover became an outspoken opponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal and threw himself into his personal philanthropic interests. He served as chairman of Boys Club of America and helped to establish 500 new Boys Clubs during

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his tenure. He also served for nearly fifty years on the Stanford University board of trustees. In 1938, he returned to Europe to be recognized for his contributions following the war, but with a new war looming, Hoover returned to the United States and warned against involvement in the potential conflict. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he began to reevaluate how realistic world peace might be. Following World War II, President Harry S. Truman asked Hoover to conduct a study to assess worldwide food needs, and in 1946 he became the cofounder of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). He went on to open several libraries and collections across the country (Eckley 1980, 46). Hoover did much of his giving in private and went on to write and publish a number of books and articles before his death on October 20, 1964. Keight S. Tucker References and further reading Eckley, Wilton. 1980. Herbert Hoover. Edited by Kenneth E. Eble. Boston: Twayne. Fausold, Martin L. 1985. The Presidency of Herbert Hoover. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Hoover, Herbert C. 1951–1952. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover. 3 vols. New York: Macmillan. Nash, George H. 1983–1996. The Life of Herbert Hoover. 3 vols. New York: W. W. Norton. “Herbert Hoover.” White House Web site, http://www .whitehouse.gov/history/prsidents/hh31.html (cited October 17, 2002).

Howe, Samuel Gridley (1801–1876) Samuel Gridley Howe pursued philanthropic causes throughout his lifetime—from doctoring the wounded in wartime to raising funds for European independence movements to advocacy for the disabled. Howe is best remembered as an innovator in education for the blind and deaf, a reformer of treatment for the mentally ill, and an advocate for the integration of blacks during and after the Civil War. In his twenties, he placed himself in harm’s way to aid the Greeks in their fight for independence. A few years later, Howe worked to aid starving Polish refugees who were also fighting for independence. Directly after these events, he established the first school for the blind in the United States—the Perkins

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School for the Blind in Boston. His involvement in advocacy and social reform in many areas continued until the time of his death. As a child, Howe loved playing a good joke on someone. Known as a prankster throughout his schooling, Samuel Gridley Howe came to channel that energy into philanthropic work in his native Boston and elsewhere throughout the nineteenth century. Born on November 10, 1801, Howe grew up knowing what it was like to be an outsider. His father was an ardent Jeffersonian Democrat, which set the family apart in the strongly Federalist Boston area. The family was not wealthy; consequently, Howe attended the Latin School and Brown University, neither of which was considered a first-rate learning institution at the time. A mediocre student at best, he was suspended on several occasions due to problems in his behavior. In 1821, Howe entered Harvard Medical School and soon went to study with Dr. Ingalls, a prominent Boston physician. In the medical profession, Howe found his calling. The tumultuous international events of the 1820s also were an allure for the new doctor. In 1828, Howe traveled to Greece to aid the patriotic army in their fight for Greek independence. He found the experience enthralling and was soon fully engulfed in the struggle, nursing the wounded, raising money for the poor, even traveling back to the United States to rally Americans around the Greek cause. It was at this point in time that Howe’s philanthropic roots were firmly planted. During these excursions back to the states, he actively raised money for the war effort in Greece. These fundraising trips were extremely successful; Howe raised thousands of dollars and became a hero in his local community for his efforts. His experiences in Greece and other parts of Europe led him, in 1831, to become interested in establishing a school for the blind. A figure of some prominence in Boston, Howe saw the establishment of a school as the way to bolster his self-worth while simultaneously helping an underrepresented group in society. All through his life, Howe would struggle to reconcile his great need for recognition and importance with an unnaturally low self-esteem. Howe began the project by visiting France, England, and Germany to see how the blind were edu-

Howe, Samuel Gridley

cated in those countries. Ideologically opposed to the methods he observed there, Howe decided to forge new territory in the education of the blind and the deaf. But, in 1832, Howe faced an obstacle far greater than how to run his school—imprisonment in Berlin. He was imprisoned by the Germans while trying to bring relief to starving Polish refugees during their war for independence. Released shortly thereafter, Howe returned to Boston even more a hero than when he left. Many citizens of the city had started to call him a philanthropist, a term loaded with respect and social status. At the time, philanthropy in Boston was an activity of the very elite. His elevation into a higher stratum of people served further to legitimate his burgeoning work with the blind and deaf. Howe revolutionized the way that the blind and, to some degree, the deaf came to be educated. He began by printing books in Braille upon his return to Boston in 1832, the same year in which he officially started the Perkins School for the Blind. He quickly printed the Bible, Paradise Lost, Hamlet, and Pilgrim’s Progress, among other works (Sanborn 1891). He also improved the Braille typeset, making it easier to decipher, and began to train teachers to instruct students on the use of Braille books and other learning materials. In 1843, Howe married Julia Ward. Between 1851 and 1853, they coedited Commonwealth, a Boston newspaper devoted to the antislavery movement. Julia was a published and well-respected writer in her own right. Together they had five children. Theirs was a stormy marriage; the two often lived apart for months at a time while Howe traveled the United States on speaking tours. These tours encompassed many topics, among them Howe’s opposition to the Mexican War. Howe was a Whig by 1845 and also strongly opposed slavery. He became somewhat of a crusader for prison reform, too, especially when those imprisoned were fugitive slaves. Howe increasingly lobbied for the abolition of slavery. As the Civil War approached, he wondered how best to contribute to the Union cause. Being too old at the age of sixty to work in the army hospitals, he decided to work with the Emancipation League, a group he had helped to found in Boston some time before. That group supported the enlistment of African American troops during the war and took up

the cause of black education after the war. Howe simultaneously served on the U.S. Sanitary Commission, lobbying for more health officers and better troop hygiene. Howe additionally began to study the effects of institutionalization on the mentally ill. Suffering himself from lifelong depression, he was compelled to change what he saw as a flawed system. He determined that the large, state-run housing offered for the insane was wholly inadequate and, in fact, harmful to those in its care. Instead, Howe advocated for smaller housing units that focused on achieving independence for residents. He took the family as a model for charity and felt that the state-run institutions should be as parents to the mentally ill, helping those offspring to grow up and prepare for the real world, whether they reached that world or not. In 1865, Howe became the chairman of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities—the first board of its kind in the United States— and used the position as a platform to lobby for further housing reformation for the poor and insane (Spartacus 2002). Howe did not forget his original desire to revolutionize the way the blind were taught. Throughout the middle part of the nineteenth century, Howe continued to study the most effective way to educate blind and deaf students. His greatest challenge, and arguably his greatest success, came in the form of Miss Laura Bridgman. Both blind and deaf since the age of two, Miss Bridgman presented a unique set of problems for Howe. Howe never believed in using sign language; he thought signs were too abstract to convey actual meaning to a deaf or blind and deaf person. Instead, he advocated for the use of finger spelling, where each word is spelled out into the hand of the deaf and blind person in order to convey a sentence or idea. Miss Bridgman eventually learned how to finger spell and became a prolific Braille reader. She was never, however, able to live on her own or interact with the seeing and deaf society. In that way, she did not fulfill the goals set out by Howe for his pupils. Many of Howe’s expectations went unfulfilled, mostly because he set goals that were unrealistic. He wanted to teach blind and deaf children according to their talents; in that way, he revolutionized their education by making these children more than the sum of

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their disabilities. He sought to narrow the gap between the blind and the sighted in society, a goal that he did achieve. But he ultimately wanted blind, deaf, and mentally ill children to learn how to function fully in society, which was impossible. As the children matured into adults, they simply had too many differences with “normal” society to be able to be fully integrated. Even though many of his dreams were not realized, Samuel Gridley Howe will be remembered for his innovation in the areas of education for the blind and deaf, reformation of treatment for the mentally ill, and integration of blacks during and after the Civil War. He died in Boston in 1876 of a brain tumor. Interestingly, Howe left nothing to his wife and only $2,000 to Laura Bridgman in order that she be taken care of for the rest of her life at the Perkins School for the Blind (Gitter 2001). Emily M. Hall References and further reading American Council of the Blind. Organizational Profile. Available at http://www.acb.org/profile.html (cited January 19, 2003). Gitter, Elizabeth. 2001. The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux. Grant, Mary Hetherington. 1994. Private Woman, Public Person: An Account of the Life of Julia Ward Howe from 1819–1868. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing. National Federation of the Blind. 2002. About the NFB. Available at http://www.nfb.org/aboutnfb.htm (cited January 18, 2003). Perkins School for the Blind. History. Available at http://www.perkins.pvt.k12.ma.us/section.php?id=53 (cited January 18, 2003). Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin. 1891. Dr. S. G. Howe: The Philanthropist. New York: Funk and Wagnalls. Schwartz, Harold. 1956. Samuel Gridley Howe, Social Reformer, 1801–1876. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Spartacus Educational. Samuel Gridley Howe. Available at http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAShoweG.htm (cited September 28, 2002).

Human Services and Philanthropy The human services field is of growing importance to ordinary Americans who now expect access to a broad range of personal support services. A large proportion

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of those services are delivered by nonprofit organizations (Salamon 1999; Smith 2002; Grønbjerg 2001). Moreover, human services nonprofits are numerous and account for the largest proportion of charitable nonprofits in the United States, although they are dwarfed in size by hospitals and institutions of higher education (Weitzman et al. 2002). The changing relationship between human services nonprofits and government has become a major driving force in the field. Meanwhile, the role of philanthropy and the extent to which charitable contributions support nonprofit human services organizations has been diminishing, and the influence that key philanthropic institutions had in the past is also declining.

Scope and Structure There are no good data to document the overall size and composition of the human services field or of its nonprofit components. Indeed, even the definition of what constitutes human services is problematic. Some consider the field to include just four subfields—individual and family counseling, vocational rehabilitation, residential care, and day care (Salamon 1999; Smith 2002). Intermediary definitions add legal and various community services to this list (Weitzman et al. 2002). The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) includes activities related to crime/legal assistance, employment/training, food/nutrition, housing/shelter, public safety/disaster, recreation, youth development, and traditional human services (Weitzman et al. 2002; Foundation Center 2002). Using an intermediary definition of human services and data from the U.S. Economic Census, one study reported that the nonprofit social services field spent $66 billion on operations in 1997 (Weitzman et al. 2002, Table 4.2). If the broader definition of human services under NTEE and data from Form 990 financial information filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by charities are taken into account, total operating expenses reach $77 billion (ibid., Table 5.15), or just over 1 percent of the total national income ($7.3 trillion) in 1998. Both estimates likely undervalue the size of the nonprofit human services field. Nor do these estimates address how important human services nonprofits are compared to govern-


ment and for-profit organizations. Nonprofits accounted for 61 percent of total revenues and 55 percent of employees for 1994, using the narrow foursubfield definition of social services (Salamon 1999). A more recent analysis, which excludes government but adds a small number of miscellaneous social services entities, shows that tax-exempt entities accounted for 70 percent of nongovernmental social services wages and 57 percent of nongovernmental social services establishments in 1997 (Smith 2002). The latter study also confirmed that nonprofits were key players in some social services fields, dominating individual and family services and vocational rehabilitation agencies and playing a major role in residential care facilities, accounting, respectively, for 91, 89, and 58 percent of employment. Nonprofits therefore significantly shape the service delivery system in those fields, although they lost ground in residential care facilities over the 1977–1997 period (going from 73 to 58 percent of employment). For-profit entities dominate other subfields, most notably day care (62 percent of employment), recreation, and legal services, and their share most likely has increased over the past twenty years (up from 44 percent of employment in day-care services). For-profits therefore exert a significant and growing influence on their nonprofit counterparts in these fields as all compete for clients, staff, and other resources and face similar institutional constraints (for example, professional standards in legal services, liability issues in recreation, and licensing requirements in day care). Of course, the nonprofit role in all of these fields would be more prominent if the value of volunteer labor in the form of foregone salary and wages were included. The nonprofit human services field has grown considerably since at least the 1970s and probably for some time prior to that (Grønbjerg 2001). The number of nonprofit social services establishments and employees more than doubled over the 1977–1997 period (up by 125 and 135 percent, respectively) (Smith 2002). These organizations rely on a mix of revenues, although the specifics and trends are subject to dispute. Thus one study reported that social and legal services nonprofits received about half (52 percent) of total revenues from government in 1997, about a fifth each from fees (19

percent) and donations (20 percent), and the rest from a variety of other receipts (Weitzman et al. 2002, Table 4.3). Another, however, estimated that the revenue base of the nonprofit social services sector (excluding legal services and civic organizations) in 1996 was dominated by fees (43 percent) followed by government funding (37 percent), with private giving trailing at 20 percent (Salamon 1999). The latter figures may be the more accurate of the two but are still subject to substantial uncertainties (Paarlberg and Grønbjerg 1999). The growth in nonprofit human services has been fueled by sources other than donations. Major shifts have occurred in the revenue profiles of member agencies of the United Way of Chicago, for example. The proportion of agencies relying on government funding for half or more of their revenues increased from zero percent in the 1950s to 84 percent in the mid-1990s, while the proportion obtaining half or more of their revenues from donations declined from 86 percent to 19 percent over the same period. There were no changes in primary reliance on fees and service charges. More comprehensive data on nonprofit social and legal services organizations show no changes in government funding over the 1977–1997 period (from 54 to 52 percent of total revenues), but growing reliance on private-sector revenues (up from 10 to 19 percent of revenues) and declining reliance on donations (down from 32 to 20 percent) (Weitzman et al. 2002, Table 4.3). The overall growth in the four traditional nonprofit service fields over the 1977–1996 period is accounted for primarily by increases in commercial revenues (69 percent), followed by government (22 percent) and private giving (9 percent) (Salamon 1999). In other words, all three sources of revenues grew, but fees grew at a much faster rate than government funding, with private giving trailing far behind. What these aggregate figures obscure, of course, is the great diversity in financial profiles among individual nonprofit human services agencies, including differences reflecting the mix of services provided and the size of operations. The aggregate figures are dominated by larger agencies because they account for the bulk of dollars involved, while the majority of human services organizations are quite small. Commercial

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activity is probably concentrated among larger nonprofits (Crimmins and Kiel 1990), suggesting that the typical nonprofit human services agency relies more extensively on government and donation funding than is implied by the aggregate profile. There may also be regional variations in financial profiles (Salamon 1995), since local political cultures vary in their propensity to use public funding to finance services (Rosentraub 1991; Bielefeld and Corbin 1996) and regions differ in their historical patterns of nonprofit development (Nielsen 1979; Hall 1987; Wolpert 1989).

Nonprofit Human Services and Public Policy At one level, the growth in human services and the continuing dominance of nonprofits in the field suggest that things are going well. However, a closer look points to the challenges posed by key public policy developments. Although nonprofit human services have benefited enormously from the pervasive and longstanding preference in the United States for privatizing public-sector activities, the mechanisms by which human services are privatized have changed and are now fundamentally different from even the recent past. There have been three major waves in privatization of human services (Grønbjerg and Smith 1999). During the first wave, which lasted until the early 1960s, modest public subsidies were available for private orphanages, old people’s homes, and the like. Publicsector oversight consisted mainly of occasional investigations and scrutiny by ethnic or religious institutions (Morton 1993; Brown and McKeown 1997; Hacsi 1997). During the 1960s and 1970s, a new pattern emerged as public funding increased dramatically for welfare services. New or expanded federal programs required state and local matching funding and diminished the role of local authorities. Much of the new funding was channeled toward nonprofit service providers, with some federal programs virtually mandating funding for nonprofits, but the format shifted from annual subsidies to production-related grants and contracts. This made it easier for the larger and more distant levels of government now involved to maintain formal accountability. The large volume of funding served to establish numerous and close ties between the two sectors, and

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nonprofit agencies and their coalitions became directly involved in the policy-making process. Their political influence reflected their expertise in documenting the impact of policy changes, the extent to which public agencies depended on them to deliver mandated services, as well as their own motivations for playing an active role because of the stakes they had in the process. The more formalized funding structures created growing transaction costs related to grant or contract renewals, compliance, and reporting systems—to the point that these absorbed considerable management efforts by both public and nonprofit agencies (Grønbjerg 1993). In addition, the growth in government financing shifted costs away from donors, although the latter were still very important to nonprofit agencies because of the flexible funding they provided. During the third wave of privatization, beginning in the mid-1980s, some programs that previously had provided significant funding for human services nonprofits declined or stagnated (for example, social services block grants) while others (such as foster care, child welfare, Head Start, substance abuse, and health) increased. In addition, the funding mechanism changed for several programs (for example, child welfare, substance abuse) as states began to switch to Medicaid financing in order to maximize federal support or adopted managed-care models to contain costs. This shift increased compliance costs and revenue uncertainties for provider agencies. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, also known as the Welfare Reform Act, and the “devolution” of responsibilities from the federal government to states and local communities created other challenges. These programs allow greater flexibility in structuring services to meet mandated program goals, but large, multiservice agencies are likely to benefit most since they can more easily shift their many funding sources among program activities. They also have powerful board members, strong connections to political actors, and close linkages to lobbying organizations. The typical small, focused nonprofits tend to be undercapitalized, cannot easily alter their service mix, and are politically weak, but they often provide niche services targeted at specific neighborhoods or client


groups. Recent developments that favor faith-based agencies have further shifted the political landscape. So have efforts to require (or strongly prefer) the delivery of services through local area service networks, with the associated system of lead agencies, subcontracts, and potentially major problems of collaboration and governance (Milward and Provan 2000; Bickers 1999). Overlaying these trends is increased reliance on performance contracts by government agencies. These contracts specify levels of compliance with welfare reform and workforce development standards. Designed to improve efficiency and effectiveness, these developments constitute a major cultural challenge for nonprofits—forcing them to downplay their traditional pride in quality services and goodfaith efforts in favor of market-like behavior. The system also invites competition by for-profit agencies that claim they can provide the specified outcomes and services at a lower cost (Frumkin and AndreClark 2000). For that reason, performance contracts may squeeze nonprofit agencies financially by limiting their ability to cross-subsidize operations and meet broader service missions. This, combined with a shift from producer to consumer subsidies in public welfare spending, results in more uncertain and fragile revenue streams for human services nonprofits and a blurring of the line between nonprofit and forprofit providers.

Human Services and Philanthropy These developments in public funding of human services suggest the need to look more closely at the role of philanthropy, which historically has been a major source of support for human services nonprofits. However, that role has been diminishing, and philanthropy may no longer provide a safety net. Giving USA (AAFRC 2002) reported that human services nonprofits (broadly defined) received only about 10 percent (or $21 billion) of giving from all sources in 2001, roughly the same percentages they have received since the early 1970s, even though government funding for the field expanded dramatically during that period. Assessing the importance of different types of philanthropic support for human services is more difficult because of a lack of adequate data. Individ-

uals are the largest source of donations overall, accounting for 76 percent of the $212 billion in total giving in 2001 (ibid.), but most of these donations benefit congregations. Twenty-five percent of U.S. households made donations to human services in 1995, a smaller proportion than those donating to religion (48 percent) or health (27 percent) (Hodgkinson and Weitzman et al. 1996, 26). However, human services receive only about 10 percent of all individual contributions, slightly more than health and education (about 8 percent), but far less than religion (about 60 percent). Given the difficulty of obtaining good data on individual contributions (Rooney et al. 2001), it may not be useful to place great confidence in these numbers. More important may be the greater competition for individual donations and major shifts in the capacity and interests of individual donors. The U.S. income structure has become more bifurcated in recent years, reflecting the loss of well-paying manufacturing and mid-level management jobs. The almost obscene growth in corporate executive compensation along with corporate mergers and acquisitions has increased the number of individuals with significant assets. Because high-income families tend to support cultural, educational, and environmental fields, these shifts in income and the estimated $10 trillion in intergenerational transfers over the next twenty years (Avery 1994) will likely benefit the latter fields more so than the human services nonprofits. Certainly, competition for individual donations (and for fundraising expertise) appears to be growing and is now increasingly focused on wealthier donors where the return on fundraising costs can be maximized. Nonprofits that wish to avoid control by elite interests and seek donations from the less wealthy must compete for visibility and loyalty in an arena that is increasingly dominated by slick public relations efforts. Many have sought to target special donor markets or cultivate new constituency groups, but highly sophisticated efforts are likely to be beyond the scope of the vast majority of human services nonprofits. They are too small and have too limited management capacity and lack the cachet of major cultural or educational institutions. Other sources of philanthropic funding, such as United Way, corporate, and foundation support, impact

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the human services field by how they determine priorities and underwrite research to influence social policy. In addition, their service grants support agencies and programs that are an integral part of the human services system. However, there is little systematic knowledge of how this diverse cast of philanthropic funders views the human services environment or makes funding decisions. The role of United Way organizations, traditionally a major source of donations for human services agencies, appears to be diminishing. In 2000–2001, some 1,900 United Way organizations, in close collaboration with local businesses, raised $3.9 billion (United Way of America 2002). In return for their support, local corporate leaders sit on United Way boards and serve on volunteer committees that determine priorities and allocate funds. Traditionally, local human services agencies became member agencies of the local United Way and agreed to curtail their own efforts to raise funds (at least from businesses). As member agencies, they received allocations as long as they remained members in good standing. In fact, the United Way system is one of the major ways in which U.S. corporations support human services, and it is one of the most institutionalized sources of donations for human services organizations. However, United Way organizations have faced decreasing capacity to raise funds, threats to their primary purpose, and internal tensions. Large-scale layoffs at major corporations, the primary source of workplace solicitations, make it difficult for United Way to maintain donation levels, especially since most do not have the capacity (at least in larger cities) to systematically solicit potential donor segments that are growing rapidly, for example, small or medium-sized corporations, independent contractors, or retirees. Growing absentee ownership threatens corporate loyalties to the United Way and local communities with implications for donations to and leadership in the system. In addition, corporations increasingly use philanthropic activities to serve marketing and other strategic interests. United Way’s traditional community allocation system does not serve those interests as effectively as more targeted donations with corporate name tags. Corporate employees are also now demanding the right to designate which nonprofits receive their sup-

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port. The pressure toward donor designation means that although the United Way may still be collecting large amounts of funds, smaller proportions will be allocated to local member agencies. This undermines the claim to “community planning” that United Way has traditionally used as a major justification for its workplace monopoly. It also introduces explicit competition among member agencies. Partly because of scarce resources, there are increasing tensions in the system. Some relate to the allocation of funds; others are more explicitly political in nature. The latter include competition among adjacent United Ways, conflict related to affirmative action policies (gender, religion, sexual orientation), and tension between targeting funding to performance in particular services and general support (Grønbjerg et al. 1996). The same factors that threaten the workplace success of United Way campaigns also limit direct corporate donations to human services nonprofits. Growing international competition and corporate takeovers encourage corporations to link philanthropic activities to marketing, promotions, or public relations. Frequently, that means seeking out prestigious and wellknown nonprofits, such as major arts and cultural organizations or institutions of higher education, that bring corporate visibility, enhance the quality of life for corporate elites (arts and culture), or serve direct corporate interests (higher education). Nationally, corporate donations doubled on a per capita basis (in constant dollars) between 1977 and the early 1980s (Grønbjerg 1993, 76–77) but since then have stabilized at around $8–9 billion (AAFRC 2002). Corporate support for health and human services has remained level throughout the period, reflecting a relative shift in corporate support away from these service areas during the earlier period. Total corporate contributions to all nonprofit fields, including United Way support, amounted to $9 billion in 2001. Foundations (excluding corporate foundations) made grant payments of almost $26 billion in 2001 (ibid.), although this does not include all grants made by the 64,000 private foundations registered with the IRS in 1998 (Weitzman et al. 2002, Table 5.1). Total foundation giving has more than tripled in constant dollars since 1971 (AAFRC 2002). Estimates from


the Foundation Center in 2002 suggest that human services received about 14 percent of noncorporate foundation grants, with foundation support for education taking a 25 percent share and health 21 percent. Private foundations are closely tied to corporations. Many have founders whose wealth derived from business activities, they typically have corporate or business representatives as members of their boards, and foundation assets and earnings frequently stem from corporate earnings. The rapid run-up in stock prices in recent years has significantly expanded the assets of many foundations. Because foundations must pay out at least 5 percent of their assets each year (averaged over three years), foundation grant amounts have increased correspondingly. By the same token, the more recent decline in stock values has depressed the level of foundation grantmaking. More relevant for the present analysis is how philanthropic institutions position themselves with regard to the human services field. An in-depth study of such institutions for the Chicago area (Grønbjerg and Martell 2000) shows that philanthropic funding for human services is highly fragmented. Although a substantial proportion of grantmaking foundations or giving programs provide support for human service–related activities, funders vary greatly in the relative importance they accord human services and in how much their volume of grants fluctuate over time. They differ also in how they focus their efforts, structure their grantmaking, modify priorities and grant structures, and select agencies to fund. The findings suggest that philanthropic funders may not share a common set of values, norms, or perceptions. Only a handful of philanthropic funders appear to be intimately aware of how other funders operate or to actively coordinate their activities with those of their peers (Grønbjerg and Jones 1997). In addition, vaguely articulated funding objectives and reluctance to evaluate grant performances point to an ambiguous core technology and the absence of a well-developed knowledge base. Many funders find it difficult to sort among proposals and agencies, narrow funding foci, limit eligibility, focus on known and trusted agencies, or monitor agencies on an ongoing basis. Instead, philanthropic funders rely extensively on personal networks, rather than institutional norms or

rational assessment of the effectiveness of grants, in making grant decisions. Indeed, many are vague, at times deliberately so, about their objectives and funding criteria. Agencies that are not already part of the funding stream face significant transaction costs in obtaining sufficiently accurate and timely information to increase their chances of success. The low turnover rates among funded agencies that characterize many funders lend direct support to the argument that it is difficult for new agencies to break into a funder’s pool of supported agencies. The procedures by which philanthropic funders make decisions about activities to support are closely intertwined with the relationships they have with funded agencies. The portrait of philanthropic funders that emerges suggests we should not expect coherent and coordinated responses by philanthropic funders to major developments in the human services field. Indeed, some philanthropic funders see themselves as the last domino to fall—public policy affects agencies and agency needs affect them. Many are captured by their own particular perceptions and priorities and uncertain about their capacity to go much beyond funding agencies they know and trust. In small communities, there may be few philanthropic funders; they may fund virtually all relevant agencies, but they may not have sufficient resources to do this adequately. In larger communities, the cast of philanthropic funders and potential grant recipient organizations is sufficiently large to create major problems of finding effective matches and addressing community needs comprehensively. The necessary institutional framework does not appear to be in place. Kirsten A. Grønbjerg References and further reading American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) Trust for Philanthropy. 2002. Giving USA 2002: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2001, 47th Annual Issue. Indianapolis: AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. Avery, R. B. 1994. “The Pending Intergenerational Transfer.” Philanthropy 8, no. 1 (Winter). Bickers, Kenneth N. 1999. “Second Order Devolution and the Coalitional Responses of Nonprofit Organizations.” Paper presented at the ARNOVA Conference, Washington, DC, November 4–6. Bielefeld, Wolfgang, and John J. Corbin. 1996. “The Institutionalization of Nonprofit Human Service

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Delivery: The Role of Political Culture.” Administration and Society 28: 362–389. Brown, Dorothy M., and Elizabeth McKeown. 1997. The Poor Belong to Us: Catholic Charities and American Welfare. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Crimmins, James C., and Mary Kiel. 1990. “Enterprise in the Nonprofit Sector.” In The Nonprofit Organization: Essential Readings, edited by David L. Gies, Steven J. Ott, and Jay M. Sharfitze, 315–327. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Foundation Center. 2002. “Foundation Giving Trends: Highlights,” http://www.fdncenter.org (cited June 5). Frumkin, Peter, and Alice Andre-Clark. 2000. “When Missions, Markets, and Politics Collide: Values and Strategy in the Nonprofit Human Services.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29, no. 1 (Supplement): 141–164. Grønbjerg, Kirsten A. 1993. Understanding Nonprofit Funding: Managing Revenues in Social Service and Community Development Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ———. 2001. “The U.S. Nonprofit Human Service Sector: A Creeping Revolution.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 30, no. 2 ( June): 276–297. Grønbjerg, Kirsten A., Lori Harmon, Aida Olkkonen, and Asif Raza. 1996. “The United Way System at the Crossroads: Community Planning and Allocation.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 25, no. 4 (December): 428–452. Grønbjerg, Kirsten A., and Edwina Jones. 1997. “Philanthropic Human Service Funders in a Changing Environment.” Paper presented at the ARNOVA Conference, Indianapolis, IN, December 3–6. Grønbjerg, Kirsten A., and Laura Martell, with Laurie Paarlberg. 2000. “Philanthropic Funding of Human Services: Solving Ambiguity through the Two-Stage Competitive Process.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29, no. 1 (Supplement): 9–40. Grønbjerg, Kirsten A., and Stephen Rathgeb Smith. 1999. “Nonprofit Organizations and Public Policies in the Delivery of Human Services.” In Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America, edited by Charles Clotfelter and Thomas Ehrlich, 139–172. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hacsi, Timothy A. 1997. Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hall, Peter. 1987. “A Historical Overview of the Private Nonprofit Sector.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, edited by Walter Powell, 3–26. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Hodgkinson, Virginia A., and Murray S. Weitzman, with Eric A. Crutchfield, Aaron J. Heffron, and Arthur D. Kirsch. 1996. Giving and Volunteering in the United States: Findings from a National Survey. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Milward, H. Brinton, and Keith G. Provan. 2002. “Governing the Hollow State.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 10, no. 2 (April): 359–379. Morton, Marian J. 1993. And Sin No More: Social Policy and Unwed Mothers in Cleveland, 1855–1990. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Nielsen, Waldemar A. 1979. The Endangered Sector. New York: Columbia University Press. Paarlberg, Laurie, and Kirsten A. Grønbjerg. 1999. “Nonprofit Fee-for-Service Income.” Report prepared for the Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Strategy Group. Rooney, Patrick, Kathryn S. Steinberg, and Paul Schervish. 2001. “A Methodological Comparison of Giving Surveys: Indiana as a Test Case.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 30, no. 3 (September): 551–568. Rosentraub, Mark S. 1991. “Political Culture, Nonprofit Organizations and the Financing of Human Services.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 20 (1): 95–111. Salamon, Lester M. 1995. Partners in Public Service: Government-Nonprofit Relations in the Modern Welfare State. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———. 1999. America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer, 2d ed. New York: Foundation Center. Smith, Stephen Rathgeb. 2002. “Social Services.” In The State of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Lester M. Salamon. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. United Way of America. 2002. “2000–01 Campagin Results,” http://national.unitedway.org/aboutuwa/ publications/2000campaignresults/ (cited June 6). Weitzman, Murray S., Nadine T. Jalandoni, Linda M. Lampkin, and Thomas H. Pollak. 2002. The New Nonprofit Almanac and Desk Reference: The Essential Facts and Figures for Managers, Researchers, and Volunteers. New York: Jossey-Bass. Wolpert, Julian. 1989. “Key Indicators of Generosity in Communities.” In The Future of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Virginia A. Hodgkinson and Richard W. Lyman. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hull-House See Addams, Jane

I INDEPENDENT SECTOR (IS)

Three years elapsed before an organizing committee convened. Under the leadership of John W. Gardner, a former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare and president of the Carnegie Corporation, the committee developed the blueprint for a national umbrella group. Assisting Gardner as staff executive for the committee and later as organization president was Brian O’Connell, former national executive director of the Mental Health Association. Both men were determined to take action on the Filer Commission recommendations and create a forceful entity that could vigorously represent nonprofit interests in equitable collaboration with business and government. The organizing committee’s December 1979 report, To Preserve an Independent Sector, described the entity-to-be as providing a national meeting ground for the diverse and often disparate organizations that make up the nonprofit sector. The report also recommended that the association be an independent, nonprofit corporation operating outside of government. In delivering the report, Gardner credited this standalone status with finally moving the concept to reality. The organizing committee coined the name INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Two existing organizations, the National Council on Philanthropy, formed in 1954, and the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations, begun in 1973, had official representation on

Formed in 1980 to preserve and advance charitable giving, volunteerism, and not-for-profit initiative, INDEPENDENT SECTOR (IS) is a Washington, D.C.– based association of grantmaking and grantseeking organizations. The establishment of IS in 1980 followed two decades of private and government inquiry about the voluntary, nonprofit sector in the United States. Prominent citizens such as John D. Rockefeller III had expressed concern that the sector was not well understood and therefore not duly recognized by business or government. Two studies, one conducted by the Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy in 1970 and the other by the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, or the Filer Commission, in 1975, called for the creation of a national association to represent nonprofits. The Filer Commission (named after its chairman, John H. Filer, of Aetna Life and Casualty) convened for two years before producing its December 1975 report, Giving in America. The report not only called for the establishment of a permanent national commission but gave the proposed entity four mandates: (1) to improve sector research, (2) to expand individual and corporate giving, (3) to propose changes in tax laws to encourage giving, and (4) to ease restrictions on lobbying by nonprofit organizations.

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the organizing committee and folded their membership into this new association of associations. The initial direction of the organization was to provide a body of knowledge about the sector, reversing the absence of data that had frustrated various study groups. In 1984, IS convened a task force that produced a report, The Charitable Behavior of Americans, two years later. This information has grown to a biennial survey and report published by IS entitled Giving and Volunteering in the United States, an IS hallmark. IS also collaborated with numerous others to produce research and support for the sector. National groups inspired, created, or nurtured by IS include the National Center for Nonprofit Boards, the National Center for Charitable Statistics, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, and Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest. Another early concern, inadequate charitable giving, prompted a highly marketed 1986 national campaign called “Give Five.” The goal was to double charitable giving and increase volunteering by 50 percent by asking individual Americans to give 5 percent of their income to charity and to volunteer five or more hours per week. The expectation has yet to be realized. Americans have consistently given approximately 2 percent of household income to charity and have volunteered from 3.5 to 4.7 hours a week since 1987. Since its inception, INDEPENDENT SECTOR has also represented the nonprofit sector before business and industry, government, and the press. In 2000, the IS board completed a two-year evaluation and strategic planning process. The goals set were remarkably true to those of the founding commission twenty years earlier: (1) to identify, research, and analyze emerging issues critical to the nonprofit community, (2) to influence favorable public policy, (3) to strengthen the “meeting ground” through convening, (4) to increase diversity of members, and (5) to grow relationships outside the sector. Judy P. Hall See also Filer Commission References and further reading Bremner, Robert H. 1988. American Philanthropy, 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations and National Council on Philanthropy. 1979. To Preserve an

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Independent Sector, Organizing Committee Report as Revised and Approved. Washington, DC: John W. Gardner. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. 1975. Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector. Washington, DC: Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. INDEPENDENT SECTOR, http://www.independentsector.org. ———. 1986, 1988. Daring Goals for a Caring Society: A Blueprint for Substantial Growth in Giving and Volunteering in America. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. ———. 2001. Shaping the Future of the Sector, 2000 Annual Report. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Rudney, Gabriel. 1977. “The Scope of the Private Voluntary Charitable Sector.” In Research Papers, vol 1. Sponsored by the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. Washington, DC: Department of the Treasury. Schwartz, John J. 1994. Modern American Philanthropy: A Personal Account. New York: Wiley.

Indians and Philanthropy See Native American Philanthropy

Individual Giving by Household Individual giving has been part of the American culture since colonial times and still remains a strong part of the culture. While the nature, amount, and recipients of giving have changed over the last two centuries, the concept of individual giving has only strengthened. In 2001, almost nine out of ten American households reported making contributions to charity (Giving and Volunteering in the United States 2002, 17). In fact, giving is a pervasive activity among most Americans regardless of income, race, gender, or racial/ethnic group. In the biennial survey series Giving and Volunteering in the United States, sponsored by INDEPENDENT SECTOR, 75 to 89 percent of households reported contributions. The average annual household contribution in 2000 was estimated at $1,415, or 2.7 percent of income. According to Giving USA 2003, total giving in 2002 was estimated at $240.9 billion. Of this, giving by living individuals accounted for about 76 percent ($183.7 billion) and bequest giving about 8 percent ($18.1 billion). While these percentages can vary by a percentage point or

Individual Giving by Household

two in any one year, they have not varied much over several decades. Although there is individual giving in other countries, the focus here is on the United States. This article will review overall trends in household giving, the demographics of household giving, the recipients of giving, and the determinants and motivations for giving.

Trends in Household Giving Before the twentieth century, individual giving essentially was informal and primarily to religious organizations. With the industrial revolution and the transition from an agrarian to an urban nation, individual giving became more formal and institutionalized. Great wealth was created at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century and a new type of institution, the private foundation, was created by such wealthy individuals as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. Simultaneously, there was a growth in new nonprofit institutions such as settlement houses, YMCAs, hospitals and research universities. The community chest movement started in the late nineteenth century for individuals to give to community causes. Before the twentieth century, individual giving in any formal way came from very wealthy individuals. Other individuals gave, but it was in traditional ways, often to other individuals or to their church. The story of the twentieth century is the democratization of giving through organized charities and the development of professional fundraising. Organizations such as the American Lung Association, the Community Chests, and the March of Dimes demonstrated that a multitude of small donations could add up to large amounts of money. Thus many Americans, from low income to wealthy, gradually started to participate in supporting charities to improve their communities and help the needy. By the 1970s, it was clear that household giving had become part of the American culture. In a survey of households conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan for the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, 88 percent of households reported money contributions in 1973 (Morgan, Dye, and Hybeis 1977, 160). Such behavior was demonstrable after September 11, 2001

after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., when 58 percent of Americans reported giving time or money within the few weeks after the disaster. The Foundation Center estimated that individuals gave 61 percent of the $2.6 billion contributed to funds for relief and recovery (Giving USA 2003, 54). In fact, Americans regard giving as a form of civic participation or a way to support causes of importance or give back to their community. There are various sources of data on individual and household giving, none of them very comparable. But a major source of survey data on giving in households has been the biennial survey on giving and volunteering by INDEPENDENT SECTOR, an organization representing American charities, corporate giving programs, and private foundations. An annual report on total giving from all sources is Giving USA prepared by the Indiana Center on Philanthropy bases its estimates on giving reported on tax returns by tax payers who itemize their contribution and estimates of giving for non-itemizers from a panel study sponsored by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. All of these efforts use a combination of economic models and estimates based on U.S. Census population data. In spite of the different sources of the data, there are certain characteristics about giving that have emerged over time. The bulk of household giving was to religious institutions, about 60 percent in 1999. Religion is followed by human services, health, and youth development, together estimated at 20 percent. Household contributions to education accounted for 9 percent, all other types of charities 11 percent (Giving and Volunteering in the United States 2000, 27).

The Demographics of Household Contributors While giving by household is pervasive in the adult population, the percentage of household contributors increases by education and household income, by marital status, home ownership, and employment status. The percentage of total household income given to charity is higher among low income households and respondents over the age of 65 years. The percentage of income declines somewhat as household income increases, although affluent households are responsible for about two-thirds of total giving in absolute dollar amounts. Generally, the percentage of

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household income increases if the respondent is a volunteer and itemizes on income tax returns. Households in which there is a volunteer generally report more that twice the contributions in both amount and as a percentage of income than households in which the respondent did not volunteer. Total household giving increases if there are more volunteers in households. Therefore, as volunteering increased from 45 to 55 percent during the 1990s, household giving also increased. It was also found that during economic recessions, contributions in households in which there is a volunteer declined far less than among households in which there is no volunteer. Generally volunteering is one measure of the level of engagement and commitment related to household giving. Households in which the respondent itemizing on his/her income tax return and claiming a charitable deduction gave more than twice the amount of income as those who did not itemize. However, their average household income was significantly higher than non-itemizers. Respondents who worry a lot about having enough money in the future give significantly less than those respondents who do not worry or who only worry a little about money. These trends have been remarkably steady over the years of the Giving and Volunteering in the United States household surveys.

Motivations for Giving There has been a systematic effort to survey motivations, habits, attitudes, and beliefs to explore their influence on household giving. The INDEPENDENT SECTOR Giving and Volunteering survey findings have shown clearly that the percentage of households contributing and the amount contributed increase if the respondent reported that s/he was asked to give, attended religious services regularly, held membership in a religious organization or other membership organization, volunteered at an organization, or engaged in certain activities when young. In 1998, when respondents reported that they were asked to contribute, over 80 percent actually did; of those who were not asked, only about 50 percent actually did. Asking individuals to give is by far the most powerful influence on actual giving. Survey data show that smaller percentages of minority groups, elderly people, low income individu-

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als and young people are asked to give than whites and affluent individuals. However, when they are asked, these demographic groups are more likely to give at the same rate or at higher rates than whites as a group (Hodgkinson 2002). The percentage of respondents reporting household contributions increases with the frequency of church attendance from about 54 percent among those who do not attend to 84 percent among those who attend weekly. In 1998, 76 percent of respondents reported attending religious services during the past year and 24 percent reported no attendance. Respondents reporting membership in religious organizations (67 percent) had a much higher percentage of household contributors than nonmembers (78 percent compared with 54 percent). However, respondents reporting membership in other organizations (49 percent) had the highest percentage of household contributors (84 percent). Respondents over several survey years are far more likely to report household contributions as adults if they reported that when they were young they belonged to a youth group, they volunteered, went door to door to raise money, were active in a religious organization, or were active in student government. Other factors that increased participation as adults was seeing someone they admired help others (Giving and Volunteering in the United States 2000, 79–86). Activities when young and habitual behaviors such as membership in organizations, regular attendance at religious services, and volunteering when young have a much greater impact on the percentage of adults reporting household contributions than attitudes and motives for giving. In other words actual behaviors reflective of values are more salient than holding values themselves. However, certain motives and attitudes have been shown consistently to distinguish more generous household contributors from those who are less generous or who do not contribute in the Giving and Volunteering in the United States surveys. They are: generous contributors are much more likely to believe that they have it within their power to help others; they believe that they should help people meet their material needs; and they believe that enhancing the moral basis of society is a major motive for giving. While these attitudes and motives distinguish more


generous household contributors, the most important indicators are household income and higher education. Some predict that total household giving will rise or decline based on the proportion of the population with college degrees (Brown 1999).

Fundraising and Other Vehicles for Giving The increase in the percentage of household contributors in the twentieth century can be attributed to the growth of professional fundraisers who have developed many techniques to increase giving, including mass mailing, workplace giving, telephone solicitations, and telethons. Fundraising is primarily organized through institutions, whereas before the twentieth century, giving was more informal in nature between individuals (Friedman 2002). But growth in giving has also increased or decreased with tax policies, such as the ability to give bequests at death tax free; to take a deduction from income tax for charitable contributions; and more recently to participate in many forms of planned giving, including charitable remainder and split income trust, where a portion of the money goes to the current beneficiary (the donor or a relative) and the remainder to a charity or charities. Another growth area has been new vehicles for giving created by for-profit investment funds. Companies such as Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab have created donor advised funds. Donors put up an initial investment of money, which is invested in mutual funds; then donors can tell the charity, such as the Fidelity Gift Fund, which charities or type of charity they would like the fund to give to. These funds have captured the interest of many successful young professionals who perhaps are giving more at earlier points in their careers because such vehicles for giving are available. Thousands of investors joined the Fidelity donor advised funds. By 1998–1999, the Fidelity Gift Fund had given over $1 billion in grants and was named among the top ten charities in the country in the Chronicle of Philanthropy 400 and the Nonprofit Times 100 (Hodgkinson 2002, 400). With all the growth in the number of household contributors and the growth in wealth over the past century, total giving has ranged around 2 percent of personal income. While giving has grown in absolute

terms since World War II, other forms of revenue to finance nonprofit organizations, such as fees for service and government funding, have grown at faster rates. In fact, it could be said that without the work of fundraising professionals, total individual giving might be lower. Essentially, giving has been affected by the growth of government in funding social welfare, by tax policies that impede or encourage giving, by economic conditions, and by public policies that promote citizen engagement. When the economy is growing, the rate of growth in giving increases, and when there are economic recessions, there is a decline in the growth rate. In other words, the percentage of households giving remains fairly steady, but the average household contribution varies depending on the economy. It seems that very small percentages of households stop giving in economic recessions, but they tend to give lesser amounts. The real story, however, is that household giving is a form of civic participation that has expanded to most of the adult population in the United States. Virginia A. Hodgkinson References and Further Readings Brown, Eleanor 1999. “Patterns and Purposes of Philanthropic Giving.” In Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector, edited by C.T. Clotfelter and T. Ehrlich. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Clotfelter, Charles T., and Thomas Ehrlich, eds. 1999. Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Burke, Colin C. “Nonprofit History’s New Numbers (and the Need for More).” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (30): 174–203. Cutlip, Scott M. 1990. Fundraising in the United States. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press. Duranio, Margaret A., and Eugene R. Temple. 1997. Fundraisers: Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and Accomplishments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Friedman, Lawrence J. 2003. “Philanthropy in America: Historicism and Its Discontents.” In Charity, Philanthropy, and Civility in American History, edited by L. J. Freidman and M. D. McGarvie. 1–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friedman, Lawrence J., and Mark D. McGarvie. 2003. Charity, Philanthropy and Civility in American History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giving and Volunteering in the United States. Various editions. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Giving USA. Various editions. New York: AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy.

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Grimm, Jr., Robert T., ed. 2002. Notable American Philanthropists. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Hodgkinson, Virginia A. with Kathryn E. Nelson and Edward D. Sivak Jr. 2002. “Individual Giving and Volunteering.” In The State of Nonprofit America, Edited by Lester M. Salamon. 387–420. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Magat, Richard. 1989. Philanthropic Giving. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morgan, James N., Richard F. Dye, and Judith H. Hybeis. 1977. “Results from Two National Surveys of Philanthropic Activity.” Research Papers, vol. I, 157–323. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Treasury. Schervish, Paul G., Virginia A. Hodgkinson, Margaret Gates, and Associates. 1995. Care and Community in Modern Society. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Infrastructure Organizations for Nonprofits Overview In addition to the hospitals, universities, child-welfare agencies, and shelters with which most people are familiar, the nonprofit sector includes a variety of infrastructure organizations (IOs). IOs support these other organizations and seek to improve their effectiveness. Although numerous government and forprofit entities support nonprofits (for example, many for-profit consulting firms provide management assistance to nonprofits), IOs constitute a “nonprofit” portion of the nonprofit infrastructure. Like similar organizations that support the business and government sectors, IOs serving the nonprofit sector are numerous and diverse. Many focus their work in particular subsectors. For example, the American Hospital Association promotes the interests of the nation’s hospitals, and the American Association of Museums advocates for museums. A growing number of IOs, however, do not have a subsector orientation but serve multiple types of nonprofits or the nonprofit sector as a whole. Advocacy and Public Education At the national level, the INDEPENDENT SECTOR, whose 700 member organizations include both nationally oriented foundations and nonprofits, has the ambitious mission to represent, serve, and advocate

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for the whole nonprofit sector, or at least the portions of it that fall under 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). The Council on Foundations advocates on behalf of its 1,900 foundation and corporate grantmaking members and also offers them legal consultation, training sessions, an annual conference, and specialized information resources. The National Council of Nonprofit Associations and the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers serve state nonprofit associations and regional associations of grantmakers, which in turn advocate for their own member agencies. Research Research conducted at universities and other institutions enhances the nonprofit sector by improving understanding of nonprofit activities. In the past two decades, the number of academic and other research centers dedicated to the study of nonprofit activities has increased significantly. Leading nonprofit research centers are located at Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Duke University, the Urban Institute, and other institutions. Many nonprofit researchers belong to the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). Education Universities and other educational institutions seek to provide nonprofit managers with appropriate skills and knowledge. In February 2001, ninety-seven colleges and universities offered graduate degree programs with a concentration in nonprofit management (Mirabella and Wish 2002). Management Support and Training Management support organizations provide management assistance to nonprofit organizations with the goal of improving organizational effectiveness. A recent study identified almost 700 nonprofit management support organizations in the United States that receive philanthropic support (McKiernan 1998, 15). Professional Development Professional societies, including the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the American Association of Fundraising Counsel, and the American Society of

Infrastructure Organizations for Nonprofits

Association Executives, seek to strengthen nonprofits and philanthropy by promoting the use of best professional practices. Information Resources The Foundation Center fosters public understanding of foundations by collecting, organizing, analyzing, and disseminating information about foundations and other grantmaking entities. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance promotes informed giving by providing information on organizations’ activities, governance, staffing, and finances to grantmakers so they can make informed decisions about the organizations receiving their awards. A variety of specialized nonprofit and for-profit periodicals, including The Chronicle of Philanthropy, NonProfit Times, and Nonprofit Quarterly, report on the nonprofit sector and philanthropy. A growing number of Internet Web sites also provide useful information for the public, nonprofit practitioners, and researchers. A useful site for those seeking volunteer and giving opportunities is the Network for Good (http://www.networkforgood.org), which was recently joined by http://www.helping.org. Guidestar, http://www.guidestar.org, contains detailed financial and programmatic information on individual nonprofits based on their tax returns. The Philanthropy News Digest (http://www.fdncenter.org/pnd/) provides general news about philanthropy. Although nonprofit infrastructure organizations have multiplied in number in recent decades, these organizations are not very well understood and there have been few studies of their activities and impact. One exception is a 1996 study by the Union Institute, Mission Possible: 200 Ways to Strengthen the Nonprofit Sector’s Infrastructure.

History and Growth Nonprofit coordinating bodies have existed for quite some time, although not as the more robust set of infrastructure entities we know today. Charity organization societies (COSs), modeled after similar societies in Britain, coordinated the activities of charitable organizations in various regions in the United States starting in the late 1800s. COSs sought to maximize philanthropic results by organizing services to the

needy, monitoring fraudulent activities of both charities and recipients, and preventing the duplication of organizational efforts (Warner 1971). The National Charities Information Bureau—recently merged into the BBB Wise Giving Alliance—was founded in 1918 to promote informed giving, and several other major organizations were established to support the sector throughout the mid-1900s. However, despite their long history, IOs did not emerge as a discrete set of organizations with major roles in the sector and recognized public importance until the 1970s. Why has the nonprofit infrastructure grown in recent decades? As the overall nonprofit sector has grown, it has invited more attention—and challenge— from hostile policy makers and others. Nonprofit leaders have established new IOs or strengthened existing ones to respond to these challenges. Several congressional committees held hostile hearings on foundation activities in the 1950s and 1960s, and these investigations culminated in provisions in the Tax Reform Act of 1969 that imposed a variety of new restrictions on foundations. In response, the philanthropic community launched the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (the Filer Commission), chaired by John Filer, chief executive officer of the Aetna Life and Casualty Company. The Filer Commission outlined the need for a stronger nonprofit infrastructure, and its work helped stimulate the establishment of a variety of new IOs, including INDEPENDENT SECTOR, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), and the Program on Non-Profit Organizations at Yale University, which was the first major nonprofit academic research center. In the 1980s and 1990s, government retrenchment and devolution led to reduced public funding of many nonprofits, greater demands on many of these organizations, and increased nonprofit attention to decisions being made at the state and local levels. Nonprofits also opposed attempts to limit their advocacy and lobbying activity that were led by Representative Ernest Istook Jr., Republican of Oklahoma. The upshot was the development of new IOs and the strengthening of existing IOs that could represent the interests of nonprofits. Along with INDEPENDENT SECTOR, the Alliance for Justice, NCRP, Office of Management Budget (OMB) Watch, and the Advocacy Institute

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helped organize nonprofit opposition to unwanted legislation and assisted other nonprofits to become better advocates. New state nonprofit associations also emerged to protect the interests of nonprofits in state capitals. Also contributing to the growth of nonprofit IOs in recent decades has been the professionalization of the nonprofit field. New IOs provide staff training, management support, and professional development, and still other IOs were established as vehicles for disseminating information on standards of accountability and organizational effectiveness. Alan J. Abramson and Rachel McCarthy References and further reading Abramson, Alan J., and Rachel McCarthy. 2002. “Nonprofit Infrastructure Organizations: From Growth to Consolidation.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press and Aspen Institute. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. 1975. Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector. Washington, DC: Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 1992. Inventing the Nonprofit Sector and Other Essays on Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Nonprofit Organizations. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. McKiernan, John, ed. 1998. Directory of Management Support Providers for Nonprofit Organizations. Denver: Applied Research and Development Institute International. Mirabella, Roseanne M., and Naomi B. Wish. “Nonprofit Management Education.” Seton Hall University, http:// pirate.shu.edu/~mirabero/Kellogg.html (cited May 30, 2002). Union Institute. 1996. Mission Possible: 200 Ways to Strengthen the Nonprofit Sector’s Infrastructure. Washington, DC: Union Institute. Warner, Amos G. 1971. American Charities. New York: Arno Press and New York Times.

Institutional Foundations Institutional foundations, first created more than a century ago but more visible in the past fifty years, have a large amount of administrative flexibility and few bureaucratic controls. This broad freedom of action allows them to assure donors that their funds will be used wisely and in the manner in which they were

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designated, to ensure that all records remain confidential, and to quickly adjust to market conditions. Such factors appeal to donors and in large part account for the widespread expansion and growth of institutional foundations, particularly among state-supported institutions of higher learning as well as public K–12 education. The University of Kansas established the first institutional foundation in 1891 but did not acquire significant assets for more than fifty years. The Kansas Endowment Association was created to protect its private funds from state interference. Most other foundations were not created until shortly before or after World War II, when public institutions began to receive less and less of their operating funds from the state. With public discontent over college costs, institutions were also discouraged from raising tuition. The only alternative was private funding, which became essential to maintaining the margin of excellence that universities were seeking. Donors were reluctant, however, to donate to institutions where their funds were combined with public funds. As a result, it became necessary for these institutions to create a gift-promoting and gift-receiving organization. Currently, more than 1,000 colleges and universities in the United States have foundations (Kiger 2000, 56). Out of the 16,000 school districts in the United States, about 4,800 have foundations (McCormick 2001, 1). There are also a considerable number of foundations that have been set up to support labor unions, churches, hospitals and other medical organizations, and government institutions. Created to aid and support their parent institutions, and often holding significant assets, foundations steward their resources to meet long-term needs of the institution. In most cases, the funds are donor designated. When unrestricted funds are gifted, the foundation staff and board identify high-priority activities to be funded. Institutional foundations typically do not have separate governing boards. Instead, their boards are often controlled to a large extent by the related institution, and ultimate control sometimes rests with a governmental authority (Kiger 2000, 51). Many court cases filed in recent years raise the question of whether these foundations should be con-

International Fundraising

sidered public or private organizations and challenge their accountability To help with this issue, organizations need to select board members with diverse abilities and backgrounds to work with and within the parent institutional structure. There is also a need for full disclosure of foundation goals, funding, and disbursements, together with openness in all operations (Kiger 2000, 57). Teresa Gift References and further reading Kiger, Joseph C. 2000. Philanthropic Foundations in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood. McCormick, Dan H., David G. Bauer, and Daryl E. Ferguson. 2001. Creating Foundations for American Schools. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Institute. Orcutt, Amos E. 1999. “Foundations of Excellence.” Case Currents 25 (5): 11. Rowland, A. Westley, ed. 1978. Handbook of Institutional Advancement, 2d ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

International Fundraising The practice of fundraising has grown dramatically around the globe. Beginning in the 1990s, the role of governments was measurably reduced because of the emergence of new democratic cultures, technological advances in communications, and the inability of many governments to keep up with even basic services to its populations. Therefore, there has been a rapid development of nonprofit organizations, sometimes called nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or civil society organizations (CSOs), that can be service providers while also acting as advocates for reform. The final decades of the twentieth century saw a great shift in the social and political geography of the world that created both an opportunity and a need for citizens to become increasingly involved in the political and social lives of their communities, countries, and the world. Civil society provides a powerful means for mobilizing such citizen participation. As a consequence, national boundaries are not as important as international cooperation and collaboration, as well as cross-national understanding and collegiality. The significance of NGOs, philanthropy, and voluntarism in other nations is growing. A Johns Hopkins University research team twice studied international NGOs in twenty-two countries in Central and

Eastern Europe, Latin America, Western Europe, Oceania, and North America as part of its Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. The researchers found a surprisingly large scale of nonprofit activity in almost every region. The reports confirmed that NGOs everywhere are seeing astonishing growth, employing increasing numbers of people, and collecting and spending more money than at any previous time. The reports conclude that NGOs and CSOs are a far more significant economic force than has generally been recognized. Meanwhile, the surge of voluntary activity has come amid a crisis of confidence in the ability of governments to deal with social problems. As a result, NGOs are having difficulty meeting growing needs while governments are cutting back on direct aid to citizens. However, international philanthropy is complex because even in established democracies, charitable organizations are different from those in the United States. This is even more true in the fragile, emerging civil societies. Therefore, cultural differences as well as foreign legal and political environments must be considered when the U.S. model of fundraising is applied. International charities are looking to American experts in large part because the United States has a long-established tradition of raising money from private sources. However, tactics that work for U.S. fundraisers at home may not necessarily always translate abroad. There is concern that countries experimenting with civil society and democracy may be overwhelmed by expectations, perceptions, and the imposition of the U.S. model. Philanthropy is present in every culture around the globe and every country has developed structures for organized fundraising. Often what those who contact U.S. resources seek is the structure for integrating fundraising into the administrative structure of nonprofit organizations and for building a total development program that includes major gifts, use of volunteers, and personal solicitation. Many philanthropic fundraising principles are universally adaptable while at the same time they must be culturally and situationally appropriate. Within universality of principles and generalizations about fundraising, differences and similarities between U.S. and international fundraising must be noted. It is useful for the

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fundraising practitioner to know which concepts and principles of fundraising can be universally applied and are adaptable. On the one hand, for example: • the need and art of making a strong, compelling case for funding, and of expressing this case in differing ways to different markets, are concepts understood everywhere; • donor motivations, when discussed as part of both training and practice, are surprisingly universal, and although some differences do exist, the desire to help others is often a motivation that can be aroused or tapped; • international fundraisers also understand the need to research and know the potential markets, the application of the exchange relationship in determining why a donor might give, and diversity in funding sources. On the other hand, there are differences in principles and practice that international colleagues must deal with and U.S. professionals will respect. For example: • the matter of professional compensation, such as working for a commission, is certainly without ethical challenge in many cultures; • prospect research becomes difficult in some places because of a lack of research resources as well as prevailing attitudes toward privacy (consider, as examples, the still-lingering hostility among Germans for those who build dossiers on prospects, and the impact of nearly fifty years of KGB activity in the former Soviet Union); • board responsibility is uneven in many countries and the idea of board members seeking funds is often an unacceptable or at least unwelcome concept; • tax deductibility and the concept of planned gifts do not exist in many nations. Fundraising as a profession is enriched by its proliferation and adaptation across nations and cultures, awareness of cultural issues, sensitivity toward differ-

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ences, and the expression of a genuine appreciation of international fundraising professionals’ efforts and achievements. Understanding international NGOs and fundraising aids comprehension of what is happening in the culturally diverse world inside U.S. borders. Moreover, understanding diversity on a global scale helps create an understanding of what is happening in local communities. Philanthropy and the practice of securing funds to benefit others are ancient traditions, and America represents only a portion of this rich history. Although fundraisers in the United States have perfected many techniques and have much to offer in terms of sharing expertise, they also have much to learn. International understanding enriches the global community of fundraising practitioners; we are part of a global system. Lilya Wagner References and further reading Fox, Leslie M., and S. Bruce Schearer. 1998. Sustaining Civil Society: Strategies for Resource Mobilization. Washington, DC: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Harris, Thomas, ed. 1999. International Fund Raising for Not-for-Profits: A Country-by-Country Profile. New York: Wiley. Ilchman, Warren F., Stanley N. Katz, and Edward L. Queen, eds. 1998. Philanthropy in the World’s Traditions. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. McCarthy, Kathleen D., Virginia A. Hodgkinson, Russy D. Sumariwalla, and Associates. 1992. The Nonprofit Sector in the Global Community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Salamon, Lester M., et al. 1999. Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. Wagner, Lilya. 1997. “U.S. Models and International Dimensions of Philanthropic Fund Raising.” In Critical Issues in Fundraising, edited by Dwight F. Burlingame. New York: Wiley.

International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) Most observers divide society into three sectors: government, for-profit businesses, and nonprofit or voluntary organizations. In recent years, scholarly attention to the nonprofit sector has expanded into the concept of “civil society,” defined to include processes such as


citizen engagement as well as organizational activity. This shift resulted in part from the dramatic growth of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the developing world (Fisher 1993). It also emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union and its satellite states. In contrast to the national level, global or transnational “society” is more elusive and rudimentary, on the one hand, and more complex and difficult to encompass, on the other. As multinational corporations have become even more powerful than their national counterparts and official international organizations continue to be constrained by the system of nationstates that created them, international civil society has expanded in both size and complexity. The Union of International Associations (UIA), in its Yearbook of International Organizations (2002–2003), officially acknowledged this shift in a new subtitle—Guide to Global Civil Society Networks. International civil society now includes everything from the European Livestock Meat and Trading Association to the Global Atmospheric Research Program and the World Council of Associations for Technical Education. It also includes the more formal international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) that generally focus on some aspect of sustainable development or democratic rights. Between 1985 and 1995, all of the above increased in numbers, from a combined total of 18,000 to 20,000. By 2000, the number of active organizations had increased to 25,000 (UIA 2002–2003, 15, 35). By contrast, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) increased from approximately 4,000 (including international treaty regimes) in 1995 to less than 5,000 in 2000 (UIA 1985–1986, 1994–1995, 2000–2001; Boulding 1990). International nongovernmental organizations are arguably the most important component of an emerging global civil society. By one definition, these can be distinguished from northern NGOs (NNGOs). For example, the International Save the Children Alliance, comprised of Save the Children organizations from a number of countries, would be considered an INGO, but the U.S. Save the Children Federation would be called an NNGO. More commonly, however, NNGOs are simply included in discussions of INGOs. In 1995, in the United States alone there were an estimated 1,000 public charities with budgets of more

than $25,000 per year focusing on international affairs (Nygren and Dufy 1995). According to researchers Marc Linderberg and Coralie Bryant, U.S. INGOs of all types registered with the Agency for International Development had revenues of $6.8 billion in 1994, a figure representing more than a tenfold increase since 1970 (2001, 4). Public fiscal crises and the collapse of the Soviet Union “created a vacuum into which Northern International NGOs (in the U.S. and in Europe) were pulled” while improved global communications fueled the growth of the sector. In addition, democratic “openings,” governmental aid incentives and private giving, served as magnets to stimulate development (ibid., 9). Despite the growth in numbers of INGOs, their financial impact on a global level is still modest. The flow of funds from NGOs for relief and development was $7.2 billion in 1997, as compared with $1 billion in 1970. Private revenues accounted for $4.6 billion of this, with $2.6 billion coming from public revenue in the form of contributions to NGOs and grants through NGOs (OECD 1999). Complex communications problems and the need to accommodate diverse interests have, according to a study of fifteen INGOs, led to three principle types of organizational structures: corporate partnerships, federations, and membership associations (Young et al. 2001, 323–344). Corporate partnerships such as the Nature Conservancy or Synergos execute centrally directed work with autonomous regional or local associations. Federations such as Save the Children, Oxfam, and Partners of the Americas are governed by an international body collaborating with affiliates that have local responsibility for carrying out the work. Membership associations with individual and/or organizational members, such as Ashoka, the International Crisis Group, or Innovations et Research pour le Developpement (IRED), may develop chapters at regional, national, or local levels. Perhaps the major challenge faced by INGOs is reaching the grassroots level to address the global challenges of poverty, population, and environmental degradation in ways that strengthen democratic decision making and allow people to develop their own communities. As long as twenty-five years ago, some INGOs were “nationalizing” their field staffs. More

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recently, potential local partners in both the developing and transitional countries have increased in numbers even more dramatically than INGOs (Fisher 1993). A number of smaller INGOs have simply become one key player in networks of national NGOs. Katalysis, for example, provides financial and technical support for a network of Central American NGOs working on microenterprise development. Katalysis and its Central American partners are represented on each other’s boards of directors, a practice that has proven difficult for larger INGOs. World Neighbors has developed modest but long-term commitments to local NGOs with built-in exit strategies. In the past few years, however, some INGOs have been able to reach large numbers of poor people more directly through promoting and training autonomous self-help groups at the local community level. These groups save money collectively and lend at interest to members. Pact, for example, trained 240 local organizations in Nepal who in turn trained 6,500 groups with 130,000 members. The groups are now managing more than $2 million in savings, earned through fundraising activities and interest on the loans. Over 80 percent of the groups keep their own records, and some 86,000 new businesses were started through loans to members (Ashe 2002). Although sustainable development can strengthen civil society and local decision making, some INGOs focus more directly on the challenges of human rights and democracy. Both Amnesty International, which focuses on human rights, and Transparency International, which focuses on corruption, operate as INGOs with national partner or chapter organizations throughout the world. One study pointed out that Transparency International, established as a global organization, has, in contrast to many other INGOS, “federated downward” (Young et al. 2001). The Inter-American Democracy Network, which operates through e-mail, conferences, and international workshops, focuses on a wide range of activities related to democracy, including public deliberation, NGO strengthening, and advocacy. NGOs founded in the South sometimes become INGOs, although only a few, such as the Grameen Bank and CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, operate on a global level. Some specialized

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networks, however, operate throughout the developing world. Honey Bee, based in India but with members in fifty-seven countries, provides multilingual documentation of hundreds of indigenous innovations in plant protection, veterinary medicine, animal nutrition, farm implements, and horticulture. Other INGOs use the Internet, international exchanges, and conferences to focus on specific issues, which may be very specialized. For example, the Vetvier Network includes much of the developing world but focuses only on a grass that prevents soil erosion (Fisher 1999, 215). There are many more regional networks that support local development, such as the Six S Association in West Africa, which focuses on sustainable rural development. And even national NGO networks are thinking globally. A Philippine network leader observed, “When we work with fisherfolk . . . we are learning and communicating about the global processes and dynamics of their issues” (Caccam 2001). A global network opposing the construction of large dams emerged out of multiple national civil society campaigns. In addition to the challenges of development, INGOs are confronted by massive, complex human emergencies, which have proliferated in recent years. Most outside support is provided by about twenty organizations, including the Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, the International Rescue Committee, World Vision, Save the Children, and CARE (Lindenberg and Bryant 2001, 72). Some observers wonder whether outside assistance serves as a humanitarian fig leaf hiding the lack of action by governments and the United Nations. INGO staff members themselves point out that private donors often respond only after an emergency is under way and “show little interest in maintaining operational capacity” (ibid., 75). Other questions remain. What is the role of local NGOs used as subcontractors? What is the long-term impact of INGOs at the local level? The staff members of INGOs are often their own strongest critics, and some say that relief can distort recovery and preclude “self-development” (ibid., 39). INGOs have, however, begun to develop innovative approaches to coping with the onslaught of human emergencies. CARE barter shops in southern


Sudan, for example, provide scarce basic goods in exchange for agricultural products. This is not only a relief measure; it also stimulates the agricultural economy. Assuring balanced services to opposing sides can reduce conflict risks. De-mining teams composed of people from both sides of the war in Angola, and land titling and training for ex-combatants in El Salvador, are good examples (ibid., 88–89). INGOs are also players in the United Nations, where they lobby for various causes and participate in environmental treaty making (such as the Montreal Protocol in 1987). They also have a strong impact on UN-sponsored international conferences. Related to these roles, and perhaps even more important, is their impact on the global dialogue about human rights, women, corruption, sustainable development, population, poverty, and other issues. Some INGOs have a strong focus on international advocacy built on the use of chapters at the national level. Among the factors promoting the role of INGOs as global advocates is the frequent inability of the official international organizations created after World War II to deal with global poverty, massive flows of refugees, environmental deterioration, and the continuing momentum of population growth despite declining fertility in the developing world (ibid., 39). A second major factor has been the exponential increase in the number of Internet users outside the purview of governments. Less formal Internet networks are particularly important as regional and global advocates. An INGO e-mail network against land mines played a major role in advancing official international action on this issue. Jubilee 2000 is a global network of organizations working on debt relief. In addition, the formidable range of issues confronting the planet has led even more formally organized INGOs to develop more finely honed, innovative strategies. Ashoka, for example, supports innovative social entrepreneurs all over the world. Trickle Up provides micro start-up grants for potential entrepreneurs who are so poor that they may even stay away from micro-credit. Technoserve concentrates on turning community-based enterprises into profitable businesses. And Population Communication International works with local radio and

television producers in a number of countries to produce soap operas including messages about family planning and health. As the lines between formal and informal organizations blur on the global level and the complexity of transnational civil society becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend, three conclusions seem obvious. First, global civil society will continue to grow and become even more complex. Second, it will increasingly depend on, have to support, and not undermine the development of civil society at the national and regional level. Third, its major challenge will continue to be connecting with people at the local level to improve their lives through their own abilities. Julie Fisher References and further reading Ashe, Jeffrey. 2002. “Self-Help Groups and Integral Human Development: From Profit-Led Microfinance to Prophet Led Rural Transformation.” Presentation at the SEEP Conference, Washington, D.C., October 30. Boulding, Elise. 1990. Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Caccam, Eugene. 2001. Remarks at London School of Economics, Conference on Trans-National Civil Society, June 1–2. Fisher, Julie. 1993. The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development and the Nongovernmental Movement in the Third World. Westport, CT: Praeger. ———. 1998. Nongovernments: NGOs and the Political Development of the Third World. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. ———. 1999. “International Networking: The Role of Southern NGOs.” In The Human Dimensions of Global Change, edited by David Cooperrider and Jane Dutton, part 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lindenberg, Marc, and Coralie Bryant. 2001. Going Global: Transforming Relief and Development NGOs. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Nygren, Thomas, and Elizabeth Dufy. 1995. Presentation at the Program on Non-Profit Organizations, Yale University, January. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 1999. Development Cooperation Report, 1998. Paris: OECD. Union of International Associations (UIA). 1985–1986. Yearbook of International Organizations, 3d ed. Brussels: UIA. ———. 1994–1995. Yearbook of International Organizations. Munich: K. G. Saur.

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———. 2000–2001. Yearbook of International Organizations. Munich: K. G. Saur. ———. 2002–2003. Yearbook of International Organizations: Guide to Civil Society Networks. Munich: K. G. Saur. Young, Dennis R., Bonnie Koenig, Adil Najam, and Julie Fisher. 2001. “Strategy and Structure in Managing Global Associations.” Voluntas: The International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 10 (4): 323–344.

International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) The International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) is an international association that promotes research and education in the fields of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. The association was established in 1992 and was admitted as an affiliate member to the American Council of Learned Societies in 1997. The mission of the association is to promote the development of education and research across the world on third-sector issues and to enhance the dissemination and application of knowledge internationally about the third sector. The association currently has a membership of approximately 600 researchers. Association activities include publications, international conferences, an e-mail listserv for third-sector researchers, a Web site, and affinity groups and regional networks for researchers. The International Society for Third-Sector Research has three publications—Voluntas: The International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, Inside ISTR, and ISTR Report. Voluntas is an interdisciplinary academic journal that is published quarterly. It introduces new topics, provides critical commentary on research and policy related to the third sector, and covers theoretical and empirical work on the nonprofit sector. Inside ISTR is a quarterly newsletter for ISTR members that includes information on third-sector developments, activities, research in progress, and recently published works. ISTR Report is a series of reports, published periodically, that highlight thematic and regional issues of the third sector. ISTR hosts international conferences every other year. The purpose of these conferences is to provide a venue for the exchange of ideas and research findings

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among researchers. The first four conference locations and themes have been: 1994, Pecs, Hungary, “Toward the Year 2000: ISTR Inaugural Conference”; 1996, Mexico City, Mexico, “The Contribution of the Third Sector to Social, Economic and Political Change”; 2000, Dublin, Ireland, “The Third Sector: For What and for Whom?”; and 2002, Capetown, South Africa, “Transforming Civil Society, Citizenship and Governance: The Third Sector in an Era of Global (Dis)order.” The organization has also established affinity groups and regional networks for researchers. The affinity groups allow researchers to pursue specific interests and are structured around geography, thematic lines, or disciplines. The regional networks offer the opportunity for researchers in specific areas of the world to meet and discuss topics relevant to their region. As of 2002, there were five regional networks in operation for member researchers from Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Arabic-speaking nations, and Europe. ISTR maintains a Web site that can be accessed at http://www.istr.org or http://www.jhu.edu/~istr. It offers information on ISTR events, online articles from Voluntas, and general information on the organization. There is an online membership directory that is accessible only by ISTR members. Both members and nonmembers may sign up for ISTR’s e-mail listserv. The purpose of the listserv is to allow researchers on the third sector to exchange ideas and information. Membership is open to both individuals and institutions. Individual membership is open to any researcher, practitioner, student, or other individual who supports ISTR’s mission, and institutional membership is open to any organization that supports the mission. Membership benefits include ISTR publications, voting privileges, access to the members-only online membership directory, and reduced conference registration rates. There are reduced membership rates for members who are unable to pay the regular rates owing to the economic situation of their country. A nineteen-member board of directors, of which four members are ex-officio, governs ISTR. The directors are ISTR member researchers from around the world. Ex officio members of the board include ISTR’s immediate past president, the editor of Volun-

Islamic Philanthropy

tas, a representative of ISTR’s host institution, and ISTR’s executive director. Lynn O’Connell References and further reading American Council of Learned Societies. “International Society of Third-Sector Research,” http://www.acls.org/ istsr.htm (cited July 25, 2002). Center for Civil Society International. “International Society for Third-Sector Research,” http://www.civilsoc. org/resource/ISTR.HTM (cited July 25, 2002). INDEPENDENT SECTOR. “International Society for ThirdSector Research,” http://www.independentsector.org/ pathfinder/resources/acad_ass/3rd_sec.html (cited July 25, 2002). International Society for Third-Sector Research. “International Society for Third-Sector Research,” http://www.istr.org (cited July 25, 2002).

Islamic Philanthropy The Ethical and Historical Context For people raised in the West, charity and philanthropy are not necessarily the features most likely to be associated with the Islamic religion and its moral universe. The religio-ethical standards of behavior implicit in such words as “kindness,” “generosity,” “love of humankind,” and “compassion” are not particularly evident when Islam and its adherents are depicted in the electronic and print media. Instead, the Islamic moral universe as constructed by these purveyors of information tends to be more characterized by such features as militancy, violence, authoritarianism, personal—but not evenly distributed—wealth, and gender inequality. Yet the sanctified texts from which Islam draws its tenets and which are accessible, and indeed familiar, to non-Muslims are hardly devoid of injunctions to do good, to serve God, and to serve one’s fellow man. Even a purveyor of popular information as humanistic and assertedly objective in its outlook as the Christian Science Monitor feels compelled to work within these limits—what its editors probably believe its readership is willing to understand. In 1984, the newspaper ran a series of articles on Islam that attempted to be comprehensive in its treatment of the religion and its political and social aspects. The title of the series, “Islam: Behind the Veil,” itself speaks vol-

umes about the parameters within which the West is able to produce and reproduce its view of Islam (Christian Science Monitor 1984). The theme of mystery and seclusion was recapitulated in one of the opening sentences of the first article in the phrase “a veil still lies across most of the Muslim world.” The headlines of the articles then categorized the substance thought to lie behind the metaphorical veil: “The Politics of Islam: What Kind of Government Does Islam Permit—or Demand?”; “The Impact of Islam: The Financial Challenge, Islam’s Growth— and Its Future”; and “Fundamentalist Islam: Muslims in Search of a Purer Islam.” Given the long, complicated, and predominantly hostile relations that have existed between Christianity and Islam, it should be no surprise that these themes have lasted and still resonate today. Maxime Rodinson aptly noted that Islam was seen as a threat to Europe long before it became a real problem (Rodinson 1974, 9). The early-eighth-century theologian Bede, in his ecclesiastical history of the English, referred to the Islamic community as “that most grievous pest, the Saracens,” which had laid waste the land of the Gauls but had received in due course appropriate punishment (ibid.). Later, the figure of Muhammad would become the object of scorn to Christian polemicists who knew nothing of their subject. One unusually candid writer, the eleventhcentury Guibert de Nogent, noted, “It is safe to speak evil of one whose malignity exceeds whatever ill can be spoken” (ibid., 13–14). There is a long thread linking those early Christian attitudes to today’s media portrayals. Christendom’s view of Islam has been strongly flavored by the fact that for 1,400 of the 2,000 years of Christianity’s existence, Islam has had virtually unbroken control over Christianity’s holiest sites. Moreover, because of the geographic and ideological proximity of the Christian West and the Muslim Middle East, the adherents of the two religions have long been natural rivals and at times bitter enemies. In today’s more secular age, Islam still manages to exert a firm grasp on the West’s feelings of vulnerability. Bethlehem and Jerusalem have been replaced by the Buick and the Jeep as cultural artifacts threatened by Islam’s control—this time its control of oil.

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Given all this, it would be surprising to find much in the Christian or secular Western portrayal of Islam to suggest common values shared by the two great religions. And it is probably safe to say that through most of history, including the present, such has been the case. Although Christian teachings stress love for humankind, compassion, mercy, and self-sacrifice, Western writing on Islam seems unable to locate similar concerns and teachings. Admonitions on charity and philanthropy in the Koran and in the texts recording the sayings and doings of the Prophet Muhammad, however, stress familiar themes and virtues: They will question you concerning what they should bestow voluntarily. Say: Whatever good thing you bestow is for parents and kinsmen, orphans, the needy and strangers and whatever good you do God has knowledge of it. (Koran 2: 215) Those who bestow their wealth in the way of God are like the grain of corn that sprouts seven ears, a hundred grains in every ear. So God multiplies for those whom he will. (Koran 2: 261) Oh, believers, do not void your freewill offerings with reproach and injury as one who bestows of his substance to show off to men and believes not in God and the Last Day. (Koran 2: 264) If you publish your voluntary offerings, that is good; but if you conceal them, and give them to the poor, that is better for you, and will acquit you of your evil deeds. (Koran 2: 271) Whatever good you do surely God has knowledge of it. Those who expend their wealth night and day, openly or secretly, their reward awaits them with their Lord. (Koran 2: 274) You will not attain true piety until you voluntarily give of that which you love and whatever you give, God knows of it. (Koran 3: 92)

The etiquette of charitable giving is not unfamiliar. Charity begins at home. It is best done modestly and without ulterior motive. One should not embarrass or demean the recipient. God will reward

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acts of generosity and goodwill. True giving lies in self-sacrifice. Islam emerged in a world in which a number of traditions of philanthropy already existed. And its dialogue with these traditions affected the way that concepts of philanthropy were, and are, understood and acted upon in the many societies in which Islamic moral teachings came to hold sway. Of primary importance is the fact that although Islam appeared first in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century A.D., it quickly spread to and systematized its teachings in the Fertile Crescent and Iran. These lands had been part of two great Hellenized societies—the Christian Byzantine and the Zoroastrian Sasanian. The worldview of the Christians and Zoroastrians whom the Arab Muslims first subdued influenced the development of Muslim thought. Converts to Islam did not begin with a mental and ideological tabula rasa but themselves molded their conception of the Islamic message by their own experience and the experience of their forebears as they understood it. The intellectual efforts to transform the teachings of Muhammad and the Koranic revelation into a comprehensive system of personal and communal law were carried out almost entirely within the former lands of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires and took account of existing institutions and practices as these were incorporated where appropriate into an Islamic ethos. This principle applied as well to the way in which institutionalized charity and philanthropy emerged and evolved in the Islamic milieu. Philanthropic institutions had had a long history in the Middle East and had evolved in new ways as Christianity was adopted within the Eastern Roman Empire. In the pre-Christian period, philanthropy was often tied to the distribution of food during elaborate entertainments staged by the civic authorities. It was a pattern of welfare that has been summed up in the phrase “bread and circuses.” When Christianity became the religion of the state and patterns of welfare were adapted to Christian teachings, the phenomenon of the great public entertainment in which food was distributed remained but was now situated in a religious context— the dedication of a church, the appointment of a bishop, or the celebration of a Christianized holy


day—rather than in the civic context, such as a sporting event sponsored by a politician. The purpose of philanthropy underwent redefinition along with its practice. In the pre-Christian Roman world, the purpose of the distribution of charity was to assert the donor’s high social status and commitment to civic duty. For the Christian, the purpose of charity became, in Judith Herrin’s words, “the desire for future salvation, forgiveness of sins and life everlasting in the world to come” (Herrin 1985, 3). Herrin has divided the history of Christian charity from its beginnings up to the appearance of Islam into three stages: (1) the three centuries from Apostolic times to the acceptance of Christianity as the imperial religion by Constantine; (2) the two-and-a-half-century period of imperial endowments from Constantine to Justinian I (313–565); and (3) a transitional century that laid the foundations for medieval Christian charitable endowments (565–641). By the third period, at the end of which the Muslim Arabs appeared on the scene, the main features of Christian charitable endowments were the following. First, imperial endowments had been directed toward religious ends and the Christian church had become the wealthiest single institution in the Near East. As objects worthy of endowment, the rectory had replaced the racetrack and the sanctuary had supplanted the circus. Some secular institutions, such as public baths, supported by pre-Christian donors as fulfilling a civic function were patronized by the church when they also served a religious function—in the case of the bath the promotion of ritual purity. Second, this transitional period saw an ever greater role played by wealthy individuals in establishing endowments. But, as Herrin observed, the endowments and foundations that survived the longest tended to be those most closely associated with the imperial court and the leadership of the church. In other words, political support was important to the durability of the charitable foundations. When the Arab Muslims conquered the Fertile Crescent in the second quarter of the seventh century, they thus encountered Christian charity and its institutions at a particular point of evolution. Earlier Western writers in this century, especially W. Heffening, whose work on the Islamic philanthropic

foundation has been particularly influential, saw the Christian pattern as the basis and model of the Islamic institution. But the Muslim Arabs were exposed to other notions and institutions of charity and philanthropy besides Christian ones. In Iran, conquered by the Arab Muslims at the same time as the Fertile Crescent, Christianity had never made much headway. Here the moral universe was defined by Mazdean or Zoroastrian ethics. Although less information is available about the attitudes toward charity and patterns of philanthropy and welfare in this area than in Rome and Byzantine, there is enough evidence to support the following outline. Like Christians, Zoroastrians were committed to pious deeds—acts that would contribute to the salvation of the soul of the donor in the afterlife. In Christianity, much emphasis was placed on the poor and their needs, as well as on the cult. In Zoroastrianism, the cult was of prime importance—building temples and fire-altars and providing for priests and the performance of rites and services. “Charity begins at home” was also a central ethical consideration in philanthropic activities. The Sasanian Law Book (Matakdan-i hazar datastan), an extremely important source for the Sasanian period (A.D. 224–652), documents private endowments and charitable foundations or philanthropic trusts in Sasanian Iran. The book was compiled during the reign of Khusraw II, Parviz (r. 590, 591–628), and provides the legal procedures for setting up a foundation. The existence of philanthropic foundations themselves can be attested much earlier through inscriptions on pottery from the Parthian period (c. 247 B.C. to A.D. 224) indicating that vineyards in the vicinity of Nisa (southern Turkmenistan) were part of an endowment to perform services for the “repose of the souls” of four Parthian kings, Priapatius (c. 191 B.C.), Mithradates (c. 171– 148/147 B.C.), Artabanus (c. 127 B.C.), and Gotarzes (c. 90 B.C.). The Law Book delineates the philanthropic trust as follows. By a testament in documentary form, an individual would set aside or endow part of his private property to support a defined purpose “for the soul” (pat ruwan) or “for a pious purpose” (pat ahravdat). The income from the endowment first supported the

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maintenance of the principal, the payment of taxes, if the property was subject to taxes, and the remainder to fulfill the wishes of the founder. Control of the foundation was assigned to a trustee, and within the Sasanian state administration there appears to have been an office assigned to oversee these foundations. When the Muslim Arabs appeared on the scene, both the Christian and Zoroastrian traditions of philanthropy and their formal institutions existed as accessible and available models. It seems clear that whereas the ethical impulse to philanthropic works was securely rooted in Koranic and Prophetic texts, the way in which at least one of the formal institutions took shape, the philanthropic trust, was strongly influenced by these already existing legal structures, especially the Zoroastrian foundation. A. G. Perikhanian believes, in contrast to W. Heffening, that it was the latter model that shaped the Muslim legal rules on trusts. He cited the following similarities between the two: • The nonconsumable principal, the yield from which first goes to maintain the principal (reinvestment and overhead expenses), then to pay taxes, and lastly to support the named beneficiary • The unchanged tax liability of the principal from its pre-foundation state • The formal nomination of trustees to manage the foundation • The right of the founder to name himself or herself the first trustee • The irrevocability of the act of establishing the foundation • The two types of foundation (private, or family, and charitable, or public) • The express right of the state through its judicial appointee to regulate the administration of the trust (Perikhanian 1983, 175–176)

Formal Muslim Institutions of Philanthropy There are three institutions in Islam that formalize the believer’s moral obligation to do good work on God’s behalf. Each is quite distinct, both in the degree of its formalization and in the way in which it addresses the issue of charity.

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The Alms-Tax: Zakat The first Islamic institution is the zakat (sometimes translated as “alms-tax”), which is one of the five personal obligations (the so-called pillars of Islam). These also include the profession of faith, the fivetimes-a-day performance of worship or prayer, the month-long fast in Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Zakat can best be described as a wealth tax (generally about 2.5 percent) with fixed classes of recipients. But as an effective institution for providing a means of fulfilling the impulse to do good and supplying the social welfare needs that philanthropy addresses, its record is ambiguous. The alms-tax seems to have been collected rigorously at times, but at other times individuals paid it only if they so chose. Even under such highly bureaucratized administrations as the Ottoman (mid-thirteenth to early twentieth centuries), there does not seem to have been a formal method of wealth assessment for the zakat, so that the amount paid would have been a matter of personal conscience. The classes of recipients were fixed by early tradition. These were the poor, the needy, the people who collected and disbursed the zakat, Muslim prisoners of war who could be ransomed, debtors, people fighting in defense of the faith, travelers, and “those whose hearts are reconciled,” a code for the Meccans of Muhammad’s time who fought him bitterly until their final surrender. Although the legal definition of the classes remained unchanged down through the centuries, the people who originally qualified in two of these categories, “those whose hearts are reconciled” and, interestingly, those who collected and disbursed the zakat, had disappeared. There is not yet much evidence that the zakat, although it existed as a fully defined legal institution, ever satisfied the social welfare needs of any society for any period of time. The best evidence that we have that the zakat tax was not a significant factor in promoting social welfare is the silence of documentary and other written sources about it, aside from the works of legal theory. The Freewill Charitable Offering: Sadaqah The second institution is a more generalized one of voluntary giving for a charitable purpose, or sadaqah. Throughout the early legal literature there seems to


have been considerable confusion of the terms sadaqah and zakat. Al-Bukhari, the great compiler of narratives attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, used the two terms interchangeably. But from other uses the meaning of sadaqah as voluntary giving, in contrast to the obligatory alms-tax, is clear. In all the Koranic citations quoted above, the term for “bestowing wealth” is sadaqah, not zakat. Because sadaqah represents a voluntary act, there is only anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness in fulfilling, in any large-scale way, the purpose of philanthropy. Although the legal texts treat the potential consequences of a voluntary gift in comparison with an endowment in certain situations (when the donor is on his or her deathbed, for example), the nature of a voluntary gift precludes the kind of documentary trail that an endowment provides. Hence, for the historian, sadaqah is a more difficult subject to research. One variant of the sadaqah—the voluntary charitable endowment—is, however, eminently suited to academic study. The Endowed Freewill Offering: Sadaqah Mawqufah, or Waqf Historically, the most significant institution of Muslim charity and philanthropy is the endowment, or philanthropic foundation, the third and most effective form in which charity has been institutionalized. It is commonly known by the Arabic terms waqf (pl. awqaj) (in Persian, vaqfand; in Turkish, vakif ) and habs, habus (pl. ahbas), both of which carry the sense of restraining or tying something up. In the Islamic legal view, the institution originated when ‘Umar ibn alKhattab, a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad and later the second to succeed him as leader of the Muslim community, acquired land in the oasis of Khaybar near Mecca. He asked the Prophet whether he should give the land away as a voluntary donation (sadaqah), and the Prophet is reported to have replied, “Encumber the thing itself and devote its fruits to pious purposes.” ‘Umar reportedly did this with the provision that the land should neither be sold nor inherited, and he dedicated its income for a variety of charitable purposes—for the manumission of slaves, for travelers, for guests, and in the way of God. Thus, the archetypal Islamic philanthropic trust had come into existence, resembling in many ways the

foundations already established in Christian and Zoroastrian lands but not yet bearing the distinctive features of those institutions.

Legal Aspects Definition Because of the early political success of the community of Muslims—within twenty years of the death of the founder and prophet, Muhammad, in A.D. 632, Arab Muslim armies had conquered the Arabian peninsula, the Fertile Crescent, Iran, Egypt, and much of the North African coast—work began very early to characterize and codify exactly what was distinctive about the new religion—its sacred text, its social codes, and its relations with non-Muslim groups. As worked out by Muslim legal specialists (at least by the twelfth century), the charitable trust was succinctly defined as the voluntary donation by the owner of the right of disposal of a thing or property (res) and the dedication of the usufruct to some charitable end. In other words, an individual having full right of disposal over some property declares, usually by deed, that it is henceforth, or at some future date, given in trust to a specified charitable end. The property so encumbered could be either real estate or movable property, but it should produce a “benefit,” usually income, that could be used to support the declared beneficiary. The endowment deed would clearly define the property involved and often, in the case of land and other real estate, append proof of ownership (sale deeds and sworn affidavits, for example). The beneficiary or beneficiaries of the trust would then be named. The beneficiary had to be an acceptable object of charity (in Arabic a qurbah, or something pleasing to God). All trusts had to have a charitable object or they were invalid. In the case of trusts established mainly to benefit one’s family, the legal scholars came to the view rather quickly that trusts of this type were indeed legitimate if the ultimate purpose of the endowment, as expressed in the wording of the deed, was a philanthropic one. Hence, one finds wording such as, “I make waqf of my home for my daughter and after her, her children and her children’s children but if the line comes to an end then to the poor.”

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Legal Characteristics Other qualifications for a trust under Islamic law are as follows:

their “parents and kinsmen leave, whether it be little or much, a share apportioned.” It then proceeds with the following:

• It must be perpetual and inalienable, although social and economic circumstances have given rise to certain legally sanctioned institutions, which in some cases have led to the effective alienation of trusts. • Although there are some differences of opinion among scholars, the trust is generally irrevocable. Because of ambiguity in the authoritative texts of the early legal specialists, it was not uncommon for a suit to be filed in court by the founder of a trust or, after him, by his designated beneficiaries or administrators, to void the trust deed. The judge would then affirm the irrevocability of the trust and dismiss the suit. The suit was both a device to stave off unfriendly suits and a means of asserting the “common law” point of view that trusts were irrevocable. • An administrator or trustee has to be appointed, usually by the settlor (waqif ), who also has the right to entail the office in the line of the first trustee. However, the right of the state to supervise the administration of trusts was explicit from the beginning, and one finds frequent reference to the role of the qadi, or judge, in removing incompetent or corrupt administrators or appointing successors when the settlor has not designated the line of succession. The trustees also frequently turned to the qadi’s court for reaffirmations of the rights of the trustee over the trust.

God charges you concerning your children: to the male the like of the portion of two females, and if they be women above two then for them two-thirds of what he leaves but if she be one then to her a half: and to his parents to each one of the two the sixth of what he leaves if he has children; but if he has no children, and his heirs are his parents, a third to his mother, or, if he has brothers, to his mother a sixth, after any bequest he may bequeath, or any debt. . . . And for you a half of what your wives leave, if they have no children; but if they have children then for you of what they leave, a fourth, after any bequest they may bequeath, or any debt. And for them a fourth of what you leave, if you have no children but if you have children, then for them of what you leave an eighth, after any bequest you may bequeath, or any debt. If a man or a woman have no heir direct, but have a brother or a sister, to each of the two a sixth; but if they are more numerous than that, they share equally a third, after any bequest he may bequeath, or any debt. (Arberry 1964, 73–74)

Sociolegal Aspects: Inheritance, the Family Trust, and the “Mixed” Trust The Muslim trust and its evolution are closely tied to Islamic rules on succession and inheritance. Succession to the estate of a deceased person is articulated in considerable detail in the Koran. The main section on inheritance begins with a general admonition that men and women alike are to receive a share of what

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By the time the procedures of these ordinances were worked out and other Koranic and Prophetic texts integrated, including the pre-Islamic inheritance rights of the agnates, all estate distributions became a matter of mathematical formula. The bequest referred to in the Koranic text was restricted to no more than one-third of the estate and was further limited by the time period in which it had to be made and the eligible recipients. As laid down in the Koran, the rules of succession thus left the owner of property no right to choose heirs and no discretion in what each would receive. Since for much of the Islamic period the law itself did not reach much beyond the urban centers, other local traditions on succession to estates prevailed. But in the modern period, as polities asserted their authority by establishing Islamic courts further and further into the countryside, the inheritance rules have had a more universal effect. And even in the premodern period, it is generally believed, although the evidence is not everywhere clear, that the cities were the home of the wealthy, even the large landowners, and therefore that the Islamic succession rules had a


much wider applicability in terms of the distribution of wealth than the distribution of population might indicate. Against this legal background, the ubiquitous nature of the Islamic trust has considerable logic, in the abstract. First, the trust was not governed by the inheritance rules. An individual could place all of his or her property into a trust and name as beneficiaries those who might not otherwise have been heirs, or fix the distribution of the income from the trust in ways different from the estate distribution under the Koranic system of proportional shares. It would appear, therefore, that the trust served as a device for evading the Koranic rules on inheritance. Societies do not exist in the abstract, however, and to the extent that the surviving legal manuals and documentation on waqfs—of which there is an abundance beginning as early as the late ninth century—reflect the social concerns of the time, one may tentatively conclude that every generation gave its own interpretation to the institution. Two examples, one early and one late, will suffice. The late-ninth-century al-Khassaf (d. 875) shows a predominant interest in what makes a trust valid or invalid. The examples he used show that for him the trust was primarily a family or clan foundation. The large public philanthropic type of trust so familiar after the thirteenth century seems to have been of far less concern to him (Abu Bakr 1902). His work indicates that he was well aware of this type of trust, but his focus is on the manifold forms a family trust might take. The manual on trusts written by Qadri Pasha (d. 1888) for the Ottoman court system reveals a concern with the way in which trust properties were encumbered by liens—a situation earlier manuals do not reflect. The work spends no time discussing what makes a waqf valid or invalid primarily, of course, because Qadri Pasha was working within a well-established legal framework, while al-Khassaf was writing before any consensus had developed about Islamic judicial procedures and principles on waqf (Pasha 1902). As one reviews not only the legal manuals but the documentary record as well (deeds, suits, imperial decrees, and court opinions), a process of continual change in the concerns of the people involved is evident. It is thus very difficult and probably unproductive to draw any universally applicable conclusions

about the effect of the rules of succession on the creation of trusts. The common interpretation that trusts were devices to “circumvent inheritance rules” has to be regarded as applicable only if the individual circumstances warrant it. An important legal feature of the Islamic trust is the absence of a substantive distinction between private and charitable trusts (in the Anglo-American legal sense). The historic distinction between the public, or charitable, trust and the private, or family, trust is not reflected in the legal definition, which encompasses both without distinction. It was not until the modern era, when the Islamic view on trusts began to be influenced by European ideas about perpetuity, that a clearer distinction was drawn between public and private trusts. Many of the Islamic reforms of the trust in the second half of the twentieth century were efforts to apply a rule against perpetuities for private trusts. In French Algeria and British India, European judicial theory on perpetuity was brought to bear on the Islamic trust with mixed results. It is probably fair to say that the issue was less one of legal distinction than one of historical evolution in which public and official sympathy for private trusts was considerably less than that for the public ones, as has been true elsewhere in the world, notably in the United States. Modern-day students of the Islamic charitable trust have tended to focus on the difference between family trusts and philanthropic trusts, perhaps influenced by the evolution of Anglo-American law in which the philanthropic or charitable trust differs substantially from the personal trust, where the “rule against perpetuities” applies. In Islamic law, the distinction is moot, since both public and private ultimately serve the same purpose and both are bound by the same legal principles. The family trust tended to be small and not particularly durable, although there are examples of private trusts that lasted three or four generations but from which the beneficiaries by the end were receiving very nominal sums. Property depreciation and the likelihood of an increase in beneficiaries with generational succession tended to cause family trusts to eventually disappear. Further, unlike the philanthropic trust, there was no obvious incentive to any individual ben-

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eficiary or potential donor to replenish the capital of a family trust, particularly if beneficiaries existed in collateral lines. A donor who wished to benefit members of his own immediate family could simply establish a new trust. The large community trust, however, was and still is a durable and prominent institution in all countries where Islam has had a major impact, from southeastern Europe and Africa to Southeast Asia. In fact, in places where Muslims are in a minority (notably India or the former Yugoslavia), the philanthropic trust, or waqf, is and has been an important institution for the propagation and preservation of Islam, its cult, and its culture in a predominantly non-Muslim environment. There is a third variant of the trust that has gotten little attention: a trust with mixed beneficiaries, that is, a combination of the family trust and the philanthropic or community trust. Even when the trust was not mixed from the outset, and indeed may never have been legally a mixed trust, a long, gradual development of a community trust could ultimately evolve into a mixed or even an entirely private trust.

Social Aspects of the Trust Part of the procedure involved in establishing a trust was the appointment of a trustee. It was one of the three essential parts of the foundation—the other two being the naming of the beneficiary or beneficiaries and the description of the endowment itself. The designation of a trustee was left to the founder. The conditions of the appointment (salary, future succession to the position, and qualifications) were also set forth. The founder could name himself or herself or anyone with the proper qualifications (of legal age, sound mental faculties, and trustworthiness) and could entail the trusteeship if that seemed desirable. Even where succession to the trusteeship was not specified by the founder, circumstances and expectations, of course, favored those with experience with the trust. It is probably the rule that in premodern, early modern, and modern times, near relatives (sons or daughters, brothers and sisters) would succeed to the trusteeship. For large and politically sensitive trusts, states have typically played a more active role in designating trustees. At the same time, charitable trusts, often with governmental compliance, have played a major

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role in the formation and perpetuation of local elites and “dynastic families.” There have been few efforts to study the long-term societal or economic consequences of trusts in the Muslim world. Western authors seem to have brought certain views on trusts from the experience with mortmain (the dead hand, usually perpetual ownership of real estate by institutions such as churches) in Europe to bear on the social and economic analysis of the Muslim trust. But there is a crucial difference between Europe, where there was a centralized religious organization, the Church of Rome, and the Middle East, where there was no central religious establishment, no hierarchical organization that could use its political power to accumulate wealth and its wealth to accumulate more power. Instead, even the largest Islamic trusts had little political power. They sometimes exerted considerable local influence (the trust administration of the great shrine at Mashhad in Iran, for example), but they were not contextually capable, in general, of challenging the authority of the polities and jurisdictions in which they were located. Thus, the comparison of the Muslim waqf with mortmain decontextualizes the Islamic trust to a point where its genuine significance is somewhat obscured. A better comparative institution for the Muslim trust would be the modern American charitable trust. Both are predicated on the condition of fulfilling a valid societal need. The American charitable trust must serve a purpose benefiting the public at large, including the relief of poverty, advancement of education, advancement of religion, promotion of health, support of governmental or municipal purposes, and any other purposes deemed beneficial to the community at large or a substantial segment of it. The Muslim community trust recognizes all these purposes as valid and falling within those things considered to be pleasing to God. Both types of trusts are perpetual. The American trust is distinguished from the Muslim waqf primarily in the fact that it excludes all private aspects. Unless a trust is exclusively charitable, it is subject to the rule against perpetuities in the American context, whereas Islamic law allows for an ultimate charitable purpose. Yet, not immune to the influences of the world around it, Islam in its modernizing reforms has tried


to suppress the private family trust. Otherwise, the two are remarkably similar. Where this has important social implications lies in the history and evolution of the families associated with trusts, either as founders or settlors (in both the American and Muslim cases) or as trustees (especially in the Muslim case), in the two societies. The anthropologist George Marcus, examining the American context, has labeled such families “dynastic families” because the fiduciary responsibilities associated with the trusts provide a dynastic impulse. That is, the fiduciary responsibilities and the social status associated with the duties involved in a trust, like the mandate of a royal family to rule and the associated status, provide the motivation for the family to reproduce itself in the fiduciary context. In the United States, the donor or settlor families are the large capitalist families—the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Gettys, and Fords. They have their counterparts in earlier times in the Ahraris and Juybaris of Samarkand and Bukhara, respectively (from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, in particular), the Ansaris of Herat and what is now Mazari Sharif in Afghanistan (fifteenth to nineteenth centuries), and the Koprulus in the Ottoman Empire (seventeenth century). In the twentieth century, the ruling family of Iran (the Pahlavis), the reigning line of Arabia (the Saudis), the capitalist Harari in Lebanon, the Sultan of Brunei, and Adnan Khashoggi, among others, are examples of trustfounding families motivated by humanitarian impulses as well as social and political status (Marcus 1992). Finding a more appropriate paradigm for the trust in the Islamic legal context depends on considerably expanding what is now a very nascent field of study. But the American context provides a starting point and, in turn, students of the American scene might find instructive examples in the far longer history of trusts that the Islamic record provides.

Political Aspects of the Muslim Trust The Muslim trust, as the principal vehicle for the advancement of education and scholarship, has always been a powerful tool of patronage. The links between the ruling groups and their subject peoples have historically been weak through most of Islamic history.

This is partly explained by the fact that Islamic teachings only contain the broadest outlines of a political philosophy and never developed an acceptable way of sanctioning the existence of temporal states. (Only the Zaydi Shi’ites of the Yemen seem to have achieved such a political philosophy.) It is also partly explained by the fact that after the tenth century virtually all governing groups were Turkish, a military minority that held sway in Arab- and Persian-speaking lands for a millennium. This ethnic alienation, coupled with the always uncertain legitimacy of the ruling class in the eyes of the ruled, made any organized group or group with common interests and background a crucial element in politics. In general, the scholarly establishment and Sufi orders (two categories that often overlapped), both important coalescers and articulators of public opinion, tended to be the most significant beneficiaries of ruling groups’ efforts at acquiring and holding popular support. The Muslim trust was one important means by which the Turkish ruling groups could provide these molders of public opinion with a stable economic basis and at the same time bind their interests together. Some of the greatest trusts in Middle Eastern history were established in Egypt under the Turkish Mamluks (r. 1265–1517). The Mamluk amirs were great supporters of Sufi organizations, building large and magnificent khanqahs, or hostels, for them and endowing them with commercial buildings and agricultural lands. Elsewhere, in the Ottoman lands, in Mogul India, and in post-Mongol Central Asia and Safavid Iran, large-scale trusts were set up to provide permanent vehicles for the redistribution of revenue to these groups. In providing for the scholarly and religious classes, the politicians of the post-Mongol period went beyond the conveyance of their own private lands into trusts. They also began to assign the tax revenues of regions as endowments. The rationale for this seems to have been that although the lands themselves may not have been the property of the state, the revenues were and could be assigned to a purpose that was clearly in the general interest of the community as a whole and certainly one pleasing to God. With the passage of time, however, such encumbrances on the tax base constricted the state’s ability to fund its other

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expenditures, such as maintenance of the royal household, defense, and policing the country. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman government promulgated a new land law that formalized the tax-supported waqfs as a separate administrative category. This began a process, continued into the present century, in which the state has come to assume more and more administrative control, first of the tax-supported trusts themselves, then of the institutions they benefited—education, health, and other social welfare services. The system of education was a particular beneficiary because it employed large numbers of people whose voice in society was highly influential. Students and their professors both received stipends, almost always from an endowment. In addition, the madrasah (colleges) commonly employed large staffs (cooks, water-carriers, barbers, custodians, and religious staff, including imams, or prayer leaders, and preachers). These, too, became part of the constituency served by endowments. Today, in countries such as India, where Muslim education depends heavily on waqf income, endowment revenues are kept separate from government revenues for education, although the government may still subsidize educational activity. In Libya, endowment income for education represents only a small percentage of the actual education budget, and although there is a ministry of endowments that supervises the income and expenditures on Islamic education, the government also provides the ministry with a large subsidy to cover the difference between endowment income and annual expenditures. The social meaning attached to the trust as an institution with divine sanction makes it extremely important to heads of state and their political colleagues. The Shah of Iran, whose political legitimacy was always problematic, frequently and very publicly created new endowments to support the advancement of religion in the principal Shi’ite centers (Mashhad and Qum in Iran and the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq). It is ironic, but not particularly surprising, that one of the beneficiaries of his endowments was Imam Khomeini during his exile in Iraq. Before the revolution of 1979, the Pahlavi Foundation, a gigantic trust, sponsored a variety of activities in the cause of

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advancing religion. This included endowing chairs in Iranian and Islamic studies at foreign universities. Its endowment included properties all over the world, including luxury apartment and office buildings in New York City. After the revolution, the trust was renamed the Mustaz’afin Foundation (The Foundation for the Needy), and it continues to promote the advancement of religion. One of the political issues that continues to be linked to the Muslim trust is its tax status. Early students of the trust were under the impression that, like mortmain lands attached to monasteries in Europe, the Muslim trust lands were tax exempt. There are good reasons beyond the comparative one for making that assumption, however mistaken it was. Where the trust income was derived from the tax revenue of a locale or region, it enjoyed a de facto tax immunity. Governments generally did not levy tax on taxes. However, there was no de jure tax immunity for trusts. Real estate, especially land, taxes were the principal source of revenue in the premodern Middle East. When property was liable for taxes before it was conveyed to a charitable purpose, it remained liable thereafter. The legal manuals provide sufficient evidence for this in the lengthy discussions of what a trust administrator could do to raise funds if he had insufficient revenue on hand to pay the taxes when they were due. In addition, there is strong indirect evidence, from Central Asia at least, that the tax liability did not change with the conveyance of private property to a trust. We find this indirect evidence in the descriptions of a judicial proceeding in which taxable private property could be made tax exempt prior to its being conveyed to a trust. This was done by surrendering two-thirds of the property to the state treasury in exchange for tax exemption on the remaining one-third. Since the example relates to property that was immediately afterward conveyed to a trust, it is reasonable to assume that in the period covered by documents detailing this procedure (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), establishing tax immunity whenever possible was considered a desirable thing for an endowment. Whether this was the norm or not for the period it is not yet possible to say. But the example clearly shows that there was no presumptive tax im-


munity for trust properties. The lone exceptions to this, which help prove the case, are given as a site for either a mosque or a cemetery, where the rationale for tax exemption would seem clear.

Economic Considerations The Waqf as an Economic Instrument The judgments that have been rendered about the economic utility of the waqf have tended to be sweeping and, at least as far as Western analysts are concerned, fairly negative. W. Heffening, whose obiter dicta on the waqf have tended to be treated as serious findings, wrote, “The wakf system in the East was very beneficial in ameliorating poverty and misery and in furthering learning, but it had its shady side morally and economically [my emphasis]. On the one hand, considerable sections of the population were taken from industry by the continual creation of new sinecures and supported at the expense of the country; on the other hand, the capital for these great endowments had to be supplied by the wealthy and this was acquired not by productive labor but by extortion and unprecedented exploitation of the people” (Heffening 1993). In fact, there has been no serious analysis of the productivity of trust vs. private property nor of the economic incentives or disincentives inherent in the Islamic trust. One possible incentive lies in the manner in which the administrator of the Muslim trust is typically compensated. The salary of the trustee could be set as a percentage of either the net or gross income or as a fixed sum. Although there are no studies of the problem of the form of trustee compensation as it relates to the economic viability and longevity of a trust, the percentage-of-gross-income formula would seem on the face of it to give a trustee the greatest long-term incentive to maintain the capital of the trust, reinvest in it, and seek to supplement it. A fixed salary would ultimately lose its relative value, and the percentage of net revenues would perhaps encourage spending as little as possible on maintenance and reinvestment in favor of the trustee’s share. Where percentages are mentioned, 10–20 percent seems to have been a norm for all administrative costs, including trustee compensation. Again, the patterns of salary compensation were probably a product of the custom at a given time

in a given place, the economic sophistication of the founder, and the involvement of the state in supervising trust administration. But there is nothing in the form of trusts per se that suggests a disincentive to maintaining endowment property at the highest possible level of productivity. The Effect of the Waqf in the Real-Estate Market Another charge leveled against the Muslim waqf is that it removed property from the real estate market, thus distorting the market by sequestering large amounts of real estate that might otherwise be used more productively. Heffening, and to a lesser extent Gabriel Baer (1979, 220–241), view this tendency as one of the inherently negative characteristics of waqfs. Indeed, two recent anthropological studies of modern-day waqf commercial property, one from Sefrou, Morocco, and the other from Yazd, Iran, suggest that trust property is less driven by market forces than is private property. But the productivity issue is not seen simply as one of maximizing profit or capital appreciation. In Sefrou, the administrators of the trust keep rents on commercial property at a very low level, effectively eliminating rent as a cost of business. In Yazd, the rents were not kept low but tended to lag, rising and falling along with market trends but well behind the market (Bonine 1987, 192–193). The reasons suggested in both these cases were similar: that public waqfs had public purposes, and profit was not their first priority. Each created a constituency—the employees of the foundation, its beneficiaries, and those who did business with it. In addition, these trusts indirectly benefited those who might otherwise have had to provide the services if the foundations did not exist. These indirect beneficiaries, notably municipal and regional politicians, were more interested in the overall long-term health of the trust and far less in its short-term fiscal prospects. Each of these constituencies had agendas to which the waqf administrators had to respond. The economic aspects of the Islamic foundations are thus closely bound to the social meaning they embody and are somewhat constrained by that meaning. In any event, the argument that trust land is universally isolated from the market and is not affected by market pressures is not borne out by history. The

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reality is that endowment properties tend to be recycled into the market if rents, for example, are kept too low or if insufficient attention is paid to upkeep. Legal devices have emerged over the years to mitigate the effects of the irrevocability of a Muslim foundation. One long-standing device is exchange—the right to trade property of equal or greater value for extant endowment property (unless expressly forbidden by the donor). Potentially valuable but undeveloped land in the center of a city might be swapped for productive agricultural land, for example. Another device is the sale of development rights. A tenant of an endowment building might purchase the right to develop the interior. The interior would then be his private property. Entire buildings, or their real value at least, might eventually then pass out of an endowment and into private hands. Similarly, a kind of “repair and deduct” provision has allowed tenants to repair an endowment building where the cash flow to the trust was insufficient to cover the cost of the repair and thereby obtain either a reduction in the rent or a lien against the value of the property. The liens might eventually exceed the property’s value and thus transfer it into the hands of the lien-holder. The Islamic trust, like any other durable socioeconomic institution, adapts to the changes in its environment and is invested with new or altered meaning by successive generations. At the same time, as a Muslim—and thus divinely sanctioned—institution it maintains in people’s minds a theoretically immutable character and legitimacy. Robert D. McChesney References and further reading Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn ‘Amr al-Shaybani (al-Khassaf ). 1902. Kitab ahkam al-awqaf. Cairo. al-Ghazzali. 1966. The Mysteries of Almsgiving. Translated by Nabih Faris. Beirut: The American University of Beirut. Arberry, A. J. 1964. The Koran Interpreted. London: Oxford University Press. Baer, Gabriel. 1979. “The Dismemberment of Awqaf in Nineteenth Century Jerusalem.” Asian and African Studies 13 (3): 220–241. Bonine, Michael E. 1987. “Islam and Commerce: Waqf and the Bazar of Yazd.” ErdKunde (Band 4): 182–196, esp. 192–193. Christelow, A. 1985. Muslim Law Courts and the French Colonial State in Algeria. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Heffening, W. 1993. “Wakf.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: Brill. Herrin, Judith. 1985. “From Bread and Circuses to Soup and Salvation: The Origins of Byzantine Charity.” Unpublished Davis Center Seminar paper, March 29. Kozlowski, Gregory. 1985. Muslim Endowments in British India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus, George E. 1992. Lives in Trust: The Fortunes of Dynastic Families in Late-Twentieth-Century America. With Peter Dobkin Hall. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Pasha, Muhammad Qadri. 1902. Qanun al-’adl wa’l-insafltlqada ‘ala mushktlat al- awqaf. Bulaq 1320. Perikhanian, A. G. 1983. Obshchestvo i pravo. Moscow: Nuaka. ———. 1993. “Iranian Society and Law.” In Cambridge History of Iran, edited by Harold Bailey, 661–663. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rodinson, Maxime. 1974. “The Western Image and Western Studies of Islam.” In The Legacy of Islam, 2d ed., edited by Joseph Schacht and C. E. Bosworth, 9. New York: Oxford University Press. Sasanian Law Book. 1973 [c. A.D. 620]. Translated by A. G. Perikhanian as Sasanidskii sudebnik. Sofia, Bulgaria: Erevan. Willis, David K. 1984. “Islam: Making the Muslim World Tick.” Christian Science Monitor, July 23. ———. 1984. “The Practice of Islam.” Christian Science Monitor, July 24. ———. 1984. “The Politics of Islam.” Christian Science Monitor, July 25. ———. 1984. “Fudamentalist Islam.” Christian Science Monitor, July 26. ———. 1984. “The Impact of Islam.” Christian Science Monitor, July 27. ———. 1984. “Islam in America.” Christian Science Monitor, July 27.

Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) The 1960s brought a new generation of Muslims to the United States. In 1963, Muslim student life at U.S. colleges and universities found a new expression with the founding of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) of the U.S. and Canada at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The MSA developed chapters at campuses coast to coast, embodying its motto of unity and togetherness. The growth in chapters was facilitated by the growing numbers of Muslim students from many countries seeking higher education in the United States.

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By the 1980s, a new Muslim American generation was taking shape and many of the graduates of U.S. colleges and universities had outgrown the MSA. Muslim alumni still sought an organization to serve their spiritual and social needs. It was this need that led the MSA leadership to form the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in 1981. Out of ISNA came another new organization, the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA), which focuses on the interests and needs of precollege students. ISNA is headquartered in Plainfield, Indiana, close to the Indianapolis International Airport. In the next two decades, the organization became an umbrella organization for many Muslim communities across North America. Today, some 300 communities and professional organization are affiliated with ISNA. Constituent organizations include the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), the Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA), the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers (AMSE), the Council of Islamic Schools in North America (CISNA), the MSA, and the MYNA. ISNA, in its capacity as an organization representing American Muslim citizens, is committed to carrying out projects that will contribute to a viable Muslim future in North America. The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) was created by the MSA in 1973 to oversee the development and growth of infrastructures—mosques, community centers, and schools—to serve Muslim families. NAIT founded American Trust Publications (ATP) in 1973 to publish Islamic books geared to the needs and lives of American Muslims. Since its founding, ATP has published more than 260 titles that include both Islamic literature developed in the United States and selected classical texts that relate

to the needs of the Muslim community. ISNA publishes a bimonthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, with a circulation of 60,000. According to a survey conducted by Muslims in American Public Square (Project MAPS) sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2001, there were 7 million Muslims in America, some 3,000 Islamic centers and mosques, and 300 Islamic schools. ISNA also organizes an annual national convention in a major U.S. city. The thirty-eighth annual convention, held in Chicago in 2001, brought together some 40,000 Muslims from across North America. In addition, ISNA hosts specialized conferences such as Islam in America, Islamic Education Forum, Community Development Conference, Islamic Perspectives on Counseling, Islam in American Prisons, Muslim Refugees in America, Seminars on Conflict Resolution and Domestic Violence, and so forth, bringing together Muslim and non-Muslim academicians and specialists in these fields. ISNA has served as an incubator of many organizations and is a leading association of Muslim organizations and individuals in North America. Serving as a platform of expression for Islam, it strives to develop education and social services and to enhance Islamic understanding in the society at large. Mohamed A. Elsanousi References and further reading Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), http://www.isna. net. ———. “ISNA in 25 Years,” “ISNA Commitment to a Mission,” “ISNA Services and Projects,” and “From Vision to Reality.” Pamphlets. Plainfield, IN: ISNA. ———. 2000, 2001. ISNA Annual Reports. Plainfield, IN: ISNA. Roof, Wade Clark. 2000. Contemporary American Religion, vol. 1. New York: Macmillan.

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J Jackson, Helen Maria (Fiske) Hunt (1830–1885)

dilemma for a New York newspaper. At age fortynine, she began the crusade that was to consume the remainder of her life. Jackson relentlessly wrote letters to newspapers and magazines throughout the country detailing various instances of ill treatment toward Native Americans. Her extensive research for these letters developed into A Century of Dishonor. Portraying the Native Americans as victims of government abuse, Jackson had copies of the book sent, at her own expense, to every member of Congress. In 1882, she traveled throughout California and became intimately aware of the pitiable conditions of the various tribes living around the former Spanish Mission towns—known collectively as the Mission Indians. Her official fifty-sixpage Report on the Conditions and Needs of the Mission Indians of California outlined eleven specific recommendations for reform, which formed a basis for future congressional legislation. In the fall of 1883, Jackson began writing Ramona, a tale of a beautiful maiden, part Indian and part Spanish, and her ill-fated love for a handsome Mission Indian man. Their idealized romance and marriage fall victim to the greed of American settlers. Ramona became a popular novel, eventually going through more than 300 printings and inspiring several movies and a popular song. Helen Hunt Jackson died in 1885, having devoted the last six years of her life to Native American rights. Over the next fifty years, her

Helen Hunt Jackson fought to reform government policies toward Native Americans in the late nineteenth century. As a writer, she is best known for A Century of Dishonor (1881), a documentary account of government abuses toward the Indians, and Ramona (1884), her romantic novel of the tragic story of the Mission Indians of California. Her governmental advocacy paved the way for legislative measures enacted well after her death, leading eventually to the granting of full citizenship to Native Americans in 1935. Born in 1830, Helen Maria Fiske spent her childhood in Amherst, Massachusetts. At age twenty-two, she married Edward B. Hunt, an army engineer who died during the Civil War while testing a submarine of his own design. On the advice of her neighbor and lifelong friend Emily Dickinson, she turned to writing poetry and prose at the age of thirty-five and become a popular success. In 1875, she married William Sharpless Jackson, a Colorado banker and railroad promoter. In the fall of 1879, Helen Hunt Jackson was invited to a Boston lecture given by Standing Bear, the chief of the Ponca tribe of Nebraska. Due to a bureaucratic error, the Ponca Indians had been forcibly removed from their Nebraska homeland. Jackson was outraged by the treatment of the Indians and was moved to write a letter about the Poncas’

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work and life proved to be a catalyst and model for those who continued the struggle for legal rights and citizenship for Native Americans. Al Lyons References and further reading Jackson, Helen Hunt. Papers. Charles Leaming Tutt Library, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, and Jones Library, Amherst, MA. ———. 1988 [1884]. Ramona. New York: Signet Classic. ———. 1995 [1881]. A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Mathes, Valerie Sherer. 1997. Helen Hunt Jackson and Her Indian Reform Legacy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ———, ed. 1998. The Indian Reform Letters of Helen Hunt Jackson, 1879–1885. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Jewish Philanthropy in American Society The Americanization of Jewish Philanthropy Jewish philanthropy tells a great deal about the evolving character of Jewish life in the United States: It is the story of an ethnic/religious group defining its place in American society, while at the same time shaping its own internal direction and self-definition. Philanthropy is the means by which much of the Jewish communal agenda is debated and decided. Jewish philanthropy shapes values and norms as well as responds to them. Most Jewish fundraising organizations not only raise money but also educate, lead, and define the values of American Jewish society. Indeed, the Americanization of Jewish philanthropy has taken place. Jews are now so integrated into the American mainstream that the Jewish philanthropic system has taken on the character of the civil tradition of philanthropy in the United States as well as the religious tradition of Jews. Philanthropy among Jews mirrors certain aspects of the American system, especially among the very wealthy. Jews, like other Americans, will pick and choose causes that they want to support, most often preferring philanthropies with which they have some affinity or connection. Three trends in American philanthropy are paralleled within Jewish philanthropy. First, umbrella giv-

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ing is diminishing. Just as the United Way represents a decreasing presence, federations’ annual campaigns are playing a decreasing role in overall Jewish philanthropy. The annual campaign of federations is still a major engine in Jewish philanthropy, but it probably accounts for no more than 10 to 15 percent of all funds raised by Jews for Jewish causes (including synagogue dues and contributions). The umbrella campaign is likely to continue its decline as the central force in American Jewish philanthropy. Second, the rapid growth of private foundations, both in terms of numbers and assets, continues unabated. More dollars are being deposited, but the pace of the distribution is slow. Most Jewish foundations, like other foundations, see the 5 percent distribution requirement as a ceiling, not a floor. Therefore, more and more money is accumulating, but it is not necessarily being utilized in the present for Jewish community-building purposes. Third, there is an enormous accumulation of wealth, both from a healthy economy and the stockmarket boom of the 1990s, even with the subsequent decline. Donors and foundations have more money to give away. The Jewish community, like other ethnic and religious groups, is seeing increased contributions to philanthropic structures (Campoamor et al. 1999). The Americanization of Jewish giving has also included a growing propensity to give to philanthropies outside of the Jewish community. American Jews have become an integral part of the philanthropic mainstream, donating large sums to a variety of institutions and organizations in the realms of education, health, human services, culture, politics, and the like. These donors have become involved more deeply in nonJewish philanthropy for four reasons. The first is acceptance and integration into American society through the removal of anti-Semitic barriers. Jews play prominent roles in institutions from which they were once prohibited from leadership because of anti-Semitic restrictions. Involvement in the general society’s philanthropy signals both group and individual triumph to blend into the American mainstream. Second, serving the non-Jewish community is seen by many Jews as a mission of their Jewishness. The possibilities for giving as an expression of Jewish life


are extended even further by broadening the definition of what is Jewish. Some individuals believe that they are performing an explicitly Jewish act by contributing to a secular shelter for the homeless or even an emergency food program for the hungry under Christian auspices. Even though the recipients, both institution and clients, are non-Jewish, the act of performing mitzvoth with Jewish sensibilities can make practically any giving opportunity a Jewish one to some donors. This philosophy extends the opportunities for giving from the myriad of Jewish institutions and causes to a decision-making matrix that, for all practical purposes, is infinite. Philanthropy is also a means to reduce the conflict between being Jewish and being a “middle-class,” that is, ordinary, American (Adelson 1995). Third, many donors believe that they must contribute to societal institutions outside the Jewish community because they desire to “put something back into the community.” Many feel that America generally, and their local community specifically, has been very good to them. Many Jews feel that they have been given incredible opportunities to be full-functioning and accepted members in an open society. They believe that since the country has been so good to them, and the society so open, there is a quid pro quo for Jews to support general institutions as well as Jewish ones. Therefore, they express their gratitude to the nation and to the community through philanthropy. Philanthropy becomes a “thank you” to America, a statement of personal gratitude in addition to a religious act or ideology. A fourth factor is the desire to represent the Jewish community, to be ambassadors of the Jewish people, and to secure goodwill for Jewish causes. Some Jewish donors do not want non-Jews to assume that they support only Jewish causes, or that Jews are too insulated or self-concerned. Some feel that if Jews are too isolated and provincial, the hospitable atmosphere of the general society will not respond to Jewish needs. By giving to a wide variety of general causes, some donors feel that they will ensure general community support for Jewish concerns. Indeed, there is evidence that Jewish philanthropists are more likely to make their largest gifts to nonJewish philanthropies (Tobin and Karp 2002). Mega-

gifts of $10 million, $50 million, $100 million, or even more from Jews are not uncommon to non-Jewish philanthropies. These gifts are not necessarily paid out in a one-year period but may be spread over a fiveor ten-year period or longer. Nevertheless, non-Jewish causes are attracting the largest Jewish donor gifts. Individual Jewish philanthropists make annual gifts of substantial amounts to Jewish philanthropies, but it is less common to see mega-gifts given to the Jewish community. Universities, symphonies, hospitals, and museums are capturing the largest gifts from Jewish donors. This issue assumes greater significance because Jewish giving to Jewish organizations and institutions is increasingly top heavy: more money being given by fewer Jews. Younger generations of Jews especially are in general less tied to Jewish life than older Jews and decreasingly committed to Jewish philanthropy. Giving to the Jewish community has become more discretionary as opposed to obligatory, and younger Jews tend to give to secular causes rather than to the Jewish communal structure. Jewish philanthropy remains distinctive for two reasons. First, Jews give significant proportions of their philanthropy to support Israel. This includes societal needs such as health, education, and culture as well as state support in the form of absorbing immigrants or rescuing Jewish communities and helping them to move to Israel. Although younger Jews are less inclined to give to Israel than older Jews, the total number of dollars going to Israel continues to increase. Second, though churches and religion constitute the single largest area of giving for all Americans, Jews give significantly less to religion than other Americans. Jews are less likely than Christians to belong to a congregation and concomitantly less likely to contribute to a congregation. National religious organizations also garner less support from Jews than in the Christian community.

Jewish Values and Philanthropy Jewish philanthropy is anchored in three pervasive values. The first is tzedakah—the ancient religious imperative to provide for those in need. Tzedakah—literally “righteousness”—is a deeply embedded set of religious obligations that Jews have for one another

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and all human beings. A variety of scholarly and popular works attest to this relationship of tzedakah and social justice in the contemporary American Jewish community (Bush and Dekro 1993). The set of ideologies and behaviors that constitute tzedakah resembles the concept of charity in other faith traditions, that is, sharing both energy and material goods with those who are less fortunate. For Jews, as with other Americans, the impulse for philanthropy is deeply ingrained as an emotional and psychological desire to help others (Wuthnow 1991). What distinguishes tzedakah is the absolute sense of obligation, its matter-of-factness. It is a must, not a should. It is a command, not a consideration. It is not a matter of choice. An individual is not considered generous because one shares that which they have because one is only doing what he or she is supposed to do. Tzedakah is deeply embedded in Jewish thought and feeling, especially the imperative to provide for basic human needs, such as food and shelter, and to care for children in need. These concerns are the foundation for the intricate set of social and human services Jews build for their communities. Tzedakah is also dedicated to serving the world at large, non-Jews as well as Jews. The need to “repair a broken world,” in Hebrew termed Tikun Olam, is deeply embedded in community values and norms. A strong universalistic component characterizes Jewish philanthropy. The interest in social justice and volunteering evolves constantly. It continues to take new forms, such as the Jewish Service Corps, which is designed to serve the secular rather than the Jewish world (“Rabbi Nurtures Young Jews’ Quest,” 1999). The command of righteousness through philanthropic obligation was codified within a set of societal laws that wove a system of communal order. How one was to perform righteous acts was laid out in an elaborate set of instructions—first in the written law, or Torah, and then in the oral law, or Talmud, of the Jewish people. These acts of giving became interwoven into the basic foundation of Jewish society. Religious and civic systems were fused: Religious acts and civic actions were one and the same. Philanthropy, as Jewish Americans understand it, is not part of a “voluntary sector” that is separate from governance or civil law but fully melded into an overall

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communal structure. Some consider philanthropy the civil side of Jewish life, and synagogue attendance or ritual observance the religious side, when both are actually religious in nature (Woocher 1987). As the religious/social societies of Judaism were transplanted and maintained in a multitude of Diaspora communities, Jews brought their philanthropic systems wherever they went (Sachar 1993; Johnson 1988). Thus, the systems of philanthropy became more and more institutionalized over time. In place after place, century after century, this religious/social structure was replicated. Jews maintained separate or quasi-separate societies with human and social service systems. Long before the “public sector” took responsibility, Jews took care of other Jews. They became proficient in designing, building, and maintaining service systems. They would bring this accumulated knowledge and practice to America. The synergy between Jewish philanthropy and the American system would make both systems flourish even more. Tzedakah and the philanthropic systems that derive from the religious values of providing for basic human and social needs have been part of the construct of Jewish life for so long that the vast majority of Jews who participate have little knowledge or understanding of the religious origins of their actions. Over time, these religious values have been translated into communal norms, even in the absence of individual or institutional knowledge or recognition of the religious origins of the beliefs and behaviors. These feelings and actions are now “hard-wired” into the Jewish subconscious and communal psyche, guiding and directing Jewish behavior. Jews have therefore constructed an elaborate human services network consisting of housing, programs for the elderly, teens, and children, counseling services, vocational services, and many others. The human service system comes from the traditional Jewish imperative to take care of the needy and also from the separate nature of Jewish societies in the Old World. The human service system was solidified as a self-help model for acculturating Jewish immigrants in the United States. The network is also distinctive for the variety of its programs and the diversity of its organizations and institutions. It is difficult to imagine a more comprehensive system for a relatively small population.


The second value expressed through Jewish philanthropy is the reinforcement of ethnic, cultural, and religious identity. Philanthropy expresses the desire to maintain separate identity and community. Elaborate systems are developed to support Jewish education and to perpetuate religious life. Not only is it a righteous act to feed a hungry person, it is also a righteous act to educate a poor Jew or, logically extended, to help subsidize the religious participation of any Jew who cannot afford it. The philanthropic system has a large component dedicated to creating successive generations who identify and act as Jews. The day-to-day support of synagogues through membership dues and other contributions is so ordinary, regular, and uneventful that it is usually not considered much in discussions of American Jewish philanthropy. Third, philanthropy is used for self-protection from external threats. The persistence of anti-Semitism throughout Jewish history has required funds for defense systems and rescue efforts. Defense has evolved into political lobbying, legislative campaigns, and the development of political coalitions with other interest groups. A number of organizations, such as the AntiDefamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress, were created to fight anti-Semitism (Tobin with Sassler 1988; Elazar 1995). There is little question that Jews will rally to give more money to fight anti-Semitism when they feel the need. Rescue includes efforts to raise money to help bring Jews out of the former Soviet Union, where they are threatened by anti-Semitic violence, or from Ethiopia, where they are subject to both discrimination and extreme poverty. Jews in America have also developed an elaborate system of rescue organizations, community relations organizations, lobbying organizations, and institutions to support Israel. The current rise of worldwide anti-Semitism reinforces the feelings that Jews have to maintain these systems of fighting prejudice—against Jews particularly but against other racial and ethnic groups as well. Support for Israel is linked to the need for self-protection. Israel is seen by world Jews as the ultimate expression of religious destiny, pride, and self-protection. It is considered to be a safe haven from discrimination and violence in a hostile world. Jewish society was constructed to carry out the religious imperatives. These patterns were reinforced by

Jews living in isolated subcultures; more often than not, they were persecuted and denied the most basic economic, social, and individual rights. Expressions of righteousness also became defense mechanisms: Jews taking care of their own as a necessity in the face of external hostility. Therefore, philanthropy and the social and institutional structures created by it were a communal expression of survival. If Jews did not take care of their own, they would perish in a hostile world. The very fabric of Jewish society linked giving and survival in Jewish consciousness and behavior. Raising money has never been about raising money alone. It has always included serving God, helping fellow Jews, and fending off aggression and discrimination. The conundrum of Jewish philanthropy rests in being both successful and afraid. Integration into American society draws Jews to non-Jewish philanthropy. At the same time, acceptance into the secular society transforms the distinctive cohesiveness of Jews and therefore brings about a situation where more communal attention and funding are needed. The very success of American Jewry necessitates more rather than less funding for the Jewish communal infrastructure. Yet Jews are more drawn to the causes and institutions of the secular society, except when faced with an external threat. Gary A. Tobin References and further reading Adelson, Evan M. 1995. “The Dirty Business of Charity: Raising Money, Reproducing Stratification, and Constructing the Jewish Community.” American Sociological Association paper. Bush, Lawrence, and Jeffrey Dekro. 1993. Jews, Money and Social Responsibility: Developing a “Torah of Money” for Contemporary Life. A Guidebook with Supplementary Essays by Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Arthur Waskow, with a Foreword by Jonathan Schorsch. Philadelphia: Shefa Fund. Campoamor, Diana, William A. Díaz, and Henry A. J. Ramos, eds. 1999. Nuevos Senderos: Reflections on Hispanics and Philanthropy. Houston, TX: Arte Público Press, University of Houston. Cimino, Richard, and Don Lattin. 1998. Shopping for Faith: American Religion in the New Millennium. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Elazar, Daniel Judah. 1995. Community and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.

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INDEPENDENT SECTOR. 1999. “Giving and Volunteering in the United States, 1999, Executive Summary.” Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Johnson, Paul. 1988. A History of the Jews. New York: HarperPerennial. “Rabbi Nurtures Young Jews’ Quest for Faith and Service.” 1999. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, January 14, Special Report, Religion Section. Sachar, Howard. 1993. A History of the Jews in America. New York: Random House. Tobin, Gary. 1997. “A Qualitative Analysis of Contributors to Jewish Philanthropies.” In Jewish Demography, 1993, and Selected Proceedings of the Demographic Sessions held at the 11th World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jewish Population Studies 27, edited by Sergio DellaPergola and Judith Even. Jerusalem: The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. Tobin, Gary, Michael Austin, Meryle Weinstein, and Susan Austin. 1999. Jewish Foundations: A Needs Assessment Study. San Francisco: Institute for Jewish and Community Research. Tobin, Gary, and Alex Karp. 2002. A Study of Philanthropic Mega-Gifts. San Francisco: Institute for Jewish and Community Research. Tobin, Gary, and Mordechai Rimor. 1990. “Jewish Giving Patterns to Jewish and Non-Jewish Philanthropy.” In Faith and Philanthropy in America, edited by Robert Wuthnow and Virginia A. Hodgkinson and Associates, 134–164. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Tobin, Gary, Amy L. Sales, and Diane K. Tobin. 1996. Jewish Family Foundations Study. San Francisco: Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies/ Institute for Community and Religion, Brandeis University. Tobin, Gary, with Sharon L. Sassler. 1988. Jewish Perceptions of Anti-Semitism. New York: Plenum. Wertheimer, Jack. 1997. “Current Trends in American Jewish Philanthropy.” In American Jewish Year Book, 1997: A Record of Events and Trends in American and World Jewish Life 97, edited by David Singer and Ruth R. Seldin, 3–92. New York: The American Jewish Committee. Woocher, Jonathan. 1987. Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Wuthnow, Robert. 1991. Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Johnson, Charles S. (1893–1956) In 1893, Charles S. Johnson was born into a religious, middle-class family in Bristol, Virginia. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Virginia

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Union University in 1916. With the sociologist Robert E. Park as his mentor, Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1917. Upon returning to Chicago from military duty in France in 1919, he found himself in the midst of one of America’s worst race riots. This catastrophe prompted Johnson’s involvement with the Chicago Race Relations Commission as associate executive secretary and his affiliation with the Julius Rosenwald Fund. He would eventually become the fund’s first black trustee in 1934. Johnson’s work with the commission resulted in the publication of The Negro in Chicago (1922), a study that explored the prevailing attitudes of whites and blacks toward each other and disputed white claims of black inferiority. With this study, Johnson started a tradition of social science research that attributes tensions between groups to cultural differences and misunderstandings rather than biology. Johnson moved to New York City in 1921 to direct research for the National Urban League. During this period, he also edited the league’s magazine Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, which published short stories and poems by black authors and sponsored monthly literary contests. A key player in the Harlem Renaissance, Johnson used his connections within the white community to garner support for black art and literature. He saw culture as another avenue for combating racism. Blyden Jackson, Johnson’s colleague, credits him with helping to “ease the transformation of more than one neophyte in the arts, like a Zora Neale Hurston, from a nonentity into a luminary of the Renaissance” (1990, 753). In 1924, Johnson hosted a dinner and invited more than 300 people, including Alain Locke, James Weldon Johnson, W. E. B. Du Bois, William Baldwin III, Jessie Fauset, Albert Barnes, and many influential white publishers. The evening was successful, and many black writers and poets found mainstream venues for their work. Blyden Jackson cited this dinner as one of Jackson’s most significant contributions to the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson sought to alter the self-image of many blacks with ideas and programs that were achievable within the racial atmosphere of the 1920s (Gilpin and Gasman 2003). In 1928, as the Harlem Renaissance faded, Johnson returned to the South to take a position in the social

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science department at Fisk. His prominence drew national and international attention to the university, and he brought with him key contacts with white philanthropists and intellectuals of both races—including Sterling A. Brown, Horace Mann Bond, E. Franklin Frazier, James Weldon Johnson, Robert E. Park, Arna Bontemps, and Aaron Douglas. Johnson and his colleagues published general-readership books on race relations, conducted surveys, and directed investigations in cities experiencing high racial tension (Robbins 1996). It was in this context that the famed Race Relations Institutes were created, making Fisk a center for research in race relations with Johnson in the forefront. In 1946, Johnson became the first African American president of Fisk. Under his leadership, the college secured funding not only for its physical plant but for many innovative programs, including the Basic College Early Entry Program, closed-circuit television in classrooms, a stellar international student center program, and a first-rate art gallery. Johnson was recognized many times throughout his lifetime for both his scholarship and his leadership. In 1930, he received the Harmon Gold Medal for distinguished achievement among blacks in the field of science. He also worked closely with four U.S. presidents, including Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Specifically, he served on the National Housing Commission under Hoover and on the U.S. Committee on Farm Tenancy under Roosevelt. Johnson also served on the boards of the American Missionary Association and the John Hay Whitney Foundation and was instrumental in the allocation of scholarships to many promising African American students. After a long career of assisting African Americans in their pursuit of scholarship and leadership, he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1956. Marybeth Gasman References and further reading Gasman, Marybeth. 1999. “Scylla and Charybdis: Navigating the Waters of Academic Freedom at Fisk University during Charles S. Johnson’s Administration (1946–1956).” American Educational Research Journal 36, no. 4 (Winter): 739–758. ———. 2001. “Charles S. Johnson and Johnnetta Cole: Successful Role Models for Fundraising at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” The CASE

International Journal of Educational Advancement 1 (3): 237–251. Gilpin, Patrick J. 1972. “Charles S. Johnson: Entrepreneur of the Harlem Renaissance.” In Harlem Renaissance Remembered, edited by Arna Bontemps, 214–246. New York: Dodd, Mead. ———. 1978. “Charles S. Johnson and the Southern Educational Reporting Service.” Journal of Negro History 63, no. 3 ( July): 197–208. ———. 1980. “Charles S. Johnson and the Race Relations Institutes at Fisk University.” Phylon 41, no. 3 (September): 300–311. Gilpin, Patrick J., and Marybeth Gasman. 2003. Charles S. Johnson: Leadership beyond the Age of Jim Crow. Albany: State University of New York Press. Jackson, Blyden. 1990. “A Postlude to a Renaissance.” Southern Review 26 (4): 746–765. Robbins, Richard. 1996. Sidelines Activist: Charles S. Johnson and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Julius Rosenwald Fund The Julius Rosenwald Fund, which operated from 1917 until 1948, was the first major U.S. foundation to go out of existence voluntarily. It was founded by Julius Rosenwald (1862–1932), president of Sears, Roebuck and Company from 1908 to 1924 and chairman of the board at Sears until his death in 1932. Rosenwald founded the foundation on October 30, 1917, probably because he had just started serving on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation and realized that a foundation might be a useful tool for philanthropy. Like many of the early foundations, the Rosenwald Fund had a very broad mandate: “the wellbeing of mankind.” For the first three years of its existence, the fund did little. In 1920, it took over a program of schoolhouse construction in the rural South for African Americans, a project Rosenwald had begun in 1913 at the suggestion of Booker T. Washington. The program had been managed by Tuskegee Institute, a black college founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881, and where Washington served as president until his death in 1915 (now Tuskegee University). Rosenwald, however, felt that some of the schools were shoddily built, removed the program from Tuskegee, and hired a white former state director of black education for Tennessee, S. L. Smith, to

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run the program from Nashville. More than 5,300 schools, shops, and teachers’ residences were built, most under the fund, in fifteen southern states until the program ceased around 1932. From 1920 through 1928, the fund gave primarily to the schoolhouse construction program and also served as a pass-through for some of Rosenwald’s personal philanthropy. The staff was minute, at one time consisting largely of Smith and Rosenwald’s ne’er-dowell son-in-law. The board consisted exclusively of family members and rarely met. In 1927, Rosenwald decided to reorganize the foundation and hire a professional staff. After considerable thought, he chose Edwin Embree, a vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation. Embree was a definite progressive, passionate about civil rights in an era when that was exceedingly rare, and eager to escape what he viewed as the stuffy strictures of the Rockefeller philanthropies. He eagerly accepted Rosenwald’s offer. Rosenwald also changed the composition of the board. Some family members could still sit on it, but a number of outside members were added. There were terms for board members, except for Rosenwald and Embree, because both feared that if the board were to remain unchanged it would become ossified and look out for its own interests. Outsiders who served on the board during the fund’s lifetime included Robert Maynard Hutchins, the president of the University of Chicago, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who served from 1940 to 1948. When the fund was reorganized in 1928, Rosenwald increased its assets to $20 million. He also insisted that the fund had to spend itself out of existence within twenty-five years of his death. This stipulation was in line with his belief that each generation should spend its own money and that perpetual endowments were a disastrous mistake. Under Embree and a newly hired professional staff, including George Arthur, the first African American hired to a staff position at a foundation, the Rosenwald Fund greatly expanded its giving program. It contributed to other aspects of black education besides school construction, including busing and teacher training. It gave to black colleges and universities, sought to improve medical care for blacks, and funded black hospitals and institutions that trained black doctors and nurses. In the area of health, it be-

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came interested in making health care affordable for the poor and middle class and hired Michael Davis, one of the first professors of medical economics, as a member of its staff. From this interest emerged conferences that led to the founding of Blue Cross–Blue Shield. The Rosenwald Fund also began a program in civil rights and aided the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It helped back the cases that led up to the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, six years after the fund had gone out of existence. The fund’s most famous program was one that awarded fellowships to gifted black (and some white) artists, writers, and historians. The list of recipients reads like a Who’s Who of famous blacks from the 1930s and 1940s: Marian Anderson, Catherine Dunham, Augusta Savage, Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, Jacob Lawrence, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Bunche, John Hope Franklin, and Ralph Ellison (who wrote The Invisible Man [1952] on a Rosenwald fellowship). Among the white recipients were C. Vann Woodward and Ralph McGill. In 1928–1929, the assets of the fund rose to almost $40 million, making it one of the larger foundations in the country. Then came the Great Depression. All of the fund’s assets were in Sears stock, which was selling at $190 a share at the height of the boom. By June 1932, Sears was at $10 a share and the fund was essentially bankrupt. It had made large pledges when times were rosy that it could no longer pay off. In desperation, Embree went to his colleagues in the foundation world. He asked the Carnegie Corporation to assist with a library program for the South (where Carnegie libraries were rare) that would guaranteed access to books to blacks and whites alike. The Carnegie foundation replied by giving the Rosenwald Fund $200,000. Embree then went to the Rockefellers, who refused a grant or a loan but worked out a humiliating system whereby the Rosenwald Fund had to admit to its grantees that it could not honor its pledges but that the General Education Board (GEB), an educational foundation established by John D. Rockefeller in 1903, might advance the funds until the Rosenwald Fund again became solvent. Sears stock rose by 1934 and the Rosenwald Fund paid off its pledges to the nonprofits. The nonprofits then paid back the GEB.


This complicated scheme and the infusion of Carnegie money saved the Rosenwald Fund, which continued in existence another sixteen years. All in all, the Rosenwald Fund gave away a grand total of $22,244,174. When the fund folded in 1948, Embree and a colleague, Julia Waxman, wrote a report on its history, the first such account of the life of an American foundation. The book, Investment in People, is remarkable for its objectivity and honesty. It admits that some mistakes were made but concludes, rightly, that much of importance came from the Rosenwald Fund. With its emphasis on blacks and civil rights and its avowedly progressive slant, the Rosenwald Fund was a major force in American philanthropy in the 1930s and 1940s. It took risks. It was not conservative or stodgy. And though it did not

bring about the racial equality that its leaders sought, it did help to bring the civil rights movement a step closer to that goal. Peter M. Ascoli References and further reading Ascoli, Peter. Forthcoming. JR: Portrait of a Philanthropist. Embree, Edwin, and Julia Waxman. 1949. Investment in People. New York: Harper. Rosenwald, Julius. Papers. Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago. ———. 1929. “The Principles of Public Giving.” Atlantic Monthly (May): 599–606. Rosenwald, Julius, as told to Elias Tobenkin. 1929. “The Burden of Wealth.” Saturday Evening Post, January 5. Rosenwald Fund. Papers. Fisk University. Werner, M. 1939. Julius Rosenwald: The Life of a Practical Humanitarian. New York: Harper.

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a convenient figure around which the community’s generalized resentment coalesced. Throughout the 1640s, Keayne reclaimed his reputation through tireless involvement in civic activities. He retired from public life in 1651. The humiliating censure of 1639 still rankled, however. Thus, in 1653, Keayne began writing the will he hoped would prove his piety. The Puritan economic ethic required zealous pursuit of one’s calling without avaricious desire for worldly goods. Charitable giving prevented material striving from degenerating into covetousness. In his will, Keayne exhibited his adherence to that ethic. After providing for his wife, son, and granddaughter, he directed the remainder of his estate to the community. With an eye toward Boston’s continued commercial vitality and military security, Keayne bequeathed £300 toward the construction of a water conduit and a community center complete with market area, granary, conference rooms, library, and armory. To provide food and drink for the town elders conducting deliberations in the community center, he specified £4 a year for ten years. The Artillery Company Keayne founded and first captained received £10 for weaponry and two cows as constant stock, the yearly profit of which was to be used to purchase powder and bullets. Concern for the poor motivated most of Keayne’s gifts. Beginning in England, he had over the years maintained a charitable fund for the poor, contributing

In 1653, Puritan Robert Keayne, Boston’s wealthiest merchant during the first three decades of its founding, began writing a will that would include significant legacies to the community. Fourteen years earlier, that same community had publicly censured Keayne for overpricing his merchandise. He considered the charge an unjust misrepresentation of his actions by self-serving rivals. Nonetheless, despite this assault on his character, Keayne conformed to the Puritan imperative that those blessed by God with large estates are obligated to bestow part of it for public and charitable purposes. In his will, he apportioned nearly one-third of his estate to projects aimed at Boston’s social, commercial, and military welfare. Keayne’s early years in England displayed a steady rise from obscurity to economic and social advancement. Born to a butcher in 1595 and apprenticed at the age of ten to a London merchant, by 1623 Keayne had attained the title of “gentleman.” In 1635, attracted by New England’s commercial and religious prospects, Keayne emigrated. He quickly established himself in Boston as a retailer of imported merchandise and immersed himself in town and colony affairs. Keayne’s censure in 1639 for charging extortionate prices originated in the inflationary conditions that beset Boston during the 1630s. The demand for provisions and manufactured goods far outstripped the supply. As Boston’s leading merchant, Keayne became

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to it one penny out of every shilling earned. He left half of the resulting £120 total to the Boston free school to aid indigent students and the other half to his church to relieve its most needy members. Keayne’s largest gift went to Harvard College. Either as a primary or secondary legatee, the college eventually received more than £500 to defray the expenses of talented but poor scholars. He died in 1656 still trying to vindicate his reputation. Jerome DeNuccio References and further reading Bailyn, Bernard. 1950. “The Apologia of Robert Keayne.” William and Mary Quarterly 8: 568–587. DeNuccio, Jerome. 1986. “‘A Testimony of My Innocency’: The Literary Aspects of Robert Keayne’s Last Will and Testament, 1653.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota. Keayne, Robert. 1970. The Apologia of Robert Keayne. Edited by Bernard Bailyn. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.

Kelley, Florence (1859–1932) Florence Kelley, a contemporary of Jane Addams and a leader of the Settlement House and Progressive movements, worked tirelessly to end the exploitation of working women and children—effectively bringing about social change at a time when women were denied the right to vote. Her lifelong crusade to bring a voice to the disenfranchised included roles as the general secretary of the National Consumers League, vice president of the National Women’s Suffrage Association, and founder of the National Child Labor Commission, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Kelley made her most important contributions in social reform and the newly evolving field of social work. She introduced scientific data collection as a basis for quantifying social evils and encouraging social reform. Kelley also developed creative yet concrete solutions to address social evils, launching campaigns still in common use today—consumer boycotts, informational labeling, and promotions to educate the public. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1859, Kelley was the third child of William D. Kelley, self-educated lawyer and judge, and Caroline Bartram Bon-

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Florence Kelley (1859–1932) (Bettmann/Corbis)

sall. With her father’s encouragement, she attended Cornell University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1882. Then, denied entrance to the University of Pennsylvania for graduate studies because she was a woman, she enrolled in Zurich Polytechnicum, in Switzerland, to study economics and law. There, she became intrigued with socialism.

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Kelley met and married Lazare Wischnewetsky, a Russian medical student, in Zurich in 1884. They returned to the United States in 1886 to settle in New York City with their young son. Plagued by heavy debt and a troubled marriage, Kelley moved to Illinois with her three children in 1891. She obtained a divorce, reverted to using her maiden name, and began a professional career—all quite out of the ordinary for a woman of her day. In Chicago, Kelley landed on the doorstep of Jane Addams’s Hull-House—and with a philosophy so closely aligned with that of the founder, she was quickly welcomed to the Hull-House inner circle. In 1892, the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics hired Kelley to investigate the sweating system in the garment industry; that same year she also assisted Carroll D. Wright with a survey of city slums in Chicago. The findings from these early endeavors gave Kelley, and indeed, the other residents of Hull-House, an overview of labor conditions and sweatshop practices in Chicago. Progressive Illinois governor John Altgeld appointed Kelley chief factory inspector (the first woman in this position), complete with a staff of twelve and a $12,000 budget. Although her reports were thorough and skillfully written, Kelley was frustrated by the difficulty of prosecuting cases in violation of the law. She returned to law school at Northwestern University, where she received her law degree in 1894, and was soon after admitted to the bar. She continued in her work as a factory inspector until her dismissal by Altgeld’s successor in 1897. She remained in Chicago for two more years, working at the John Crerar Library by night to support her family while continuing her activism, writing, and speaking by day. In 1899, Kelley moved her family to New York City, where she accepted the position of general secretary of the newly formed National Consumers League, an organization devoted to using consumer pressure as a means to bring about safe, humane manufacturing practices and proper working conditions. With great savvy, Kelley instituted several techniques to demonstrate consumer power, including public education and publicity campaigns, consumer boycotts of sweatshop-produced clothes, and clothing labels to

ensure safe manufacturing practices and fair labor standards. In the early 1900s, Kelley helped found the National Child Labor Commission, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She also worked wholeheartedly to support women’s suffrage, serving as vice president of the National Women’s Suffrage Association. After a long life of working for social reform, she died at the age of seventy-four in 1932. Kym Mulhern See also Addams, Jane References and further reading Chambers, Clarke A. 1963. Seedtime of Reform: American Social Service and Social Action, 1918–1932. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sklar, Kathryn K. 1995. Florence Kelley and the Nation’s Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Kellogg, Will Keith (1860–1951) Will Keith Kellogg was business manager of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, founder of the Kellogg Company, and founder of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Born on April 7, 1860, to John Preston and Ann Janette Stanley Kellogg, his life was shaped by his elder brother John Harvey Kellogg, a physician who built the Battle Creek Sanitarium into a celebrated health spa. Will became the sanitarium’s business manager, and the brothers sought to enliven its bland vegetarian fare. After many experiments, in 1894 they perfected the process for flaking grains. In 1906, Will struck off on his own to form the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. Eventually, the renamed Kellogg Company became the world’s largest purveyor of ready-to-eat breakfast cereal. W. K. Kellogg had always been generous, but the acquisition of wealth led him to increase the scale of his giving. In 1925, he formed the Fellowship Corporation, an unendowed vehicle to advise him on his philanthropy, which was mainly directed to the Battle Creek, Michigan, area. Then, in 1930, President Herbert Hoover invited Kellogg to be an observer at the White House Conference on Children and Youth.

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W. K. Kellogg (1860–1951) (Bettmann/CORBIS)

Kellogg returned from the conference determined to systematize his giving on behalf of children. Accordingly, later in 1930 he established the W. K. Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation. After a few months, he realized that the well-being of children depended upon many institutions and individuals. With this insight, the Child Welfare Foundation was renamed the W. K. Kellogg Foundation at the end of 1930 and given the broad charter of improving the lives of young people. At first, Kellogg provided operating funds for the foundation out of his own pocket, but by 1935, satisfied that the foundation was a success, he endowed it with all of his ownership of the Kellogg Company: approximately 54 percent of the common stock. In 1931, the new foundation launched a seventeenyear initiative called the Michigan Community Health Project. The project, focusing on seven counties in the south-central portion of the state’s Lower Peninsula, consolidated rural schools, built modern hospital facilities, and established county departments of public health. During the later 1930s, the founda-

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tion began programming on a national scale, and by 1942 it began its first international programs in Latin America. The foundation grew under the watchful eye of Kellogg, who served as chairman of the board of trustees into the 1940s and took a keen interest in its activities until the end of his life. The foundation expanded its programming to Europe, and it distinguished itself in the United States by funding a comprehensive healthcare agenda in medicine, dentistry, nursing, health services administration, and public health. It also played a key role in the expansion of the U.S. network of community colleges. W. K. Kellogg passed away on October 6, 1951. The W. K. Kellogg Foundation, by the end of the twentieth century, had become one of the ten largest private foundations in the United States and a leader in funding health care, food systems, rural development, youth development, higher education, philanthropy and volunteerism, and leadership development. The foundation is the fulfillment of W. K. Kellogg’s vow, “I know how to invest my money. I’ll invest it in people” (Powell 1956, 393). Joel J. Orosz References and further reading Carson, Gerald. 1957. Cornflake Crusade. New York: Rinehart. Orosz, Joel J. 2002. “Will Keith Kellogg.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 171–174. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Powell, Horace B. 1956. The Original Has This Signature— W. K. Kellogg. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968) Born in 1929 to Martin Luther King Sr., and Alberta Williams King, Martin Luther King Jr., was the eldest child in the Atlanta family and heavily influenced by his parents’ involvement in the Baptist Church, where his father was a preacher. Traditionally the center of black philanthropy, the Baptist Church in the South offered King the opportunity to pair the intellectual aspirations of his college years with the religious and social issues he saw in the racially segregated world around him. After graduating from Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary,

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and Boston University, King married Coretta Scott and returned to the South in 1954, taking a position as pastor at Dexter Avenue Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In a life defined by nonviolence, King’s philanthropic contributions were controversial and not fully understood until after his death. The Montgomery bus boycott of 1956 first brought King’s name to the attention of the public. After being criticized throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s for refusing to follow through with strategies developed by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)—which he had helped found in 1957—and for ignoring other organizations’ attempts at nonviolent protests, King emerged in 1964 at the March on Washington. Delivering his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech, King called for racial integration, angering many black separatists in the process. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that same year and continued his work at an astonishing pace as the decade progressed. The SCLC became more visible, too, organizing a march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 after a black protester was killed during a protest. After police violently broke up the first march, a second was quickly organized, this time with the help of liberal sympathizers—many of them white—which further angered black separatist factions. When riots erupted in the Watts district of Los Angeles and later in Chicago in 1966, King was too late to affect change. As the nation turned its attention to the escalating violence in Vietnam, King’s nonviolent rhetoric was increasingly ignored. In 1968, King was in Memphis to lead yet another nonviolent march. On April 4, before the march could take place, he was assassinated outside his hotel room. King died without having seen the full impact of his work and the importance of his repeated insistence on nonviolence. He had pioneered the use of consumer boycotts for economic equality, a tactic used by many social activists today. His philanthropy was one of words and deeds; he led by example and did not waver from his nonviolent ideology, even when he received great criticism for it both from the outside media and from within his own ranks. King’s name is affixed to many streets, parks, buildings, schools, and other public structures today as a reminder of the sacrifices he

made for the causes in which he believed. In that way, and as inspiration for many others who now carry the torch of civil rights, his work and his example live on. Emily M. Hall References and further reading Branch, Taylor. 1988. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63. New York: Simon and Schuster. ———. 1998. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965. New York: Simon and Schuster. Carson, Clayborne, ed. 1998. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Warner Books. Garrow, David. 1988. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. London: Jonathon Cape. King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1964. Why We Can’t Wait. New York: Harper. Ling, Peter J. 2002. “Martin Luther King, Jr.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 175–180. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. McWhorter, Diane. 2001. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama—The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster. Washington, James M., ed. 1986. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Harper and Row.

Kresge, Sebastian S. (1867–1966) Sebastian S. Kresge, a retailing pioneer and founder of the S. S. Kresge Foundation, was born near Kresgeville, Pennsylvania, in 1867. His parents were hardworking, poor farmers who instilled in their son core values that included a devout belief in God, clean living characterized by abstinence from alcohol and smoking, charity toward others, hard work, and frugality. Summing up his approach to philanthropy and life in general, Kresge once said, “I really want to leave the world a better place than I found it” (“S. S. Kresge Dead,” 1966). Early in life, Kresge, nicknamed “S. S.,” learned the value of hard work. He began doing chores on his family’s farm when he was five years old. At the age of fourteen, eager to pursue something other than farming, he decided to undertake a career in teaching. Kresge persuaded his father to finance his education in return for his wages until the age of twenty-one. To meet his end of the bargain, he gave his parents his

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salary from his work at various local jobs. He graduated from Fairview Academy, but after teaching for one term decided that his interest lay in business. Kresge took a $28-a-month job in a grocery store in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and decided to enroll in Eastman’s Business School in Poughkeepsie, New York. He completed the four-month business course at the age of twenty-three. Kresge went from job to job before accepting a two-year stint in a Scranton hardware store, where he kept the books and worked as a salesman. He then began a five-year career as a traveling tin and hardware salesman. In his travels, Kresge met three of his mentors, S. H. Knox, John G. McCrorey (later spelled McCrory), and Frank W. Woolworth. All three men would become successful chain-store retailers. Their stores, their cash-transaction-only business methods, and the profit-making power of their group purchasing impressed Kresge. By age thirty-one he had accumulated savings of $8,000 and had begun to look for opportunities to start his own store. For $8,000, McCrorey agreed to make him a partner in a new retail store in Jamestown, New York. Two years later, Kresge bought out McCrorey, a purchase that included a store in Detroit. In the thirteen years from 1899 to 1912, he built his company from one to eighty-five stores. In 1912, his annual sales totaled $10 million and ranked second only to F. W. Woolworth in the dime-store business. When he died in 1966, Kresge owned 930 stores in Canada and the United States (including S. S. Kresge, Kmart, and Jupiter Stores) and had more than 42,000 employees generating over $1 billion in revenue. Kresge was a social reformer. He vigorously opposed any consumption of alcohol and refused to donate to any clergy or politician who used alcohol. In 1917, he supported the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting alcohol consumption. He did so out of personal beliefs as well as from the practical concern that drinking could harm one’s productivity and safety at work. He also donated more than $1 million to Prohibition efforts and encouraged other business leaders, such as Andrew Carnegie, J. L. Hudson, the Rockefellers,

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John Wanamaker, and Frank W. Woolworth, to support Prohibition. In 1920, Kresge confided to fellow churchmen that he felt an obligation to help others because of the blessings he had enjoyed in his own life. He studied the philanthropy field for a number of years and then formed the S. S. Kresge Foundation with an initial contribution of $1.3 million. The foundation’s grants favor programs that provide for the maintenance, expansion, or perpetuation of deserving existing organizations over proposals to establish new organizations or experimental projects. This policy is based upon the belief that there are more than enough foundations focused on new and experimental charity ventures. Because Kresge believed that America could not afford the secularization of its major charitable institutions (for example, universities), the foundation also makes gifts to offset the reliance of such organizations on tax money. Kresge coupled these fundamental tenets with his interests in education, religion, care of children, care for the elderly, health care, and employment training for young people. By the time he died in 1966, Kresge had contributed more than $100 million to his foundation. The Kresge Foundation is currently among the top fifty in the United States. Michael Gerrity References and further reading Furnas, J.C. 1974. The Life and Times of the Late Demon Rum. New York: Putnam’s. Kresge Foundation, http://kresge.org. ———. 1954. The First Thirty Years: 1924–1953, The Kresge Foundation. Detroit: Trustees of the Kresge Foundation. ———. 1998. Annual Report of the Kresge Foundation. New York: Foundation Center. Lender, Mark E. 1984. “Sebastian S. Kresge.” In Dictionary of American Temperance Biography: From Temperance Reform to Alcohol Research, the 1600s to the 1980s, 282–283. Westport, CT: Greenwood. “S. S. Kresge Dead; Merchant Was 99.” 1966. New York Times, October 18, A1. “Sebastian S. Kresge.” 1999. In American National Biography 24, edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, 917–919. New York: Oxford University Press. Pegram, Thomas R. 1998. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.

L Labor Unions

Churches in England, as in the colonies before the American Revolution, were more than houses of worship. They served as the primary sources for education, poor relief, and hospital care within their communities. Ecclesiastical courts, rather than the king’s secular courts, heard all complaints regarding the churches’ use of trust funds up to the reign of the Tudors. This total control by churches of charity was eroding by 1600. The Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses (1601) was drafted to formalize a new system of administering charities. The statute perpetuated the recognition of churches as vehicles for charity, but it imposed certain limits upon churches acting as trustees. First, it listed a number of charitable proceeds, including reducing poverty in order to prevent social unrest, educating children, repairing roads and walls, and building dams and bridges. The list was never intended to be exhaustive but was the basis for future legal decisions holding that trusts must address one of four categories of social concern: poverty, education, religion, or public utility. Second, the statute implicitly recognized the Crown as trustee for all trusts. A commission, as part of the Crown’s Council and an arm of judicial administration, was established to hear all complaints as to whether a church, as administrator of the trust funds, was adhering to the prescribed goals of the donor/decedent. The Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses was law in the American colonies and cited as authority by

See Union Movement and Philanthropy

Law of Charity The simplest acts of charity require no law. Law takes no notice of one who gives a coin to a beggar or a hot meal to a traveler. Laws of charity are required to protect the interests of a charitable giver once he has relinquished control of his funds. The law ensures that his largess will be put to intended uses, sometimes even after the donor’s death. The laws of charity serve two interests: the need to protect the intent of the donor and the need to secure the public’s interest in the donation. Without a public interest in the donation, there would be no protection of intent. For instance, if someone donated funds to support a raid by anarchists upon a courthouse, law would not protect the donation. When law in England first addressed these concerns, it transformed charity from an act to an institution—the legal means by which a giver’s intent would be effectuated. The law of trusts developed in England in the fourteenth century. The basic law of trusts allows a donor to give money to another person or an institution, binding the recipient to use the money for prescribed purposes. The law of trusts in England recognized the church as a “charity,” an institution capable of receiving funds to be used for social purposes.

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American judges well into the nineteenth century. The underlying assumptions of that statute also applied to colonial America. Colonists did not recognize a public-private distinction, and law sought only to marshal all available resources to the performance of necessary societal functions. Governments frequently granted monopolistic charters to private corporations as the most expedient means of building roads or bridges that generated toll revenues for their owners. Similarly, only one wood mill and one grain mill patent would be provided per river community, giving the residents access to needed services and the millers profitable enterprises. In keeping with this communal spirit imbuing colonial laws, prices, wages, and hours of labor were all regulated. Churches, though also nongovernmental entities, functioned as quasi-public institutions. Eleven of the thirteen colonies supported churches with tax dollars. In these instances of religious establishment, only the state church could take property in bequest or establish trusts. People who privately supported and attended a “dissenting church,” one not established by law, had to go to the state church for marriages, death certificates, and other matters of public record. In addition, the preferred legal status of the established churches allowed them the financial wherewithal to construct schools and hire teachers, care for the poor, and build larger chapels. Several colonies created parishes, governmentally recognized areas similar in size to counties, in which the established church performed public functions. Publicly elected vestrymen were responsible for setting local property tax rates, collecting taxes, and apportioning the funds to support poor relief, church administration, and other communal needs. Church wardens, appointed by the vestrymen, enforced both church discipline and criminal laws shaped by perceptions of Christian morality. In this society, public and quasi-public officials were the charitable actors on behalf of all the community residents. The first voluntary organizations in America arose from one of two needs: attention to public emergencies and protection of personal welfare. Volunteer militia and firemen provided necessary functions for communities too small or impoverished to otherwise protect themselves in times of emergency. Various beneficiary organizations, most frequently organized

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by trade, provided the opportunity for pooled resources that could support widows and orphans of their members in times of personal disaster. Early private trusts were used in the colonies in support of these efforts. The dominant intellectual influence upon the American Revolution was the increased valuation of individual autonomy. Individuality, frequently expressed as the liberty to govern oneself and to pursue one’s own economic goals, was consistent with the broader Enlightenment appreciation of human rights. Attaining political separation from England took nearly eight years of warfare; implementing a legal theory premised upon individual rights into the social and cultural activities and institutions of the new nation took decades. Colonial society was not only communal but hierarchical. Aristocratic titles brought from Europe still had power in colonial America. Privilege could also be seen in the special treatment provided to monopolists and established churches. During the Revolution and through the 1830s, legislatures and courts dismantled a society that had been dependent upon old ideas of privilege, deference, and status and replaced it with one premised on freedom, equal opportunity, and individual initiative. The prime mover in this change was the law—specifically contract law. In the early republic, contract law would be used to sort out the morass of charitable organizations that had arisen under English and colonial law—some incorporated, some unincorporated, and some existing merely as private trusts. Contract law theory, then and now, recognizes the parties to a contract as equals. Each is deemed capable of acting on his or her personal desires and use of reason to strike a bargain. Once that bargain is agreed to, it can be enforced by either party against the other. The law holds each party to his or her commitment and can show no preference for any one party to an agreement. Contract law served as the great leveler in the early republic—eviscerating privilege and creating new rights that gave every individual a legal equality with every other. The colonial controls over wages, prices, and hours of work, and the granting of monopolies, were inconsistent with this new theory of law. Contract law also recognizes certainty, removing transactions from the vagaries of possibility or equity.

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The ideas underlying contract law had profound effects on American charity. If all citizens were legally equal, the wealthy no longer had a social obligation to help the poor. Similarly, the poor, as legal equals, had the ability to contract—sell their labor to the highest bidder—in order to improve their social position. A failure to do so rendered the poor responsible for their own suffering. Coterminous with the rise of contract law, America experienced a decline in Christian sentiment and religious practice. The disestablishment of religion resulted not only from the need to redefine churches as private rather than public institutions but also from the reconception of morality as rooted in private initiative and responsibility rather than in a duty to provide for one’s fellows. Churches were unable to maintain the public support necessary for them to continue in their roles as caretakers of the poor. For much of the nation during the early republic, poor relief and education were provided neither by government nor by churches. Instead, philanthropic organizations, especially in large cities, attempted to provide these services. Various states continued to rely on concepts of equity and English chancery law principles of public utility in administering charitable transactions until the U.S. Supreme Court dictated a new legal scheme. The Court, in a series of decisions between 1810 and 1850, applied contract law theory to shape the forms of philanthropic organizations. Article I, Section 10, of the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution reads in part: “No state shall . . . pass any . . . law impairing the obligation owing to contracts.” The provision asserts that private contracts are superior to public interests asserted by state legislatures that might be used to contravene private contract considerations. In 1810, the Supreme Court addressed the Contract Clause for the first time in Fletcher v. Peck. In that decision, the Court upheld a sale of land by Georgia despite the subsequent enactment of legislation by that state’s legislature repudiating the sale. Finding that the sale was a valid contract and asserting that the legislature could not throw aside all “rule of property,” Chief Justice John Marshall rejected the argument “that a legislature may, by its own act, divest the vested estate of any man whatever for reasons which shall, by itself, be deemed sufficient” (Fletcher v. Peck, 1810,

133–134). Invoking Article I, Section 10, Marshall wrote that the Constitution protected contracts and did not distinguish between those among individuals and those to which the state was a party. He wrote: “When, then, a law is in its nature a contract, where absolute rights have vested under that contract, a repeal of the law cannot divest those rights” (ibid., 133–134). In 1819, the Court issued its decision in the Dartmouth College case. For years, state legislatures, short of funds and in need of providing public services, had taken over private colleges, orphanages, and other institutions on the argument that they were created by state charter and could be redefined by the state. After the Peck decision, that argument was suspect. After 1819, it was utterly absurd. Chief Justice Marshall wrote the Court’s majority opinion. The case addressed the legitimacy of New Hampshire assuming control of Dartmouth College to convert it into a state school. Marshall found that private property “both real and personal which had been contributed for the benefit of the college, was conveyed to and vested in, the corporate body” (Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819, 658). Further, he found that that property was used to manage the college consistent with the intentions and parameters expressed in the corporation’s charter. Reaching a tentative conclusion, based solely on the nature of the corporation’s property, Marshall contended that “[i]t is then, an eleemosynary, and as far as respects its funds, a private corporation” (ibid.). However, the state’s attorney argued that a corporation’s purpose, in this instance, the support of the government’s interest in education, was more determinative of the corporation’s nature than the source of its funds. Marshall, therefore, could not rest upon his finding that “as far as respects its funds,” Dartmouth was a private corporation. Recognizing the state’s argument, he asked of Dartmouth: “Do its objects stamp on it a different character?” In answer, he responded no. Marshall defined public institutions not by the purposes they address, but as being part of the “civil government” (ibid., 658–659). The fact that Dartmouth College was once perceived by the state to be an organ of public service did not, Marshall said, create a presumption that the

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donors to the college intended to serve the legislature’s determination of the interests of the people of New Hampshire. To the contrary, the only reasonable conclusion was that they intended their gifts to address the interests and purposes of the college as determined by the trustees consistent with the charter. To protect the property interests of the donors, as well as of the corporation, the charter could not be subject to revision or manipulation by the state. The corporation, then, formed the means by which the donors addressed their goals and was not a tool of the state legislature to be used to serve state interests. Incorporation allowed many individuals to come together to exert greater influence as a group than they ever could separately, and to do so perpetually, without restrictions from government that would be equally unlawful were they asserted against individuals. In overturning the legislative action restructuring the college, Marshall asserted that legislative perceptions of the public good could not overcome the rights of individuals expressed in contracts. The preceding legal argument constituted a sufficient basis for the Court, pursuant to Article I, Section 10, of the Constitution, to void the action of the New Hampshire legislature. However, Marshall’s opinion went further and in the process clarified the status of charitable institutions in the early republic. Language in the Dartmouth decision prefigured the Court’s subsequent decision in Trustees of the Philadelphia Baptist Association v. Hart’s Executors later the same year. In Dartmouth College, Marshall wrote: “Charitable, or public spirited individuals, desirous of making permanent appropriations for charitable or other useful purposes, find it impossible to effect their design securely, and certainly, without an incorporation act” (ibid., 659). In this passage, Marshall articulated the basis for the doctrine that unincorporated charitable institutions are too vague to receive bequests of decedents, as their intentions cannot be given definite assurance of fulfillment without a corporate charter and an organization establishing parameters for the future use of funds. In this way, Marshall not only distinguished private charitable corporations from state governmental offices and agencies but also required a legal formalization of those charities in order for them to be legally secure in the pursuit of their purposes.

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In Trustees of the Philadelphia Baptist Association v. Hart’s Executors, Marshall had an opportunity to elaborate upon the meaning and significance of his earlier pronouncement. In 1790, Virginian Silas Hart drafted his will, leaving “what shall remain of my military certificates at the time of my decease” (Trustees of the Philadelphia Baptist Association v. Hart’s Executors, 1819, 1) to the Baptist Association in Philadelphia for educating youths desiring to enter the Baptist ministry. Hart died in 1795. During the intervening years, specifically in 1792, Virginia enacted a new legal code, in the process repealing all English statutes that had governed in colonial days and in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution. During this entire period, the Baptist Association had existed only informally as a group of citizens united by common social and religious sentiment. In 1797, the group incorporated under the laws of Pennsylvania as Trustees of the Philadelphia Baptist Association. The case went to the Supreme Court on the issue of whether the testator’s intent could be given legal effect. Marshall found that Hart’s intentions were obvious—he wanted to leave a large portion of his estate to the Philadelphia Baptist Association. However, Marshall also articulated the general rule of law that “a vague legacy, the object of which is indefinite cannot be established in a court of equity” (ibid.) In other words, a court could not create a legal entity in order to enable it to receive a bequest consistent with a testator’s intent. As the Baptist Association was not incorporated at the time of the bequest, no legal effect could be given to the provision of the will and the money reverted back to the statutory heirs. Marshall concluded that a testator intends an association to receive funds, not the individuals who compose it. The Hart doctrine continued to be relied upon for its assertion that a charitable entity must have legal certainty, as provided through incorporation, in order to receive bequests. In 1830, in Inglis v. Trustees of the Sailor’s Snug Harbor, Justice Smith Thompson explained the ruling of the Hart case: “The bequest there was ‘to the Baptist Association that, for ordinary, meets at Philadelphia.’ This association not being incorporated was considered incapable of taking the trust of a society” (99). In Vidal v. Girard’s Executors (Girard’s

Law of Charity

Will Case) (1844), the Court again cited the Hart ruling with approval while distinguishing the facts of the case from the 1819 Dartmouth decision. Mr. Girard’s will bequeathed money to found a school near Philadelphia to educate “poor white male orphans.” He further provided in his will that: “I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any Sect whatsoever, ever hold office or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college; nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college” (Vidal v. Girard’s Executors 1844, 127). The issues presented by the will were whether the City of Philadelphia could receive the funds and whether the purposes for which Girard intended to found the school contravened the law of Pennsylvania by discriminating against potential teachers or administrators affiliated with a religious institution. Justice Joseph Story ruled that the City of Philadelphia could receive the bequest as a civic corporation able to take and hold real and personal property. Reasserting the rule of law from the Dartmouth College case, Story found that a corporation may receive and use property just as a private person may. As to the second issue, Story concluded that despite Girard’s proscriptions on religious teachers, his intent could be given legal effect: “And in America, it has been thought, in the absence of any express legal prohibitions, that the donor might select the studies as well as the classes of persons who were to receive his bounty without being compellable to make religious instruction a necessary part of those studies” (ibid., 201). The Supreme Court’s decisions directed the course of social change. No longer could government rely upon private corporations to serve governmental purposes. Instead, private institutions reflected the private concerns of their benefactors. Contract law served as the means of protecting those concerns. State courts were hesitant to follow the prescriptions of the Supreme Court. In the antebellum era, debate raged as to the federal authority to dictate law to the states. As late as 1837, a New York judge asserted that Marshall’s decision in the Hart case was in error. To some extent, this explains the patient reassertion by the Supreme Court of the same doctrine

from 1810 to 1844. By the 1840s and 1850s, states had generally adopted the requirement that charities needed to be incorporated to receive donations. In the process of separating public and private spheres, the Supreme Court confirmed the constitutional separation of church and state. Social policy, political ideology, and even constitutional prescriptions on religion were all subordinated to contract law. Hereafter, churches would all be equal private institutions regardless of differences in doctrine and degrees of support. After the Dartmouth College decision, New England’s religious establishment could never be the same. Later in 1819, New Hampshire’s Toleration Act ended the system of tax-supported religion in that state. Ironically, Protestant churches were the prime beneficiaries of the Supreme Court’s Dartmouth College doctrine. As voluntary organizations protected by corporate law, their attention to societal reform after 1819 through the social gospel represented an alternative vision of American society to that presented by secular or governmental policy. The actions of individuals to form organizations and raise funds on behalf of temperance, prison reform, abolition, women’s rights, and education were protected by law. The Court ensured the rights of organizations to support minority positions that might one day become acceptable to the larger society. The major importance of the Dartmouth College case is not simply the delineation of private and public realms, but the perpetuation of the alternative visions of American society by the legal recognition of public and private spheres. The decision, then, fostered the American reliance upon philanthropy noted by Alexis de Tocqueville just over a decade later. By protecting the legal right of Americans to pursue different visions of American society through memberships in smaller communities, what Tocqueville found was that a uniquely American form of political expression was given life. In addition, the law, by requiring philanthropic organizations to incorporate, encouraged the professionalization and sophistication of American philanthropy. By the mid-nineteenth century, American society recognized professional philanthropic organizations as prominent social forces.

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The basic pattern of American philanthropy was formed in the first half of the nineteenth century. Subsequent legal developments are best seen as modifications to an existing model. Some of these modifications came through federal law, but many arose in the state context. For instance, in 1892, after former governor Samuel J. Tilden’s grant of more than $5 million to charitable purposes was ruled void because those purposes were unincorporated, the New York legislature intervened. The new statute allowed donations in that state to charitable purposes that were not incorporated. New York then created an administrative bureaucracy to monitor trusts. Various states applied a similar regulatory procedure to incorporated and unincorporated charities alike, placing limits on their holdings and requiring accountability to the state. Frequently, boards or commissions were established for these purposes as state bureaucracies burgeoned in the late nineteenth century. States that imposed these bureaucratic schemes opted for the flexibility of administrative law rather than the dogma of contract law to ensure donors’ intents and social interests. The Supreme Court also began to place a greater emphasis on public policy than contract law doctrine in the second half of the nineteenth century. In an 1877 decision, Ould v. Washington Hospital for Foundlings, the Court stated that charitable uses may be applied to almost anything so long as they promote the well-being of man in society. This decision reflects a policy shift, if not a change in law. It is one thing to require that a trust not violate established public policy and another to require it to serve the public interest. Congress reflected this new concern in public interest in passing the nation’s first law of charities in 1894, granting tax benefits to organizations that served desirable public purposes. The personal income tax was created in 1913. Four years later, Congress created the charitable deduction, allowing individuals to deduct from their taxable income contributions made to eligible organizations. This act tended to consolidate money in professionally organized eligible organizations. People chose to give sums to recognized charities in order to reap the tax advantages of their largesse. In response, some smaller groups merged, forming phil-

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anthropic networks such as Community Chests or, later, United Ways. In 1917, a court in the state of Texas ruled that corporate giving was a freedom protected by the First Amendment. Yet corporate giving did not become popular until tax advantages accompanied corporate beneficence. The 1935 Internal Revenue Code (IRC) contained the first mention of a corporate deduction for charitable contributions. This provision produced a huge increase in corporate donations, which increased ninefold in nine years from barely $30 million in 1936. By the 1970s, U.S. corporations were giving more than $1 billion annually, and in the late 1990s more than $10 billion annually. The tax code protects donations and trust funds only when their use conforms to public policy. Under Section 501(c) of the IRC, an eligible charity must show that its activities are not contrary to settled public policy. Law has determined how Americans perceive of social needs—as public or private responsibilities— and has governed the way through which those needs are addressed. If any legal change is noteworthy, it is the increased regulation of philanthropies through administrative bureaucracies and tax provisions that limit the donor’s intent far more than was ever contemplated in the early 1800s. As Americans continually seek new political answers to social problems, the law imposes a structure to which all political “solutions” must conform. The charitable sector of the economy may have grown tremendously in the past one hundred years, but it still serves on the periphery of public institutions, now able to offer alternative visions of America’s future only so long as its goals remain broadly consistent with social policy. Mark McGarvie References and further reading Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983). Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87, 133–34 (1810). Inglis v. Trustees of the Sailor’s Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 99 (1830). Jones, Gareth H. 1969. History of the Law Charity, 1532–1827. London: Cambridge University Press. Karl, Barry D., and Stanley N. Katz. 1981. “The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere, 1890–1930.” Minerva 19 (2): 236–270. ———. 1987. “Foundations and Ruling Class Elites.” Daedalus 116 (1): 1–40.

Lilly Endowment

Katz, Stanley N. 1985. “Legal Change and Legal Autonomy: Charitable Trusts in New York, 1777–1893.” Law and History Review 3 (Spring): 51–89. Luxton, Peter. 2001. The Law of Charities. New York: Oxford University Press. Magat, Richard, ed. 1989. Philanthropic Giving: Studies in Varieties and Goals. New York: Oxford University Press. McGarvie, Mark. 1999. “Creating Roles for Religion and Philanthropy in a Secular Nation: The Dartmouth College Case and the Design of Civil Society in the Early Republic.” Journal of College and University Law 25, no. 3 (Winter): 527–568. ———. 2000. “One Nation under Law: America’s Early National Struggles to Separate Church and State.” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University. Miller, Howard. 1961. The Legal Foundations of American Philanthropy, 1776–1844. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Newman, Ralph G. 1965. “Appraisals and Revenuers.” Manuscripts 17 (2): 14–21. Picarda, Hubert, and the Rt. Hon. Lord Wilberforce. 1995. The Law and Practice Relating to Charities, 2d ed. London: Butterworths. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat) 518, 658–59 (1819). Trustees of the Philadelphia Baptist Association v. Hart’s Executors, 17 U.S. (3 Wheat) 1 (1819). Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 43 U.S. (2 How.) 127 and 201 (1844). Warburton, Jean, and Debra Morris. 1995. Tudor on Charities, 8th ed. London: Sweet and Maxwell. Wyllie, Irvin. 1959. “The Search for an American Law of Charity, 1776–1844.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 46: 203.

rank of American businesses and made the Lilly family very wealthy. While always proud of his business achievement, Lilly in the 1930s began to expand his interests to history, archaeology, art, and religion. And he began to make financial contributions to areas of interest. Much of Lilly’s giving was personal, often anonymous, and seldom with conditions. He preferred to give to causes and institutions he knew personally, though usually only after careful consideration. He had a strong affinity for nearby giving, reflecting his love of his hometown and state. While he continued this simple philanthropy to the end of his life, he also moved toward a more formal structure with the founding in 1937 of the Lilly Endowment, in partnership with his brother, Josiah K. Lilly Jr., and father, Josiah K. Lilly Sr. Almost until his death in 1977, Eli Lilly was the endowment’s driving force, particularly in deciding that it would specialize in education, religion, and community service and that it would focus giving in Indianapolis and Indiana. After his brother’s death in 1966, he moved the endowment toward more professional and sophisticated organization and procedures as he prepared it for a life beyond his. His interests and style continued as part of the endowment’s culture long after his death. James H. Madison See also Lilly Endowment Reference and further reading Madison, James H. 1989. Eli Lilly, 1885–1977: A Life. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society.

Lilly, Eli (1885–1977) Eli Lilly achieved distinction as a pharmaceutical manufacturer and philanthropist. Born in Indianapolis in 1885, he worked all his adult life at Eli Lilly and Company, founded in 1876 by his grandfather of the same name. His growing wealth and interest in charitable giving led to large personal philanthropic contributions and to the creation of the Lilly Endowment in 1937. Lilly’s greatest success in the pharmaceutical business came with his leadership role in the development of insulin in the 1920s. Mass production of this life-saving drug proved to be the key step in moving the family-owned company into the first

Lilly Endowment The Lilly Endowment was founded in 1937 by the Lilly family of the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Company. The endowment’s mission from the beginning has been to support religion, education, and community development, primarily in Indianapolis and Indiana. Since 1998, it has been one of the wealthiest private foundations in the country. Eli Lilly (1885–1977), grandson of the pharmaceutical company’s founder, was the first family member to propose creating an endowment. He knew that when his father died, he and his brother, Josiah K. Jr., would have to pay a large inheritance tax

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on their father’s share in the company. He also knew that they would have to sell stock to do so and thereby possibly lose control of the company. So to assure familial control of the company, Eli, J. K. Jr. and their father, J. K. Sr., established the Lilly Endowment (Madison 1989, 205–206). The endowment was and is governed by a board of directors. Currently, grants of more than $50,000 must be approved by the board. During the first forty years of the endowment, the family exerted great influence over the board. Eli Lilly himself directed it until 1949, and until 1968 every director of the board was either a family member or a former company executive (ibid., 207, 219). Over time the family has exerted less influence and fewer board members have had ties to the company. On the current nine-person board, for example, only two members are former company employees. Nonetheless, the mission of the endowment set forth by Eli, his brother, and their father still guides the decisions of board members today. The Lilly Endowment is one of many foundations that have received criticism for being so closely tied with its parent company. In addition to the early influence of family members and former company executives, from the beginning almost all of the endowment’s stock has been in Eli Lilly and Company (ibid., 219). Critics argued that such foundations reflected the interests of the elite. Eli Lilly, however, believed that the people who made the money had the responsibility to give it (ibid., 206). He thus saw nothing wrong with family and company involvement in the endowment. The focus of endowment giving has shifted somewhat over time depending upon who was directing it. During the lifetimes of Eli and J. K. Jr., the endowment mainly reflected their interests. From 1937 until his death in 1977, Eli arguably exerted the greatest influence. In many ways, the endowment was simply an extension of his private philanthropy. Eli Lilly was interested in religion and moral education, and under his direction the endowment made significant donations to the Episcopal Church, to scholars researching how to morally educate children, and to religiously affiliated Indiana colleges. Toward the end of his life, he told endowment leaders that perhaps they should focus more giving on Indianapolis. The leadership of Thomas A. Lake made this a reality.

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During Lake’s tenure, from 1978 to 1984, the endowment made large grants to fund construction of various amateur and professional sports facilities in Indianapolis. The largest grant was for a domed football stadium, the Hoosier or RCA Dome. According to Waldemar A. Nielsen, this was the largest foundation expenditure ever in U.S. history on something he considered to have so little social or economic benefit (1989, 295). Since Lake’s tenure, the endowment has returned to a focus on more pressing religious, educational, and community needs. In the area of religion, the endowment gives to Christian colleges and seminaries. It primarily funds clerical education and research on American Christianity. The endowment also supports many educational endeavors. In the recent past, it has given to the United Negro College Fund and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund; it also gave $110 million to Indiana University for its genome research. In addition, it provides support for local Indianapolis-area public schools. The endowment’s community development money goes to Indiana community foundations, the United Way, and Indianapolis museums. In 2001, 53.7 percent of the grants paid by the Lilly Endowment went to education. Community development grants accounted for 23.5 percent, and religion 22.8 percent. Of the grants paid, 71.2 percent went to organizations in Indiana (Lilly Endowment 2001, 52–53). The Lilly Endowment is thus continuing the tradition of Eli Lilly and family to focus on religion, education, and community development, primarily in Indianapolis and Indiana. Katie Schechter See also Lilly, Eli References and further reading Lilly Endowment. 2001. Annual Report. Indianapolis: Lilly Endowment. Madison, James H. 1989. “Philanthropy and the Quest for Character.” In Eli Lilly: A Life, 1885–1977, 189–223. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. Nielsen, Waldemar A. 1989. “The Major Midwesterners: Kellogg, Kresge, Lilly, and Mott.” In The Golden Donors, 285–299. New York: Truman Talley Books, E. P. Dutton.

Literature and Philanthropy At the intersection of literary study and philanthropic studies, critics examine representations of philan-


thropic acts, or the absence of such representations, as they shape the experience and the meaning of a text. On the one hand, these representations provide an occasion for scholars already interested in philanthropic studies to isolate one or another aspect of philanthropy; often the images and narratives of philanthropy in a text help convey what philanthropy is when definitions and explanations have failed. On the other hand, understanding philanthropy and its traditions enables the literary scholar to enrich his or her interpretations of a text and at times to develop approaches not available without such specialized knowledge. Thus, both literary and philanthropic scholars benefit from the exercise. In one sense, writing itself is sometimes considered as a gift, even though works may create income for the writer. Many literary works are created independently of any profit motive, and so these acts of creation interest scholars concerned with philanthropy. This gift-making aspect of writing also draws attention to the writers themselves, making both the writing and the lives of writers a focus for examining the connections between philanthropy and literature. Further connections between the two lie in the claim that literary art has always made—that it offers a vision of a better world and the inspiration toward reform and so approximates much of what people expect of philanthropic acts. Some schools of literary criticism emphasize the need for literature and literary study to pursue these pragmatic elements. And some literary works have indeed helped bring about the changes they sought. Perhaps the most immediate pursuit in the study of philanthropy and literature involves focusing on works that are explicitly and primarily about philanthropy. George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara (1902) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1964) focus primarily on characters whose mission it is to do good through philanthropic acts. Reading and interpreting these works brings philanthropy and its values and issues to the center of an interpretation. Shaw is concerned that philanthropy is ineffective in itself and, more important, dangerous as a substitute for the real and deep reforms needed in society. Vonnegut doubts that money itself can do what really needs to be done to eliminate the suffering that plagues so many people.

The study of philanthropy and literature also places other works in a new light. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1817) offers critics a number of important issues and themes, but those discussions take a different turn when Frankenstein’s motive is recognized as a philanthropic urge—to eliminate death and suffering. Grounding the novel in a knowledge of philanthropy and its traditions leaves many of the usual themes intact but adds a richness and depth that was missing. Bringing to bear the lens of philanthropy on works such as Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843) reveals that philanthropy has a special function in the piece: The change in Scrooge is measured and highlighted by his response to the two fundraisers who appear at his door at the beginning and again at the end of the tale. Focusing on philanthropy does not change deeply how we read the book, but it suggests a reach that Dickens has possibly not been available before through other critical approaches. A look at philanthropy in literature recasts perspectives on other texts as well. Few would think about Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1954) as a play about philanthropy. Yet, by Beckett’s own count, there are twenty-one requests for help in the play: Most are ignored, five are refused, and two are granted. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1947) is most clearly focused on race, but a lot of the book uses representations of philanthropic (or, more properly, antiphilanthropic) acts to convey its concerns. The idea of the act of writing as itself a gift found expression in Lewis Hyde’s The Gift (1983). As the title implies, the book suggests that works of literary art are almost always a gift because very few writers earn a return on their work. In light of the extensive and rigorous investment writers make in their work, and the palpable genius evident in some, the publication of such a work amounts to a gift from the writer to the audience. Although some got paid for what they wrote, most readers agree that the achievement far exceeds the payment. Hyde develops a careful theory of the elements that constitute such gifts; the field of philanthropy and literature pursues these elements as part of its attempt to account for the power and impact of works of literary art. Similarly, the lives of some writers beyond their acts of writing contribute to this sense that writers

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act—both in their writing and in their actions—to reform or remake the world. Hyde focuses on Walt Whitman’s work in military hospitals during the Civil War. Samuel Beckett joined the French Resistance during World War II and worked with the Irish Red Cross to found a hospital in Saint-Lô after the war. Byron went to Greece to support the Greek fight for independence. Indeed, literary art’s oldest claim is that it offers a vision of a better world that can inspire change, and so it has always been engaged in something that approximates the work of philanthropy. Classical literary theory attributed to art the ability to capture and represent the universal truths that the particularities of life and experience made so hard to discern. The Greeks thought that poets were allied to seers; the Renaissance made the poet a visionary who could put an audience in touch with mysteries otherwise unavailable. In An Apology for Poetry (1595), Sir Philip Sydney suggested that people experience the world as ordinary and imperfect (“brazen”) and that only poets can present an idealized world (“golden”) worth of emulation. Percy Bysshe Shelley called poets the “unacknowledged legislators of the world,” and Matthew Arnold suggested that great literature could fill the void that he and other Victorians felt once their confidence in religious truths had disappeared. The twentieth century has made lesser claims for the power of art but has never denied that literary work has power to change people’s minds. Often the confidence in the power of writing ironically occurs in the attempt to suppress literary art by totalitarian regimes. Recent literary theory has suggested that just as literary art changes the world, the criticism that elucidates what texts mean and do also has a responsibility to work to change the world. Cultural criticism, Marxist criticism, and feminist criticism all include making an impact on the world as part of the function of literary criticism. Thus, literary art itself and the work of critics who negotiate the meanings and contexts of literary texts have adopted claims that aspire to what would constitute a philanthropic act. Sometimes literature attempts to effect specific changes in the world through its art. Harriet Beecher

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Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853) is said to have stoked the abolitionist fires enough to help cause the Civil War. Jonathan Swift’s Drapier’s Letters (1724– 1725) attacked a proposed new coinage scheme that Swift regarded as harmful to Irish interests. The Letters caused enough embarrassment to a hard-to-embarrass English government to have the patent for the new coinage withdrawn. Later in the eighteenth century, Hannah More wrote novels that servant girls and governesses used to enlarge their own sense of their rights and their aspirations. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) and John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row (1945) both brought about changes in the meat- and fishpacking industries, respectively, through the merciless exposure created by their novels. Of course, only a handful of literary works can point to specific reforms that happened because of their art, but most works of literature aim to make some lasting impact on the world and so constitute philanthropic acts. Richard C. Turner References and further reading Betensky, Carolyn. 2001. “Philanthropy, Desire, and the Politics of Friendship in The Princess Casamassima.” Henry James Review 22, no. 2 (Spring): 147–162. Dussinger, John A. 1984. “Love and Consanguinity in Richardson’s Novels.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 24, no. 3 (Summer): 513–526. Eiselein, Gregory. 1997. Literature and Humanitarian Reform in the Civil War Era. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Elliott, Dorice Williams. 1995. “Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall and Female Philanthropy.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 35, no. 3 (Summer): 535–553. Gibbonney, Roberta K. 1997. “Philanthropy in Invisible Man.” MELUS 22, no. 3 (Fall): 183–194. Hyde, Lewis. 1983. The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. New York: Vintage/Random House. Johnston, Kenneth R. 1986. “Philanthropy or Treason? Wordsworth as ‘Active Partisan.’” Studies in Romanticism 25, no. 3 (Fall): 371–409. Morse, Donald E. 2001. “The Apotheosis of Philanthropy: Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.” In Kurt Vonnegut: Images and Representations, edited by Marc Leeds and Peter J. Reed, 154–164. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Turner, Richard C. 1991. “Metaphors Fund Raisers Live By: Language and Reality in Fund Raising.” In Taking Fund Raising Seriously, edited by Dwight Burlingame and Monte Hulse, 37–50. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lowell, John, Jr.

Low, Juliette Gordon (1860–1927) Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of America, was born on October 31, 1860, in Savannah, Georgia, the second of six children of William Washington Gordon, a prosperous cotton broker and Confederate general in the Civil War, and Eleanor Kinzie Gordon. Nicknamed “Daisy,” Juliette developed an interest in art, poetry, and sketching at a young age. She attended private day schools in Virginia to supplement the scripture study and decorum lessons taught by her mother at home. Later, she attended the French finishing school Charbonniers in New York City. Following her education, she traveled extensively in the United States and Europe. In 1886, she married William Mackay Low, also from Savannah, Georgia. The Lows lived between homes located in England and Scotland. Alienated by her husband’s drinking, Juliette Gordon Low turned to drawing, painting, sculpting, wood carving, and even metal forging. During the Spanish American War in 1898, she returned to Savannah to aid her mother in establishing a hospital for wounded veterans. Following the war, she returned to a disintegrating marriage. Shortly thereafter, in June 1905, William Low died. In 1910, Daisy Gordon Low met General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who had founded the Boy Scouts three years previously. Baden-Powell also organized the Girl Guides, a program similar to the Boy Scouts but targeted specifically toward girls. Encouraged by Baden-Powell, Daisy Low began a Girl Guide troop near her home in Scotland, where she taught not only knitting and knot-tying but also skills in self-sufficiency. She later established two troops of Girl Guides in poorer sections of central London. On March 12, 1912, with a group of eighteen girls, Low organized the first American Girl Guide troop in her hometown of Savannah. Around this same time, other people, also inspired by BadenPowell, organized several independent troops of Girl Scouts. Gordon Low united these troops under one umbrella called the Girl Scouts. In 1915, the Girl Scouts of America was incorporated under a national constitution and bylaws in Washington, D.C. Daisy

Gordon Low served as the organization’s president until 1920. Low’s contributions to the Girl Scouts of America included authoring a new handbook, Scouting for Girls, in 1920; overseeing the modernization of the Girl Scouts magazine, The American Girl, in 1917; and helping and appearing in the first Girl Scout film, The Golden Eagle, in the late 1910s. She was also actively involved with the first International Conference of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Juliette Gordon Low died in 1927, but her life has been commemorated in many ways. A “Liberty Ship” was named after her in World War II, a U.S. postal commemorative stamp was issued in her honor in 1948, and a school and a federal building in Savannah bear her name. Today, the Girl Scouts of America is the largest educational organization for girls in the world and has influenced more than 50 million girls since its inception in 1912. Elizabeth Watkins References and further reading Cordery, Stacy A. 2002. “Juliette ‘Daisy’ Gordon Low (1860–1927), Founder of the Girls Scouts of America.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Electric Scotland, http://www.electricscotland.com/history/ america/low/ht (cited September 24, 2001). Girl Scouts of the USA, http://www.gsusa.org/about/ birthplace/biography.htm (cited September 24, 2001). ———, http://www.gsusa.org/about/history.htm (cited September 24, 2001).

Lowell, John, Jr. (1799–1836) Born in 1799, John Lowell Jr., founder of the Lowell Institute, was the son of pioneer New England industrialist Francis Cabot Lowell (1775–1817). After receiving his earliest education in the Boston public schools and in Europe, he entered Harvard College at the age of fourteen. He left college after two years and entered his family’s mercantile firm, sailing before the mast to India, the East Indies, and England. Lowell was active in city and state politics, serving Boston’s Common Council and in the Massachusetts state senate. Following the deaths of his wife and two children in 1830–1831, he retired from business and

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left Boston to begin a life of wandering, first through the American West, and then through Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Lowell died in Bombay, India, in March 1836. In his will, he bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to a charitable trust for “the maintenance and support of public lectures, to be delivered in Boston, upon philosophy, natural history, the arts and sciences, or any of them, as the trustee shall, from time to time, deem expedient for the promotion of the moral, and intellectual, and physical instruction or education of the citizens of Boston.” The charity was to be managed by a single trustee who was empowered to appoint his successor and who was, if possible, to be a male relative who carried the Lowell family name. Beginning in 1839, the trust, known as the Lowell Institute, brought world-famous literary and scientific figures to Boston, helping to make the city the acknowledged cultural capital of the United States through the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, the institute supported educational broadcasting and helped establish one of the earliest public television stations, Boston’s WGBH. Peter Dobkin Hall References and further reading Everett, Edward. 1840. A Memoir of Mr. John Lowell, Jun., Delivered at the Introduction to the Lectures on His Foundation in the Odeon, 31st December, 1839. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown. Greenslet, Ferris. 1946. The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Smith, Harriette Knight. 1898. The History of the Lowell Institute. Boston: Lamson, Wolffe. Weeks, Edward. 1966. The Lowells and Their Institute. Boston: Little, Brown.

Lowell, Josephine Shaw (1843–1905) Josephine Shaw Lowell, an influential New York City philanthropist, was the leading theorist of the organized charity movement of the late nineteenth century. Among the founders of the Charity Organization Society (COS) of the City of New York, Lowell sharply criticized charities that encouraged the dependency of the able-bodied poor while also advocating social reforms (such as the unionization of labor) that were intended to raise the wages and improve the condition of

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the working poor. She wrote and lectured extensively about the problem of poverty and the ways in which charitable and government relief efforts could alleviate or exacerbate it. Her best-known work, published in 1884, was Public Relief and Private Charity. Lowell was born in 1843 to a wealthy Massachusetts couple. She received a social elite’s education and married Charles Russell Lowell, a longtime family friend, in 1863. He died one year later in combat in the Civil War and she never remarried. Her philanthropic career began during the Civil War when in 1861 she joined the New York City Woman’s Central Association of Relief for the Army and Navy of the United States. During Reconstruction, Lowell continued her philanthropic efforts, overseeing the schooling of emancipated slaves in Virginia. Lowell is best known, however, for her work with the urban poor of New York, which she began in 1871 as a fulltime volunteer for the State Charities Aid Association (SCAA). As an SCAA volunteer, Lowell wrote well-received reports on the treatment of dependents. She later became one of eight commissioners (and the first woman commissioner) of New York’s State Board of Charities. Lowell’s growing familiarity with poverty and the philanthropic response to it next led her to take a prominent role in the 1882 founding of the New York City COS. Charity organization societies were established in most major U.S. cities in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and Lowell soon emerged as the most articulate exponent of the COS viewpoint. She advocated what the movement called “scientific” charity: charity that was organized and efficient (avoiding duplication of efforts) and that treated the root causes of poverty rather than seeking merely to relieve its symptoms. Lowell argued that poverty could most effectively be ended by harnessing the values of self-reliance and self-help among the poor. Self-help could be promoted, she maintained, if the poor were assisted in finding employment and encouraged to save. In keeping with this view, the New York COS created institutions to help the poor find jobs and to enable them to deposit small sums for savings. Because Lowell valued the self-reliance of the poor, she strenuously opposed giving alms to the able-bodied

Lyon, Mary Mason

poor in the belief that doles would encourage continued dependency. Lowell came to recognize that poverty was principally caused by unemployment and very low wages. She therefore advocated steps to ensure that the poor were better compensated for their labor. Lowell supported the creation of labor unions as a means of improving wages and working conditions. And in the aftermath of the great industrial depression of 1893, she set up a committee that offered work relief to the unemployed so that they could provide for their families without having to rely on doles. Lowell died on October 12, 1905. Joel Schwartz References and further reading Lowell, Josephine Shaw. 1971 (1884). Public Relief and Private Charity. New York: Arno Press and The New York Times. Schwartz, Joel. 2000. Fighting Poverty with Virtue: Moral Reform and America’s Urban Poor, 1825–2000. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Stewart, William Rhinelander. 1974 (1911). The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell Containing a Biographical Sketch of Her Life Together with a Selection of Her Public Papers and Private Letters. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith. Waugh, Joan. 1997. Unsentimental Reformer: The Life of Josephine Shaw Lowell. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lyon, Mary Mason (1797–1849) Mary Mason Lyon, born on February 28, 1797, to Puritan farmers, established Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837 in South Hadley, Massachusetts, to provide the daughters of farmers and craftsmen a college education academically equivalent to that for young men. Ingeniously securing donations from hardworking New Englanders, Lyon built an institution of superior academic standing to prepare women primarily for the two socially acceptable professions of the era, teaching and missions. Mount Holyoke’s success inspired the creation of numerous colleges for women in the second half of the nineteenth century and spawned ten “daughter” institutions, including schools in Persia, Spain, and South Africa. The name of the institution changed to Mount Holyoke College in 1895.

Lyon, who combined a modest teacher’s salary with income from handwork to finance her own education, was determined to establish Mount Holyoke under an independent board of trustees that would be removed from restricting financial ties to church or town council. Traveling the Massachusetts and Connecticut countryside by stagecoach, Lyon canvassed house by house to raise funds from predominantly unschooled housewives while a male supporter, the Reverend Roswell Hawks, called on the townships’ businessmen and civic leaders. Lyon’s standard appeal to the ladies was that neighbors collectively contribute at least $50 to $60 to provide furniture and bedding to supply a single dormitory room. Detailed account books show that her novel development plan raised $27,000 from 1,800 persons in ninety-one towns, with individual gifts ranging from six cents to $1,000. Mount Holyoke opened on November 8, 1837, admitting eighty students from among 200 applicants to a building still under construction—no doorsteps, no window blinds, no stoves, and not enough furniture. Board and tuition were kept low, originally $64 a year, to be affordable for those of modest means. Three schemes devised by Lyon made this possible: the domestic chores were divided among students, teachers were considered as missionaries and paid accordingly, and excess funds were reinvested in the school. By year two, the Mount Holyoke curriculum was fully organized and comparable to course work at any male institution. English grammar, geography, physiology, history, algebra, botany, philosophy, rhetoric, chemistry, and theology were in the original threeyear course of study. Religious instruction received great emphasis, and attempts to convert nonbelieving students were prevalent. A member of the Congregational Church, Lyon often led the compulsory twice daily devotions and saw that her pupils mastered weekend Bible lessons and attended Sunday church services. Lyon shared the nineteenth-century revivalist fervor for missionary work, financially contributing to missions and encouraging her students not only to give but to consider missions as a profession. Whether inspired by religious zeal or opportunities to use their education in a field with some gender equity, Mount Holyoke graduates were prolific in mission work. The

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first graduating class sent four women to minister among South Africans and various American Indian tribes, and at the school’s centennial in 1937 graduates numbered more than 400 on the roll of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission. Lyon’s innovative approach of having students, rather than hired labor, perform all domestic functions at Mount Holyoke proved not only cost-effective but also important to her pupils’ development as independent women with a sense of their own capacity. Grouped in task circles to perform the washing, ironing, baking, sweeping, and other necessary chores, students learned the skills essential to operating a household, important management tools for ladies of the era. Prevailing together over such tedious assignments, the young women also forged a camaraderie that endeared them to each other and to the institution. Lyon anticipated her students’ need for postgraduate support from classmates and the institution and created during Mount Holyoke’s first year the Memorandum Society, a voluntary alumnae association with a lifetime fee of $2. Through the society, Lyon helped her graduates find suitable teaching positions and remain connected to their homeland from remote mission posts. She also built a rich base for institutional support that continued far beyond her twelve-year tenure.

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Mary Lyon had halted an erratic school career at age thirteen to keep house for her eldest brother, but she revered education as the means to enlarging her own understanding. She accepted her first teaching position, a summer post where she earned 75 cents a week plus board, at age seventeen. From that undistinguished beginning, she dedicated a lifetime of creative energy and strenuous labor to opening up educational and professional opportunities for the young women of her day. By the time of her death in 1849, Mount Holyoke had educated many important missionaries. Judy P. Hall References and further reading Goodsell, Willystine. 1970. Pioneers of Women’s Education in the United States: Emma Willard, Catherine Beecher, Mary Lyon. New York: AMS Press. Green, Elizabeth Alden. 1979. Mary Lyon and Mount Holyoke: Opening the Gates. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. “Lyon, Mary.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://search.eb. com/eb/article?eu=50730 (cited July 21, 2002). “Mount Holyoke College.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=2035 (cited July 21, 2002). Porterfield, Amanda. 1997. Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries. New York: Oxford University Press.

M Mather, Cotton (1663–1728)

North Church, where his father was also pastor. Aside from serving as pastor for one of colonial Boston’s largest and most famous congregations, he is also noted for championing the smallpox inoculation, despite tremendous public opposition. Perhaps he is best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials. In 1689, he wrote Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions, a widely read account of a witchcraft case, and he continued to preach on devils and witches through the trials of 1692. Nevertheless, Mather made a significant contribution to the institution of American philanthropy with his 1702 book, Magnalia Christi Americana, and with Bonifacious: Essays to Do Good, published in 1710. In the latter, Mather argued that Puritans could ensure that Christian virtue would persist in society, despite its declining influence in the political arena, by acting through churches and associations to do good deeds. Specifically, he called fellow Puritans to assist the poor, to educate children, and to correct neighbors who strayed from the path of righteousness. He also perceived opportunities to do good deeds as a unique privilege that God conferred on wealthy individuals to enrich their lives (Hammack 1998). Though initially written for a Christian audience, Essays to Do Good ultimately became a “how to” manual for all people desiring to incorporate more philanthropic activities into their daily

Born to one of colonial Boston’s most prominent and respected families in 1663, Cotton Mather was the son of the renowned minister Increase Mather and his wife Maria. He attended a public school on Boston’s south side but received academic instruction at home during the winter because of his frail health. The youngest student ever admitted to Harvard College, he enrolled at the age of eleven and studied Greek, Hebrew, logic, ethics, metaphysics, mathematics, rhetoric, oratory, and theology, grooming himself to follow his father, grandfathers, and uncles into the ministry. Perhaps the biggest challenge he faced during his collegiate years was overcoming a severe speech impediment that threatened his potential to become a successful preacher. Ultimately, he mastered his speech. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1678 and a master’s degree in 1681 (Silverman 1985). In 1686, Mather married Abigail Phillips, who came from a prominent family in neighboring Charlestown and was the first of his three wives. She died in 1702, and Mather later married Elizabeth Hubbard, the widow of a mariner. His first two wives bore him a total of fifteen children, thirteen of whom predeceased him. After Elizabeth passed away in 1713, Mather married Lydia George, the widow of a merchant (Wright 2002). Despite intense internal conflict, Mather pursued a career in ministry. In 1685, he was ordained at

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Cotton Mather (1663–1728) (Library of Congress)

lives, regardless of their religious persuasion. Mather died in Boston in 1728 at the age of sixty-five. Roberta Knickerbocker References and further reading Bremner, Robert H. 1988. American Philanthropy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hammack, David C. 1998. Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Silverman, Kenneth. 1985. The Life and Times of Cotton Mather. New York: Columbia University Press. Wright, Conrad Edick. 2002. “Cotton Mather (1663–1728), Clergyman, Theologian, and Author of Bonifacious: An Essay upon the Good.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm, Jr., 201–204. Westport, CT: Oryx Press.

McCarty, Oseola (1908–1999) The people of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, were surprised to learn in 1995 that Oseola McCarty, an African American woman in her late eighties, had made what was later cited as the largest philanthropic

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contribution from an African American in the history of the University of Southern Mississippi. Certainly, no one expected the retired laundress to have accumulated such wealth in her lifetime. Born in Wayne County, Mississippi, on March 7, 1908, McCarty was heavily influenced by her mother, who worked hard to support her family. As a child, McCarty attended Eureka Elementary School and earned money ironing for people in the neighborhood. Early on, she embarked upon a lifelong habit of saving. McCarty enjoyed learning and had dreams of becoming a nurse. Her dreams were deferred, however, when she found herself taking care of an aunt who had become immobilized by illness. In spite of this setback, McCarty was able to amass an impressive fortune through frugal living. She never owned a car or learned to drive. She added an air conditioner to her tiny wood frame house only during the last years of her life. Never earning more than $9,000 a year as a laundress, she understood what it was like to live in poverty and how difficult it is for the less fortunate to acquire an education (Mercer 1995). Although the institution had not admitted African Americans for most of its history, McCarty chose the University of Southern Mississippi as the recipient for her donation of $150,000. This university was the only one she knew, and she wanted to help young people who lived near her. In making the contribution, McCarty asked that it be used to help those students in need, with a priority placed on African Americans. A deeply religious person, McCarty also gave 10 percent of her assets to her church. A belief in the importance of education and religion was the focal point of her life. In 1996, McCarty expressed her thoughts in a book entitled Simple Wisdom for Rich Living. Although a shy public speaker, in writing she was very eloquent about the principles essential to success. She believed in taking responsibility for oneself and encouraged others to save so as to prepare for the emergencies in life (McCarty 1996). McCarty died on September 26, 1999, after a bout with cancer. Marybeth Gasman References and further reading The Gift, http://www.pr.usm.edu/oolamain.htm.

Mellon, Paul

McCarty, Oseola. 1996. Simple Wisdom for Rich Living. Atlanta: Longstreet Press. Mercer, Joye. 1995. “Retired Laundress Gives U. of Southern Mississippi $150,000.” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 11. University of Southern Mississippi. 1999. Press Kit. Public Relations, University of Southern Mississippi.

McCormick, Nettie Fowler (1835–1923) While a wife and a mother, Nettie Fowler McCormick became a pioneer businesswoman and played a major role in the development of the mechanical reaper. After her husband Cyrus McCormick’s death, she was an important philanthropist, donating more than $8 million to charities and to individuals in need. One biographer wrote, “To Nettie McCormick, philanthropy was more than an avocation. It became life itself ” (Burgess 1962, vi). She was born Nancy Fowler in a northwest frontier town of New York in 1835. Orphaned at age seven, she went to live with her uncle and his family in Clayton, New York. While on a visit in 1857 to Chicago to visit a cousin, Nettie Fowler met Cyrus Hall McCormick, the inventor of the mechanical reaper. Within a year, they married and settled in Chicago. The couple had a highly productive business relationship. She quickly became her husband’s closest, although silent, business associate. The two of them would spend most nights composing business correspondence. By 1860, she was an active participant in all of her husband’s many activities. Besides the growing reaper business, he was actively involved with a theological seminary, with publishing activities, and with the Presbyterian Church. Following the Chicago fire of 1871, Nettie began to take a more visible role in the company’s operations. She oversaw construction of the new plant, guided her husband’s investments, and began to plan future ventures. Ultimately, the International Harvester Company was the result of her efforts to consolidate the farm machine industry. According to her grandson, “Had she lived in any other time, Nettie Fowler McCormick would have headed the business herself ” (ibid., 40).

Cyrus McCormick died in 1884. His will stated that Nettie and their son were to keep the estate intact for five years and “to make such reasonable donations therefrom to charitable or benevolent purposes as in their judgement I would have made as living” (Roderick 1956, 157). Her husband had given away $550,000 in his lifetime, primarily to the Presbyterian Church, the McCormick Theological Seminary, and denominational colleges. Nettie honored his wishes for six years, focusing on these causes and giving away a total of $475,000. In 1890, she became a philanthropist in her own right. Between 1890 and her death in 1923, Nettie McCormick gave away more than $8 million. Nearly half went to forty-six different U.S. private schools and institutions; another $675,000 went to mission work. Most of the rest went to her church and to fund scholarships. For twenty-six of her thirty-three years of giving, education received greater financial support than any other interest. Generally, her gifts went to denominational institutions, typically Presbyterian ones. She was particularly concerned with the inadequate educational facilities in the rural Midwest, in the frontier regions of the West, and in the highlands and other backward areas of the South. Despite her generosity, McCormick viewed philanthropy as an intensely personal matter. She generally preferred to make her gifts anonymously. This was most evident in her Chicago Daily Tribune obituary, which identified her as a woman who had supported more than six schools—in actuality, she was a supporter of more than forty institutions across America. Lynn O’Connell References and further reading Burgess, Charles O. 1962. Nettie Fowler McCormick: Profile of an American Philanthropist. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Roderick, Stella Virginia. 1956. Nettie Fowler McCormick. Rindge, NH: Richard R. Smith.

Mellon, Paul (1907–1999) Paul Mellon devoted his life to sharing the immense fortune he inherited with many arts, cultural, and educational institutions. Born to Andrew W. and Nora

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Mary McMullen Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1907, he grew up with massive wealth but had a very tumultuous childhood. Nonetheless, he adapted quite well for someone who spent most of his time being shuffled back and forth between his parents, who for many years lived on different continents. At twelve, Paul Mellon left home and attended Choate Preparatory School in Wallingford, Connecticut. After graduating from Choate in the fall of 1925, he chose to attend Yale University. In 1929, he graduated with a degree in English. Instead of entering his father’s banking business, he set sail for England to study history at Clare College, Cambridge. In December 1931, he returned home and worked at the bank for three years. After leaving the bank, Mellon spent most of his time in Washington assisting his father in his project to fund a National Gallery of Art. In February 1935, at age twenty-seven, he married Mary Conover Brown. Paul and Mary Mellon subsequently raised two children: Cathy, born in 1936, and Timothy, born in 1942. In 1946, while hiking back from a hunting trip, Mary died suddenly from an asthma attack. Two years later, Paul married a close friend, Rachel Lloyd (known as “Bunny”). Immediately after his father’s death in the summer of 1937, Paul pulled up his roots in Pittsburgh and abandoned any active role in the affairs of the Mellon Bank and other Mellon-related corporations. Instead of expanding a financial empire, Paul Mellon wanted to spend an inheritance well—or, to use his own phrase, “sensibly” (Murphy 1967, 134). Paul first encountered foundations in 1930 when he was elected to the board of trustees of his father’s A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust (E&C), established to transfer Andrew’s collection of paintings to the public and to fund the construction of the gallery. Paul’s involvement in E&C and the gallery was the beginning of a special relationship. Over a forty-seven-year span, he served the National Gallery as a trustee, president, chairman, and benefactor. At his death, Paul Mellon also bequeathed to Yale $90 million and more than 130 works of art, the largest single gift ever to the university. Besides his donations to the art world, Paul Mellon made a name for himself in education and conservation philanthropy. In 1941, he established the Old

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Dominion Foundation, which distributed grants that advanced studies in the humanities and liberal arts. Paul and his first wife also founded the Bollingen Foundation, which aimed to properly translate and publish C. G. Jung’s works in English, in 1945. In 1969, Old Dominion and Avalon Foundation, founded by Paul’s sister Ailsa, merged to form the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This foundation makes annual grants to several hundred institutions, including higher education, medicine, public affairs, cultural projects, conservation, and the environment. Teresa Gift References and further reading Mellon, Paul, and John Baskett. 1992. Reflections in a Silver Spoon. New York: William Morrow. Murphy, Charles J. V. 1967. “The Mellons of Pittsburgh: Part III, Paul Mellon.” Fortune, December, 132–134, 170–184.

Membership Associations Membership associations are a type of nonprofit organization with an array of structural forms and missions. Under the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) classification system, they can be found under all of the twenty-seven tax-exempt categories. What associations share is a set of persons, groups, or organizations that are designated as members and are not financially recompensed for participation. Some associations run almost completely through the efforts of hired staff with members making few decisions; others are managed by members acting in a volunteer capacity. Examples of associations include labor unions, occupational and trade associations, religious churches and sects, credit unions, business leagues, some social movement organizations, political parties, fraternal and social organizations, recreational clubs, communes, cooperatives, civic service associations, neighborhood organizations, and social welfare councils. It is difficult to get an exact count of the membership associations in the United States, let alone those in other countries. Gale Research’s database of international and U.S. national, regional, state, and local nonprofit membership associations has approximately 460,000 entries. The American Society of As-

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sociation Executives estimates that there are more than 147,000 formal associations headquartered in the United States. Lester M. Salamon (1999) has estimated that 400,000 of the approximately 1.6 million nonprofit organizations registered with the IRS in 1995 were member-serving organizations, with the rest categorized as public-serving. It is likely that most of the member-serving organizations and some of the public-serving ones are member associations. For example, the estimated 352,000 churches falling under the public-serving label could be considered member associations. The IRS numbers underestimate the actual number of membership associations in the United States because they do not include the numerous grassroots membership associations that are not incorporated. What constitutes a member varies across associations, and membership may not even be voluntary. For example, up until a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1978, occupational associations in the United States could demand that in order for an individual to be certified or licensed in a field, the individual had to be a member of the association (National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States). Even if an individual shares the same interests as the members of an association and can contribute to the pursuit of the collective interests, the individual may be restricted from joining the association, as in the case of the Boy Scouts, which has retained the right to refuse membership to avowed homosexuals, or the Daughters of the American Revolution, which requires specified ancestry as a condition of membership. The benefits, rights, responsibilities, and requirements inherent in membership in an association are determined primarily by the association’s bylaws. Many membership associations carry out philanthropic activities to provide volunteer hours and financial support addressing public problems. For example, the Lions Club is well known for its efforts to assist the blind and visually impaired, and Kiwanis regularly provides scholarships. Fraternal benefit associations are particularly well known for their charitable activities. A 1998 report based on responses from fraternal benefit societies in the United States lists $250 million in charitable disbursements and 72,598,367 community service hours provided by

the 103 respondents. This is only a small fraction of the actual dollars and hours distributed by fraternal benefit societies. A 1998 study of 8,000 associations by the American Society of Association Executives concluded that associations provide more than 173 million volunteer hours each year valued at more than $2 billion (http://www.asaenet.org). The society’s Web site described a variety of philanthropic endeavors pursued by its members in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including donations of more than $1 million from members in the six weeks following the attacks. This example demonstrates the ease with which many associations can mobilize their members in response to needs for philanthropic support. Individuals and organizations join associations for multiple reasons and pursue a variety of ends, sometimes philanthropic ones. Potential outcomes of association membership include satisfaction of psychological needs for fellowship, safety, and security; promotion of social mobility; prestige and self-esteem enhancement; legitimation; advancement of political and economic interests; satisfaction of religious impulses; affirmation of values; self-improvement; assistance with problem-solving; and development of group consciousness. Some associations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, do not produce public goods and pursue ends that many believe are not in the public interest. The benefits provided or pursued by an association may not be for the individuals actually holding the memberships, but rather for their employers, or for vulnerable populations lacking their own voice. Though many scholars see participation in associations as a consequence of rational cost-benefit analysis and the potential to free ride on others’ efforts, others argue that simply striving for a public good, even if it is not obtained, can be the motive behind association membership. The participative process itself, rather than the achievement of any tangible or collective goods, can be of great value to members. In addition, associations can help to check government by developing skills and tastes for democratic processes and by giving voice to special interests that otherwise might not be heard. They may play a role as instruments of government, useful in promotion of policies and political agendas.

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Not all associations are legally recognized entities, and those that do have legal status may be identified by the law in a manner that is inconsistent with their members’ understanding. The legal system defines an association according to specific salient characteristics, such as the religious or commercial nature of all or a subset of its activities, rather than by its involvement of uncompensated members or formal nature. For example, in deciding how women should be treated by the Jaycees, the state of Minnesota had to decide whether the Jaycees is a social club as presented by the male members or a public accommodation regulated under the state’s human rights law. In the United States and many other countries, the freedom to associate is limited, constraining the formal and overt organization of groups, particularly those that are considered to be instrumental rather than expressive. For example, some U.S. states outlaw paramilitary associations such as citizen militias, considering them to be instrumental groups harmful to the public interest. In cases where association activities are covert, it is even more difficult to calculate any philanthropic outcomes from the organizations. Mary Tschirhart References and further reading American Society of Association Executives, http://www. asaenet.org. Encyclopedia of Associations. 2002. Detroit: Gale. National Fraternal Congress of America. 1999. 1998 Statistics of Fraternal Benefit Societies, 104th ed. Naperville, IL: National Fraternal Congress of America. Salamon, Lester M. 1999. America’s Nonprofit Sector. New York: Foundation Center. Smith, David Horton. 2000. Grassroots Associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mission of the Organization The beliefs and values guiding a nonprofit organization and its work, or what a nonprofit organization does and seeks to accomplish, constitute its “mission.” The mission, expressed in a “mission statement,” is the motivating force of nonprofit organizations, the essence of and justification for their existence. Nonprofits, collectively referred to as the “third sector” (or sometimes the voluntary sector, the independent sector, or the philanthropic sector), exist to serve societal

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needs not met by government or the marketplace, the first two sectors of civil society. A nonprofit’s mission is the guiding set of beliefs and core values that inform the organization’s programs, goals, objectives, and activities. It provides the motivation for people to associate with the nonprofit, attracting board members, staff, donors, and others who share the values that it embraces. Scholars and practitioners in nonprofit management, philanthropic studies, and fundraising differ in how they explain a mission statement. Some argue that a mission statement articulates a nonprofit’s beliefs and values and is therefore a philosophical statement of the organization’s reason for being. In this instance, a mission statement contains the organization’s core beliefs and values. Mission statements following this view will include language focusing on ideas, such as “We believe in the dignity of all persons” or “We believe that libraries are storehouses for the preservation of knowledge.” Others argue that a mission statement articulates the work a nonprofit organization does and for whom it does this work. Mission statements of this kind will include goal-oriented language, such as “We exist to provide food and shelter to all who need them” and “Our library exists to house and make available to users the accumulated knowledge of humankind.” The lack of agreement on the definition of terms such as “mission” and “mission statement” and the process of defining, reviewing, and debating such terminology enrich the dialogue and understanding of nonprofit organizations and their role in philanthropy. It requires scholars and the nonprofit community to discuss the nature of nonprofits in order to better understand what they are, why they exist, and what they do. Moreover, it compels them to articulate why nonprofits are of social value and why they deserve support from stakeholders. Decisions about the programs, services, and activities that a nonprofit organization will pursue are determined by fidelity to mission. Grantseeking and fundraising are also guided by service to mission. The mission and the mission statement serve as a focal point for the nonprofit’s activities and as a primary source of information for potential stakeholders. They provide a set of talking points for a nonprofit organi-

Moorland, Rev. Jesse E.

zation to make its case for the value it adds to society and a means by which to make an appeal for financial support. The mission guides the organization, and grantseeking and fundraising serve the mission. Timothy L. Seiler References and further reading Allison, Michael, and Jude Kaye. 1997. Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations. New York: Wiley. Drucker, Peter F. 1990. Managing the Nonprofit Organization: Practices and Principles. New York: HarperCollins. The Fund Raising School. 2002. Principles and Techniques of Fund Raising. Indianapolis: The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Greenfield, James M., ed. 1997. The Nonprofit Handbook: Fund Raising, 2d ed. New York: Wiley. Knauft, E. B., Renee Berger, and Sandra T. Gray. 1991. Profiles of Excellence: Achieving Success in the Nonprofit Sector. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kotler, Philip, and Alan R. Andreasen. 1991. Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations, 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Levy, Barbara R., and R. L. Cherry, eds. 1996. The NSFRE Fund-Raising Dictionary. New York: Wiley. Lewis, Robert L., 2001. Effective Nonprofit Management: Essential Lessons for Executive Directors. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Institute. Seiler, Timothy L. 2001. Developing Your Case for Support. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; New York: Wiley.

Moorland, Rev. Jesse E. (1863–1940) The Reverend Jesse E. Moorland was a clergyman, a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) executive, a civic leader, and a bibliophile. His legacies include the establishment of modern YMCA buildings for African Americans in most of the large cities of the United States. He also donated his private collection of books and manuscripts to Howard University to create the “first research library in an American university devoted exclusively to materials on the Negro” (Winston 1982, 451). Moorland was born on September 10, 1863, in Coldwater, Ohio, the only child of William Edward and Nancy Jane Moorland. His parents were successful farmers who were prominent in local community affairs. Jesse Moorland’s early education took place in a small county school near the farm in Coldwater. He later attended Northwestern Normal School in Ada,

Ohio, where he met his future wife, Lucy Corbin Woodson. The Moorlands were married in 1886. They both taught for a brief period in the public schools of Urbana, Ohio, before moving to Washington, D.C., to attend Howard University. Jesse Moorland enrolled in the Department of Theology; his wife in the Normal (teaching) Department. Jesse graduated as salutatorian of his class in 1891; Lucy graduated in 1893. After graduation, Moorland was appointed secretary of the colored branch of the national YMCA in Washington, D.C. He stayed in this position for two years, resigning to become pastor of Howard Chapel in Nashville, Tennessee, a Congregational church supported by the American Missionary Association in New York. In 1896, he was chosen pastor of the Mount Zion Congregational Church in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1898, William Alphaeus Hunton, secretary of the Colored Men’s Department of the YMCA, offered Moorland a position as administrator and fundraiser for colored Y’s in the major cities. This department had been created in 1890 as one of fifteen departments of the International Committee of the YMCA. Moorland accepted the position and returned to Washington, D.C. Upon Hunton’s death in 1916, Moorland became the senior secretary of the Colored Men’s Department. By that time, he had helped to build the department into a significant national institution. In 1917, it included 107 college student chapters, 39 city associations, 14 industrial associations, and 2 railroad associations. Before Moorland began his career at the YMCA, most of the Negro associations had met in rented rundown buildings. Moorland had resolved to emphasize the construction of buildings designed specifically for YMCA purposes. Over the next few years, he was able to raise more than $2 million, from both blacks and whites, to finance the YMCA building program in nineteen cities across the country, proving himself an efficient administrator and popular leader. In 1923, Moorland retired from the YMCA at the mandatory retirement age of sixty. He had moved from Washington to New York four years earlier to work at the national headquarters. Upon his retirement,

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Moorland devoted himself to the work of such organizations as the National Health Circle for Colored People, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he helped found with Carter G. Woodson in 1915, and Howard University, where he had served on the board of trustees since 1907. In the 1930s, he held the chairmanship of the board’s executive committee. In 1914, Moorland donated his private library and personal papers to Howard University. At that time, this was considered to be one of the most significant collections of materials relating to black Americans in existence. His donation reflected the efforts of African Americans to take a leadership role in the documentation, preservation, and study of their own history and culture. The collection also provided the catalyst for the centralization of the University Library’s other materials on the subject, which became known collectively as the Moorland Foundation. In 1946, Howard University acquired the large personal library of Arthur B. Spingarn, an attorney, social activist, and prominent collector of books and other materials produced by black people. The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center is named for these two benefactors. Today it is widely known as one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. Moorland died on April 30, 1940, in New York following a heart attack two weeks earlier. His wife, Lucy, had died the previous year at their home in Brooklyn. Joellen El Bashir References and further reading Moorland, Jesse E. 1940. “The Young Men’s Christian Association among Negroes,” Journal of Negro History, April, 127–138. Moorland obituary notice. 1940. Journal of Negro History, July, 401–403. “A Tribute to the Memory of Jesse E. Moorland.” 1940. Howard University Bulletin, July, 12. Winston, Michael R. 1982. “Jesse Edward Moorland.” In Dictionary of American Negro Biography, edited by Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, 448–452. New York: W. W. Norton.

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Moral Philosophy and Philanthropy Philanthropy may be defined philosophically as a social practice centered upon giving money, time and expertise, or other goods for public purposes. Moral philosophy inquires whether philanthropic giving is ever a moral duty or is always supererogatory, that is, an act beyond that which can be required, and what role philanthropy plays in shaping a community. Philanthropy as a practice is an activity carried on through formal organizations established for the achievement of intrinsic goods, widely recognized benefits flowing from the activity itself. Extrinsic goods, such as public recognition, might result as well, but these are personal goods that only accompany the intrinsic good for which philanthropy is properly done (MacIntyre 1983, 187–196). Although individual donors may be agents of philanthropy, it is still the formal organizations that enable donors to participate in important undertakings affecting their community. Nonetheless, donors are at the heart of philanthropy, for they provide the necessary means through which philanthropic action can occur. Indeed, so essential are donors that the term “philanthropy” commonly refers to the act of giving rather than to the practice overall. Philanthropic giving is voluntary because it is not required of donors the same way that taxes are required of citizens; nonetheless, philanthropic giving is held by some to be a moral duty––a duty that evidences moral virtues. Philanthropy provides collective goods in that its beneficiaries are the public at large or some portion of it that benefits from a philanthropic undertaking. Moreover, the nonprofit organizations that form the chief institutional components of philanthropy are supported by individual donors and volunteers as well as by grants and contracts from government and for-profit firms. Philanthropy, then, involves individual citizens and all three sectors of social and political life: government, business, and nonprofit organizations. Philanthropic giving is problematic in contemporary moral philosophy and ethics. The predominant approaches to philosophical ethics in America, the various articulations of liberalism, center upon justice, obligations or duties, and rights or claims that obligations be met. Although some libertarians (for example, Nozick 1974) argue that all obligations corre-

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spond to negative rights against harm to persons and their property, and others claim that legitimate philanthropy is limited to private acts of support so that the needy can take responsibility for their own selfdevelopment (Pilon 1995). Most ethicists, including utilitarians, hold that rendering aid to anyone in need, so long as it does not cause harm or severe loss to the benefactor and others, falls under positive obligations of mutual aid and beneficence. Responding to others’ need through philanthropic giving satisfies those requirements and fulfills other dimensions of wellbeing, even though the recipients have no right to claim that help from their benefactors. This is not to say that practices such as philanthropic giving are never moral duties, but that they are imperfect duties because, although all persons have a duty to act from concern for others’ well-being, no actions or even subjects of concern are thereby specified. Duties are termed “imperfect” because they are incomplete: The beneficiary or the specific action required is left unspecified. In a perfect duty, the action and the subject toward whom the action is directed are given. Parents, for example, have a perfect duty to educate their children. (The leeway and consequent need for judgment even within perfect duties is evident from this example.) Clearly, no one can help everyone; so, the moral choice of whom to help and how to do it must be made conscientiously so as to transform an imperfect duty for beneficence or mutual aid into a self-imposed perfect duty to help needy persons in some appropriate way. Onora O’Neill has suggested that in modern ethics so much emphasis has been placed upon rights and justice that moral agents often overlook imperfect duties because they do not correspond to anyone’s rights (O’Neill 1989). It is therefore easy to think of charity or philanthropic giving as supererogatory or meritorious but not obligatory. In fact, however, humans could not live without accepting a general duty to provide one another mutual aid. As Immanuel Kant argued, no one could will to live in a society in which people in need are treated with indifference by others, for everyone might well be in need themselves at some time (Kant 1990, 14, 40). Moreover, one could hardly claim to have respect for persons as moral beings yet be indifferent to their well-being. Everyone, there-

fore, has an imperfect duty of beneficence toward others. John Stuart Mill echoed Kant’s argument on beneficence as imperfect duty within a utilitarian framework (Mill 1957 [1863], 61). Everyone, then, has duties of beneficence and mutual aid that can be realized in many ways, including philanthropy. These duties might be addressed through philanthropic giving to organizations with missions the donor finds compelling. They might be realized in more ambitious ways through devoting time and energy to working for such organizations, either by volunteering or by making philanthropy one’s career, even at some sacrifice in salary and other benefits. Through philanthropy, the imperfect obligation of beneficence is taken up and made perfect by the moral agent through specifying some way to participate with imagination and persistence in a beneficial endeavor for specific persons. It has been argued that looking upon beneficence as an obligation is self-defeating and an indictment of the moral agent’s attitude of mind insofar as a person sees beneficence as a burden that must be borne (Lomasky 1995). Indeed, it is a confusion to think of moral obligations as burdens, for they are not. Moral obligations are determined by agents as ways of structuring their lives so as to integrate themselves into the larger society in a beneficial way. Moral agents engaging in philanthropy ought to display such virtues as judgment, ingenuity, and perseverance so as to choose and to carry through with reflection and resolve the obligations they accept for themselves. Moreover, moral agents need to display altruism as a genuine concern for the well-being of others, whoever they may be, a disposition that can only come from learning to silence self-interest sufficiently to attend with comprehension and sensitivity to others (Clohesy 2000). Philanthropy requires the development of virtues such as altruism, not just the capacity to specify needs to be addressed, for philanthropy ought to be freely undertaken in a spirit that is “caring, joyous, and freely engaged” (Martin 1994, 92). There are a number of goods that many people need but often cannot provide for themselves in modern capitalist society: adequate health care, education, and income support for themselves and their children in the face of unemployment and underemployment.

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These almost universally recognized needs are most often addressed through government accepting responsibility for them. That is, government transforms the imperfect obligation to satisfy these basic needs into a perfect obligation through taking upon itself responsibility for its discharge. These public goods, as a result, become entitlements to which citizens have a right. Philanthropy offers private citizens the opportunity to act together for common goods as donors, volunteers, and professionals in ways that complement and parallel the actions of government. That is, philanthropy makes possible direct public action by citizens. When citizens go about their private affairs, acting on behalf of themselves and their intimates, they are engaged in private action. By contrast, public action occurs when people come together to discuss their common situation and to propose, affirm, and establish principles and programs for the sake of their society and its members. In fashioning a program upon which to act, citizens refine and enlarge their opinions until they discover and explicate a common view of their condition and the need for action it presents to them. Public action is the source of novel initiatives because the proposals upon which citizens settle could not have been reached by any of them alone. In bringing one another together around a plan of action, citizens create the power to realize their intentions (Arendt 1958, 1–21, 175–207). Whereas government can provide for the well-being of citizens in ways that are widely accepted by the electorate, philanthropy can act on behalf of the public as a whole, or some relevant segment of it, in ways held by those acting to be beneficial but not feasible or proper for government, such as parochial education. Further, philanthropy can underwrite research and experiments in social programs that might suggest models for future government undertakings. Philanthropy, then, provides citizens with ways of taking direct public action according to their own deliberations on the common good. These decisions by active citizens doubtless produce contest and controversy, but that is an unavoidable and, indeed, enlivening characteristic of all public action. Philanthropy, therefore, can be a force for deliberative participation in discovering and providing collective

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goods and, so, for engendering democracy among citizens seeking to fulfill their duties of beneficence and mutual aid. William W. Clohesy See also Ethics and Philanthropy References and further reading Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Clohesy, William W. 2000. “Altruism and the Endurance of the Good.” Voluntas 11 (3): 237–253. Kant, Immanuel. 1990. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, 2d ed. Translated by Lewis White Beck. New York: Macmillan, Library of Liberal Arts. Lomasky, Loren E. 1995. “Justice to Charity.” Social Philosophy and Policy 12 (2): 32–53. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1983. After Virtue: A Study of Moral Theory, 2d ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Martin, Mike W. 1994. Virtuous Giving: Philanthropy, Voluntary Service, and Caring. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Mill, John Stuart. 1957 [1863]. Utilitarianism. Edited by Oskar Piest. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. O’Neill, Onora. 1989. “The Great Maxims of Justice and Charity.” In Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy, 219–233. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ostrander, Susan A., and Paul G. Schervish. 1990. “Giving and Getting: Philanthropy as a Social Relation.” In Critical Issues in American Philanthropy: Strengthening Theory and Practice, edited by Jon van Til and Associates, 67–98. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pilon, Roger. 1995. “Liberty, Responsibility, and Philanthropy: Individual Responsibility in a Free Society.” Contemporary Philosophy 17 (5): 9–24. Pratt, Jon. 1997. “Fund Raising Practices and Civic Engagement.” In Critical Issues in Fund Raising, edited by Dwight F. Burlingame, 247–255. New York: Wiley.

Muir, John (1838–1914) An internationally famous naturalist and conservationist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, John Muir’s greatest philanthropic legacy is the Sierra Club, the organization he founded in 1892. Shortly after the Civil War, Muir abandoned his career as a machinist to follow his avocation as a naturalist. Eventually landing in California, he became en-

Muir, John

John Muir (1838–1914) (Library of Congress)

chanted by the Sierra Nevada Mountains and their natural treasures, notably the Yosemite Valley and the forests of giant trees. He became a staunch defender of the remaining wild places in the United States, eventually becoming the leader of the preservation movement. Preservationists were (and are) known for advocating the protection of nature for its inherent and aesthetic value, not merely its actual or potential economic value. Born in Dunbar, Scotland, on April 21, 1838, John Muir grew up in a household governed by his severe and pious father. The first son in a family of eight children, Muir’s early childhood passed as an idyll amidst the wild nature of the Scottish coast. Indeed, Muir later attributed much of his spiritual connection to the natural world to this early exposure. His family emigrated when he was still a young boy, eventually settling in Wisconsin. His formal education had ended when the family left Scotland, but in his lim-

ited spare time Muir rambled through the countryside observing the flora and fauna. He also developed a keen interest in mechanics and invention. In 1860, he began studying at the newly chartered University of Wisconsin. There he studied botany, chemistry, geology, and biology, the latter two of which were just then being transformed by Charles Darwin. Muir struggled to reconcile the observation and experimentation of science with his religious convictions. This struggle resulted in the peculiar fusion of pantheist/Christian ideas that infused his later writing and underwrote his advocacy for wilderness preservation. During a tumultuous period in Muir’s life, he fled to Canada to avoid being drafted, was temporarily blinded in an industrial accident, and wandered for several months in the southern United States and the Caribbean. After this time, Muir settled in California. Willfully isolated from other people, he developed an acute sense of the grandeur and sacredness of every species he encountered. He began to believe that the nonhuman nature with which he interacted every day had enormous therapeutic value for human beings, most of whom were cut off from wildness. Writing newspaper and magazine articles and books, Muir began to agitate for wilderness preservation throughout the West. He was instrumental in the foundation of Yosemite National Park in 1890, the second national park after Yellowstone. His advocacy for national parks and preserves set the tone for wilderness preservation throughout the twentieth century. For Muir, the very soul of America would be lost if the wilderness was tamed, or worse, destroyed altogether. To further the cause of preservation, Muir helped found the Sierra Club in May 1892, remaining president until his death twenty-two years later, in 1914. The foundation of this organization remains Muir’s greatest contribution to the conservation movement, later to become known as the environmental movement. The Sierra Club has grown steadily in membership and influence over the past 100 years. Today, it tops the list of dozens of environmental organizations that help shape public policy in ways John Muir would have found unimaginable. The issue of the environment consistently rates among the top concerns

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of American citizens, a legacy of the efforts initiated by Muir a century ago. Michael B. Smith See also Environmental Movement References and further reading Cohen, Michael P. 1974. The History of the Sierra Club: 1892–1970. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Fox, Stephen. 1981. The American Conservation Movement: John Muir and His Legacy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Wilkins, Thurmond. 1995. John Muir, Apostle of Nature. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Wolfe, Linnie Marsh, ed. 1938. John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Mutual Benefit Organizations A mutual benefit organization (MBO) is a nonprofit organization established primarily or exclusively to provide benefits to its members (individuals or organizations) rather than to others or to the society as a whole. There were 540,000 such organizations registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2000.1 In addition, there is an unknown number of unregistered self-help and mutual aid groups, book clubs, and other MBO-type entities; some estimate the number of such groups to be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

Historical Antecedents Mutual benefit is one of the oldest forms of what we now call nonprofit work. Peter Kropotkin argued that mutual aid was at least as powerful a factor in human evolution as competition and survival of the fittest: “The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that it has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history” (1972 [1902], 194). Anthropologists and historians have documented the existence of MBOs, including gender-, status-, and occupation-based membership groups, in primitive and ancient societies (Anderson 1971; Banton 1968; Kerri 1974; Ross 1976; Smith 1997). Ancient China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome had merchants associations, cooperative loan societies, and clublike

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groups. Medieval guilds and fraternities were powerful member-benefit associations (Ross 1983). Beginning in the seventeenth century, following the collapse of church and guild social service systems, England’s “friendly societies” looked after the welfare of members and their families who were afflicted by joblessness, accidents, illness, and death. A common MBO throughout history has been the burial association, protecting members from the dreaded fate of a pauper’s death. In nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America, ethnic, religious, and nationality-based fraternal societies played an important role in helping immigrants cope with the trauma of beginning life in a new country. Groups such as the Sons of Italy, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and B’nai B’rith helped immigrants find apartments, jobs, and friends in the new world. Economic protection was a paramount feature of these societies. Neither government nor charitable institutions provided a safety net for the immigrant poor, who therefore made their own safety nets. At the beginning of the twentieth century, half the value of all life insurance policies in the United States was managed by fraternal societies (Beito 2000, 142). Fraternal societies also provided places to relax and celebrate as well as opportunities for new leadership roles. The societies’ rituals, costumes, secrets, and impressive titles added psychological and social benefits to the economic ones: Where else could a lower-class immigrant with the wrong accent, clothes, and job become a “grand knight,” an “imperial wizard,” or a “most supreme grand chancellor”? The same period saw the growth of other MBO types. The temperance movement was partly selfhelp/mutual-aid and partly advocacy. Alexis de Tocqueville noted with amazement that “at the time of my visit [to America, in 1831] temperance societies already counted more than 270,000 members” (1969 [1835], 242–243), a number that would rise to more than 1 million by the time of the Civil War. The women’s suffrage movement was similarly a mix of mutual aid and advocacy. Self-improvement groups proliferated, including the Chautauqua traveling lecture and performance series, which was founded in 1874 and by the mid-1920s annually reached 45 million people. Race- and ethnicity-based groups such as


the mutualistas in the Mexican American community and the Prince Hall Freemasons in the African American community provided protection, support, and financial assistance to their highly vulnerable members. Workingmen’s associations and unions played an increasingly important role in the lives of millions of workers. Farmers helped each other through the Grange movement; by 1875, there were 800,000 Grange members in 20,000 local chapters. Professional associations, such as the American Statistical Association (1839), the American Medical Association (1847), and the American Bar Association (1878), also began during this period. Changes in American society during the twentieth century dramatically altered the composition and priorities of MBOs. The advent of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and other government and private insurance programs reduced the need for fraternal society insurance programs, and enrollment declined. These societies also lost membership as immigrants and their descendants moved into mainstream America, feeling less need for older forms of solidarity and security. Fashions changed, and fraternal societies became an object of some amusement and even scorn. Television and other forms of entertainment replaced some of the group activities of fraternal societies. More generally, the advent of radio, television, and computers; two world wars, Vietnam, and other conflicts; the civil rights, women’s, gay/lesbian, and other liberation movements; and economic, political, and educational changes reshaped the mutual benefit impulse. Some types of MBOs declined, others flourished, and new types were developed to meet new needs.

Current Dimensions and Activities of MBOs in the United States As stated earlier, there were about 540,000 MBOs registered with the IRS in 2000. Table 1 presents the major types of MBOs registered with the IRS and their organizational growth or decline between 1976 and 2000. As the table shows, certain types of MBOs grew rapidly in the last quarter of the twentieth century— business leagues (95 percent), social clubs (41 percent), employee beneficiary associations (117 percent), and veterans groups (153 percent)—while others have declined—labor associations (down 27 percent) and fraternal societies (down 31 percent). Homeowners associations protect the financial interests of people who own units in a group residential venture such as a condominium complex, a cooperative apartment building, or a planned community with single-family homes and townhouses. This type of MBO has seen very rapid growth in recent decades. The Community Associations Institute, the principal trade association in this industry, has estimated that the number of community associations has grown from 10,000 in 1970 to 205,000 in 1999 (Treese 1999, 3).2 Fraternal societies, numbering 105,000 in 2000, include the Masons, Elks, Moose, Eagles, Shriners, and Odd Fellows as well as groups related to a particular religion (such as Knights of Columbus), national origin (such as Croatian Fraternal Union), race or ethnicity, or gender. The number and membership of fraternal societies have declined dramatically. For example, the percentage of American men belonging to the Masons dropped 70 percent between 1955 and 1995 (Skocpol 1999, 475).

Table 1 Mutual Benefit Organizations in 1976 and 2000 Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(5) 501(c)(6) 501(c)(7) 501(c)(8), (10) 501(c)(9) 501(c)(19) 528

Number of Organizations Type of Organization

1976

2000

Labor, agricultural, and horticultural organizations Business leagues Social and recreation clubs Fraternal societies Voluntary employees beneficiary associations Veterans associations Homeowners associations

87,412 42,120 47,820 153,337 6,271 13,960 N/A

63,456 82,246 67,246 105,467 13,595 35,249 126,548

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By contrast, business leagues have grown rapidly. The number of such groups nearly doubled in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and between 1975 and 1995 their revenue grew by 155 percent and their assets by 215 percent, in constant dollars (O’Neill 2002, 221). This growth is probably due to the great increase in the size and complexity of the U.S. economy during the second half of the twentieth century. This category includes business leagues, chambers of commerce, trade associations, professional associations, real estate boards, and professional football leagues. Examples include giants such as the American Petroleum Institute and the Tobacco Institute as well as associations of businesspeople in small towns. Social and recreation clubs include college fraternities and sororities, country clubs, sports associations (such as hunting, fishing, tennis, golf, and swimming clubs), dinner clubs, wine-tasting societies, hobby groups, garden clubs, and the like. Included are the bowling leagues made famous by Robert D. Putnam’s (2000) “bowling alone” theory, which made observations about the decline of civic engagement, symbolized by the fact that more Americans are bowling, but fewer are joining bowling groups. Social and recreation clubs exist to provide fellowship, recreation, and pleasure to members. In addition, some groups, including elite country clubs, have unwritten goals, such as social inclusion and exclusion. Like fraternal societies and business leagues, social and recreation clubs have been affected by changes in the society. As socializing and recreating became less tied to neighborhoods and to religious, ethnic, and other such bonds, the use of special clubs for these purposes became more common. The multiplication of for-profit and nonprofit health clubs in urban areas is only one example. Labor, agricultural, and horticultural associations include the nation’s labor unions, a classic mutual benefit type. As the IRS defines it, “A labor organization is an association of workers who have combined to protect and promote the interests of the members by bargaining collectively with their employers to secure better working conditions” (2001b, 46). As Table 1 shows, the number of 501(c)(5) organizations declined 27 percent between 1976 and 2000. Membership in labor organizations has gone down even more. In

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1950, more than a third of the nation’s wage and salary workers were unionized; by the end of the century, only 14 percent were (http://stats.bls.gov). Agricultural and horticultural organizations exist to improve the lot of farmers and other such workers and to improve production techniques. Veterans organizations include such groups as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. They assist disabled, needy, and hospitalized war veterans and their dependents as well as the widows and orphans of deceased veterans. They also provide a variety of other services to their members, including perpetuating the memory of deceased veterans. Veterans organizations sometimes take positions on legislative issues affecting their members. An important example was the American Legion’s successful lobbying in support of the GI Bill of Rights (1944), which provided educational and other benefits to veterans of World War II and subsequent wars. These six categories account for more than 90 percent of the 540,000 MBOs registered with the IRS in 2000. Most other MBOs—such as voluntary employees beneficiary associations, 501(c)(9)—provide financial benefits to members, including sickness, accident, unemployment, and life insurance, credit unions, cemetery companies, and the like. A major exception is political organizations (IRC Section 527), of which there were 13,000 reporting to the IRS in 2000. This category includes political parties, campaign committees, political action committees, and other groups that raise and spend money to influence elections to public office. Unregistered or informal MBOs have always played a major role in American society. Such groups grew rapidly in the last decades of the twentieth century (Borkman 1999; Putnam 2000; Verba et al. 1995; Wuthnow 1994). The women’s and self-help movements of the 1960s and 1970s spawned thousands of mutual support groups. Similar groups were formed by victims of rape, incest, and spousal abuse; sufferers of cancer and HIV/AIDS; and parents of drunk-driving victims and missing children. The twelve-step recovery method developed by Alcoholics Anonymous was used by groups of drug addicts, gamblers, and former cult members. People seeking cultural companionship and refuge from


television sitcoms created thousands of book clubs. Investment clubs became popular, especially during the stock market boom of the 1990s. Many sports and recreation groups, such as softball teams and bridge clubs, are unregistered MBOs. There are thousands of Bible study and other religion and spirituality groups. Robert Wuthnow (1994) estimated that 40 percent of Americans belonged to small groups meeting regularly for sharing and caring, another 7 percent were interested in joining such groups, and another 15 percent had been members of such groups. He also found that 60 percent of these groups were related in some way to a church or other faith community. Almost by definition, it is impossible to say exactly how many unregistered MBOs exist, but the number may be in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Wuthnow (1994) estimated that there were at least 500,000 self-help, Bible study, and special-interest groups. David H. Smith (2000), analyzing several community studies, posited a ratio of 30 nonprofits per 1,000 population in the United States. Applied to the April 2000 U.S. population of 281 million, this would mean that there could be 8.4 million nonprofit groups of all types and sizes, far in excess of the 1.8 million registered nonprofits (O’Neill 2002); both figures include public benefit as well as mutual benefit groups.

Mutual Benefit vs. Public Benefit MBOs are often contrasted with “public benefit,” “charitable,” “philanthropic” organizations, but in practice the distinction is not so clear. On the one hand, involvement with charitable nonprofits can bring substantial personal benefits—friendships, business contacts, publicity, prestige, even good salaries. MBOs, on the other hand, sometimes include charitable activities and even charitable subsidiaries (O’Neill 1994). Historically, MBOs have often changed into public benefit groups. Writing about Benjamin Franklin’s involvement with several Philadelphia MBOs, including the Junto, a lending library, and a fire department, Peter D. Hall noted, “It was but a short step from clublike mutual benefit associations to voluntary associations directed toward broader public purposes” (1994, 7).

Much MBO activity has filled the gap left by inadequate public and private assistance to the poor. An 1894 New Hampshire Bureau of Labor report noted, “The tendency to join fraternal organizations for the purpose of obtaining care and relief in the event of sickness and insurance for the family in case of death is well-nigh universal. To the laboring classes and those of moderate means they offer many advantages not to be had elsewhere” (quoted in Beito 2000, 1). Poverty was not the only problem MBOs addressed; racism was another. For example, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, African Americans were designated by the Actuarial Society of America as one of ninety-eight “special risk” categories simply because of their race (Records, 1981, 31). That meant that they could get insurance from general carriers only, if at all, which came at higher rates. Some MBOs develop public benefit activities and even separate charitable organizations. Fraternal societies, professional and trade associations, social clubs, and other MBOs often support community projects such as scholarship and student loan programs, camps, libraries, institutions for crippled children, and blood banks. For example, one study found that 10 percent of trade associations and 23 percent of professional associations participated in community service activities, and that the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the American Meat Institute, and the California Trucking Association annually provided millions of pounds of groceries to food banks (Value, 1990, 102–103). The division of nonprofit corporations into two or three large groups—“mutual benefit” and “public benefit,” the latter usually including “religious”—is convenient for some governmental and statistical purposes but is also somewhat misleading. It may be more useful to envision a public benefit/mutual benefit continuum, with soup kitchens and Amnesty International at one end and homeowners associations at the other (Smith 2000, 279–281). An eloquent statement of this point came from former Council of Foundations president James Joseph: In the African American community in which I grew up, the rivers of compassion ran deep. We were poor, but when we were hungry we shared with each other

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and when we were sick we cared for each other. We did not think of what we gave as philanthropy, because sharing was an act of reciprocity in which both the giver and the receiver benefited. We did not think of what we did as volunteering because caring was as much a moral imperative as an act of free will. But despite the long African American tradition of self-help and mutual assistance, most Americans, when they think about the participation of blacks in philanthropy, consider them only as recipients of charity rather than as members of a community with its own unique tradition of benevolence. ( Joseph 1993, 1)

MBOs, Business, and Government One of the more counterintuitive aspects of MBOs is that businesses often use nonprofit organizations to facilitate their work. Business leagues, chambers of commerce, and trade and professional associations are nonprofit in form: They are prohibited from making a profit for their members. Yet the work of these MBOs is clearly ordained to help their members (individuals and organizations) be more profitable. This is as true of the American Medical Association as it is of the American Petroleum Institute and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. Such organizations conduct a wide variety of activities—research, communication among members, communication with the public, communication with lawmakers, testing, training, setting standards, and the like—but ultimately these activities are intended to make the business members of these MBOs more profitable. MBOs also play some quasi-governmental roles. The rule-making, standard-setting, internal-policing functions of many trade and professional associations, such as the influential Financial Accounting Standards Board and accrediting associations for universities and hospitals, relieve government of the necessity of doing such work. There are limitations in this approach—sometimes these MBOs do not have the resources, standing, or will to do a thorough job—but the society has apparently decided that handling these quasi-governmental tasks through nonprofit MBOs is preferable to the government expansion that would be necessary in the absence of such nonprofit work. Michael O’Neill

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See also Grassroots Associations; Self-Help Groups Notes 1. This figure includes all exempt organizations registered with the IRS other than those classified under Sections 501(c)(3)—charitable groups—and 501(c)(4)—civic leagues and social welfare organizations—of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). “Mutual benefit organization” is a term found in state corporation laws, not in federal tax laws. Most states divide nonprofit corporations into mutual benefit, public benefit, and religious. The latter two are generally, though not perfectly, coterminous with the IRS 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) categories. 2. Owing to loose federal reporting requirements for this category, the IRS figure of 126,548 may be significantly low. References and further reading Anderson, Richard T. 1971. “Voluntary Associations in History.” American Anthropologist 73 (1): 209–222. Banton, Michael. 1968. “Voluntary Associations: Anthropological Aspects.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 16, edited by David L. Sills, 357–362. New York: Macmillan. Beito, David T. 2000. From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Borkman, Thomasina J. 1999. Understanding SelfHelp/Mutual Aid: Experiential Learning in the Commons. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Hall, Peter D. 1994. “Historical Perspectives on Nonprofit Organizations.” In The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, edited by Robert D. Herman, 3–43. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hudson Institute. 1990. The Value of Associations to American Society: A Report by the Hudson Institute. Washington, DC: American Society of Association Executives. Joseph, James A. 1993. Black Philanthropy: The Potential and Limits of Private Generosity in a Civil Society. Washington, DC: Association of Black Foundation Executives. Kerri, James N. 1974. “Anthropological Studies of Voluntary Associations and Voluntary Action: A Review.” Journal of Voluntary Action Research 3 (1): 10–25. Kropotkin, Peter. 1972 [1902]. Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. New York: New York University Press. O’Neill, Michael. 1994. “Philanthropic Dimensions of Mutual Benefit Organizations.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 23 (1): 3–20. ———. 2002. Nonprofit Nation: A New Look at the Third America. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.


Records of Ethnic Fraternal Benefit Associations in the United States: Essays and Inventories. 1981. St. Paul, MN: Immigration History Research Center. Ross, Jack C. 1976. “Anthropological Studies of Voluntary Associations and Voluntary Action: A Reassessment.” Journal of Voluntary Action Research 5 (1): 27–32. ———. 1983. “Differentiation of Gilds and Fraternities in Medieval Europe.” Journal of Voluntary Action Research 12 (1): 7–19. Skocpol, Theda. 1999. “Advocates without Members: The Recent Transformation of American Civic Life.” In Civic Engagement in American Democracy, edited by Theda Skocpol and Morris P. Fiorina, 461–509. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Smith, David H. 1997. “The International History of Grassroots Associations.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 38: 1–28. ———. 2000. Grassroots Associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1969 [1835]. Democracy in America. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor. Treese, Clifford J. 1999. Community Associations Factbook. Alexandria, VA: Community Associations Institute. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service. 1978. Annual Report: Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. ———. 2001a. Data Book 2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. ———. 2001b. Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization. Publication 557. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Verba, Sidney, Kay L. Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wuthnow, Robert. 1994. Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America’s New Quest for Community. New York: Free Press.

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N National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

other in favor of full voting rights for African Americans. The NAACP won small campaigns at the state and local levels against lynching but had difficulty winning the campaign at the national level. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson made a public statement condemning lynching, which gave NAACP leaders hope that Congress might back federal antilynching legislation. With a strong grassroots campaign, NAACP efforts to secure passage of antilynching laws succeeded in the U.S. House of Representatives, but multiple attempts were defeated by filibuster in the Senate. The Congress still has never passed antilynching legislation. The NAACP campaign and other societal forces, however, had such an effect on public opinion that lynching had virtually disappeared by the 1950s (Harris 1992, 51). The campaign for full voting rights began in the early years of the NAACP and continued through the 1950s and 1960s. Through a series of state and federal legislative and judicial decisions, prompted by NAACP lobbying and lawsuits and by other activities of the civil rights movement, blacks finally earned full voting rights in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act (guaranteeing blacks the right to register to vote) and the adoption of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (abolishing the poll tax). Being able to communicate with its membership has always been important for the NAACP. The first

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is one of the best known civil rights organizations in the United States. It is also the oldest and largest such organization. Using a variety of tactics, including lawsuits, lobbying, and protests, the NAACP has been an effective advocate for the rights of African Americans and other minorities. In comparison to other organizations active on civil rights issues, the NAACP is often considered politically moderate. Its level of militancy in pursuing civil rights has fluctuated over time depending on the leadership of the organization and the political conditions of the day. From its inception, the NAACP has attempted to be multiracial in membership and leadership positions. Founded on February 12, 1909, the NAACP was originally called the National Negro Committee. A group of sixty prominent citizens, including blacks and whites, issued a statement that day calling for a conference “for the discussion of present evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewal of the struggle for civil and political liberty” (Harris 1992, 147). That conference ultimately resulted in the establishment of the NAACP. The early years of the organization were dedicated to two campaigns—one against lynching and the

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issue of the NAACP magazine The Crisis was published in November 1910. Edited by W. E. B Du Bois, The Crisis grew to include 100,000 subscribers within ten years of its first issue. In 1934, Du Bois resigned from his position as editor because of a growing frustration that the NAACP was not addressing the core economic justice issues facing a majority of blacks but was instead focusing on narrower issues of discrimination that impacted more affluent blacks. This type of criticism from more militant members of the civil rights community has occurred periodically throughout the history of the NAACP. In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the NAACP became more active fighting against segregation in transportation, housing, and education. These issues were critical elements of the civil rights movement. Often, the NAACP took responsibility for the legal and legislative strategy of these campaigns while more militant groups, such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Martin Luther King Jr.’s

Southern Christian Leadership Conference provided the mass mobilizations of the movement. NAACP campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s focused on voter registration and voter mobilization, helping to ensure that African Americans have sufficient political clout to achieve broader goals. One of the NAACP’s most successful voter registration efforts occurred in 1982, when the organization registered more than 850,000 new voters. After struggling with internal problems and financial difficulties throughout the early 1990s, the NAACP was reenergized in 1996 when former congressman Kwesi Mfume took over as president and CEO of the organization. By the year 2000, the NAACP had overcome its financial problems and led a voter mobilization campaign that resulted in the largest black voter turnout in twenty years. Approximately 15 percent of revenues that support the NAACP come from membership dues, with the remainder coming from foundation grants and direct

Members of the NAACP Rights March Committee assist in preparing 300 signboards for a march in Gary, Indiana, in September 1963. (Indiana University N.W.)

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public support. The group reports no revenue from government sources. In 2000, total revenues for the NAACP exceeded $27 million. Aaron Dorfman References and further reading Harris, Jacqueline. 1992. History and Achievement of the NAACP. New York: Franklin Watts. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), http://www.naacp.org (cited July 27, 2002).

National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO) The National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO) is a professional organization formed to facilitate the administration of state laws regarding charitable solicitations. Membership is limited to representatives of U.S. state agencies responsible for the oversight of charitable organizations and charitable solicitations. Examples of eligible members are state attorneys general, secretaries of state, and state officers of consumer affairs. It is the responsibility of state charity officials to assure that charitable assets are being solicited and applied properly. This oversight responsibility is accomplished through the enforcement of respective state laws and regulations related to charitable organizations. The challenge is that there is considerable lack of uniformity in state law and in the policies, practices, and priorities of state agencies regarding charitable organizations. In response, NASCO develops common documents and policies and states are then encouraged to utilize these to implement their own specific state laws. The goal for NASCO is to achieve uniform reporting and uniform charitable solicitation acts by all states. This goal was initiated in 1977, when five northeastern states convened a meeting to explore the idea of uniformity in reporting related to charitable organizations. By 1978, sixteen states were represented as the NASCO trade association was formed. First topics of discussion included accounting standards, professional telephone solicitation, legislation, investigation techniques, and how to systematically compile data on the charitable sector despite the lack of uniformity in reporting formats.

Several states initially agreed to use New York State’s reporting form as a substitute for their separate forms. In 1981, the states decided on a new uniform state report. Soon after, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) expressed an interest in modifying its tax form for charitable organizations, otherwise known as Form 990, so as to achieve a uniform state/IRS report. This form, which has become a critical repository for key information on individual nonprofits and the entire nonprofit sector, essentially remains unchanged from its earliest form. In 1986, a Model Law Act was proposed to assist in identifying the role of the professional fundraising manager. These efforts were primarily coordinated by the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), NASCO’s sister organization, but were strongly supported through NASCO’s involvement. By 1992, NASCO had become increasingly concerned with the deterioration of the quality and reliability of financial reporting by charities. Moreover, state law proved to be ineffective in controlling any misconduct by directors of charities. In response, NASCO adopted a statement on financial reporting by charities. After years of deliberation, the Unified Registration Statement (URS) was released in 1997. This form is to be used by nonprofits registering as charitable solicitors in any state that accepts it as an alternative to individual state forms. Technology, and particularly the Internet, have become increasingly critical to the nonprofit sector. In 1999, NASCO adopted the Charleston Principles to address online charitable solicitation issues—which cross state boundaries. NASCO continues to embrace the development of standard forms and reporting to simplify and economize compliance under the states’ solicitation laws. It is the hope of NASCO members that their efforts will lead to cooperation between the philanthropic community and government regulators, ultimately strengthening the nonprofit sector in the United States. Juliann L. Peterson References and further reading Associations Unlimited. “National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO),” http://www.galenet. galegroup.com (cited July 29, 2002).

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Hopkins, Bruce. 1980. Charity under Siege: Government Regulation of Fundraising. New York: Wiley. Internet Nonprofit Center. “The Unified Registration Statement,” http://www.nonprofits.org (cited September 12, 2002). National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO). “NASCO: Who and What We Are,” http://www .nasconet.org (cited July 29, 2002). ———. 2001. “Strategic Assessment and Framework.” Unpublished manuscript. Ormstedt, D., and T. Knowles. 2000. “NASCO: A Brief History.” Unpublished manuscript.

National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) The National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) works to create and maintain a national database on the nonprofit and philanthropic sector. Its mission is to develop and disseminate data on nonprofit organizations and their activities for use in research on the sector and its relationships with government, business, and the broader civil society. Working closely with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other government agencies, national organizations in various nonprofit subsectors, and the scholarly community, NCCS builds compatible national, state, and regional databases and serves as the host of classification systems used in the nonprofit sector. NCCS also conducts research on the sector and works to develop and implement uniform standards for reporting by charitable organizations. The NCCS data and classification systems are widely used for analyses of nonprofit-sector finances and trends. NCCS began as a project of the National Charities Information Bureau in 1979. It was separately incorporated in 1982 with sponsorship from the Council on Foundations, the INDEPENDENT SECTOR, the National Charities Information Bureau, and United Way of America. In 1984, NCCS became a program of the Research Department at INDEPENDENT SECTOR and moved to the Urban Institute as a program of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP) in 1996. A first major task of NCCS included the standardization of a reporting form for charities. By 1982,

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NCCS had obtained the agreement from most states that required registration of charities to accept Form 990, the annual information return required by the IRS, as the standard for state reporting as well. Even though some states also required supplemental information, creating this national reporting standard was the first step toward uniform annual financial reports on nonprofits. A second major task was developing a standard organizational classification system for the sector. The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE), developed by nonprofit practitioners and researchers beginning in the early 1980s, is now maintained by NCCS, with an advisory committee of representatives from the IRS and users of the system from foundations, nonprofits, and the academic community. The system is used by the IRS to classify nonprofits, by the Foundation Center to classify grants, and by many researchers. NCCS conducts training and quality audits of the IRS coding to ensure its accuracy. Definitions and a manual are available at the NCCS Web site, http://nccs.urban.org. A second taxonomy, the Nonprofit Program Classification (NPC) System, has also been developed by NCCS to classify the programs, services, and activities of nonprofit organizations. It is now being used to code the descriptions on Part III— Program Service Accomplishments, of IRS Form 990. The format, content, and instructions for Form 990, as well as the quality of the data reported by the charities, are all ongoing concerns. NCCS completes extensive checks on the data tapes received from the IRS before their release. NCCS has also created a series of research databases that are put through a battery of diagnostic tests to uncover, flag, and correct, where possible, arithmetic and other errors. Detailed information on the various databases is available at the NCCS Web site. Staff provide technical assistance and help interpret the data for researchers, nonprofit organizations, the media, and the public. A number of standardized products about NCCS resources and tools to facilitate use of the data are also available on the Web site. These include background information on the sector, technical guides to the data and their use, manuals on the classification systems, and templates for standard presentation of state and subsector information.

National Committee on Planned Giving

Since 1991, NCCS has sponsored an annual meeting between state charity officials and IRS representatives, along with representatives from the many nonprofit-sector groups with an interest in better reporting, to discuss Form 990 issues. These meetings are the source of suggestions for better instructions, additions, and changes to the form and for improving the quality of reporting. NCCS works to improve and expand existing data on nonprofit organizations while using improved technology to collect information and link disparate databases. Although current data sources are often scattered, fragmented, and uncoordinated, better data standards hold the promise for an improved national data system for the nonprofit sector. Data quality and standards projects include: • Electronic Filing of Form 990—To lay the groundwork for electronic filing on a national scale, NCCS, in collaboration with the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), the National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO), and GuideStar, has created the infrastructure to allow e-filing of IRS Form 990 and annual registration documents to state charity offices. NCCS also works with the IRS to ensure that nonprofit needs are addressed as the national e-filing system is designed. • Unified Chart of Accounts (UCOA)—NCCS has helped develop this list of accounts that is cross-referenced to the various reporting requirements for nonprofits. Designed to provide a standard for developers to use to create software, its use can facilitate the preparation of reports usually required of nonprofits—including IRS Form 990, registration and filing for state charity offices, reporting on grants for foundations and government, financial reports for management and board use, and so on. Using electronic crosswalks to the charts of accounts currently in use by organizations, accounting software can easily generate required reports using standard account definitions.

• Streamlining the Grants Management Process for Nonprofits—NCCS is one of the organizers of a sector-wide network to address grants management issues of special interest to nonprofits as the federal government implements the Federal Financial Assistance Management Act of 1999 (P.L. 106–107). The development and implementation of uniform e-grant systems—at the federal, state, and local government levels—is key to simplification for nonprofit grantees and grantors alike. Linda M. Lampkin References and further reading National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), http:// nccs.urban.org.

National Center for Nonprofit Boards See BoardSource

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy See Responsive Philanthropy

National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG) The National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG) is an organization consisting of numerous planned giving councils composed of professional individuals whose work relates to the various aspects of creating and administering planned gifts. Individual members range from development officers for nonprofit organizations to donor advisers employed by for-profit organizations. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, groups of professionals began meeting to discuss the possibility of creating a national organization to assist both individuals and organizations in creating networking opportunities. On October 29–30, 1985, in Chicago, Illinois, individuals associated with planned giving gathered and identified a significant need for an organization to

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National Society for Fund Raising Executives

generate worthwhile educational opportunities and to connect the vast numbers of various local planned giving groups that were already forming. The Lilly Endowment assisted this group of fourteen councils and organizations from around the country with a funding grant to establish a national federation to address these needs of planned giving professionals. The National Committee on Planned Giving was created in 1998 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Its primary purpose was “to facilitate, coordinate and encourage the education and training of the planned giving community, and to facilitate effective communication among the many different professionals in the community” (http://www.ncpg.org, 2001). NCPG fulfills its mission through the various programs and services it offers to its members. In 1995, the main focus of NCPG programs and services was education and governmental relations. More specifically, the NCPG Government Affairs committee was concerned with Congress’s discussion of the possible elimination of the charitable contribution deduction from both the income tax and the estate tax computation. Since 1995, the NCPG has developed the following educational programs and member services: Syllabus for Gift Planners, The Journal of Gift Planning, the Position Announcement Listing Service (PALS), committees on research and government relations, the Model Standards of Practice for the Charitable Gift Planner, an e-mail distribution center for gift planners entitled GIFT-PL, and various publications, including the Gift Planner Update, a membership directory, a speakers bureau directory, a directory of council members, and the LEAVE-A-LEGACY Kit. LEAVE-A-LEGACY was created by the Central Ohio Planned Giving Council as a community-based effort to encourage all members of the community to contribute gifts from their estates to nonprofit organizations. This program has been distributed nationally by NCPG in order to attempt to make a greater impact on local communities nationwide. Since its inception, NCPG’s growth, on average, has been six new councils and 1,000 new council members each year. The various local councils work together, via NCPG, to maintain a national federation that offers benefits to its individual members. Maggie Tittle

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References and further reading National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG), http:// www.ncpg.org (cited October 22, 2001). ———. 1992. NCPG Syllabus for Gift Planners. Indianapolis: The Committee. “A New Agenda for the National Committee on Planned Giving.” 1995. Trusts and Estates 134 (December): 65, 70.

National Society for Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE) See Association of Fundraising Professionals

Native American Philanthropy For American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, giving has been at the heart of tribal society and the social compact since time immemorial. In cultural histories of the United States, Indians have been termed “America’s first philanthropists,” and individual Native Americans have been immortalized as icons of generosity and giving: prime examples include Squanto of the Patuxet tribe in seventeenthcentury Massachusetts teaching the Pilgrims to plant corn, which established a mythohistorical foundation for the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States; the legend of the young Pocahontas of the Powhatans saving John Smith’s life at the Jamestown settlement in seventeenth-century Virginia; and the Shoshone Sacagawea guiding the explorers Lewis and Clark to reach the Pacific Ocean on their explorations across the North American plains.

A Central Ethic of Native Culture For Native people indigenous to North America, philanthropy means “the honor of giving.” It means respecting and honoring both the giver and the recipient as essential and equal partners in the transaction of gift exchange. Since in life all things are related, the gift promotes balance for both participants in the exchange process and works to create harmony in the world. Giving by individuals to the community contributes to social harmony, reinforcing the interconnectedness of the members of the tribe or community with one another and with the rest of the universe. Giving by one individual to another honors the recip-

Native American Philanthropy

ient, and by receiving the gift with grace and gratitude, the recipient in turn honors the giver, since the act of receiving the gift helps to restore balance in the life of the giver. A profound sense of the spiritual foundations of human and social ecology informs Native American attitudes toward giving. Although the ceremonies, rituals, and philosophy of giving vary from one tribal culture to another, there is always an understanding of the principle of sharing and a broadly conceived serial reciprocity that is ultimately grounded in gratitude to the Creator for the gift of life. These principles are common to all ancient Native rituals of giving, such as the potlatch of tribes indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, the giveaway of the Plains Indians, and the giving celebrations and feasts of the Pueblo tribes in the American Southwest. The gift must continue to be given and to be passed on. Moving in a circle, the gift is alive, bonding individuals and families with the larger community and connecting the present with both the past and the future.

Development of the Philanthropic Sector After centuries of struggle against white society’s attempts to assimilate Indians into Euro-American culture, in the 1960s Native American tribes moved into a period of self-determination and revivified tribal sovereignty. Concomitant with the expansion of the nonprofit sector in the nation at large, the last four decades of the twentieth century saw in Indian Country rapid growth of nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) voluntary organizations under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) with missions addressing issues of interest or concern to American Indians and Alaska Natives. Among the earliest examples of voluntary, nonprofit organizations dedicated to Native American causes is the Indian Rights Fund (IRF), founded in Philadelphia in 1882 by a group of white reformers and churchmen who supported civil rights and education for American Indians. At first advocating that complete assimilation into white culture was in the long-range interest of Native Americans and hence the solution to Indian-white relations, the IRF came eventually to support the independence and sovereignty of Indian nations and sponsored the bill that

became the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granting full citizenship to Native Americans. In 1911, the Society of American Indians (SAI) was founded by a group of educated, middle-class Indians, including Charles Eastman (Santee Sioux) and Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai), as a Pan-Indian organization advocating education and full citizenship rights for Native Americans. The brilliant Sioux activist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, known as ZitkalaSa, or Red Bird, joined the SAI around 1915 to establish the first of a series of community centers on reservations, not unlike the settlement houses arising in the cities to aid the urban poor. These served as a prototype for the urban Indian centers that evolved in later years to benefit Native Americans who migrated to the cities. As a base for her lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., to improve the conditions of American Indians, Bonnin founded in 1926 the National Council of American Indians. Two primarily white voluntary organizations, the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs (founded in 1924 and renamed as the National Association on Indian Affairs in 1933) and the American Indian Defense Fund (founded in 1934) merged in 1946 to form the Association on American Indian Affairs, an important advocacy organization dedicated to the protection of Indian lands and Indians’ constitutional rights. The formation by Native Americans of voluntary nonprofit organizations dedicated to special Native issues and causes accelerated throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. One of the most important was the National Congress of American Indians, organized in 1944 to fight the federal policies on allotment of lands originating in the Dawes Act of 1877 as well as the policy of tribal termination. Other examples include the National Indian Education Association, formed in 1969; the Native American Rights Fund, established in 1970 with funding from the Ford Foundation to provide legal aid and pursue social justice issues for Native Americans; Americans for Indian Opportunity, started in 1970; the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, established in 1977; the American Indian College Fund, founded in 1980 by the consortium of American Indian tribal colleges and brought to national prominence by the

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Phelps-Stokes Fund in 1987; Native Americans in Philanthropy, founded in 1990; and many with local or regional associations, such as Navajo United Way. One study concluded that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, there were more than 1,500 nonprofit voluntary organizations operating in Indian Country.

New Assets and New Forms of Philanthropy Following a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision sanctioning the right of tribes to conduct gaming operations on tribal lands and the subsequent passage by the U.S. Congress of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, revenues from tribal enterprises such as gaming casinos have fueled a new prosperity for approximately one-quarter of the 550 federally recognized Indian tribes in the United States. In addition to tribal economic development, a number of the compacts between state and tribal governments mandated that profits from such operations be deployed for the welfare of tribal members and for charitable and philanthropic purposes. As a result, some segments of Native American philanthropy have adopted modern institutional forms such as public charities and endowed foundations, adapting and reshaping them to fit time-honored Native values. Since Native cultural values tend to emphasize redistribution, rather than accrual, of individual wealth, most modern Native American philanthropic entities have not taken the form of a private foundation but rather that of a public charity, where the organization both raises public support and often serves as an intermediary in grantmaking. Even where there has been a major gift by an individual, as in the case of the Niheyan Foundation, endowed by the Cree performing artist Buffy Sainte Marie, the public charity form is more compatible with Native values of sharing and community participation. The First Nations Development Institute, for example, founded in 1980 and funded by foundations, corporations, and individuals, makes grants to tribes for economic and community development through its Eagle Staff Fund. Often established to serve a specific tribe, region, or community, some Native American foundations have created formal affiliations with existing community foundations. Examples include the Hopi Foundation (with

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the Arizona Community Foundation) and the Two Feathers Fund (with the St. Paul Community Foundation). The adaptation of community philanthropy to Native American cultures has resulted in innovative philanthropic strategies and techniques, such as modifying the decisional process in grantmaking to involve members of the communities being served. Other Native foundations focus on a specific issue. Examples include the Seventh Generation Fund, founded in 1977 to promote “full recovery of Native sovereignty,” and the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, established with a $20 million grant by the Northwest Area Foundation in 2001 to work to restore aboriginal land rights. The regional corporations resulting from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 enabled the establishment of philanthropic organizations such as the CIRI Foundation (Cook Inlet Region, Inc., 1982); the Sealaska Heritage Institute (formed “to perpetuate Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian culture,” 1982); and the Doyon Foundation (Athabascan, 1989). Additionally, enabled by powers granted by the Indian Tribal Government Tax Status Act of 1983 (Internal Revenue Code Section 7871), some tribes have exercised their sovereignty to charter their own foundations— for example, the Cherokee Education Fund, the Hopi Education Endowment Fund, and the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission’s Spirit of the Salmon Fund. Although the organized forms that are the vehicles of modern Native American philanthropy may resemble those of Euro-American institutions, such as public charities, community foundations, donor-advised funds, and nonprofit organizations, their missions and objectives are driven by a profound belief in the interconnectedness and value of all things. There is an ethos of sharing—sharing the beauty and bounty of the earth, sharing the tribulations and hardships of life, and constantly recreating balance and harmony between the human race, Mother Earth, and the Great Spirit. These ancient tribal values of giving, sharing, equity, circular reciprocity, honoring the other, and sustaining a sense of community are the defining characteristics of modern Native American philanthropy. Ronald Austin Wells

Nonprofit Governing Boards

References and further reading Black, Sherry Salway. 2000. “The Emerging Sector: Nonprofits in Indian Country.” Fredericksburg, VA: First Nations Development Institute. Hertzberg, Hazel. 1971. The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Joseph, James. 1995. Remaking America: How the Benevolent Traditions of Many Cultures Are Transforming Our National Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Thorpe, Dagmar. 1996. People of the Seventh Fire: Returning Lifeways of Native America. Ithaca, NY: Akwe:kon Press. Wells, Ronald Austin. 1998. The Honor of Giving: Philanthropy in Native America. Indianapolis: The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) See Nonprofit Management Education

Nonprofit Governing Boards Few practices are more ancient than small groups of elders, deacons, proprietors, selectmen, counselors, or trustees exercising responsibility for the welfare of communities and corporate bodies. Governing boards were a feature of American life from the very beginning. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by a joint stock company, and this company’s charter and bylaws became the colony’s fundamental law. Under the authority of the charter, other corporate bodies—townships and congregations—were established. These, too, were governed by boards. Towns annually elected citizens to serve on boards of selectmen. Churches elected boards of deacons and elders. The situation of early governing boards reflected both the diversity and the primitiveness of corporate law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Massachusetts Bay Company’s charter illustrates the lack of clear distinctions between public and private domains. In addition to granting property, it delegated to the incorporators the right to govern—a right that they expanded from the small group named by the king to all the freemen of the new colony. By extending the franchise from the relatively small group of incorporators to the far larger group of men eligible to elect and serve as members of the General

Court, the company made the rights and privileges of the private grant coextensive with those of the state. At the same time, the arrangement wrought a fundamental transformation in the nature of authority, making positions in the corporation offices to which individuals had to be chosen rather than personal possessions: Perpetual succession, in other words, became an attribute of the corporation rather than of the individuals who composed it. The tripartite structure of the Massachusetts Bay Company—with an executive component (the governor and deputy governor) and two legislative components (the Assistants and the General Court)—came to be a paradigm for other bodies politic in the colony. The churches adopted a congregational polity with the roles of the minister, the elders (or deacons), and the congregation as a whole mirroring the relationships between government bodies; the townships (municipal corporations) similarly divided authority between the selectmen (the executive) and the town meeting (legislative). This delegation of authority did not happen immediately but developed over time. Viewed from the standpoint of formal board authority and responsibility, decision-making groups such as the Assistants, town selectmen, and church elders were all representatives of the public: They served at the pleasure of those who elected them. These democratic features, however, were vitiated by powerful informal norms of deference. In every town, and in the colony as a whole, custom entitled families noted for wealth, learning, and genteel birth to particular consideration: They received larger shares in the division of common lands, preferential seating in the churches, and were likely to be elected and reelected—sometimes for generations—to town and colony offices. The evolution of Harvard College in the course of the seventeenth century illustrates the colonists’ growing understanding of governance mechanisms. As originally established in 1636, the college was placed under the authority of a board of twelve “overseers,” six ministers and six magistrates, to be chosen by the colony’s General Court. In 1650, the college obtained a formal charter of incorporation from the Crown in order to enable it to secure control of property that had been entrusted to it and to give it

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greater autonomy in managing its affairs. The charter divided governance between two bodies—the President and Fellows, who would actually be the corporation—and the Overseers, whose power was effectively restricted to vetoing decisions of the Fellows and to intervening in cases where the Fellows were deadlocked. It was assumed that, as in the English universities, the Fellows would be resident scholars in the college. The suspension of the colony’s charter in 1686 initiated a decade of struggle over control of the college. The governor, now appointed by the king, favored replacing collegial self-government with a board of visitors consisting of himself and his council. The church, fearing political interference and the possibility of non-Congregationalists having a role in governance, favored an ex-officio governing board made up of the ministers of nearby churches. Eventually, a compromise was reached: The corporation would consist of a board of seven self-perpetuating Fellows and a board of Overseers, half ministers and half magistrates from surrounding towns, who served ex officio. This model of lay governance—decision making by disinterested organizational outsiders—would become the dominant model for organizational governance in U.S. eleemosynary institutions. Although Harvard’s experience helped to refine the colonists’ understanding of the structure and composition of governing boards, other important issues remained unresolved. One of the most important of these was the question of what it meant for an entity to be a “body politic,” particularly as it affected the rights of individual members of governing boards. Should governing boards be required to make decisions by unanimous vote, by majority, or by some other plurality? If decisions were made by majority vote, how did this affect the rights of those in the minority? These issues emerged with particular force at Yale (founded in 1701). Unlike Harvard, Yale at the outset had neither a charter of incorporation nor dual governing boards. The ten ministers who founded the school were given the “Right and Priveledge” to “erect a Collegiate School” but were not constituted as a body politic with formal bylaws to regulate their deliberations. The weakness of this framework became evident as the ministers began to consider the college’s

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location. Some wanted it to be in Saybrook, others in New Haven, and still others in Wethersfield, near Hartford. Fourteen students withdrew to Wethersfield, taught by three tutors and supported by two upriver clergymen, thirteen gathered in New Haven under the leadership of a former tutor and one of the shoreline ministers, and four stayed in Saybrook, where the college had initially been located, under the tutelage of Azariah Mather. Unable to agree, the trustees turned to the General Assembly for guidance—but the legislature suffered the same divisions as the board and soon deadlocked on the question. In the summer of 1718, news arrived in Boston of a major donation in support of the struggling Connecticut school from London merchant Elihu Yale— a gift that carried the condition that the college be located in New Haven. That settled the matter. Although Yale’s location finally ceased to be a matter of contention, disagreements continued over the powers of the board. In 1723, responding to the defection to the Anglicans of the president, several tutors, and a number of students, the legislature passed an act that set forth the conditions under which members of the board could resign, for the replacement of incapacitated members, for the number of trustees needed for a quorum, and for the age of eligibility for members. It also made the president an exofficio member of the board (Kelley 1974, 34–35). In 1750, the college finally obtained a charter of incorporation. In addition to styling the governing board as “the Corporation,” the charter greatly strengthened the power of the president by making him moderator—or chairman—of the board as a whole, which was enabled to make and change its own bylaws. Questions remained, however, about the rights of members of the corporation who dissented from the decisions of the majority—a matter that was tested in 1753, when the president attempted to expel a member who refused to submit his theological views to the board’s scrutiny. The dissenting member took the matter to court, and the court upheld his right to follow his conscience and affirmed that the corporation, although given certain powers of self-government, remained subject to the law. Along with independence from England, the American Revolution brought with it a powerful an-


tipathy to religious establishment. Beginning with Virginia in the 1770s, states that had granted monopoly status and tax support to churches faced political challenges from religious dissenters. This affected the colleges, which were closely tied to religious bodies. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, and New York, institutions that could no longer count on government support began to look for other sources of sustenance. This necessarily affected the composition of their governing boards. Harvard turned to Boston’s wealthy merchants and professionals, who soon dominated the Fellows—and who reciprocated their appointments with increasingly generous donations and bequests. Yale forged a compromise with the Connecticut legislature, nearly doubling the size of its board with the addition of the governor, lieutenant governor, and six senior members of the upper house of the legislature as ex-officio members—in exchange for a major government financial commitment to support the college. Columbia and William and Mary turned to the Anglican/Episcopalian communities. As colleges and other private institutions began to accumulate significant endowments in the early nineteenth century, questions began to arise about their responsibilities as fiduciaries and financial managers. A major controversy broke out in 1804 when Harvard appointed Unitarian Henry Ware as Hollis Professor of Divinity. The professorship had been given to Harvard in 1720 by Thomas Hollis, a devout Baptist. Religious conservatives argued that awarding the chair to an individual who denied the Trinity was a violation of the donor’s intent. But without courts with equity powers (Massachusetts courts would not have power to adjudicate trusts until 1820), opponents of the appointment had no legal recourse. In 1830, the Massachusetts courts issued a ruling that would clearly articulate the fiduciary responsibilities of trustees. Harvard and the Massachusetts General Hospital (which had been founded in 1810) had been made beneficiaries of the estate of Boston merchant John McLean. The bequest gave his widow a life interest in the estate, and at her death the remainder was to be divided between the two institutions. McLean’s executors invested the estate in the stocks of textile firms, in which the testator had been a major investor during his lifetime. When the value of these

shares dropped, the institutions sued the executor, claiming that he had invested imprudently. The court, after considering the case, concluded that there was no such thing as a perfectly secure investment. The only standard a trustee could be held to was one of prudence. “All that can be required of a trustee to invest,” the court ruled, “is that he shall conduct himself faithfully and exercise a sound discretion. He is to observe how men of prudence, discretion, and intelligence manage their own affairs, not in regard to speculation, but in regard to the permanent disposition of their funds, considering the probable income, as well as the probable safety, of the capital to be invested” (Harvard College and Massachusetts General Hospital v. Amory, 1830). The court went on to say that trustees should not be held liable for financial losses, “provided they conduct themselves honestly and discreetly and carefully” (ibid.). Without such protection, no one would be willing to serve as a trustee. Although not referring to the duties of loyalty and care, the Prudent Person Rule implied these notions, which would be articulated with greater explicitness over the years. (Today, the basic duties of fiduciaries include the duties of care, loyalty, and obedience). In the 1820s and 1830s, as private charitable, educational, and religious corporations proliferated and grew more influential in public life, questions began to be raised about the role of governing boards in ensuring organizational accountability (Channing 1829; Wayland 1838). Some writers worried that private organizations would accumulate excessive power and wealth and would pursue their own interests rather than the public’s. Others expressed concern about the capacity of managers and board insiders to divert organizations from their missions and to disempower their members. These fears took on substance in the 1840s when proponents and opponents of slavery began battling for control of the national religious denominations and major ecumenical groups (such as the American Tract Society). These conflicts produced the first carefully articulated expositions on board governance and the responsibilities of trustees as public and private actors (Bacon 1847). As institutions became more dependent on donations and bequests—and more aggressive in soliciting

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them—donors began to expect more influence over institutional policies. As usual, Harvard set the pace for other institutions when, in 1865, its president proposed greater representation for university alumni on its governing boards. Until then, the Fellows had continued to be a small, self-perpetuating group and the Overseers ex-officio Massachusetts elected officials. What the university proposed was replacing the ex officios with representatives elected by the alumni— what we would today call “stakeholder representation.” Because Harvard was no longer the only private institution of higher education in the state, and because the state had long since ceased granting it funds, the proposed change was ratified without significant opposition. Harvard’s action sparked the interest of Yale graduates, the majority of whom lived outside of Connecticut. They were increasingly unhappy with the fact that the corporation consisted entirely of Connecticut Congregational clergymen and legislators, few of whom had any interest in the kinds of reforms that were transforming Harvard from a sleepy denominational college into a world-class research university. “The college wants a living connection with the world without—an infusion of some of the new blood which throbs in every vein of this mighty Republic,” declared New York businessman and Yale alumnus W. W. Phelps in 1868. The college’s accomplished and wealthy graduates were surely as able to manage its affairs as “Rev. Mr. Pickering, of Squashville, who is exhausted with keeping a few sheep in the wilderness, or Hon. Mr. Domuch, of Oldport, who seeks to annul the charter on the only railway that benefits his constituency” (Phelps 1870). The clergy fought back, launching a war of words that would dominate the letters columns of leading journals of opinion for months. They questioned the assertion that the secular values of the marketplace and politics (which were particularly corrupt in that era) could contribute anything positive to higher education. Eventually, a compromise was reached. The ex-officio members of the corporation (except for the governor and lieutenant governor) were replaced by elected alumni representatives, and laymen were deemed eligible to serve in the slots the corporation had power to fill. Even with this change, it would be

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forty years before the laity finally achieved a majority on the corporation. During this time, alumni withheld their donations. Although Harvard flourished in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Yale paid the price for failing to include stakeholders on its governing board. The national attention that this struggle attracted was due less to Yale’s prominence (at this point is was only one of hundreds of private colleges) than to the public’s growing concern about institutional governance and accountability. The nation had been rocked by scandals involving the builders of the transcontinental railroad and by the massive corruption of New York’s government by Boss Tweed and his Tammany Hall cronies. The question of who represented the public and how its interests could be best represented was very much on people’s minds. The shift toward new forms of lay governance by both Harvard and Yale suggested that older notions of accountability, which had been based on trust in government and political accountability, were being replaced by trust in private forms of authority, including wealth and expertise. Lay governance was not without its critics. The arguments that Yale moral philosopher Noah Porter had mustered against the alumni seeking to take control of the college would be refined and stated more forcefully by his student, sociologist Thorstein Veblen, in his book The Higher Learning in America (1918). In this critique of American higher education, Veblen argued that business trustees had transformed universities into corrupt enterprises that placed profitability, growth, prestige, and intellectual orthodoxy ahead of the disinterested pursuit of truth. “Plato’s classic scheme of folly, which would have the philosophers take over the management of affairs, has been turned on its head,” Veblen wrote. “The men of affairs have taken over the direction of the pursuit of knowledge.” At the very moment that Veblen was writing, new institutions—grantmaking foundations—were being created that would tip the balance of power back toward the philosophers. Though created by wealthy businessmen such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, their policies and programs were largely the product of staffs of experts and administrators. Initiatives such as a 1910 Carnegie-funded report, Medical


Education in the United States and Canada (better known as the Flexner Report), would spark a revolution in American professional education, freeing medical schools from the parochial financial and political interests of local medical societies and allying them to the universities, research institutes, and teaching hospitals that were advancing medical research along scientific lines. Even though business remained a powerful influence in U.S. institutional life through the twentieth century, with the presence of businesspeople on the boards of universities, foundations, and other nonprofit organizations, the increasing complexity and specialization of the tasks of production, culture, and service produced increasing dependence by the owners of capital on specialists, experts, and professionals. This divergence of ownership and control served to renew public interest in the roles and responsibilities of governing boards. An important 1932 study by Adolf Augustus Berle and C. Means Gardiner, entitled The Modern Corporation and Private Property, took note of this shift. With the ownership of enterprises increasingly spread through the mass ownership of stock, it became increasingly difficult for stockholders to demand accountability of corporate managers. As business faced the prospect of increased government regulation after 1929, the question of ways in which boards could be used to help firms behave more responsibly—and thus avoid heavy-handed regulation—began to be discussed. Concern about boards and the quality of board governance was not restricted to the world of business. As charities and social agencies faced the challenge of the Great Depression, social service professionals and board members became increasingly aware of the importance of efficient and effective board governance. Manuals began to appear on board governance and in certain industries, and efforts were made to train board members to understand their responsibilities in hiring, fundraising, and setting organizational policies. A 1938 volume, Social Agency Boards and How to Make Them Effective (King 1938), listed nearly 200 books and articles on board governance published in the previous decade. The decades following World War II witnessed an explosion in the population and activities of nonprofit

organizations. The number of nonprofits, estimated by the IRS commissioner at some 50,000 in 1950, had risen to more than a quarter million by the mid1960s. By the mid-1980s, this number had surpassed 1 million. The growth was due primarily to government policies that encouraged charitable giving and provided generous subsidies in the form of grants and contracts to organizations classified as charitable and tax exempt by the federal government. Growing government subsidies of nonprofit organizations were accompanied by demands for greater accountability. In the early 1950s, Congress launched investigations of foundations and other nonprofits. Throughout the 1960s, Congress and the Treasury Department scrutinized foundations, seeking to ensure that these increasingly powerful institutions were governed and managed in the public interest. At the same time, the public began to express concern about the quality of governance in higher education. This affected both public and private institutions, as public universities, like their private counterparts, were governed by boards of trustees and both had dual systems of governance under which significant authority was ceded to self-governing faculties. The unhappiness of taxpayers and alumni with the increasing radicalism of faculty and students, combined with the increasingly vocal activism of stakeholders—faculty, students, and community groups—challenged the capacities of governing boards. Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) became one of the most productive sources of scholarship on board governance during the 1960s and 1970s. The growing wealth and centrality of nonprofits in American life brought other challenges as well. Although regulatory oversight had significantly increased since the passage of the 1969 Tax Reform Act, nonprofits still operated with far less scrutiny than other major institutions. Lacking stockholders who could legally demand accountability and transparency, and, in many cases, lacking the kinds of market accountability to which business was subjected by customers, large nonprofits, controlled by professional managers laxly supervised by boards of directors, presented almost limitless opportunities for financial impropriety. The ripeness of nonprofits

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Nonprofit Infrastructure Organizations

for corruption was enhanced by changes in fiduciary standards promoted by the American Bar Association and legal scholars who successfully urged the replacement of trust standards, which strictly limited conflicts of interest and self-dealing involving boards and their members, by business judgment standards, which took a far more indulgent view of such transactions. Beginning in the late 1970s, a succession of scandals involving prominent nonprofits began to unfold. The highly publicized financial and sexual misdeeds of Jim and Tammy Bakker’s evangelical entertainment empire, Father Bruce Ritter’s Covenant House, and the United Way of America were only the beginning of a crisis in the nonprofit sector that would focus public attention on the problem of board governance and would renew demands for greater vigilance by nonprofit boards of directors. Although demands for improvements in board governance still resound, in the 1990s Americans began to recognize the inadequacies of regulatory mechanisms and the limitations of boards in ensuring nonprofit accountability. New approaches began to emerge based on the notion that organizational transparency—the easy availability of financial information about nonprofits and other types of corporations—would empower the public to exercise vigilance where government and boards had failed. Historically, government had reserved to itself the power to police nonprofits. Under this “private attorney general approach,” the public could acquire and act on information about nonprofits through journalistic exposure, through political pressure, and through court action. At the same time, the adoption of intermediate sanction regulations by the IRS permitted a more nuanced approach to corporate misdeeds by allowing the agency to act against individuals within nonprofit firms who engaged in impermissible transactions. Facing the twenty-first century, it appears that nonprofit governing boards, once only accountable to the IRS, state attorneys general, and their own consciences, may face unprecedented accountability to the general public. Peter Dobkin Hall See also Governance of Nonprofits

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References and further reading Bacon, L. 1847. “Responsibility in the Management of Societies.” The New Englander 5 (1): 28–41. Berle, Adolf Augustus, and C. Means Gardiner. 1932. The Modern Corporation and Private Property. New York: Macmillan. Channing, W. E. 1900 [1829]. “Remarks on Associations.” In The Works of William E. Channing, D.D. Boston: American Unitarian Association. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 1997. A History of Nonprofit Boards in the United States. National Center for Nonprofit Boards Occasional Paper. Washington, DC: National Center for Nonprofit Boards. Harvard College and Massachusetts General Hospital v. Francis Amory (1830). Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Suffock and Nantucket, March term. King, Clarence. 1938. Social Agency Boards and How to Make Them Effective. New York: Harper. Phelps, W. W. 1870. “Speech of William Walter Phelps.” The College Courant, July 23, 71–72. Veblen, Thorstein. 1918. The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men. New York: B. W. Huebsch. Wayland, Francis. 1838. The Limitations of Human Responsibility. New York: D. Appleton.

Nonprofit Infrastructure Organizations See Infrastructure Organizations for Nonprofits

Nonprofit Management Nonprofit management refers to the executive function carried out by top-level staff of private, not-forprofit organizations. It encompasses general administration and stewardship of the organization’s resources and programs as well as leadership in maintaining the organization’s integrity and viability and setting its direction for the future. Since the early 1980s, the importance of the management function in nonprofit organizations has become recognized as critically important to organizational success, as reflected in increasing demand for personnel with formal management training and in the growth of degree programs in this field (O’Neill and Fletcher 1998). Nonprofit management is multifaceted. It encompasses administration of an organization’s human and material resources; management and development of

Nonprofit Management

its finances; marketing of its services; strategic decision making with respect to the organization’s environment, including its competitors, collaborating partners, and market niche; measurement, reporting, and guidance of the organization’s overall performance; and management of its governance and accountability relationships with its board of directors, funders, clients, and other stakeholders. Most of these dimensions are common to the management of business-sector organizations. However, nonprofit management is specialized in the manner in which it must address many of these functions. Thus nonprofit management and business management are parallel in some ways and different in others. Although there is tremendous diversity among nonprofit organizations in terms of their size, complexity, sources of support, and the nature of services provided, just as there is among businesssector organizations, there is also substantial intrasector commonality. This commonality permits meaningful overall comparisons to be made between nonprofit and for-profit management. Attention here is restricted to nonprofit organizations that employ paid staff, which excludes many small, informal nonprofit organizations that are run entirely on a volunteer basis.

Human Resources One of the salient differences between the management of nonprofit organizations and for-profit businesses is the prominence of volunteers in their workforces. The U.S. economy employs more than 9 million full-time-equivalent volunteers, and approximately 73 percent of these work for nonprofit organizations, constituting almost 45 percent of the nonprofit workforce (Weitzman et al. 2002, 32–33, 73). Thus, in contrast to business management, a major facet of the nonprofit manager’s responsibilities is the management of volunteers. Moreover, the challenges of managing volunteers in the workforce are substantially different from those of managing paid workers. Although there is consensus among practitioners and researchers that volunteers should be managed with the same seriousness as paid workers, rather than be taken for granted as a free resource, volunteers require a different type of “psychological contract”—one rec-

ognizing that their motivations for working, the ways in which they can be best deployed, the sources of their satisfaction, and the means that are appropriate and available for rewarding them vary from those of paid workers (Farmer and Fedor 1999). Individuals volunteer for nonprofit organizations for a variety of reasons, including personal and social satisfaction, work experiences that may ultimately be useful in the paid labor market, and belief in the values and missions of the organizations for which they volunteer. Hence, volunteer motivations and skills must be carefully matched with the particular needs of the organization, and reward systems must reflect the sources of satisfaction that volunteers seek. Moreover, nonprofit managers must recognize the costs of administering volunteer programs and utilizing volunteers and make efficient decisions with respect to the number and types of volunteers engaged, the mix of paid and volunteer workers, and the resources devoted to administration of volunteer programs (Young and Steinberg 1995, 105–107). Nonprofit organizations also tend to differ from business in the management of paid workers. Although nonprofits often compete in the same labor markets with businesses for paid workers, evidence suggests that there is sorting of workers between the two sectors, with nonprofit workers putting more emphasis on nonpecuniary sources of satisfaction and reward. This sorting has several implications for the management of paid staff in nonprofit organizations. First, nonprofits may find that they can successfully compete for needed talent on the basis of alternative rewards, even where they cannot afford to match the monetary salary and benefit levels offered in the business sector. Second, nonprofits may need to manage their paid workers differently, providing them with the job autonomy, nonfinancial means of recognition, and opportunities to contribute to socially worthwhile objectives that will maintain their loyalties and motivations in the context of more modest pay scales.

Finances Nonprofit organizations are unusual in their diverse mixes of income sources. Although businesses depend primarily on sales revenues to sustain themselves, nonprofits draw not only on such “earned income” but

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also on charitable contributions, government grants and subsidies, and investment income for substantial amounts of revenue. Moreover, the mix of these revenue streams varies widely among nonprofit organizations. Overall, more than half of nonprofit revenues derive from fees, another 35 percent from government sources, and 10 percent from private giving (Salamon 1999, 36). Moreover, the latter category is differentiated into gifts from individuals versus foundations and corporations, with 85 percent of contributions deriving from individuals (ibid., 29). This mix of revenue sources varies widely among nonprofits themselves. Churches, for example, depend almost entirely on individual contributions, nonprofit hospitals almost entirely on earned income from insurance programs, foundations largely on investment income, social service organizations mainly on government contracts and reimbursements, and performing arts organizations on a healthy mix of box office revenues and charitable contributions. Most nonprofit organizations must manage and develop a combination of these sources, using a variety of special skills, including fundraising, investment management, proposal writing, contract management, marketing, and specialized accounting. Moreover, nonprofit managers must develop appropriate portfolios of revenue sources that maximize the contributions of their organizations to their social mission while maintaining fiscal integrity and balancing the risks associated with the volatility of different revenues sources. A key element in designing the latter portfolio is determining the appropriate mix of services a nonprofit organization should offer. Nonprofit organizations are often best understood as “multi-product firms” that can offer two general categories of services—those that directly address the mission of the organization but may require subsidy, and others that can generate financial surpluses while contributing more or less to mission-related goals (Weisbrod 1998). The responsibility of management is to determine the mix of services that supports a maximal impact on mission, through direct means and through the generation of net revenues that can subsidize mission-related activity. In recent years, nonprofits have given increasing attention to so-called social-purpose enterprise projects that are intended to generate prof-

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its while also contributing to mission through the employment or training of target group clientele or by other means. Although these ventures resemble profit-making businesses in many respects and require business-related management skills, their performance must be judged differently in terms of social impacts as well as financial success. Nonprofit and for-profit organizations differ in other aspects of finance as well. Nonprofit organizations must do their accounting differently in order to track funds and maintain accountability to different sources and in order to accommodate special government reporting requirements (Bryce 2000). Hence, nonprofit managers must be facile with fund accounting, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax forms, and other special requirements. Nonprofit managers must also address the pricing of their services differently from conventional businesses, taking into account social objectives that may require subsidy, equity considerations that account for the differential abilities of alternative client groups to pay for services, and opportunities for additional voluntary contributions from customers who value the service over and above the ticket price (Steinberg and Weisbrod 1998). Differences also arise in the area of investment and fund management, where nonprofits must account for the mission impacts of their investments as well as the financial returns. In addition, some nonprofits, organized as private foundations, are required to pay out a minimum percentage of their corpus of funds every year because they do not meet the “public support test” of being financed by multiple sources (FremontSmith 2003). Finally, the management of charitable fundraising is an area of financial management virtually unique to nonprofits. Here, management must consider the appropriate levels of expenditure on fundraising operations, taking into account the returns on investment in fundraising infrastructure, the potentially negative reactions of donors to high administrative overhead, and the policies of regulatory bodies and watchdog groups (Cordes and Rooney 2003).

Strategy Like businesses, most nonprofit organizations operate in a multifaceted, competitive environment. For ex-


ample, they compete for personnel in the labor market and for consumers in the markets for their services. Unlike the business context, however, those who pay for nonprofit services (for example, donors) are often different from those who consume them (clients). Hence, nonprofits must also compete not only for customers in the conventional sense but also for resources in the markets for grants and charitable contributions. In all, nonprofits compete among themselves and, with increasing frequency, with forprofit businesses as well (Young and Salamon 2003). Yet, unlike for-profit businesses, nonprofit managers receive mixed signals with respect to the desirability of being overtly competitive in their posture. In particular, nonprofits are often urged to coordinate their fundraising efforts, through federated appeals, for example, so as to minimize total costs of raising charitable funds. They are pressured by funding organizations and community groups to coordinate their services, avoid duplication, merge their operations, and achieve economies of scale so as to provide their services as efficiently as possible. And they are encouraged to share their resources generously so as to benefit the community as a whole. Nonetheless, nonprofit managers’ primary responsibility is for the integrity of their own individual organizations. Hence, like business organizations, they seek to find their own competitive niches within which they can excel and assure themselves of sustainable support. Identification of that niche involves several special considerations. First, nonprofit managers must be clear about their social missions and the special “core” competencies of their organizations. It is the mission that differentiates one nonprofit organization from another, and it is the primacy of the social mission that differentiates nonprofits from their forprofit counterparts. Further, reliance on core competencies can assure a nonprofit that it can deliver a particular service better than its current or prospective rivals. Second, nonprofit managers must evaluate each of their possible service activities in terms of their potential contributions to both mission and to net revenue (Kearns 2000). Such evaluations allow nonprofit managers to make choices of appropriate services, and combinations of services, which in tandem allow both fiscal integrity and maximal achievement of mission.

In some markets where asymmetry of information between consumers and producers is a particular problem, nonprofits may enjoy a special niche as “trustworthy” suppliers who can be relied upon not to sacrifice promised service quality in order to increase financial surpluses. Thus, nonprofits enjoy a special status in industries such as child day care or nursing homes for the elderly, where it is difficult for parents of young children or children of elderly parents to carefully monitor the services received by their loved ones. Trust in nonprofits is engendered by the special structure of these organizations, which are precluded from distributing profits to those who control the organization and governed by voluntary boards that may embrace the constituencies the organization is intended to serve. Nonprofits’ trustworthiness is also enhanced by the self-selection of more altruistic and public-minded employees into the sector, especially at the managerial and professional levels, and by the affiliation of many nonprofits with religious denominations (Weisbrod 1988). Overall, it is clear that an important aspect of the competitive advantage of nonprofit organizations, and indeed part of the justification for their special status in law and public policy, is the trustworthiness they are presumed to engender. As such, it is critical that nonprofit managers consider the preservation of trust of paramount importance in their strategic decisions. The question of trust arises, for example, in the consideration of outsourcing practices. As for businesses, nonprofit organizations seek to carry out for themselves those activities that they can perform more efficiently than outside contractors, and they will want to contract out for those goods and services they can purchase more cheaply from outside vendors. However, nonprofits will also want to ensure that outside vendors do not undermine the reputation of the organization or the trust that it enjoys with its constituents (Ben-Ner 2003). Hence, functions such as fundraising or direct service, where contracted agents may deal directly with the public on behalf of the organization, may present especially high outsourcing risks for nonprofit organizations. A growing part of the strategic agenda for nonprofit organizations is that of institutional collaborations, especially with business corporations. Here, too,

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issues of trust and reputation arise and differentiate nonprofit management decision making from that of for-profit businesses. The recent growth of collaborations between nonprofit organizations and business corporations derives from several sources (Burlingame and Young 1996; Young and Salamon 2003). Pressed for funds in light of reductions in government support and limited growth of charitable giving, nonprofit organizations have sought ways to expand support from the business sector. At the same time, faced with a more competitive, global economic climate, business corporations have taken a more strategic approach to their giving programs. In the process, businesses have discovered that nonprofits can help them in a number of ways, such as improving their public relations, motivating their employees through volunteering programs, accessing new markets through association with donor and volunteer groups, and elevating their recognition by associating their brands with charitable organizations held in high public regard. Often, collaborative arrangements with business corporations can be of great benefit to nonprofits, not only financially, but in terms of engaging mission-related capacities that they could not otherwise mobilize. For example, the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association take advantage of smoking patch commercials to get their “stop smoking” messages out to a much wider public than they could through their own limited advertising resources. However, nonprofits must also be very careful about their associations with business corporations lest they undermine the reputation and trust that constitutes their special advantage (Young 1998). It does a nonprofit organization little good to partner with a corporation that is later exposed for malfeasance, or to appear to endorse a product (such as a pharmaceutical or insurance product) that serves its constituent group less well than that of another company. Nor would a nonprofit want to associate with a company offering a product inconsistent with its own mission (for example, tobacco companies or fast-food chains in the case of health charities). Rather, the most productive partnerships appear to develop where the for-profit product or service can contribute to the nonprofit mission (a technology company and a nonprofit educational organization, for example, might have a mutual inter-

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est in improving learning in inner city schools). Although collaborations between profit-making companies and charitable nonprofits can be very productive for both parties, it is particularly critical for nonprofit managers to find corporate partners with whom they are comfortable and whose interests constitute a good “strategic fit” with the organization’s mission (Austin 2000). Finally, strategic decision making involves efforts to change and manage an organization’s environment as well as determining how to accommodate within it. This is another area of contrast between nonprofit and business management. Generally, for-profit businesses attempt to manage their environments in three ways: (1) by advertising to shape consumer demand for their products and services; (2) by trying to dominate markets so that they can control prices and other key product parameters; and (3) by lobbying through trade associations for favorable treatment in public policy. Although nonprofit organizations also engage in these various strategies to some degree, their emphasis is different. First, although many nonprofits do advertise their services, indeed increasingly so in recent years, often such advertising is aimed at potential donors as opposed to consumers, or to “members” who are both donors and consumers. Second, it is expected that such advertising will be more subtle and subdued than it is in the for-profit sector, if only because nonprofits are subject to criticism and scrutiny if they are seen as too controversial or political, overtly competitive, or spending too much on self-promotion versus direct programming. Third, though nonprofits do advocate within the public policy domain for their own interests, the nature and volume of lobbying is muted and limited by law, especially for 501(c)(3) public benefit organizations. In a more fundamental sense, however, nonprofits generally try to alter their environments in a different manner than businesses usually do. In particular, they frequently endeavor to educate the public, influence lawmakers, and project public service messages aimed at reducing the social ills or needs to which their organizations are addressed. In short, they attempt to influence the environment in a way that could eventually reduce, rather than strengthen, the demand for their services. In some real sense, the environmental


strategy of many nonprofits, especially in fields such as health, social service, or the environment, is ultimately to put themselves out of business. Needless to say, this rarely happens, especially in the short run. When it does happen, however, that is, when nonprofits are successful in fully achieving their social missions—for example, as happened to the March of Dimes—it poses an organizational dilemma for nonprofit management: to find a new mission or to go out of business (Sills 1957).

Governance, Accountability, and Performance More than any other consideration, the issues of performance and accountability distinguish nonprofit management from its business-sector counterpart. In the business sector, success criteria are clear and measurable—an organization is judged by its ability to generate financial profits over the long term and hence to increase its market value. In the nonprofit sector, financial profits may be generated as a means of supporting the mission, but it is accomplishment of the social mission itself that constitutes the ultimate criterion of success. However, measurement of mission success can be elusive, and appropriate criteria vary from one field of nonprofit endeavor to another, and even from one nonprofit organization to another within various fields. One museum may judge its success by the contributions it makes to archaeological research while another may judge itself by its level of service to the local community. In both cases, the measurement of success requires managers to develop proxy indicators that can be quantified, such as the number of publications in scholarly journals or the number of museum visitors. But such measures, or even clusters of such measures—e.g., “balanced scorecards” and “organizational report cards”—cannot easily reflect the full meaning of mission achievement (Kaplan 2001; Gormley and Weimer 1999). As a result, nonprofit organizations must depend on other mechanisms to gauge their performance and guide themselves forward. In particular, it falls to the trustees of a nonprofit organization to clarify and interpret the mission and determine the extent to which management of the organization is succeeding or failing. The trustees, rather than governing in their own interests, are empowered as agents of society to ensure

that the nonprofit organization is meeting its social obligations as effectively as possible. As such, the trustees must use their judgments and interpretations, with whatever quantitative and qualitative information may be available, to assess performance and take actions that will improve performance over the long run (Smith 1995). It is the trustees who are empowered with decisions to hire, fire, reward, or penalize management for the performance of the organization. The recent emphasis on performance measurement highlights a dilemma peculiar to nonprofit organizations (Light 2000). Shifting emphasis to quantitative measures of performance can have two opposing effects. On the one hand, it can provide better information to trustees and managers, so that they are in a position to make better judgments as to how well the organization is accomplishing its mission. On the other hand, greater reliance on quantitative measures by customers, funders, and other nonprofit stakeholders pushes the nonprofit more strongly into the realm of market competition on the basis of narrower interpretation of performance and social mission, creating incentives for nonprofit management to emphasize actions that reflect themselves easily in potentially distorting quantitative performance indicators, such as museum attendance, students’ test scores, or discharged patients (Gormley and Weimer 1999). As reliance on such measures increase, nonprofits risk losing some of their distinctiveness as social institutions. In particular, nonprofits serve as agents of trust in circumstances where market signals and quantitative indicators of performance are inadequate. In theory at least, their structural characteristics compensate for the limitations that consumers, donors, and other stakeholders face in holding the organizations to account by specific standards. These structural characteristics include the constraint of nondistribution of profits as well as their governance by volunteer trustees whose specific role it is to selflessly interpret and enforce the social mission for which the organization has been chartered. Nonetheless, it has been the recent, sometimes spectacular, failings of some nonprofits that appear to have increased the pressure on nonprofit organizations generally to measure their performance more precisely and to document their social impacts in quantitative terms so that nonprofits

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can be held accountable to external stakeholders (Light 2000). Concerns about organizational accountability go beyond measurement of success per se, extending to issues of organizational integrity and ethical behavior—for example, whether funds are properly accounted for and used for intended purposes. In this area as well, the structure of nonprofit organizations is supposed to offer special advantages. The nondistribution constraint reduces the incentives for those in control of the organization to engage in questionable practices in order to enrich themselves. The separation of management and governance through an independently constituted volunteer board of trustees provides a mechanism of objective oversight of potentially wayward nonprofit management. Presumably, therefore, nonprofit organizations should be more immune to the kinds of accounting scandals that have rocked Enron, WorldCom, and other major forprofit corporations in recent years. However, nonprofits encounter their own accounting problems reflecting the different incentive structures under which they operate. For example, whereas for-profit corporations face strong market pressures and incentives to exaggerate net earnings (especially if chief executive compensation is tied to stock prices), nonprofit organizations face pressures from donor and watchdog groups to minimize their reporting of administrative and fundraising costs (Cordes and Rooney 2003) and to exaggerate costs (so as to minimize estimated profits) associated with activities that might be subject to unrelated business income tax (Cordes and Weisbrod 1998). In the case of United Ways, which set target fundraising objectives that they are under pressure to meet, the incentive exists to double count contributions administered in passthrough arrangements for other charities. To a certain extent, the complexity of strategic and accountability issues associated with nonprofit management reflect the growing sophistication of this field of endeavor. It is only since the 1980s that nonprofit management has been recognized as a potentially distinctive profession crosscutting the various service subsectors in which nonprofit organizations operate. The nuances of this profession, and its distinctiveness from management of business or

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government entities, continue to evolve in the context of the changing environment for nonprofit sector institutions. Dennis R. Young References and further reading Austin, James E. 2000. The Collaboration Challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ben Ner, Avner. 2003. “Outsourcing by Nonprofit Organizations.” In Effective Economic Decision Making by Nonprofit Organizations, edited by Dennis R. Young, 67–82. New York: Foundation Center. Bryce, Herrington J. 2000. Financial and Strategic Management of Nonprofit Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Burlingame, Dwight F., and Dennis R. Young, eds. 1996. Corporate Philanthropy at the Crossroads. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Cordes, Joseph J., and Patrick Rooney. 2003. “Fundraising Costs.” In Effective Economic Decision Making by Nonprofit Organizations, edited by Dennis R. Young, 83–100. New York: Foundation Center. Cordes, Joseph J., and Burton A. Weisbrod. 1998. “Differential Taxation of Nonprofits and the Commercialization of Nonprofit Revenues.” In To Profit or Not to Profit, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 83–105. New York: Cambridge University Press. Dees, J. Gregory, Jed Emerson, and Peter Economy. 2001. Enterprising Nonprofits. New York: Wiley. Farmer, Steven M., and Donald Fedor. 1999. “Volunteer Participation and Withdrawal: A Psychological Contract Perspective on the Role of Expectations and Organizational Support.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 9, no. 4 (Summer): 349–367. Fremont-Smith, Marion. 2003. “Investment and Expenditure Strategies.” In Effective Economic Decision Making by Nonprofit Organizations, edited by Dennis R. Young, 101–120. New York: Foundation Center. Gormley, William T., and David L. Weimer. 1999. Organizational Report Cards. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kaplan, Robert S. 2001. “Strategic Performance Measurement in Nonprofit Organizations.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 11, no. 30 (Spring): 353–370. Kearns, Kevin P. 2000. Private Sector Strategies for Social Sector Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Light, Paul C. 2000. Making Nonprofits Work. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. O’Neill, Michael, and Kathleen Fletcher. 1998. Nonprofit Management Education. Westport, CT: Praeger. Preston, Anne E. 2003. “Compensation in Nonprofit Organizations.” In Effective Economic Decision Making by

Nonprofit Management Education

Nonprofit Organizations, edited by Dennis R. Young, 47–66. New York: Foundation Center. Roberts Foundation. 1999. Social Purpose Enterprises and Venture Philanthropy in the New Milennium. 3 vols. San Francisco: Roberts Foundation. Salamon, Lester M. 1999. America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer. New York: Foundation Center. Sills, David. 1957. The Volunteers. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Smith, David H. 1995. Entrusted: The Moral Responsibilities of Trusteeship. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Smith, David Horton. 2000. Grassroots Associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Steinberg, Richard, and Burton A. Weisbrod. 1998. “Pricing and Rationing by Nonprofit Organizations with Distributional Objectives.” In To Profit or Not to Profit, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 65–82. New York: Cambridge University Press. Weisbrod, Burton A. 1998. “Modeling the Nonprofit Organization as a Multiproduct Firm: A Framework for Choice.” In To Profit or Not to Profit, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 47–64. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1988. The Nonprofit Economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weitzman, Murray S., Nadine T. Jalondi, Linda Lampkin, and Thomas H. Pollak. 2002. The New Nonprofit Almanac and Desk Reference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Young, Dennis R. 1998. “Commercialism in Nonprofit Social Service Associations: Its Character, Significance and Rationale.” In To Profit or Not to Profit, edited by Burton A. Weisbrod, 195–216. New York: Cambridge University Press. Young, Dennis R., and Lester M. Salamon. 2003. “Commercialization, Social Ventures and For-Profit Competition.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 425–448. Washington, DC: Brooking Institution Press. Young, Dennis R., and Richard Steinberg. 1995. Economics for Nonprofit Managers. New York: Foundation Center.

Nonprofit Management Association See Alliance for Nonprofit Management

Nonprofit Management Education Competence is essential in fundraising, particularly in today’s competitive and demanding environment. Acquiring the requisite knowledge and developing special skills that are valued in the field can be done through academic programs, training programs such

as workshops, and other means such as conferences or online services. All of these efforts are designed to enhance the legitimacy of fundraising, to improve the quality of practice, and to ensure the highest possible level of success. Certification for fundraisers, which has received increasing attention in recent years, guarantees that those entering the field have demonstrated an ability to perform tasks at an acceptable level, have mastered a body of knowledge on which to base practice, and have exhibited some service to the profession. Credentialing also enhances the profession’s reputation and helps to screen out those who behave in ways that discredit the profession. The Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) Professional Certification Board offers the CFRE credential in cooperation with nine leading philanthropic organizations. The CFRE assures a certain level of knowledge and experience among fundraising professionals and implies compliance with a code of ethics and best practices. Both the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) and the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) offer advanced certification. The goals of certification are to support professional development in fundraising and to provide guidelines and professional standards for employing organizations. The following are the most prevalent and accessible forms of professional development. Some of the categories overlap in offerings and purposes. For example, some universities may offer degree programs, continuing education and certificate programs, and nondegree courses and may also have onsite centers or institutes related to nonprofit management education. Some associations may offer conferences as well as courses and summer institutes.

Academic Programs As the number of nonprofits has increased nationwide, so have the number and availability of courses of study in colleges and universities. This is true for public and private institutions alike. In the early 1990s, higher education institutions that offered courses in nonprofit management, including fundraising, were mostly in the East. Now educational possibilities are available in most regions of the United States. These

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program offerings include master’s degree programs, master’s in public administration (MPA) with a concentration on nonprofit management, undergraduate coursework, certificate programs, fellowships, doctoral programs that allow concentrations in nonprofit management, and interdisciplinary degree programs. An increasing number of higher education institutions are offering fundraising courses through their continuing education departments, and several have certificate programs. Some of these are New York University, the University of Chicago, Indiana University, and the University of San Francisco. Some colleges and universities combine centers, schools, and institutes in their offerings. The distinct advantage of acquiring nondegree education and training through a university is the likelihood that research and theory are included in the overall educational offering. Specialized fellowships are available at various academic centers. Internships are often arranged through academic programs but allow the student the added dimension of actual experience while enrolled in a master’s degree program, for example. Internships can often lead to full-time work; at the least they give credibility to a young professional’s resume. A comprehensive listing of academic programs at the undergraduate level is not available at present. However, the American Humanics program, which is a national alliance of colleges, universities, and nonprofit organizations, prepares undergraduates for careers with youth and human service agencies and awards a certificate.

Major Associations There are several associations for fundraising professionals. The most prominent are the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP, formerly the National Society for Fundraising Executives), the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement, and the National Committee on Planned Giving. These offer conferences, usually on a yearly basis, and courses, such as the AFP-sponsored First and Survey courses. Other offerings are institutes, certification programs, and training via the Internet.

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Continuing education offered by major associations is generally credible and well planned and executed. Those who present workshops and other types of offerings are usually well qualified, and for the most part their presentation skills are good. The emphasis is more often on practice, while research and theory are limited in content and are usually the domain of academic programs. A number of institutes are offered by associations, generally in the summer or during a compressed time period, such as two or three days, and focus on a specific level of professionalism and tenure in the profession.

Schools The most prominent institution in this category is The Fund Raising School (TFRS), part of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. It offers nine courses (in addition to customized training) covering all areas of fundraising practice. TFRS is the oldest recognized entity, established in 1974, has a curriculum based on the collective experience of its founders, faculty, and advisers, and draws on research and theory. Other schools, such as The Grantsmanship Center in Los Angeles, offer courses in fundraising and nonprofit management locally or throughout the country. Centers and Institutes Located at Higher Education Institutions Many centers include fundraising as part of their academic programs in nonprofit studies. The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) is an association of colleges and universities that offer academic degrees and/or do research in the areas of philanthropy and nonprofit management. Affinity Groups There are several associations that have specialized programs or are made up of similar types of nonprofits. Among these are the National Catholic Development Conference, women in philanthropy groups, Association of Lutheran Development Executives, the Christian Stewardship Association, and the American Association of Fundraising Council. These affinity groups often hold conferences and


provide training opportunities and generally meet high standards.

Technical Assistance and Support Centers Technical assistance centers were begun in the 1970s to assist nonprofits with a variety of services, such as nonprofit management, business skills, accounting, fundraising, volunteer management, fundraising research, and program evaluation. Most provide training programs and some have consultation services. The Alliance for Nonprofit Management, based in Washington, D.C., is a membership association of technical assistance and support centers and a good place to start in seeking additional information, particularly local training through this type of continuing education. Consulting Firms and Individual Consultants As part of their efforts to create visibility and advertise their services, consultants often offer workshops or seminars. Consultants also are frequent speakers at major conferences held by associations. Since there is no set of criteria to govern consultancies, the range and caliber of the offerings vary greatly. In-House Training Large, well-established nonprofits may have training programs that they offer to their employees. These programs provide training in fundraising and nonprofit management tailored to the specific needs of the organization. Examples include Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCA and YWCA, Junior Achievement, and American Red Cross. This type of training is somewhat different from but can be part of on-the-job training. Mentoring and On-the-Job Training Throughout most of the history of formalized fundraising, on-the-job training and mentoring were the means of acquiring fundraising knowledge and skills. Although options have expanded considerably, they are still significant methods of professional development. Mentoring and on-the-job training are not only for entry-level personnel. Experienced professionals can enhance their career development through these avenues also.

Self-Study Individual fundraisers can undertake a personalized professional development program by taking advantage of resources such as books and journals, videos and audiotapes, and the Internet. Such materials are plentiful, and most academic programs offer bibliographies and other lists of resources. Here are some selected book sources (see “References and further reading,” below, for publication details): • Association of Fundraising Professionals. Profile of AFP Members. Comprehensive career survey that covers background, employer, professional activities, compensation, use of technology, and opinions on professional issues. The results represent a sample of AFP’s members and provide useful information about the profession and individuals involved in raising philanthropic dollars. • Duronio, Margaret A., and Eugene Tempel. Fund Raisers: Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and Accomplishments. This book offers an overview of fundraisers—their educational and career backgrounds, their values and concerns, and the challenges and rewards they experience in their work. • Kelly, Kathleen S. Effective Fund-raising Management. This book explores the critical area of fundraising management. Fundraising mangement can be the key to success or the door to demise. An organization that does not understand and effectively manage its fundraising programs will soon be suffering. This work explores what it takes to run an effective fundraising program. • Tempel, Eugene R., Sara B. Cobb, and Warren E. Ilchman, eds. A collection of readings regarding the development of professionalization in fundraising, ranging from considerations of how to acquire the appropriate training and education to issues of public trust. • Wagner, Lilya. Careers in Fundraising. A comprehensive volume on fundraising as a

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career, including the context and traditions of fundraising, preparation for a career, how to find a job, how to work professionally and manage various challenges in the field, and the future of fundraising. The only thorough resource covering all aspects of the profession. Some of the most important journals in the field include: • Advancing Philanthropy. Arlington, VA: Association of Fundraising Professionals (published quarterly). • The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Washington, DC: The Chronicle of Philanthropy (published biweekly). • Currents. Washington, DC: Council for Advancement and Support of Education (published monthly). • Fundraising Management. Garden City, NY: Hoke Communications (published monthly). • Grantsmanship Center News. Los Angeles: Grantsmanship Center (published bimonthly). • Grassroots Fundraising Journal. Oakland, CA: Chardon Press. • New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (published quarterly). • Nonprofit Management and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (published quarterly). • The NonProfit Times. Skillman, NJ: The Nonprofit Times (published monthly). • Nonprofit and Volunteer Sector Quarterly (NVSQ). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. • Nonprofit World. Madison, WI: Society for Nonprofit Organizations (published bimonthly). Finally, other helpful resources for self-study are available from the following organizations: • The Alliance for Nonprofit Management. Web site: http://www.allianceonline.org.

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• American Association of Fundraising Counsel and AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. Web site: http://www.aafrc.org. • Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP). Web site: http://www.ahp.org. • Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). Web site: http://www.arnova.org. • Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP, formerly National Society of Fund Raising Executives, NSFRE). Web site: http://www.afpnet.org. • Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA). Web site: http:// www.aprahome.org. • BoardSource (formerly National Center for Nonprofit Boards [NCNB]. Web site: http://www.boardsource.org. • Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, Urban Institute. Web site: http://www. urban.org/centers/cnp.html. • Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, The Fund Raising School. Web site: http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu. • Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Web site: http://www. case.org. • Council on Foundations. Web site: http:// www.cof.org. • Foundation Center. Web site: http://www. fdncenter.org. • INDEPENDENT SECTOR (IS). Web site: http://www.independentsector.org. • National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG). Web site: http://www.ncpg.org. • National Council of Nonprofit Associations (NCNA). Web site: http:// www.ncna.org. • Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC). Web site: http://www. independentsector.org/programs/leadership/ nacc.html. Lilya Wagner References and further reading Association of Fundraising Professionals. Profile of AFP Members. Alexandria, VA: Association of Fundraising Professionals.

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Duronio, Margaret A., and Eugene Tempel. 1996. Fund Raisers: Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and Accomplishments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kelly, Kathleen S. c. 1998. Effective Fund-raising Management. Mahwah, NJ: Lawerence Erlbaum Associates. Tempel, Eugene R., Sara B. Cobb, and Warren E. Ilchman, eds. 1997. The Professionalization of Fundraising, no. 15 (Spring): 72. Wagner, Lilya. 2001. Careers in Fundraising. New York: Wiley.

Nonprofit Sector “Nonprofit sector” is a term used to differentiate the nonprofit institutions of a society from government and business institutions. The nonprofit sector comprises a diverse array of organizations and associations that are voluntary and self-governing and use their resources for public benefit and for the benefit of their members and constituents. Nonprofit organizations are dedicated to public purposes, do not distribute profits, and are exempted from paying federal income taxes. Nonprofit associations are created by individuals or groups as an expression of their freedom to associate for a wide variety of purposes, ranging from providing health, education, and social services and influencing government policies to promoting and engaging in religious worship, artistic creation, and recreation. The organizations that compose the nonprofit sector fall into eight major categories: • Arts, culture and humanities • Education • Environment and animal-related organizations • Health • Human services • International and foreign affairs • Public and societal benefit • Religion (Weitzman et al. 2002) Nonprofit organizations include homeless shelters, theaters, environmental groups, religious congregations, civil rights groups, recreation and social clubs, hospitals, universities, youth groups, philan-

thropic foundations, and more. There are more than 1.6 million formal nonprofit organizations in the United States and many millions of informal associations. They range from large and highly professional organizations with hundreds of paid staff and multimillion-dollar budgets to small, informal volunteer groups with no financial resources. Most nonprofit organizations are small, with few staff and modest incomes. Resources are heavily concentrated in the larger entities, especially in hospitals, universities, and foundations. Nonprofit organizations receive income from fees for services, government grants and contracts, philanthropic giving, volunteer labor, interest on assets, and special events. The mix of revenues varies by type of organization. For example, hospitals rely on fees for services, social service providers rely on government funding sources, advocacy organizations rely on individual donors, and private foundations rely on interest income from their endowments. Philanthropy is a distinguishing feature of the nonprofit sector, but private giving provides only about 24 percent of nonprofit current operating expenditures (ibid., 55).

Definitions of the Nonprofit Sector There are many different names for the nonprofit sector and each emphasizes a major aspect of nonprofit organizations. These names include nongovernmental sector, third sector, tax-exempt sector, charitable sector, philanthropic sector, voluntary sector, independent sector, civil society sector, and the commons. The terms are not always well defined, but they do reveal different salient characteristics of nonprofit organizations. In the United States, nonprofit sector is the generic term used to indicate all organizations outside of business and government. It distinguishes nonprofit organizations from businesses operating under the market imperative to make and distribute profits to owners. Under U.S. law, all nonprofit resources must be used for the organization’s mission; resources cannot be used for the personal benefit of those associated with the organization. Nonprofit organizations, however, may have a surplus of revenues over expenses, because having financial reserves is widely considered to be a prudent management practice.

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Nongovernmental sector, a term used in many countries outside of the United States, emphasizes that nonprofit organizations are independent of governments. They do not have the authority of the state, nor are they backed by the state, though they may be partly or wholly financed through government grants and contracts. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is a term used in many areas of the world. Third sector is a term that stresses the separation of nonprofit organizations from both government and business in a three-sector model of society. Tax-exempt sector recognizes the legal standing of most nonprofit organizations in the United States. In recognition of their public purposes, the U.S. federal government exempts most nonprofit organizations from paying income taxes. Local and state governments generally exempt nonprofit organizations from state income, property, and sales taxes. Charitable sector, another common term, refers to those organizations granted the privileged status of 501(c)(3) public charities and foundations under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) and that are thereby eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions from the public. Religious congregations are part of the charitable sector and are therefore eligible for tax-deductible contributions, for example. Charitable organizations numbered 984,330 in 1998, more than half of all registered nonprofit organizations in the United States. Of those, 354,000 were religious congregations and 64,093 were private foundations (ibid., 125). Philanthropic sector and voluntary sector refer to the volunteer labor and contributions that are traditional sources of support for nonprofit organizations in the United States. The terms charitable sector, philanthropic sector, and voluntary sector are often used interchangeably with nonprofit sector but technically refer generally to about half of the nonprofit sector—to the public charities, congregations, and foundations that are eligible for tax-deductible contributions. Independent sector stresses that nonprofit organizations are separate from and not controlled by government or business. The term encompasses public charities (charities, foundations, and congregations) as well as social welfare groups, that is, 501(c)(4) organizations that, though not eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions, are permitted more freedom to

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lobby for and against public policies than are public charities. Civil society sector refers to the formal and informal nonprofit associations that are part of the civic and social infrastructure of societies. This term is used inclusively and is largely undefined. Civil society organizations are credited with creating social capital, or networks of trust and affiliation that connect people and promote robust political and economic societies (Putnam 1993). Some scholars estimate that there are millions of nonprofit associations beyond the 1.6 million formally incorporated ones registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) (Weitzman et al 2002, 5). These are informal, sometimes religiously affiliated organizations that play important roles in communities and that should arguably be considered part of the nonprofit sector (Smith 2000). Civil society is a term often used to describe associations outside of the United States, as many countries do not have prohibitions on distributing profits, tax incentives for giving, or tax exemption for providing services. Internationally, these organizations may also be more closely aligned with governments than they are in the United States. The commons is a term indicating the role that nonprofit associations play as part of the deliberative space in society. This space is characterized by “uncoerced participation, common purpose, shared resources, mutuality, and fairness” (Lohmann 2001, 171).

Roles of the Nonprofit Sector The organizations of the nonprofit sector play a variety of roles in society: They build social capital, give a political voice to individuals and influence public policy, provide religious education and worship opportunities, provide health, social, and other services, and contribute to the economy (Boris 1999). Observers often note that nonprofits are flexible sources of innovation for society and that philanthropic foundations provide society’s risk capital. Throughout history people have joined together in associations, formal and informal, to worship and pursue common goals. These relationships create trust and build social capital, promoting cooperation and mutual problem solving (Putnam 1993). Another formulation is that associations are “mediating struc-

Nonprofit Sector

tures” that help people to navigate between the private sphere of individuals and families and the public sphere of government and market institutions (Berger and Neuhaus 1977). The religious role is unique to the nonprofit sector. Religious congregations conduct worship services and provide religious education and spiritual counsel to their members and promote giving, volunteering, and altruistic behavior. In the United States, as in many other countries, the religious roots of the nonprofit sector are readily apparent and remain strong. Many secular nonprofit organizations began as religiously affiliated groups and continue to provide for the poorest members of society. Religious congregations and closely affiliated groups are not required to register with or report to the IRS, therefore data on their activities and finances are limited, but research indicates that in addition to worship activities they provide many community services (Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1993). Nonprofit organizations are the major vehicles for civic participation in community life and democratic politics. Through nonprofit organizations, individuals can have a voice in public policies. Nonprofit advocates have successfully promoted significant social changes—on civil rights for minorities, women’s rights, environmental protection, disability rights, tobacco use, taxes, and in many other areas. They are also important defenders of the status quo on family values and other issues. They monitor activities of both business and government and often provide research and analyses of the impact of existing and proposed legislation. Relatively few nonprofits, however, directly try to influence public policy through lobbying, litigation, and direct political activities. Fewer then 1 percent of the public charities that report to the IRS say they engage in lobbying (Boris and Krehely 2002). Membership organizations often mobilize their members to act on issues that concern them—to vote, contact legislators, write letters, and speak to political and business leaders. Most nonprofit organizations, however, influence public attitudes indirectly, by financing and reporting research, by conducting public education campaigns, and by creating pilot projects designed to try out new approaches to solving social problems or validate existing ones.

The nonprofit sector is the primary arena for dialogue over values, ideas, personal responsibility, and expression. Individuals with deeply held beliefs often organize to promote those beliefs, which may conflict with the beliefs of others. Dialogue and conflict on matters of public concern usually begin in the nonprofit sector. Ultimately, if accommodation is not reached, the conflicts debated in this arena may lead to legislation and litigation. Current examples include access to abortion and gun control. The services provided by the nonprofit sector—including health, human services, education, recreation, and arts and culture—are widely known and valued. Services may be provided to individuals, members, other associations, businesses, and government. These may be material services, such as food and shelter; access to art, music, and culture; or knowledge creation through research, education, and training. Nonprofits, business, and government often provide the same services. Society is not neatly divided among the three sectors. In some periods, services are more likely to be performed by government, and in other periods by nonprofits or businesses. The relationships are dynamic and changing. The nonprofit sector often pioneers the creation of services that become the province of government—as in the case of elementary education—or of business, as in the case of child care. Nonprofits often demonstrate the need or develop the market for services. Since they do not have ready access to capital that government (through taxes) or businesses (through the stock market) has, nonprofits are often at a disadvantage in capital-intensive arenas and governments or businesses become dominant providers. Nonprofit organizations have played an increasingly important role in the provision of government-financed health and human services, causing concern about their potential loss of independence and lack of clear accountability. Additionally, the growing tendency of governments to provide payments and vouchers to people who then seek service providers has led to concerns about increasing nonprofit commercialism as organizations market their services and compete with both businesses and other nonprofits for clients. Nonprofits contribute to the economy not only through the services they provide but also, in many

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cases, through their employment of individuals, payment of payroll and social security taxes, and provision of health and retirement benefits. Women and minorities often enter the labor force through nonprofit organizations where they learn employment skills. Nonprofits also contribute to the economy in many other ways, for example, by rebuilding and revitalizing neighborhoods. Large nonprofit organizations may be the major employers of entire communities, as are the hospitals and universities in Princeton, New Jersey; New Haven, Connecticut; and other communities. They may also be a magnet for the tourist industry, as are the museums and theaters in New York and Chicago.

Scope of the Nonprofit Sector in the United States The nonprofit sector is growing more quickly than business or government. It accounts for nearly 6 percent of all incorporated organizations in the United States, compared with 0.3 percent for government organizations and 94 percent for businesses (Weitzman et al. 2002, xxviii). The sector is an economic force that employs an estimated 11.7 percent of the U.S. workforce (including paid and voluntary labor), up from 6 million in 1977. It was responsible for an estimated 6.7 percent of national income in 1998, or about $476.4 billion (ibid., 13–21). Finances Nonprofit organizations generate income from fees for services, from contracts and grants from governments, and from contributions from individuals, philanthropic foundations, and intermediary organizations such as the United Way that channel contributions from donors to nonprofits. They also receive dues from members, revenues from sales and special events, and interest on assets they own. Private giving to nonprofit organizations (from individuals, foundations, corporations, and bequests), totaling some $175 billion in 1998, rose to an estimated $212 billion in 2001. Giving by individuals accounted for approximately 76 percent of all giving in 2001 (AAFRC 2002, 6). Operating expenditures of nonprofit organizations amounted to an estimated $784.6 billion in 1999 (Weitzman et al. 2002, 25).

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Government Oversight of Nonprofit Organizations Oversight of most nonprofit organizations in the United States rests with the IRS at the national level and with state charity officials and attorneys general at the state level. Nonprofits and others that are permitted to engage in electoral activities are monitored by the Federal Election Committee (FEC). The tax-exempt status granted by government to nonprofit organizations reflects a recognition of their public purposes. There are approximately thirty different categories of nonprofit organizations under the IRC. Only those designated as public charities under Section 501(c)(3) of the code are permitted to receive tax-deductible contributions. Other types of nonprofits that primarily serve their members rather than the general public are not eligible for tax-deductible contributions. Nonprofit organizations with $5,000 or more in gross receipts are required to register with the IRS, and those with $25,000 or more in gross receipts are required to report annually to the IRS on Form 990. Private foundations, a special class of tax-deductible charities, are subject to more stringent rules and report to the IRS on Form 990PF. These forms are public documents that provide a major source of data on the nonprofit sector. Governance, Staffing, and Organizational Structure Volunteer boards of directors or trustees are the mechanism for self-governance in the nonprofit sector. Boards of directors are responsible under the law for overseeing the financial integrity of nonprofit organizations. Directors may be elected by the membership (if there are members), appointed by a nominating committee of the board, or appointed by the board itself. Volunteer directors include leaders from business, government, other nonprofits, and the public. They guide the activities and the application of resources to the organization’s mission and provide management, financial, and program expertise. In return, they often become part of a committed group and enjoy the satisfaction of making a difference. They also may learn skills and gain knowledge about issues and problems of their communities and the broader society.

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Nonprofit organizations may have full-time paid professional staff as well as unpaid or partially compensated staff, volunteers, and interns. There are many thousands of nonprofit organizations, however, that do not have paid staff. They accomplish their missions through the work of volunteers or members. ParentTeacher Associations (PTAs) are a good example. Nonprofit organizations take many structural forms. They may be stand-alone organizations, part of federated structures, or integrated with complementary organizations. Examples of stand-alone organizations include research institutes such as the Brookings Institution or the Urban Institute. Nonprofits may also be local chapters of a national organization that directs policy and practices or autonomous local or state affiliates of a national organization. The many United Ways around the country are an example of the latter. Nonprofit organizations may also have relationships with different types of entities. For example, a 501(c)(3) public charity may be related to a 501(c)(4) social-welfare advocacy organization, which may in turn be related to a political action committee incorporated under IRC Section 527. These entities work together to achieve public policy goals as permitted under current government regulations. The public charity can educate the public and raise tax-deductible gifts; the social welfare organization can do unlimited legislative lobbying; and the political action committee can engage in electoral activities. Their boards, finances, and activities may be largely separate, or they may be very intertwined. Related organizations may benefit from common name recognition and realize economies of scale through sharing resources, both financial and human. Other types of relationships include for-profit subsidiaries that produce or sell gift items, for example, in collaboration with nonprofit organizations.

Theories of the Nonprofit Sector Scholars have proposed a variety of theories to explain the existence of the nonprofit sector, reflecting a rich and complex history, the diversity of the organizations, and the many roles they play in society. Communitarians, for example, take an organic approach. They view the social relationships that connect people as the basis for the association that leads to civil soci-

ety and the organizations that sustain and nurture it. Others give primacy to the religious basis of altruism and activism in the history of the United States. This view emphasizes the role that volunteering and charity play in most faith traditions and the importance of direct relief of need and action for social justice in religious teachings. From a political perspective, the nonprofit sector is a basic feature of a vital democracy. It is the arena of civic participation that provides individuals and groups with the means of voicing their needs and interests in a pluralistic society. Economic perspectives propose market and government failure as partial explanations for the existence of the nonprofit sector. Market failure theory posits that businesses are reluctant to provide certain services or collective goods that people desire because there is little potential to generate profits. Nonprofit organizations fill the gap. It also points out that consumers do not trust businesses to provide some services because they are profit-driven and that, in such cases, consumers may turn to nonprofit organizations (Weisbrod 1988; Young 1999). The fact that nonprofits are mission-driven is thus a significant reason for their success. Government failure theorists suggest that there are services that constituents desire that government cannot or will not provide because of the high cost or the limited group requiring the service. In those cases, nonprofit organizations may be formed to meet the needs, often using money provided by government grants and contracts in addition to private donations. Nonprofit failure occurs when associations cannot provide the services that their communities need. In those cases, nonprofits are likely to develop partnerships with government to finance services (Salamon 1995). Each of these approaches helps to explain some aspects of the nonprofit sector. No approach is sufficient by itself. Elizabeth T. Boris See also Economic Theories of Nonprofits; Membership Associations; Political Perspectives of Nonprofit Organizations References and further reading American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) Trust for Philanthropy. 2002. Giving USA 2002. Indianapolis: AAFRC.

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Berger, Peter L., and Richard John Neuhaus. 1977. To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Boris, Elizabeth T. 1999. “Nonprofit Organizations in a Democracy: Varied Roles and Responsibilities.” In Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, edited by Elizabeth T. Boris and C. Eugene Steuerle, 3–29. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Boris, Elizabeth T., and Jeff Krehely. 2002. “Civic Participation and Advocacy.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester Salamon. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution and the Aspen Institute. Clotfelter, Charles T., and Thomas Ehrlich, eds. 1999. Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Grønbjerg, Kirsten A. 1998. Private Action and the Public Good. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hodgkinson, Virginia, and Murray Weitzman. 1993. From Belief to Commitment: The Community Service Activities of Religious Congregations in the United States. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Lohmann, Roger. 2001. “A New Approach: The Theory of the Commons.” In The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by J. Steven Ott, 167–177. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Powell, Walter, ed. 1989. The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Salamon, Lester M. 1995. Partners in Public Service: Government-Nonprofit Relations in the Modern Welfare State. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———. 1999. America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer, 2d ed. New York: Foundation Center. Smith, David H. 2000. Grassroots Associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smith, Steven Rathgeb, and Michael Lipsky. 1993. Nonprofits for Hire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weisbrod, Burton A. 1988. The Nonprofit Economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weitzman, Murray, Nadine T. Jalandoni, Linda M. Lampkin, and Thomas H. Pollak. 2002. The New Nonprofit Almanac and Desk Reference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Wuthnow, Robert. 1991. Acts of Compassion. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Young, Dennis R. 1999. “Complementary, Supplementary, or Adversarial? A Theoretical and Historical Examination of Nonprofit-Government Relations in the United States.” In Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, edited by Elizabeth T. Boris and C. Eugene Steuerle, 31–67. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

O Olin, John Merrill (1892–1982)

serve the Atlantic salmon, and founding the wellknown Nilo Kennel and Farms, which developed techniques to prevent the depletion of wildlife. Olin established the John M. Olin Foundation in 1953. For its first twenty years, it granted funds only to organizations with which Olin was personally involved. These included the American Museum of Natural History, several universities, various hospitals and medical programs, and the Episcopal Church. In the 1970s, the foundation’s giving priorities changed and it began to focus on supporting public policy issues, favoring individuals and organizations that shared Olin’s political views. These views included support for more freedom for business, for a smaller role for government in social and economic matters, for a stronger American effort against communism, and for traditional cultural values such as individual responsibility, the family, and religion. The John M. Olin Foundation provided funding for many different academic initiatives, including a series of lawschool programs, faculty chairs, graduate fellowships, and publications addressing religious, cultural, and philosophical questions. This funding went to many prestigious universities, think tanks, and conservative scholars. Noticing that other foundations, such as the Ford Foundation, seemed to have strayed from their donors’ intent, Olin wanted to prevent his foundation from doing the same. Although no formal action was

John Merrill Olin was born on November 10, 1892, to Franklin W. and Mary Mott Moulton Olin in Alton, Illinois. He received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Cornell in 1913. In 1917, he married Adele Louise Levis. They were married until 1935 and had three daughters, one of whom died in childhood. In 1940, he married Evelyn Niedgringhaus, who had one daughter from a previous marriage. Olin began work as a chemist in 1913 at his father’s Western Cartridge Company. Through individual and joint efforts, he is credited with twenty-four patents, including the “Super-X” shotgun shell, which became a favorite of wildfowl hunters. From 1918 until 1944, Olin served as first vice president of the company. When the business merged with several others in 1944 to become Olin Industries, Olin was elected president. Under his leadership, Olin Industries continued to grow, and it merged with Mathieson Chemical Corporation in 1954. He served as chairman of the board of the giant Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation from 1954 until 1957. In 1963, he was named honorary chairman of the board. He remained active with the Olin Corporation until his death in 1982. An avid hunter and outdoorsman, Olin is also remembered as a sportsman and champion of wildlife conservation. His accomplishments include owning a horse that won the Kentucky Derby, working to pre-

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taken, he indicated that he did not want the foundation to exist much longer than his hand-picked successors. In 1977, Olin persuaded William Simon, the outgoing U.S. treasurer, to become president of the foundation. Simon shared most of Olin’s political and economic views. Olin died in 1982 after seeing his wish to have American free enterprise reestablished. Following Simon’s death in 2000, the board of the foundation announced its plan to phase out the foundation over the next few years. Ann Harris References and further reading John M. Olin Foundation, http://www.jmof.org. Lenkowsky, Leslie. 2002. “John M. Olin.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 224–228. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. “Olin, John Merrill.” 1964. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. J. New York: James T. White. Waggoner, Walter H. 1982. “John M. Olin, Executive and Philanthropist, Dies.” New York Times, September 10, late edition, D16.

Owen Family Robert Owen Robert Owen (1771–1858), industrialist and utopian socialist, was born in Newtown, Wales, in 1771, the sixth child of a saddler and ironmonger. He left school at the age of ten to apprentice in the retail clothing trade, and at the age of nineteen he became the superintendent of a large Manchester cotton mill. In 1794, he and several partners formed the Chorlton Twist Company, and in 1799 they acquired mills in New Lanark, Scotland. Owen’s ideas about the condition of the working class, children, and society developed during the height of the Industrial Revolution (1760–1830). In A New View of Society (1813), he theorized that the primary influence on the development of an individual was his environment. This idea led him to conclude that factory life was causing the moral decline of the working class and that industrialists had the responsibility to initiate changes restricting negative behavior and improving living conditions. When Owen purchased the New Lanark mills, accidents, exceedingly long hours, and poor working

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conditions were common. The children he employed were sickly and illiterate, crime was rampant, and sanitary conditions were poor. Owen shortened the working day, initiated a minimum age requirement for child laborers, and built new houses for his employees. He also imposed a paternalistic system of moral standards to monitor their behavior. Although these reforms temporarily improved conditions, they did not have any long-lasting effect. Owen began to speculate that permanently altering the character of the working class would require a national system of education. He founded the Institution of the Formation of Character at New Lanark in 1816, which pioneered new methods of teaching that focused on creating positive experiences for children and influenced the entire infant school movement. On the problem of poverty, Owen recommended relocating the indigent to rural cooperatives where an agrarian lifestyle would perpetuate harmony and prosperity. These villages would practice sexual and social equality and reject traditional organized religion. He hoped these communities would spread throughout the world to create a utopian society. Receiving little support for his ideas in Britain, in 1817 Owen turned to the United States, where several religious communities that practiced common labor, such as the Shakers and Moravians, were already prospering. In January 1825, Owen used the bulk of his fortune to purchase Harmonie, Indiana, a village settled by a prosperous German sect called the Rappites. More than 800 people of all social and economic backgrounds flocked to the community, which Owen renamed New Harmony. The blend of intellectuals and aristocrats combined with laborers and artisans, however, did not inspire unity. Economic hardships resulting from a lack of efficient laborers and capable administrators led to fragmentation and strife. In 1827, Owen sold much of the land and disconnected himself from the venture. In addition to New Harmony, at least twenty-eight other groups experimented with Owenite communal living in Britain and the United States, but few survived beyond the late 1830s. Next, Owen focused his efforts on the trade union movement. During the 1830s, his ideas galvanized the working-class struggle in Britain. Through the 1850s,

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reformers adapted and reinterpreted his ideas, publishing works based on his theories.

Robert Dale Owen Robert Dale Owen (1801–1877), a politician and social reformer, was greatly influenced by the idealism and reform activities of his father, Robert Owen. Born in 1801, he received a progressive education in Switzerland. Later, he became his father’s deputy, both in the field of business and humanitarianism. When the elder Owen was preoccupied with reform activities, Dale Owen managed the New Lanark mills and school. He also helped his father to create the New Harmony community, an experiment in communal living. Dale published the village newspaper, the New Harmony Gazette, where he openly questioned traditional Christianity, strict divorce laws, and the lack of state funding for education. After leaving New Harmony, Dale Owen advocated gradual reform. He worked for many years with the activist Frances Wright, living in her abolitionist community in Nashoba, Tennessee, and working with her among the “Free Enquirers,” a group that opposed evangelical religion and promoted wide-

spread access to education and the even distribution of wealth. He continued publishing the Free Enquirer and later coedited a pro-labor periodical, The Crisis, with his father. Returning to New Harmony in 1833, Dale Owen entered the political arena, serving three terms in the Indiana legislature (1836–1838). Elected as a Democrat in 1842 to two terms in the U.S. Congress, he introduced the bill founding the Smithsonian Institution, advocated property rights for married women, and supported emancipation. After being defeated for a third term, he continued public service as a trustee of Indiana University and as ambassador to Naples. He died one year after his second marriage to Lottie W. Kellogg in 1876. Alexis Manheim References and further reading Bestor, Arthur E. 1950. Backwards Utopias: The Sectarian Origins and the Owenite Phase of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663–1829. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Leopold, William R. 1940. Robert Dale Owen: A Biography. New York: Octagon. Pitzer, Donald E. 1997. America’s Communal Utopias. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

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garden, and as a boy, he spent a great deal of time outside. He often credited the early Pueblo years with developing his life-long interest in nature, farming, and ranching. Years later, he could be found operating a bulldozer himself on his ranches in Idaho and California. From an early age, Packard was also intensely interested in science, mathematics, and inventions. While quite young, he began his first experiments with explosives and electrical devices. Radio was another early fascination, and by the time Packard was in high school, he was an accomplished ham radio operator and attended the state convention. A summer trip to California in 1929 proved to be pivotal in the young life of David Packard. He visited Stanford University between his junior and senior years of high school with a family friend and was intrigued to find that they had an excellent electrical engineering program. He was accepted into Stanford at the then-steep tuition of $114 per quarter. A natural athlete, Packard lettered in a number of varsity sports at Stanford, including football, basketball, and track. To earn money, he also was a “hasher,” serving meals at the Delta Gamma sorority house, and there met his future wife, Lucile. Lucile Salter was born on July 30, 1914, in San Francisco. At the height of the Great Depression, she also attended Stanford University and graduated in 1935 with a degree in English. As a sophomore, she met David Packard, and their courtship flourished

Introduction “I think you get the most satisfaction in trying to do something useful. After you’ve done that, you ought to forget about it and go on to something else. You shouldn’t gloat about anything you’ve done, you ought to keep going and try to find something better to do.” Those self-effacing and practical words of David Packard influenced both his work as the founder of Hewlett-Packard and creator of one of the world’s largest private foundations. Integrity, respect for all people, a belief in individual leadership, an enduring commitment to effectiveness, and the capacity to think big—those are the values that David and Lucile Packard embodied during their lives. Those same values were reflected in the formation and growth of Hewlett-Packard—one of the most influential companies in the history of American business—and the establishment of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Early Years and Education David Packard was born in Pueblo, Colorado, on September 7, 1912, the son of a lawyer and a high school teacher. He described Pueblo as similar to a western frontier city and had fond childhood memories of roaming the desert and discovering horned toads, cactus, and rattlesnakes. His mother always had a large

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even as David graduated in 1934, took a job with General Electric and moved to Schenectady, New York. Lu, as she was called by family and friends, went to business school after graduation and began to work for Stanford. By the spring of 1938, David Packard and Lucile Salter decided to get married, and she journeyed to Schenectady.

Career Highlights While at Stanford in the fall of 1930, David Packard met a fellow student named William Hewlett. Together they shared a love of science and math and began what was to be a lifelong friendship and business association. After graduation, Packard secured his first job at GE, while Hewlett did graduate work at MIT. After Packard married Lucile Salter in 1938, Professor Fred Terman, an early mentor of Packard, arranged for him to return to Stanford for a fellowship. More importantly, it reunited him with Bill Hewlett. They began their partnership in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, which has since been designated as a California Historical Landmark and the “birthplace of Silicon Valley.” In the early days as they decided what to develop and manufacture, they worked on audio oscillators, signaling devices and other electronic products. They also discovered that their skills were complementary—Hewlett’s strengths were in circuitry design, while Packard was better trained and experienced in manufacturing processes. When the time came, they flipped a coin to determine how the company should be named—thus, the HewlettPackard Company was born in 1939. Lucile was an integral part of the fledgling company. She left her job at Stanford and was a combination secretary, accountant, and personnel manager for the young company. She even baked metal panels for the company in her kitchen oven. Since much of the equipment that Hewlett-Packard manufactured was purchased by the military, the company grew rapidly during World War II and well into the 1950s due to the Korean War. They continued expanding new product development, as well as manufacturing. HP, as the company came to be known, did early work with microwave technology, which eventually enabled the company to be in the forefront of the microwave instrument business. Innovative technological ad-

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vances came to be the hallmark of Packard and Hewlett’s young company. As they moved into laser technology, calculators, computers, and printers, HP dramatically expanded into global operations and eventually employed over 100,000 people worldwide. As the company was growing, so too was the Packard family. Lucile and David Packard had a son, David Woodley, in 1940—followed by Nancy in 1943, Susan in 1946 and Julie in 1953. Lucile volunteered tirelessly in the community as she raised her young family. A special passion for children’s health care was born when she became affiliated with the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children, which treated children with tuberculosis. Lucile Packard also continued her active involvement at HP and strived to create a family atmosphere in the company, where she organized annual picnics and remembered employees’ birthdays. A compassionate and caring woman, she reflected those qualities in her work at HewlettPackard as well as her volunteer activities. As a young girl, Julie Packard thought her mother worked fulltime. It was not until she was a bit older that she realized Lucile was a full-time volunteer. David Packard felt strongly that a good measure of a life was to do something useful and make a contribution. In 1968, Melvin Laird, then secretary of defense, called and asked Packard to serve his country as deputy secretary of defense. Feeling he could make a contribution to the country and to the war effort, he agreed to serve and did so until 1971, when he returned to California and resumed his position as chairman of the board at Hewlett-Packard. However, he remained a prominent adviser to the White House on defense procurement and management and was a member of the Trilateral Commission from 1973 to 1981. Hewlett-Packard was not only widely known and respected for its technical prowess and commercial success, but also for a management style that came to be known as the “HP Way.” Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett believed in the goodness and ability of employees to excel if they were given the right tools and allowed to express their creativity. They pioneered a close relationship between management and employees. Packard became famous for not spending much time in his own office because he was out walking

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around on the production floor, talking to employees. Shunning pomposity, when the senior HP managers traveled to New York to celebrate the listing of the company stock on the New York Stock Exchange in 1961, Packard insisted that they all take the subway to Wall Street. In his 1995 book “The HP Way,” Packard wrote that one of the objectives of the company was “to maintain an organizational environment that fosters individual motivation, initiative and creativity, and a wide latitude of freedom in working toward established objectives and goals.” HewlettPackard was one of the earliest companies to embrace responsiveness to worker’s needs, profit-sharing programs, flexible scheduling and an open-door policy with senior executives. Now one of the largest computer companies in the world, Hewlett Packard remains a model company widely studied in business schools throughout the United States to this day.

Major Philanthropic Accomplishments As young adults, David and Lucile Packard lived through the Depression. Because both had a commitment to giving something back and making a useful contribution, they formed the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in 1964. The foundation grew slowly over the next several years, enabling the Packard children to gradually learn about foundations and charitable giving. The children were invited to serve on the foundation board when they were 21 and Susan Packard Orr fondly refers to family board service as a “life sentence.” Lucile Packard was the operational head of the foundation, reviewing proposals, writing letters, and making site visits to each applicant organization. Everyone knew that she was the heart and soul of the foundation. Indeed, she knew many of the grant recipients personally. In those days, David Packard was quite busy building and running HP, but he always handled the foundation finances and was involved in decision making. Cole Wilbur, the foundation’s first employee, was hired as executive director in 1976 and worked closely with both Lucile and David in shaping the grantmaking and subsequent growth of the foundation over the next twenty years. Wilbur reflected on working with two of the country’s most generous philanthropists and observed that they had a

deep commitment to involving the family early on, giving them responsibility and allowing them to grow into the work of the foundation. As she was raising her own family, Lucile remained a very active volunteer with the Blood Bank, Junior Red Cross, Children’s Health Council, San Francisco Symphony, and Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. But it was her work with the Children’s Hospital at Stanford, where she served on the board from 1964 to 1987, for which she is most fondly remembered. Lucile was integrally involved in the planning, design, and decision making for the new facility in Palo Alto. It was Lucile who insisted that all rooms have extra-large windows so that children could see flowers, trees, and people while they were recuperating. Sadly, she never lived to see the new hospital built. In 1986, Lucile Packard was stricken with cancer. She died in May 1987, and her eulogies noted her deep devotion to her family and her tireless work for children. In 1996, the Lucile Salter Packard Foundation for Children’s Health was created and is the San Francisco Bay Area’s only foundation dedicated exclusively to children’s health. When Stanford and UCSF merged in 1997, it was decided that patient care for children at both campuses would be named Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Health Services. It was a fitting tribute for an extraordinary woman. With two of the Packard daughters trained as marine biologists, undersea exploration was another natural focus for the Packards. David and Lucile provided $55 million to design and build the Monterey Bay Aquarium and also founded the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Believing that the earth and its inhabitants formed a fragile ecosystem, the Packards recognized that the problems of the planet’s growing population had a profound effect on families, the environment, and the stability of developing nations. Improved access to family planning and reproductive choice, at home and abroad, is a funding focus of the foundation to this very day. After his wife’s death, David Packard decided to donate all of his Hewlett-Packard stock to the foundation. He formulated new ideas and strategies for the foundation but felt strongly that he should not be overly directive about foundation funding. He felt

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that the world continually changes and to try to determine now what his successors should do in twenty or thirty years was foolish. Above all, he enjoyed learning and remained, in a very real sense, a student throughout his long life. “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes; if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not reaching far enough” was a common refrain of his. Upon in David Packard’s death in 1996, the Packard Foundation received over $6 billion in assets. David Packard had appointed his daughter, Susan Packard Orr, to be the next chairman. The Packard Foundation, is one of the largest in the world. The grants made by the foundation continue to support the issues about which they cared deeply. Kathleen Odne References and further reading “David Packard.” http://search.biography.com “David Packard, Pioneer of Silicon Valley, Is Dead.” The New York Times on the Web Archives, March 27, 1996. Dodick, R. (Producer). 1997. Lucile Packard: A Woman of Grace [Film]. (Available from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 300 Second Street, Suite 200, Los Altos, CA 94022.) “The Legacy of David and Lucile Packard.” http://www .packfound.org “Lucile Salter Packard.” http://children.ucsfstanford.org. Packard, David. (1995). The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company. New York: HarperCollins. A Tribute to David Packard. HP Video Magazine [Film]. (Available from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 300 Second Street, Suite 200, Los Altos, CA 94022.)

Patterson, Frederick Douglass (1901–1988) Frederick Douglass Patterson, an innovator in fundraising for black colleges and universities, was born in 1901 in Washington, D.C., to William Ross and Mamie Brooks Patterson. His father named him after the well-known African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Shortly after his birth, Patterson’s parents died of tuberculosis. With the help of his sister Bessie, a music teacher, he moved to Texas and attended Prairie View High School. It was at this point that Patterson met Dr. Edward Evans, a veterinarian and the impetus for Patterson’s career choice. When Patterson enrolled at Iowa State

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College to study veterinary science, he was the only African American student in the program. Graduating in 1923, he secured a teaching position at Virginia State College in Pettersburg, Virginia. In 1926, he received a fellowship from the Rockefeller-sponsored General Education Board, enabling him to complete a master’s degree at Iowa State College. After five years of service at Virginia State, he was offered a veterinary science position at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. In 1931, he received a second fellowship from the General Education Board to pursue a Ph.D. in bacteriology at Cornell University. After completing the degree in 1935, he returned to Tuskegee to become director of the Department of Agriculture. That same year, Patterson was chosen to serve as president of the Tuskegee Institute. Only thirty-four years old, he lacked the fundraising skills and personal ties of past Tuskegee presidents Booker T. Washington and Robert Moton. He found it difficult to run Tuskegee in an efficient manner while meeting the needs of poor students—many of whom lacked the means to pay for tuition (Enck 1980). Patterson was frustrated after realizing that black college presidents were competing for the same small pool of funds— everyone was soliciting the same organizations and the same donors. In 1943, in his column for the Pittsburgh Courier entitled “The Southern Viewpoint,” he asked presidents of black colleges to “pool their small monies and make a united appeal to the national conscience” (Patterson 1943). This simple but previously overlooked idea would be the start of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). As a result of his previous interactions with the General Education Board, Patterson was able to get John D. Rockefeller Jr. to publicly endorse the UNCF. This, according to Patterson, was key to the UNCF’s fundraising success. Today, UNCF is the largest and best-known African American higher education assistance organization. It maintains its commitment to the principles set forth by Patterson. Patterson also served as president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. During Patterson’s tenure at Tuskegee, he introduced military aviation to the curriculum. This program gave blacks access to the field of aviation and ultimately supported the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a group of more than 900 black military aviators who

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were an important part of U.S. air power during World War II. Patterson also established the School of Veterinary Medicine at Tuskegee, which now graduates more black veterinarians than all of the other eighteen veterinary schools in the United States combined. In the 1970s, Patterson became concerned with the plight of small, independent colleges. These institutions, which included both historically black and predominantly white colleges, were becoming more and more reliant upon the government for assistance. As a potential remedy, he developed the College Endowment Funding Plan. This plan was based on the concept of combining grant income with long-term loans to create more endowment monies and immediate capital. In 1987, Patterson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition for his lifelong efforts in the field of education. Patterson passed away in 1988. Marybeth Gasman References and further reading Enck, Henry S. 1980. “Tuskegee Institute and Northern White Philanthropy: A Case Study in Fund Raising, 1900–1915.” Journal of Negro History 65, no. 4 (Autumn): 336–348. Goodson, Martia G., ed. 1991. Chronicles of Faith: The Autobiography of Frederick D. Patterson. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. McQuiston, John T. 1988. “Frederick D. Patterson, Founder of Negro College Fund, Dies at 86.” New York Times, April 27, 8. Patterson, Frederick D. 1943. “Southern Viewpoint: Would It Not Be Wise for Some Negro Schools to Make Joint Appeal to Public for Funds?” Pittsburgh Courier, January 30. ———. 1976. The College Endowment Funding Plan. Washington, DC: The American Council on Education. Williams, Lea E. 1980. “The United Negro College Fund in Retrospect: A Search for Its True Meaning.” Journal of Negro Education 49 (Autumn): 363–372.

Pauahi Paki Bishop, Bernice (1831–1883) Bernice Pauahi Paki Bishop, founder of Kamehameha Schools (KS) in the Hawaiian Islands, created a legacy that has grown into a $6 billion endowment supporting the largest independent prekindergarten through

twelfth grade school in the United States. Born December 19, 1831, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to High Chiefs Abner Paki and Laura Konia, Pauahi Paki was the great-granddaughter of Kamehameha I, the warrior chief who united all the islands of Hawaii under his rule in 1810. Educated by American Protestant missionaries, Pauahi Paki married a young American named Charles Reed Bishop from Glens Falls, New York, in 1850. He was a widely respected and successful businessman who became one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom through banking, real estate, and other investments. From childhood, Pauahi Paki witnessed the steady physical and spiritual demise of Native Hawaiians. Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaii in 1778 had introduced foreign influences that weakened the traditional order of Hawaiian life and culture. Diseases to which Hawaiians had no immunity caused tens of thousands of natives to die in epidemics. When Pauahi Paki was born in 1831, the native population numbered about 124,000. When she wrote her will in 1883, only 44,000 Hawaiians remained. Deeply troubled by the decline, Pauahi Bishop felt that a lack of education helped precipitate that decrease. As a result, she left her estate, about 9 percent of the total acreage of the Hawaiian kingdom, to found the Kamehameha Schools. Charles Bishop said that his wife believed that “through enlightenment, the adoption of regular habits and Christian ways of living, the natives would not only hold their own in numbers, but would increase again” (Kent 1965, 153). After Pauahi Bishop’s death on October 16, 1884, Charles Bishop, as president of the estate’s board of trustees, ensured that his wife’s wishes were fulfilled. He generously provided his own funds for the construction of facilities and added some of his own properties to her estate. Until his death in 1915, he continued to guide the trustees in directions that reinforced Pauahi Bishop’s vision of a perpetual educational institution that would assist Native Hawaiians in becoming “good and industrious men and women” (Wills and Deeds of Trust 1957, 18). Pauahi Bishop’s legacy, the Kamehameha Schools, is the sole beneficiary of her trust. In addition to owning 9 percent of the private property in Hawaii, the

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trust has real estate and financial investments nationwide. Revenue generated by these assets has enabled KS to subsidize between 85 and 95 percent of the cost of every student’s education and to provide supplemental financial aid to students who cannot afford the modest tuition and fees charged. Today, KS encompasses three college preparatory campuses enrolling 3,800 students. It also operates thirty-one preschools serving more than 1,000 children statewide and offers more than $17 million in college financial aid to Native Hawaiians annually. Since its founding, Kamehameha has graduated nearly 19,000 young Hawaiian men and women. Currently, nearly all graduates apply and are accepted to colleges nationwide. Enrollment in four-year colleges is about 80 percent, and about 15 percent of KS students go on to two-year colleges. Lesley Agard References and further reading Bishop, Charles Reed. Papers. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Hawai’i State Archives, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, First Hawaiian Bank, Punahou Schools, and the Hawaiian Historical Society. Bishop Museum, http://www.bishopmuseum.org. Black, Cobey, and Kathleen Mellen. 1965. Princess Pauahi and Her Legacy. Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Press. Heenan, David A., and Warren Bennis. 1999. Co-Leaders: The Power of Great Leaders. New York: Wiley. Kamehameha Schools, http://www.ksbe.edu. Kanahele, George S. 1986. Pauahi: The Kamehameha Legacy. Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Press. Kent, Harold W. 1965. Charles Reed Bishop, Man of Hawaii. Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books. Pauahi Paki Bishop, Bernice. Papers. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum and the Hawai’i State Archives. Richards, Mary Atherton, ed. 1987. Amos Starr Cooke and Juliette Montague Cooke: Their Autobiographies Gleaned from Their Journals and Letters. Honolulu: Daughters of Hawai’i. Williams, Julie S. 1992. Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Press. Wills and Deeds of Trust, 3d ed. 1957. Authorized by Trustees of Bernice P. Bishop Estate, Bishop Museum and Charles R. Bishop Estate. Honolulu: Print Shop of Hawaii.

ous educational institutions and libraries, and his $2 million Peabody Education Fund for public schools in the defeated South, founded in 1867 and in existence until 1914, significantly influenced later U.S. foundations. Born poor in Danvers, near Boston, Massachusetts, in 1795, Peabody had four years’ schooling and four years’ apprenticeship in a store. After serving in the War of 1812, he opened a store in Georgetown, D.C., with an uncle. In 1814, an older merchant and fellow soldier from the War of 1812 made him junior partner in Riggs and Peabody; this company, which became Peabody, Riggs and Company in 1829, was a successful dry goods importing and wholesale operation based in Baltimore. After five European buying trips from 1827 to 1837, Peabody perceived the need for foreign investment capital in the United States. His George Peabody and Company, London, a banking enterprise established in 1838, sold U.S. bonds abroad to finance U.S. canals, roads, railroads, the Mexican War, and the Atlantic cable. In 1854, Peabody took Boston merchant Junius S. Morgan as a partner. Junius’s son, John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), became Peabody’s New York City

Peabody, George (1795–1869) Historians credit George Peabody as the founder of modern educational philanthropy. He funded numer-

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agent. When Peabody retired in 1864, he withdrew his name from the firm, which continues in London as Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. The company was not only Peabody’s greatest financial success but also the root of the Morgan banking empire. Determined to endow educational institutions, Peabody founded seven libraries, including the Peabody Institute Library; the neighboring Peabody Conservatory of Music, now part of Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University; Peabody museums at Harvard, Yale, and in Salem, Massachusetts; academy and college professorships; and two historical society publication funds. He also aided Civil War veterans and the widows and orphaned children of Civil War soldiers and funded a hospital in Rome, Italy. Unprecedented was his $2.4 million housing gift for London’s working poor (since 1862), where 34,500 low-income Londoners still live in 17,183 apartments. English honors included Queen Victoria’s thanks when she presented him with her portrait in miniature made especially for him. Peabody also received an Oxford honorary degree. In the United States, his Peabody Education Fund won him congressional praise, a congressional gold medal, and President Andrew Johnson’s public thanks. Peabody died in London on November 4, 1869, the world’s best known philanthropist, having earned some $20 million (estimated to be worth $258.3 million in 2001 U.S. dollars). He gave half to philanthropy and half to relatives. Peabody’s will required burial near his hometown (renamed Peabody, Massachusetts in 1868). British officials sensed that honoring him might soften post–Civil War U.S. anger over the British leaning toward the South during the Civil War, and letters in the British press demanded honors for him. U.S. officials, wanting also to honor him, joined in his unprecedented ninety-six-day transatlantic funeral. A funeral service was held November 12, 1869, at Westminster Abbey, where Peabody’s remains lay in state for thirty days. HMS Monarch, Britain’s newest warship, chosen as the transatlantic funeral vessel, was escorted by the USS Plymouth. Crowds in London, along the railway funeral route, and in the departure port of Portsmouth mourned Peabody’s passing. Crowds in the Portland, Maine, receiving port,

and along the U.S. railway funeral route also mourned. Britain’s Prince Arthur and many U.S. dignitaries attended the final lying in state, eulogy, and burial on February 8, 1870. Later events and other leading figures dimmed the public memory of George Peabody, a hero of his time. He is still remembered at his institutions and among historians. Franklin Parker and Betty J. Parker References and further reading Parker, Franklin. 1995. George Peabody: A Biography. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Parker, Franklin, and Betty J. Parker. 1999. “George Peabody A–Z.” Collected Original Resources in Education (CORE). Microfiche journal, Carfax Publishing, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK, vol, 23, no. 3 (October), Fiche 11, C10. Peabody, George. Papers. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; George Peabody Library of the Johns Hopkins University Eisenhower Library, Baltimore, MD; Peabody Museum Archives at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; and the Peabody Museum Archives at Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Peterson Commission The Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy was created by John D. Rockefeller III in March 1969. Generally known as the Peterson Commission after its chairman Peter G. Peterson, the commission was formed to analyze the role of philanthropic foundations in American life and to help to preserve tax incentives encouraging philanthropic activity. Peterson, chairman and chief executive officer of Bell and Howell Company of Chicago, was recommended by Senator Charles Percy, father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller III’s son Jay Rockefeller. Among the commission’s fifteen members were former government officials, several businessmen, academics, and a union representative. To ensure an independent base, no foundation representatives were members, and, in what later caused financial difficulty, Peterson did not seek foundation support. A small, Chicagobased staff of legal and tax experts was augmented by outside consultants. The Peterson Commission was initiated at a time of great turbulence in the United States. Americans

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were struggling with the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, civil rights protests, and widespread distrust of major institutions, including philanthropy. Persistent attacks against philanthropic foundations had begun in 1961, led in the U.S. Congress by representative Wright Patman, a populist who argued that foundations were bastions of excessive wealth and abuses of power. In 1965, the U.S. Treasury Department issued its own report, which, while recognizing the value of philanthropic contributions, also recommended reforms to curb serious foundation abuses. During this period, Professor Stanley S. Surrey of Harvard Law School, assistant secretary of the treasury for tax policy, argued that tax preferences, including charitable deductions, were actually “tax expenditures,” that is, costs to the government. In taking on the task of analyzing the role of foundations and tax incentives, the Peterson Commission at first expected to build on existing knowledge of the nonprofit sector. Peterson later explained that the commission had been wrong about this; it was forced to gather data through original surveys, reviews of Form 990s from foundations filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and meetings with experts in tax policy and philanthropy. Meanwhile, matters in Congress moved more quickly than anticipated, and the Tax Reform Act of 1969 was signed by President Richard M. Nixon on December 30, 1969. The commission had issued an interim report, but because its final report was published in August 1970, after the momentous Tax Reform Act became law, some observers believed that the commission was a failure. John D. Rockefeller III did not. Peterson, commission members, and staff were in touch with members of Congress and Treasury Department officials while the tax reform bill was being discussed, exchanging ideas and information. Still, Peterson and the commission did not prevent (and to some extent did not want to prevent) all the provisions affecting foundations. However, it appeared to some foundation watchers, such as former treasury secretary Douglas Dillon, that Peterson saved the philanthropic community from a far worse outcome. Most notably, in testimony before the Senate, Peterson proposed a large required annual payout by foun-

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dations (6 to 8 percent); in modified form this became part of the Tax Reform Act and helped avoid the forty-year limit on foundation existence proposed by Senator Albert Gore. The commission’s final report, entitled Foundations, Private Giving, and Public Policy: Report and Recommendations of the Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy, included nine recommendations about foundation accountability and tax policy, with a major recommendation for a national advisory board on philanthropic policy. This idea emerged later in another initiative started by John D. Rockefeller III, the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (Filer Commission), in 1973. Soon after the Peterson Commission report was published, Peterson moved into the Nixon administration, becoming secretary of commerce in 1972. Eleanor L. Brilliant References and further reading American Assembly, Columbia University. 1973. The Future of Foundations. Edited by Fritz F. Heimann. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Andrews, F. Emerson. 1968. Patman and Foundations: Review and Assessment. New York: Foundation Center. Brilliant, Eleanor L. 2000. Private Charity and Public Inquiry: A History of the Filer and Peterson Commissions. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy. Papers, 1949–1970. Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives, University Library, Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis. ———. 1970. Foundations, Private Giving, and Public Policy: Report and Recommendations of the Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Council on Foundations. Papers. Series 1, Tax Reform Files, 1954, 1968–1978. Rockefeller Archive Center, Pocantico Hills, NY. Cuninggim, Merrill. 1972. Private Money and Public Service: The Role of Foundations. New York: McGraw-Hill. Nielsen, Waldemar A. 1972. The Big Foundations. New York: Columbia University Press. Rockefeller, John D., III. Papers. Rockefeller Archive Center, Pocantico Hills, NY. Surrey, Stanley S. 1973. Pathways to Tax Reform: The Concept of Tax Expenditures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tax Reform Act of 1969. U.S. Public Law 91-172 as signed by the President, December 30, 1969.

Philanthropy and the Good Samaritan

U.S. Department of the Treasury. 1965. Treasury Department Report on Private Foundations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Pew Family Today, the Pew Charitable Trusts are recognized as among America’s most important foundations. Yet that prominence developed only after the four founders of the trusts died. During the first few decades of the foundation, the Pew family shied away from public attention and subscribed to the ancient tradition of anonymous giving. The four siblings who created the Pew Trusts were J. Howard Pew, Mary Ethel Pew, Joseph Newton ( J. N.) Pew Jr., and Mabel Pew Myrin. The children of Joseph Newton ( J. N.) and Mary Catherine Anderson Pew, they grew up in a highly religious family that eventually resided in Philadelphia. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, their father became an increasingly successful entrepreneur in the oil products industry. When he died in 1912, J. Howard and J. N. Jr. took over the family business, which later became known as the Sun Oil Company. The Pew brothers continued to expand Sun Oil, making it the nation’s largest producer of oil tankers and the operator of hundreds of filling stations. When the company went public in 1925, it had assets of $50 million. In 1948, the four Pew siblings founded the Pew Memorial Foundation to honor their parents. Starting with 880,000 shares of Sun Oil, they subsequently created various trusts: the Pew Memorial Trust, the Mary Anderson Trust, the J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust, the J. N. Pew, Jr., Charitable Trust, the Knollbrook Trust, the Mabel Pew Myrin Trust, and the Medical Trust. During the foundation’s first three decades of existence, J. Howard Pew was at the helm but all four siblings devoted substantial time to its activities. In fact, they approved all grants at regular meetings and most of their gifts had a personal connection. The foundation primarily focused on charities that were in the Philadelphia area or affiliated with religious institutions. In particular, they supported small religious colleges, seminaries, and the early career of evangelist Billy Graham. Since J. Howard Pew believed nonprofits should prove their worth on an an-

nual basis, they gave one-year grants and avoided supporting endowments. Driven by their strong Christian faith, the Pews also made sure that all their gifts were anonymous. In the late 1960s and 1970s, this anonymous giving policy began to change, but only as the Pews siblings were passing away. Robert T. Grimm Jr. References and further reading Gardner, Joel. 1995. A History of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Philadelphia: Pew Charitable Trusts. Grimm, Robert T., Jr. 2002. “Pew Family.” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr., 246–251. Westport, CT: Oryx Press.

Phelps Stokes Fund See Stokes, Caroline, and Stokes, Olivia Eggleston Phelps

Philanthropic Sector See Nonprofit Sector

Philanthropy See Contemporary Philanthropy

Philanthropy and Cultural Policy See Cultural Policy and Philanthropy

Philanthropy and Human Services See Human Services and Philanthropy

Philanthropy and the Good Samaritan Almost everyone knows the parable of the Good Samaritan that appears in the New Testament. The story is short and deceptively simple, touching deep emotions and common experience at the same time. Jesus is being tested by a lawyer, who asks, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus draws from him the answer that he must love God

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The Good Samaritan, after a woodcut by Schorr Von Carolsfeld (Bettmann/Corbis)

and love his neighbor as himself. The lawyer persists: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus then relates the story of the Good Samaritan: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half-dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and then he set him

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on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”

The passage concludes with another question: “Which of these three do you think proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” The lawyer replied, “The man who showed mercy on him.” To which Jesus responded, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10: 25–37, RSV). Jesus is telling the story to people who know personally what things are like on the road from


Jerusalem to Jericho. His listeners can readily identify with what happened to the man who fell among robbers. But it is likely that none in the audience would have been prepared for what he said about the Samaritan. Jesus said the Samaritan had compassion. Samaritans were the mortal enemies of the Jews, and Jesus was a Jew speaking to an audience of Jews. The depth of animosity between Jews and Samaritans is hard for a modern audience to understand, perhaps, but not for Jesus’ listeners. Biblical scholar Robert Funk noted that “a Jew who was excessively proud of his blood line and a chauvinist about his tradition would not permit a Samaritan to touch him, much less minister to him” (1982, 29–34). But the hero of the story is the Samaritan. The Samaritan did the right thing while the Jews in the story did not. The study of philanthropy usually concentrates on two perspectives, that of the person who gives and that of the person in need. In the parable, those perspectives are represented by the Good Samaritan and the man lying helpless by the roadside, respectively. There appear to be three lessons to this story, the first two focusing on the Good Samaritan and the third on the person in need. The first lesson is the implicit answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” The second is that one should go to the aid of others even at some risk to oneself. The third is that all are vulnerable: Everyone faces the possibility of needing the help of others, even perhaps the help of a hated enemy. The third lesson has received less attention than the other two. For those individuals who decide to heed the parable’s second lesson and go to the aid of others even at some risk to themselves, there will be no shortage of opportunities—or of risks. There are many places in this world that are dangerous, and there are thieves of infinite variety. It is common to hear reports of Good Samaritans who are themselves robbed and murdered in coming to the aid of another. Families caught harboring Jews during the Holocaust were often put to death themselves, for example (Oliner and Oliner 1992). There are also contemporary reports of “Good Samaritan scams,” tricks to lure well-meaning Good Samaritans into traps set by decoys feigning injury or peril. It is also common to hear of situations in which Good Samaritans were nowhere to be found: The

scandalous story of the thirty-eight witnesses to the assault and murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City in 1964, for example, when no one even went so far as to call the police, is well known (Rosenthal 1999 [1964]). And, unfortunately, there are situations where those who have intervened have been sued for supposedly causing harm in doing so. Every state in the United States now has some version of a “Good Samaritan Law” providing immunity from liability to those who try to help (some state laws protect only doctors). Some of those statutes also include a “duty to assist” clause, making it a misdemeanor to act like the Levite and the priest and just pass by. In fact, these sorts of “Bad Samaritan” laws requiring philanthropic aid have been enacted in places around the globe, from Mongolia in 1781 to Portugal in 1982 (Hunt 1990). Given the risks, why is it that the Good Samaritan did not turn his eyes away and pass by on the other side of the road? Why did he come to the aid of the stranger in that dangerous place, even when he must have assumed that the injured person was a Jew? Why did he accept the risk? Religious tradition says that God had given the Good Samaritan the capacity to feel compassion. Today, however, the dominant assumption about human behavior is that people are calculators of selfinterest and that self-interest motivates actions. In the story of the Good Samaritan, the calculators of self-interest are the priest and the Levite, who crossed to the other side of the road and avoided the risk and inconvenience of offering assistance. Either of them might have justified himself in modern terms, “I didn’t want to get involved.” The Good Samaritan ignored risk and inconvenience and became involved. In the simplest moral terms, he represents a true philanthropic spirit; he has compassion. Cost-benefit analysis would not have inspired him to intervene. The Good Samaritan story is part of the philanthropic tradition not because modern listeners would necessarily be brave enough to act the way he did but because many people feel deeply that they would want to act that way. When Robert Wuthnow (1991) asked Americans of all sorts to explain their reasons for being compassionate, he found many of them struggled to come up with a satisfactory moral or religious

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explanation. But when they began to explain their acts in light of the Good Samaritan parable, they became quite animated and articulate. Of course, they also bent the story to fit their circumstances, as many modern theologians have done to maintain the relevance of the parable. In fact, this parable seems to be particularly adaptable. One philanthropic entrepreneur in England, Chad Varah, borrowed the idea in 1953 when he founded the Samaritans, an organization “to befriend the suicidal and despairing” (Varah 1980). Most people want to believe that they are mature and responsible enough to do the right thing, to be Good Samaritans. But they also know that if they spend too much time calculating costs and benefits, they will immobilize themselves or fail to do what is right out of a simple failure of nerve or fear of risk. The Good Samaritan story acknowledges that there are sometimes real risks in trying to help other people. Today, for example, fear constrains the charity of those who might otherwise bring care to AIDS victims or participate in a project in a minority neighborhood—or, for a minority person, to join a project in a majority neighborhood. When there are risks, courage is called for. The quiet courage that does not masquerade as bravado and machismo is evident every day among those who overcome their fears and live the unprotected life of service in every American city. Most people have had experiences in which they have the opportunity to be a Good Samaritan, such as coming upon a car accident before the police and ambulance arrive. Such incidents provide lessons that are similar to those taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan. At such times, the lesson that we are all vulnerable becomes more readily apparent. One can be minding his or her own business one minute, and be pinned inside of a car in desperate need of help the next. Another lesson is related to what economist Kenneth Boulding (1981 [1973]) first called the principle of “serial reciprocity.” Because everyone is vulnerable to such unpredictable and sometimes dreadful experiences, individuals should respond like the Good Samaritan in such situations. One’s own need for help is likely to be remote in distance and time: When our accident occurs, somewhere else at some unpre-

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dictable time, the persons whom we have helped are not likely to be there. What we must count on instead is that someone else will be there who is willing and able to help—hence, serial reciprocity. The principle of serial reciprocity assumes that people will want to help someone else in trouble if they can anticipate needing help themselves someday. But another way of thinking about the need of the other is not reciprocal at all, even indirectly. It is the simple and powerful feeling of shared suffering and the sense of vulnerability, the feeling that causes someone to say—or at least to think—“I know how you feel; I’ve been there.” That experience of shared suffering may be the most effective motivator for philanthropic activity. Without some experience of suffering, even of suffering of a different kind, it is difficult to sustain compassion. Being a victim, knowing pain and suffering and despair, is often the experience that causes people to think philanthropically. A final—and unfortunate—lesson that can be drawn from experiences with car accidents and related sorts of incidents is that, like the priest and the Levite, most people will pass by, ignoring the call for help. In the aftermath of the Kitty Genovese case, psychologists became very interested in finding out when “bystander intervention” would occur and when it wouldn’t. They found, for example, that people are more likely to help when they think they are the only ones who can help, and less likely to help when they are in a hurry. One ingenious study even found that more than half of a group of seminarians hurrying down an alley on their way to give a lecture on the Good Samaritan parable were unlikely to stop and help someone slumped down in the alley coughing and groaning (Darley and Batson 1973). The Good Samaritan story, read as a straightforward example, gives a short course in responsible service to others. The Samaritan does not foolishly give the victim money and then ride on; the victim would be unable to use money at that point. The Samaritan applies first aid (another philanthropic idea) and then helps to get the injured man to a place where he can recover. But though the parable of the Good Samaritan sounds like a simple tale, acts of charity are seldom simple. They are almost always fraught with questions


and uncertainties. To begin with, there are considerations about the actions of those who give. In order to help others, the giver should know the facts: facts about the situation, about the victim, about his or her own capability and character, about other people’s responsibilities, and about the likely consequences of action or inaction. Yet in some situations calling for intervention, potential givers will have neither information nor time to acquire it. In those circumstances, values and past experience, rather than calculations, must be the guide. In the parable, the Samaritan knows little about the victim but knows he has the capability to assist. The man has been robbed and cannot pay for what he needs, so the Samaritan pays the innkeeper to care for him long enough to get him on the way to recovery. Then the Samaritan says that he’ll come back—not to collect what is owed him by the victim but to be sure that all the bills are paid. And that prompts the question: When does an act of charity end? For instance, who should pay the extra bills that pile up if the victim’s recovery takes longer than expected? And then there are questions surrounding the Samaritan’s arrangement with the innkeeper. The cooperation of the innkeeper is essential for the Samaritan’s philanthropy to be effective. What if the innkeeper had chosen not to cooperate? Should persons who are involuntarily involved in a philanthropic act be expected to behave philanthropically? Does the innkeeper have a right to a reasonable profit for his efforts, or should he be content with breaking even? Should he accept a loss? Is he simply an “interested party,” caught in this act of mercy whether he wants to be or not? He might simply view the victim as a customer—if there is no free lunch, then there is no free room at the inn. Someone will have to pay, and pay the going rate. On the road from Jerusalem to Jericho (or from midtown Manhattan to the South Bronx), victims may be numerous. At what point can voluntary hospitality no longer be sustained? Philanthropy relies heavily on trust. In the parable, the Samaritan trusts the innkeeper to care for the victim until he recovers. What if the innkeeper thrusts the man out before he is completely well? Or if the innkeeper pads his bills? People who are street-smart often fleece those who show compassion. Perhaps the

innkeeper will reason that if the Good Samaritan was willing to put up two denarii to help this man, chances are he would be willing to pay another one or two when he comes back. If we assume the innkeeper is a Jew, another plausible reason for him to exploit the situation is the ethnically based animosity he almost certainly feels for the Samaritan. Common philanthropic values dictate that the innkeeper could be expected to be trustworthy in this case and that he might share some of the burdens of the Good Samaritan’s act. The Good Samaritan, in one sense, can be thought to be acting on behalf of all; he is acting by a norm that all would applaud. Because the Samaritan is acting for all, others who happen into the situation, such as the innkeeper, might be expected to act for all, too. Another concern of philanthropists is to ask whether there are some people who are not worth helping. What if the victim were found to be drunk, or dressed in a way that indicated he was one of the hard-core vagrants who showed up on the streets? What if it were discovered that the victim was still wearing his robe, apparently on the way home from a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan? The Good Samaritan parable suggests that one should not deny help to either a stranger or an enemy. Every human being may qualify as a neighbor—even thieves. If the Good Samaritan scenario occurred today, how would the thieves be treated? The moral imagination is always at work, leading to more challenging questions. Perhaps this was a first offense. Perhaps the thieves were young hoodlums on drugs. Can they be held responsible for their behavior when they were themselves victims of a drug pusher? There are philanthropists and philanthropic organizations on all sides of this issue. There are those whose goal is to rescue thieves from a life of crime; there are others whose call is not for compassion or rehabilitation but for retribution. Other philanthropic organizations work not with the perpetrators but with the victims of crime, helping them to recover from the trauma of the experience, to regain the use of muscles and limbs that were injured in the attack, and to get back to work. Working with the victims of crime may be a strong motivator for continued philanthropic activity because it

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develops the ability of law-abiding people to put themselves imaginatively in the place of the other. The human response to the suffering of others has been the most basic and powerful of the forces at work in philanthropy throughout history. The extraordinary outpouring of concern for victims of starvation in Ethiopia and elsewhere in East Africa in the mid-1980s, for those suffering from catastrophic events such as earthquakes and tidal waves, and for the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks reflects an immediate and personal response to suffering. People want to “do something,” and one thing they can do is give money to organizations at work on the scene. The problem of philanthropy is that the emotion of compassion has little staying power. The human attention span is limited, and researchers now know about “compassion fatigue,” when the media report on more catastrophes than people can grasp and more suffering than the general public can absorb. Questions about the moral imagination have interested and frustrated scholars for centuries. Researchers have not determined whether visual observation of others’ suffering on television sets enhances viewers’ sensibilities or deadens them through repetition and familiarity. Does the repetition of appeals lead to a change in the behavior of potential Samaritans? If natural and human disasters seem to have been more common in the ancient world, did they become as commonplace as they seem to today, failing to elicit human response? Another question that troubles givers is whether anything should be done beyond attending to the immediate needs of the victim. In some situations, the giver may feel called upon to offer advice to the recipient of the assistance. For example, a Good Samaritan of the scientific philanthropy school might use the occasion to give a gentle lecture. “Next time,” he might say, “take a different road.” Or—more severely—“I’ll help you this time, but no more.” Givers might expect people to learn from their misfortune, just as children do. It tests donors’ patience and generosity to respond again and again to people who never seem able to make it on their own. A century ago, both liberals and conservatives believed that most people in need were in that condition through their own weakness and fail-

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ure. That thread persists throughout the modern history of philanthropy. Good Samaritanism is all right in some circumstances, one might say, but prevention is the best answer. People may have to be encouraged, perhaps even compelled, to take care of themselves. “Welfare to work” is now both carrot and stick. In the interests of compelling people to take care of themselves, the modern Samaritan might draw from the school of philanthropy that holds that people should be required to behave in ways that make them independent and thus advise the victim that he will have to pay for the service. To discourage the victim from being a victim a second time, the Samaritan might consider the payment to the innkeeper a loan and ask the victim to repay it. Or, desirous of simultaneously fostering independence and traditional philanthropic values, the Samaritan might say, “Go and do likewise.” There is a long history of efforts to help people help themselves; it is one of the fundamental principles of philanthropy. In nineteenth-century London, young Octavia Hill wanted to create decent housing for the poor. Lacking capital, she turned to social philosopher and art critic John Ruskin for help. He loaned her £5,000, but with the requirement that she produce a return of 5 percent if she hoped to persuade others to follow his example. Following Ruskin’s advice, Hill made payment of rent a first and unwavering demand upon all her tenants. She also insisted on stern self-discipline; her tenants not only were to pay their rent on time, they were to stay within her range of acceptable social and moral behavior. Influenced by both Christian Socialism and the Charity Organisation Society—the equivalent of being a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican at the same time—Hill was pragmatic. Commenting on Hill’s management style, Gertrude Himmelfarb observed: “Her aim was not only to provide the decent housing that was a precondition of independence but to promote the habits, abilities, and sensibilities that would sustain that independence. This meant treating the tenants as equals rather than dependents, and helping them in the same spirit that one might help one’s friends” (1991, 214). There is a thin and sometimes barely discernible line, however, between help and intrusiveness. This is


the dilemma facing all potential Good Samaritans, especially in a culture that values both help and independence. As Morton Hunt pointed out, “We are taught: ‘Help those who are in trouble,’ but also: ‘Don’t stick your nose into other people’s business’” (1990, 80). Intervening in the lives of others for their benefit is a definition of philanthropy; knowing when and to what extent to do so is the philanthropist’s challenge. The received liberal wisdom is that intrusiveness is the problem; the received conservative wisdom is that people who need help often need advice, whether they want it or not. In the background is the power the lender or donor has to withhold support, and that power is easily and often abused. Sometimes the abuse takes bureaucratic form: There is nothing in either public or private assistance that assures the applicant or recipient of fair and sensitive treatment. The bureaucratic approach is to spell out the terms of the relationship in detail and then to treat everybody equally. The business approach is to monitor performance very closely, especially financial performance, and let winners win and losers lose. These arrangements attempt to devise better ways to help people help themselves, providing assistance or competitive advantage to “level the playing field.” Philanthropic values are behind both equal opportunity and affirmative action. In the competitive environment of the marketplace, one seldom wants to help his or her competitors to improve their performance. In a controlled governmental environment, allowing people to use public money to pursue their own interpretation of private purposes is undesirable. The more permissive environment of philanthropy tends to be more lenient, less demanding, and less intrusive or tendentious. The philanthropic norm is the one Gertrude Himmelfarb ascribed to Octavia Hill: to help others cultivate and nurture the “habits, abilities, and sensibilities” that develop and sustain independence. The philanthropic tradition began with core values such as those embedded in the parable of the Good Samaritan—compassion, self-sacrifice, trust, generosity, courage—values present in all cultures. Over the centuries, the tradition expanded to give other values an important place, but for most individuals, charity is

still the heart of philanthropy, and that is reflected in the dominant role of organized religion as both recipient and initiator of philanthropy. But modern American philanthropy has begun to change that ancient focus on acts of mercy motivated by charity. Philanthropic foundations have played a path-breaking role in seeking out the underlying causes of social problems and developing solutions and reforms. Foundations and corporations have also become major influences in supporting the nonreligious part of the agenda: education, the arts, and scientific research, for example. Still, at the source where it all begins, and where core values keep philanthropy alive, is charity. If there is a social crisis—and there is a case to be made that there is—it is a crisis not of society’s failure to provide adequate financial support to universities and research centers or cultural institutions. It is not even a crisis of money. It is a spiritual crisis. It is a weakening—even a loss—of core values such as those captured in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The philanthropic tradition is a process of transmitting received themes and practices over time, across generations, and even across cultural boundaries and barriers toward a norm of compassion that the world has, even now, not yet achieved. It is not our heads or even our pocketbooks that we should be most concerned about. It is our hearts. Compassion begets philanthropy begets community. Robert L. Payton See also Utopian Thought, Philanthropy in References and further reading Boulding, Kenneth. 1981 [1973]. A Preface to Grants Economics: The Economy of Love and Fear. New York: Praeger. Darley, John, and C. Daniel Batson. 1973. “From Jerusalem to Jericho.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27 (1): 100–108. Funk, Robert W. 1982. Parables and Presence. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Himmelfarb, Gertrude. 1991. Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Hunt, Morton. 1990. The Compassionate Beast. New York: William Morrow. Oliner, Samuel P., and Pearl Oliner. 1992. The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. New York: Free Press.

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Planned Giving

Planned Giving

Charitable gift planning includes an examination of the current and long-term charitable and personal goals of the individual, couple, family, or business; of the assets owned by the potential contributor; of various charitable giving vehicles that may be used to accomplish the potential contributor’s charitable and personal goals; and of timing considerations. Charitable gift planning results in outright and split-interest lifetime contributions, testamentary gifts, and splitinterest gifts created for survivors.

For many years, planned giving consisted primarily of contributions effective at death, with a few split-interest contributions (contributions in which at least one noncharitable entity retains or receives an economic interest in the donated property), and was generally referred to as “deferred giving” due to the delay from the time the contribution provision was included in a legal document until the charitable beneficiary received the financial benefit of the contribution. By the 1970s, the widely used terminology for this type of development effort had become “planned giving.” By the 1990s, yet another switch in terminology occurred that reflected the increase in the number of individuals in their forties and fifties using planned-giving vehicles (charitable life-income plans and charitable lead trusts) as part of their accumulation-ofassets strategies instead of thinking of planned giving solely as a way of accomplishing distribution strategies at death. Moreover, planned giving was no longer solely the province of charitable organizations. Due partially to the statutory reduction of financial planning strategies to reduce income taxation in the mid-1980s, many for-profit financial planners and advisers began to educate their clients about the personal and financial benefits of charitable giving. Increasingly, planned giving is referred to as “charitable gift planning.” In 2002, The Fund Raising School at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy defined a planned gift as “a gift that a donor makes in consideration of all other financial planning objectives in order to maximize the potential benefit of the gift to the donor as well as the charity, and to minimize the net cost of the gift. Considerations include the nature and volume of the gift property, the economic consequences of the gift plan, and the tax implications of the gift” (TRRS 2002, 7).

Outright Lifetime Giving Lifetime giving includes immediate, outright contributions to charitable organizations and split-interest gifts of either current economic benefit (a “present” interest) or future economic benefit (a “future” or “remainder” interest). Immediate, outright contributions to qualified charitable organizations, generally those defined in Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 501(c)(3), are those in which the donor gives up all right, title, and economic interest in the contributed property. Such contributions, defined in IRC Section 170(c), qualify as itemized charitable deductions in determining federal income tax liability, subject to the deduction ceilings and carryover provisions of Section 170(b)(1). Itemized charitable deductions may also reduce state and local income taxation in jurisdictions that allow such charitable deductions to reduce taxable income. Outright contributions may be for the unrestricted or general use of the charitable organization or may be designated for a particular use agreed upon by the donor and the organization. Outright contributions may also be designated as contributions to endowment funds, which generally provide that the contributed assets will not be expended. Rather, a portion of the annual earnings, or a portion of the value of the fund on a particular date, will be expended in the next fiscal year. A spending policy is normally used to determine how the portion of the annual earnings or of the value of the fund to be expended is determined. In lifetime, outright giving, the planning issues usually focus on which assets should be contributed, who should be the donor, and when the contribution should be made. Because a contribution is neither a sale nor an exchange, no capital gains are realized

Rosenthal, A. M. 1999 [1964]. Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case. Berkeley: University of California Press. Varah, Chad, ed. 1980. The Samaritans in the ’80s: To Befriend the Suicidal and Despairing. London: Constable. Wuthnow, Robert. 1991. Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Planned Giving

when a donor contributes capital assets that have appreciated in value. This is true regardless of how long the donor has owned or held the contributed asset. Contributing an appreciated asset instead of cash may enable the donor to both avoid the capital gains tax and claim an itemized charitable deduction for the charitable value of the contributed asset. The combination of tax avoided and tax saved allows the donor to leverage the value of his or her contribution because the final out-of-pocket cost may be significantly less than the fair-market value of the asset at the time contributed. Individuals with majority interests in business ventures, such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations, should consider whether maximum tax advantage would be realized if the owner, in his or her individual capacity, or the business entity makes the contribution. The timing of the contribution may also maximize tax advantage. This factor may be influenced by the changing valuation of the asset to be contributed, the maximum value that can be deducted under the charitable deduction ceilings in the year of contribution, and, in the case of contributions of noncash assets, the date of the qualified appraisal. Generally, outright contributions that qualify for the income-tax charitable deduction under IRC Section 170(c) also qualify for the federal-gift-tax charitable deduction under Section 2522 and the federalestate-tax charitable deduction under Section 2055.

Lifetime Split-Interest Gifts The partial-interest rule of law, codified in IRC Section 170(f ), provides that generally, no tax benefits are available for contributions to charitable organizations in which the donor gives less than his or her total interest in the property. However, there are statutory exceptions to this rule. The value of contributions in trust that provide a future or remainder interest are deductible for tax purposes only if they are in the form of charitable remainder annuity trusts or unitrusts, defined in Section 664, or pooled income funds, defined in Section 642(c)(5). The value of contributions in trust that provide an income or present interest are deductible for tax purposes only if the donor is considered to be the owner of the trust under Section 671

(the “grantor trust” rules) and only if the income interest given to the charitable organization is in the form of a guaranteed annuity interest or guaranteed unitrust interest as defined in Section 664 and the regulations thereunder. IRC Section 170(f ) also provides the following statutory exceptions to the partialinterest rule: contributions of a remainder interest in a personal residence or farm, undivided portions of the donor’s entire interest, and qualified conservation contributions. Technically, charitable gift annuities, issued in the United States since the 1840s, are not split-interest gifts but instead an outright contribution to the charitable organization issuing the charitable gift annuity, subject to the promise to pay the amount of annual income specified in the contract executed by the parties for the lifetime(s) of the named annuitant(s). The promise to pay the annual payment is a liability of the organization issuing the annuity. Failure to understand and adhere to the partial-interest rule can be very costly for donors. A nonqualified lifetime split-interest contribution to charity results in loss not only of the income-tax charitable deduction but also of the gift-tax charitable deduction. The donor could lose any income tax savings and potentially owe federal gift tax on a transfer to a qualified charitable organization. The National Committee on Planned Giving has issued two national studies on planned giving in the United States. The first study, released in 1993, was entitled “Planned Giving in the US: A Survey of Donors.” The follow-up study, “Planned Giving in the US 2000: A Survey of Donors,” was released in 2001. Those studies indicate the following about lifetime split-interest gifts to charitable organizations: 1. Percentage of U.S. population making such gifts: In 1992, six-tenths of 1 percent of the survey respondents indicated they had created a life income arrangement. In 2000, 1 percent of the survey respondents indicated they were remainder trust donors and another 5 percent indicated they were considering creating such trusts. 2. Motivations to make the gift: In both studies, over 90 percent of the life income donors

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cited “desire to support the charity” and over 80 percent cited “the ultimate use of the gift by charity” as an important factor in their decision to make the planned gift. In the 2000 study, 77 percent of the charitable remainder trust donors cited “desire to reduce taxes” and 76 percent cited “longrange estate and financial planning issues” as an important factor in their decision. Encouragement of legal or financial advisers and relationships with representatives of charities were also cited as important motivators in the 2000 study, with 48 percent of the charitable remainder trust donors citing the former and 41 percent citing the latter as an important factor in their decision. 3. Affiliation with the charity to be benefited: In the 2000 study, 82 percent of charitable gift annuity donors and 75 percent of charitable remainder trust donors indicated an affiliation with the charity to be benefited, with the most frequently cited affiliation described as a form of membership. The average length of affiliation was eighteen years for charitable gift annuity donors and nineteen years for charitable remainder trust donors. 4. Previous contributions: In the 2000 study, 67 percent of the charitable remainder trust donors had made prior contributions to the charity that would benefit from the remainder trust; 92 percent of the prior contributions were cash and 79 percent of the contributions had been made in the past year. Only 39 percent had ever made a single contribution of more than $1,000, and only one in eight had made a contribution of more than $10,000. 5. Demographics: In the 2000 study, the average age of the charitable gift annuity donors was sixty-nine, with 20 percent under age fiftyfive; 51 percent were female, and the average household income was $67,000, with 50 percent reporting a household income of less than $50,000. The average age of remainder

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trust donors was sixty-two, with 34 percent under age fifty-five. Charitable remainder trust donors are more likely to be male and reported the highest average household income, at $86,000, with 33 percent reporting a household income of less than $50,000. Both charitable gift annuity and charitable remainder trust donors tended to be married without children under the age of eighteen in the household.

Testamentary Gifts and Split-Interest Gifts for Survivors Testamentary gifts are those in which the economic benefit of the contribution is realized by the named charitable organizations after the death of the donor, or in the case of split-interest gifts, a number of years after the death of the donor or after a subsequent lifetime. Testamentary gifts may be outright, immediate contributions to charitable organizations and split-interest gifts of either current economic benefit (a “present” interest) or future economic benefit (a “future” or “remainder” interest). Testamentary outright contributions to qualified charitable organizations, generally those defined in IRC Section 501(c)(3), are those in which the donor gives up all right, title, and economic interest in the contributed property. Such contributions, defined in Sections 170(c) and 2055, qualify for the estate-tax charitable deduction in determining federal estate-tax liability. There is no limitation on how much of the donor’s estate may escape federal estate taxation because of the estate-tax charitable deduction, unlike federal income taxation, in which there are ceilings on the amount of itemized charitable deductions that may be claimed in the year of contribution. Testamentary contributions may be for the unrestricted or general use of the charitable organization or may be designated for a particular use specified by the donor and acceptable to the organization. Testamentary contributions may also be designated as contributions to endowment funds or other named funds held by the charitable organization, such as community foundations and federated funds. Generally, testamentary contributions are revocable, in that the donor may change or delete the provi-

Planned Giving

sion in a subsequent version of the document making the testamentary gift. Testamentary contributions may be made in many ways. They may be established through provisions in wills, codicils to wills, and testamentary trusts (both revocable, or living trusts, and irrevocable trusts), and they may be established through beneficiary designations for assets that pass by contract and not by the probate process, including life insurance proceeds, balances in bank and brokerage accounts (as permitted by payable-on-death statutes adopted in most states), and balances in qualified retirement plans, such as individual retirement accounts, HR-10 plans, Keogh plans, 401-k and 403b plans, and others. The split-interest gifts that may be created during life may also be created and funded for survivors as part of testamentary documents. Thus, charitable remainder trusts, pooled income funds and charitable gift annuities (although technically not split-interest gifts), charitable lead trusts, remainder interests in a personal residence or farm, undivided portions of the donor’s entire interest, and qualified conservation contributions may all be created and funded after the donor’s death. In these qualified split-interest gifts, the value of the charitable interest, generally on the date of death of the donor, qualifies for the estate-tax charitable deduction, reducing the potential federal estate-tax liability. Failure to understand and adhere to the partialinterest rule can be very costly for estates that include nonqualified split-interest contributions to charity. A nonqualified split-interest testamentary contribution to charity will not qualify for the estate-tax charitable deduction. However, if the estate-tax charitable deduction is not needed to shield the estate from federal estate-tax liability, the donor and his or her advisers may consider nonqualified split-interest testamentary contributions to charity, so long as such arrangements are possible under state law. In such cases, it is also important to consider the tax status of the nonqualified split-interest arrangement and the tax ramifications of its operation. The two national studies on planned giving issued by the National Committee on Planned Giving in 1993 and 2001 indicate the following about testamentary contributions to charitable organizations:

1. Percentage of U.S. population making such gifts: In 1992, less than 6 percent of the survey respondents indicated they had made testamentary gifts to charity. In 2000, 8 percent of the survey respondents indicated they had done so and another 14 percent indicated they were considering a testamentary gift to charity. 2. Motivations to make the gift: In both studies, over 90 percent of bequest donors cited “desire to support the charity” and over 80 percent cited “the ultimate use of the gift by charity” as an important factor in their decision to make the bequest. In the 2000 study, 35 percent of the bequest donors cited “desire to reduce taxes” and “long-range estate and financial planning issues” as important factors in their decision. Encouragement of legal and financial advisers and relationships with representatives of charities were also cited as important motivators in the 2000 study, with 12 percent of the bequest donors citing the former and 21 percent citing the latter as an important factor in their decision. 3. Affiliation with the charity to be benefited: In the 2000 study, 79 percent of the bequest donors indicated an affiliation with the charity to be benefited, with the most frequently cited affiliation described as a form of membership or being a past recipient of the charity’s services. The average length of affiliation was twentythree years. 4. Previous contributions: In the 2000 study, 72 percent of the bequest donors had made prior contributions to the charity that would benefit; 92 percent of the prior contributions were cash and 79 percent of the contributions had been made in the past year. Only 39 percent had ever made a single contribution of more than $1,000 and only one in eight had made a contribution of more than $10,000. 5. Demographics: In the 2000 study, the average age at which the first will or living trust was

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created was forty-four, with forty-nine being the average age at which the first charitable bequest was made, and 43 percent of the bequest donors indicated that they were less than fifty-five years old. Slightly more than half were female, and average household income was $75,000, with 36 percent reporting household income of less than $50,000. Bequest donors tended to be married without children under the age of eighteen in the household.

Frequency of Changes to Testamentary Provisions and Notification of Charity One area of discussion in planned giving has been how “revocable” testamentary gifts to charity really were. The experience of many mature planned giving programs was that very few testamentary contributions were revoked. In the 2000 study, 69 percent of the bequest donors indicated they had revised their will or trust, but only 25 percent of the bequest donors indicated they had ever revised their charitable bequest. Less than 10 percent of the bequest donors had decreased the amount of their bequest, most commonly those with household incomes of $35,000 or less. The most common reason for changing the amount of the bequest was a change in assets. In 1992, 25 percent of the bequest donors indicated they had notified the charity of the provision. By 2000, 32 percent had notified the charity of the provision. Men were more likely than women to notify the charity of the bequest and its value. Laura Hansen Dean References and further reading Arthur Andersen. 1999. Tax Economics of Charitable Giving, 13th ed. Chicago: Arthur Andersen. Ashton, Debra. 1991. The Complete Guide to Planned Giving. Cambridge, MA: JLA Publications. Barrett, Richard, and Molly E. Ware. 2001. Planned Giving Essentials: A Step by Step Guide to Success. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Institute. Chavers, Gordon D., ed. 2001. The Role of the Planned Giving Professional: New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising. No. 30. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. The Fund Raising School. 2002. Planned Giving: Getting the Proper Start. Indianapolis: The Fund Raising School.

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Hoyt, Christopher R., and Bruce Hopkins. 1999. Retirement Assets and Charitable Gifts. New York: Wiley. Jordan, Ronald R., and Katelyn L. Quynn. 2002. Planned Giving Workbook. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Moershbaecher, Lynda S., Barbara G. Hammerman, and James Soft. 2001. Building an Endowment Right from the Start. Chicago: Precept Press. National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG). 1993. “Planned Giving Bibliography and Resource Guide.” Indianapolis: NCPG. ———. 1993. “Planned Giving in the US: A Survey of Donors.” Indianapolis: NCPG. ———. 2001. “Planned Giving in the US 2000: A Survey of Donors.” Indianapolis: NCPG. White, Douglas E. 1998. The Art of Planned Giving: Understanding Donors and the Culture of Giving. New York: Wiley.

Political Perspectives of Nonprofit Organizations Nonprofit organizations are an integral part of the U.S. political system, both as input mechanism and output providers. These roles are well established, both in theory and practice. The political factions, which James Madison described in the Federalist Paper No. 10, have evolved into various forms of taxexempt organizations. The most common ones are the following: • Civic leagues and organizations promoting social welfare, exempted under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 501(c)(4) • Labor organizations, exempted under IRC 501(c)(5) • Business leagues, such as chambers of commerce, exempted under IRC 501(c)(6) • Political organizations, which include political parties as well as political action committees, exempted under IRC 527 Congress defined tax-exempt organizations for the first time when it introduced the corporate income tax in the Tariff Act of 1894, and after a constitutional challenge, in the Revenue Act of 1913. The Internal Revenue Code of 1954 created the section numbers by which the various types of tax-exempt organizations are now identified. The 1954 act also explicitly

Political Perspectives of Nonprofit Organizations

the intent to circumvent the prohibition on political activities. Table 1 shows the major types of tax-exempt organizations and the range of permissible and prohibited activities. Of all tax-exempt organizations, only political organizations are permitted to engage in both political and legislative activities. However, to receive tax exemption, political organizations must also meet certain reporting and disclosure requirements. At the same time that Congress restricted the political involvement of tax-exempt organizations in the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government, under the leadership of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, contributed to the enormous expansion of nonprofit organizations as social service providers. To circumvent the influence of segregationist state and local governments, Great Society programs often channeled money directly to minority-controlled nonprofit organizations. Subsequent presidents made changes in the War on Poverty programs or abolished them, but all presidents sought ways to strengthen the role of nonprofits in the delivery of health and human services. While legislators and social entrepreneurs have been busy refining the legal and institutional framework for the participation of tax-exempt organizations in politics and government, political analysts have studied the role of nonprofits in the maintenance of the U.S. political system. According to democratic theory, voluntary associations are important political institutions in that they create training grounds for civic engagement and raise the capacity for joint action. Moreover, nonprofits empower citizens to seek selfhelp solutions and fill needs in societal niches. Because a democratic government must have the support of majorities, or at least their acquiescence, it is constrained in providing services opposed by the majority.

prohibited 501(c)(3) organizations from involvement in election campaigns. However, public charities retained their right to engage in a limited amount of lobbying. To clarify this right, certain provisions were included in the Tax Reform Act of 1976, and followup regulations were issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 1990. Foundations caught the attention of Congress in the 1960s when it became known that some foundations were providing financial support to the civil rights movement and that others were used as tax shelters by wealthy families. The Tax Reform Act of 1969 dealt with both issues by imposing limits on the entities that foundations could support and prohibiting foundations from politicking as well as from lobbying. At present, federal law makes a distinction between (1) political activities, also called “political campaign activities” or “electioneering,” and (2) legislative activities, also called “influencing public policy” or “lobbying.” The IRS, in its 2002 Election Year Issues report, defined political activities as expending money “to influence the selection, nomination, election, or appointment of any individual to any federal, state, or local public office or office in a political organization.” Owing to constitutional protection, most types of nonprofits, with the exception of foundations, may engage in legislative activities. However, public charities are limited in the amount of money they can spend on influencing public policy. Federal law allows them to elect one of two delimiters: (1) They may determine that no substantial part of their activities will involve lobbying, or (2) They may set an expenditure limit for lobbying, with the limit determined by the size of the organization. The overall ceiling is $1 million. In addition, public charities cannot create 527 affiliates or even establish 501(c)(4) subsidiaries with

Table 1 Rights of Nonprofit Organizations to Political and Legislative Activities IRC 501(c)(3) Public Charities

IRC 501(c)(3) Foundations

Other IRC 501(c) Organizations no, but can create 527 affiliates yes

Political activities

no

no

Legislative activities

yes, with limits

no

IRC 527 Organizations yes yes

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Also, nonprofits can be used to try out new ideas before their release among the general public. A refinement of democratic theory is pluralist theory, which sees organized interests as the building blocks for a democratic society. Government is supposed to use associations for upward and downward communication. Individual voices of citizens in a large nation can be heard better when they are united in organizations that represent their interests, and governmental action can be better understood when it is interpreted by familiar voices. Associations are also supposed to oversee the work of public officials and hold them accountable. In addition, interest groups are expected to bargain with each other and to accept compromises so that benefits and burdens are fairly distributed in the nation. A more critical role of nonprofits has been advanced by elite theory. It focuses on the role of elite nonprofit organizations in maintaining upper-crust power and privileges. According to elite theorists, private universities co-opt the best and the brightest of society to elite ranks and to serve elite interests. Think tanks and operating foundations are used to advance public policies that perpetuate elite privileges. Cultural nonprofits, such as theaters and symphonies, preserve elite culture while also functioning as playgrounds for the rich. Finally, public charities and philanthropy are tools to regulate the poor, and they also serve as outlets for individuals whose conscience is troubled by the gulf between rich and poor within the United States and in international comparisons. Because of the elite nature and wealth of some nonprofits, critics have called for a reexamination of the property-tax exemption that many nonprofits enjoy. Whatever the political perspective, third-sector entities and public-sector institutions have created dense networks of mutual support but have also erected some barriers of mutual distrust. Promoting the public good in such an environment is an ongoing challenge for both sectors. Siegrun Fox Freyss References and further reading Berger, Peter L., and Richard John Neuhaus. 1977. To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.

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Brody, Evelyn, ed. 2002. Property-Tax Exemption for Charities: Mapping the Battlefield. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Dye, Thomas R., and Harmon Zeigler. 2000. The Irony of Democracy: An Uncommon Introduction to American Politics. New York: Harcourt Brace. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 1982. The Organization of American Culture, 1700–1900: Private Institutions, Elites, and the Origins of American Nationality. New York: New York University Press. Kindell, Judith E., and John Francis Reilly. 2002. Election Year Issues: Charities and Non-Profits Continuing Professional Education (CPE) Technical Instruction Program for FY 2002. Washington, DC: Internal Revenue Service. Odendahl, Teresa. 1990. Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and Self-Interest among the Philanthropic Elite. New York: Basic Books. Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. 1993. Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare, updated ed. New York: Vintage Book. Putnam, Robert. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Scrivner, Gary N. 1990. “100 Years of Tax Policy Changes Affecting Charitable Organizations.” In The Nonprofit Organization: Essential Readings, edited by David L. Gies, J. Steven Ott, and Jay M. Shafritz, 126–137. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Smucker, Bob. 1999. The Nonprofit Lobbying Guide, 2d ed. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service. 2001. Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization, Publication 557. Washington, DC: Internal Revenue Service.

Prosocial Behavior Historical Overview Elizabeth Johnson coined the term “prosocial behavior” to address children’s attitudes toward authority. In her 1951 dissertation, she devised a dichotomy of prosocial and antisocial aggressive behavior to describe the children’s actions. The terms indicated whether the outcome of the aggression was of a positive nature (such as defending someone out of loyalty or protecting the good of the group) or a negative nature (such as using aggression for a selfish aim). The construct was furthered studied in developmental psychology from the perspective of how to socialize people into prosocial behaviors. By the late

Prosocial Behavior

Sharing cookies (Jose Luis Pelaez, Inc./CORBIS)

1960s, this term had crossed over into social psychology literature in studies to predict prosocial behavior in a given situation. Prosocial behavior is generally defined as helping behavior directed toward another, usually a stranger, who is in need of assistance. Daniel Bar-Tal (1976) further differentiated prosocial behavior into altruism (no thought of reciprocity) and restitution (some hope for, awareness of, or form of reciprocity).

Developmental Psychology In respect to prosocial behavior, developmental psychology is primarily concerned with how prosocial behavior is learned and taught. Prosocial behavior is seen as a desirable quality in a child, as it is assumed that the child will carry this behavior on into adult life. Society values prosocial behavior, so it is reinforced through various social mechanisms. There are several ways of developing prosocial behavior, in-

cluding reinforcement theory and modeling, induction (including instructions, exhortations, and assignments of responsibility), role playing, and the use of story contents. In addition, as children develop their cognition skills, prosocial behaviors become self-reinforcing through the cues provided by settings (the situation), scripts (what models have done that was appropriate), and self-schemas (acting to minimize dissonance with the perception of the self ). There are also some developmental cognitions that appear to coincide or correlate with the development of prosocial behavior, including the recognition of different perspectives between people (and the closely related constructs of empathy and sympathy) and moral development (especially when using Lawrence Kohlberg’s three state model from hedonism to responsibility). Ervin Staub summarized the majority of work in developmental psychology on prosocial behavior (1979).

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Social Psychology Researchers in the field of social psychology have historically studied prosocial behavior in terms of the prediction of prosocial behavior in a given situation, usually in the form of experimental lab or field research. Sympathy, cooperation, altruism, aiding, attraction, bystander intervention, charity, friendship, helping, sharing, and trust behavior are all studied as prosocial behaviors, though the focus is usually on some form of altruism as opposed to other forms that include some aspect of restitution. Prosocial behavior research in social psychology initially looked at correlates of prosocial behavior in the context of bystander participation in helping or assisting behavior. Independently, David Rosenhan and Glenn White (1967) and James Bryan and Mary Ann Test (1967) set up experimental situations that have become the touchstones of this research. Rosenhan and White (1967) looked at a bowling competition in a youth club and observed the youth leader donating one-half of his winnings to a charity. They then looked at the children as modeling this behavior, even when the youth leader was absent. Bryan and Test (1967) set up two different experimental paradigms: The first was a motorist stranded with a flat tire and in need of assistance in changing the tire. The second experiment was a Salvation Army collection bucket and bell ringer in several different locations. These experiments became widely read, and over the next five years, thousands of experiments were run following the same basic format. As noted by Bar-Tal, “the studies that have investigated prosocial behavior have four characteristics in common; use of experimentation, use of strangers as subjects, investigations of antecedents, and investigation of one particular act” (1976, 149). Some of these seminal studies include: work on passerby assistance, shopping-bag drop experiments, a cry for help from the office next door, and whistleblowing studies. Ervin Staub summarized these social psychology studies in his first volume on prosocial behavior (1978). Note that these studies in general only looked at one context or situation. The reason is that social psychology was not able to find a constant predictor of prosocial behavior. This was an issue identified early

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on by Kenneth Gergen, Mary Gergen, and Kenneth Meter (1972) when they were able to demonstrate that students in a large undergraduate class would act prosocially in one context but not another; the researchers could predict prosocial behavior in a given context, but the predictor was not generalizable to other situations. There have also been a considerable number of meta-analyses of the field, primarily due to the large number of published studies conducted. Nancy Eisenberg (1991) did a literature review of these metaanalyses and found some consistency across studies. Her main finding was that mood state does correlate with helping a stranger or passerby: a positive mood state is significantly correlated, in comparison with subjects who express “no mood state.” She also found that there is a significant effect for the environment that the behavior is embedded within: rural settings are more likely to have prosocial behavior than urban settings. Margaret Clark edited the 1991 Review of Personality and Social Psychology and attempted to reintegrate the divergent literatures from development and social psychology on prosocial behavior.

Philanthropy The application of psychology to the study of philanthropy is usually done through the framework of Peter Blau and Richard Scott’s social exchange theory (1962), not prosocial behavior. Social exchange can be seen as the “rational” economic view of explaining prosocial behavior. Similar to the reciprocal altruism of biologist Robert Trivers (1971), people exchange pleasant acts toward each other, expecting the same in return. Because humans have memory, they can also do a helpful act now and not need a return for a long time period. While the restitution model of prosocial behavior also looks at exchange, that literature has generally not been incorporated. The exchange model is commonly seen at both the individual level and at the organizational level. David Horton Smith (1981) talks about the benefits that can be derived from individual helpful actions. In corporate philanthropy, this exchange model is also prevalent as a justification by management to shareholders and board members for the “giving away” of

Prosocial Behavior

corporate property and money (Veiga and Dechant 1993), though some argue that this ordered priority is incorrect. John Holmes, Dale Miller, and Melvin Lerner (2002) argue that indeed people want to engage in prosocial behavior but need the cover of “enlightened self-interest” for a public explanation of their behavior. Rabindra Kanungo and Jay Conger (1993) point out that the corporate social responsibility model justifies philanthropy, but that this branch of business ethics does not require prosocial behavior as a prerequisite. There is little work in prosocial behavior that has specifically addressed concerns in philanthropic studies other than generalizations that can be made from earlier work on predicting “spur-of-the-moment” individual contributions to charities like the Salvation Army. One recent study has used the restitution model of prosocial behavior, looking at the “obligations” of college alumni and their monetary and nonmonetary contributions to their alma mater (Diamond and Kashyap 1997). Obligation and other constructs predicted the number of donations recorded in the development office database over a six-year period. The model also predicted intentions to support the university by working for an alumni association or attending reunions. Another recent study addressed the effects of a philanthropic recipient declining a donation (Rosen, Mickler, and Spiers 1986). This created a bruised-ego result in the spurned philanthropist that resulted in a belittling of the refusing recipient. This is presented as a cognitive process to accept the dissonance caused by the rejection.

Volunteerism Gil Clary and Mark Snyder argued that nonspontaneous action was just as legitimate a behavior as spontaneous action, meaning that structured helping, such as volunteering, was a form of prosocial behavior (1991). Among scholars, this has lead to the integration of prosocial behavior work into the study of volunteerism. This influence has become so pervasive that some even define volunteerism in terms of the prosocial behavior literature. Louis Penner defines volunteerism as “long-term, planned, prosocial behaviors that benefit strangers and occur within an organi-

zational setting. Based on this definition, volunteerism has four salient attributes: longevity, planfulness, nonobligatory helping, and an organizational context” (2002, 448). Public policy on public service has been greatly influenced by this argument, leading to the implementation of student service from elementary school to university level and across school curriculums. We do know that short-term service for an organization will not lead to philanthropic activity toward that organization, even if the service is voluntary (Stevick and Addleman 1995). But there is continued interest in this application, as evidenced by the fall 2002 issue of the Journal of Social Issues, guest edited by Arthur Stukas and Michelle Dunlap, focusing on the application of prosocial behavior to community involvement, with significant attention paid to student service and service learning curriculums. Matthew Liao-Troth References and further reading Bar-Tal, Daniel. 1976. Prosocial Behavior: Theory and Research. New York: John Wiley. Blau, Peter M., and W. Richard Scott. 1962. Formal Organizations. San Francisco: Chandler. Bryan, James H., and Mary Ann Test. 1967. “Models and Helping Behavior: Naturalistic Studies in Aiding Behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 6 (4): 400–407. Clary, E. Gil., and Mark Snyder. 1991. “A Functional Analysis of Altruism and Prosocial Behavior: The Case of Volunteerism.” In Prosocial Behavior, edited by M. Clark. Vol. 12, Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 119–148. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Diamond, W. D., and R. K. Kashyap. 1997. “Extending Models of Prosocial Behavior to Explain University Alumni Contributions.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 27 (10): 915–928. Eisenberg, Nancy. 1991. “Meta-Analytic Contributions to the Literature on Prosocial Behavior.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17 (3): 273–282. Gergen, Kenneth J., Mary M. Gergen, and Kenneth Meter. 1972. “Individual Orientations to Prosocial Behavior.” Journal of Social Issues 28 (3): 105–130. Holmes, John G., Dale T. Miller, and Melvin J. Lerner. 2002. “Committing Altruism under the Cloak of SelfInterest: The Exchange Fiction.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38: 144–151. Johnson, E. Z. 1951. “Attitudes of Children toward Authority as Projected in Their Doll Play at Two Age Levels.” Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University.

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Kanungo, Rabindra N., and Jay A. Conger. 1993. “Promoting Altruism as a Corporate Goal.” Academy of Management Executive 7 (3): 37–48. Penner, Louis A. 2002. “Dispositional and Organizational Influences on Sustained Volunteerism: An Interactionist Perspective.” Journal of Social Issues 58 (3): 447–467. Rosen, S., S. Mickler, and C. Spiers. 1986. “The Spurned Philanthropist.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 13 (1–2): 145–158. Rosenhan, David, and Glenn M. White. 1967. “Observation and Rehearsal as Determinants of Prosocial Behavior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5 (4): 424–431. Smith, David Horton. 1981. “Altruism, Volunteers, and Volunteerism.” Journal of Voluntary Action Research 10 (1): 21–36. Staub, Ervin. 1978. Positive Social Behavior and Morality, Vol. 1, Social and Personal Influences. New York: Academic. ———. 1979. Positive Social Behavior and Morality, Vol. 2, Socialization and Development. New York: Academic. Stevick, R. A., and J. A. Addleman. 1995. “Effects of Short-Term Volunteer Experience on Self-Perceptions and Prosocial Behavior.” Journal of Social Psychology 135 (5): 663–665. Trivers, Robert L. 1971. “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism.” Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (March): 35–57. Veiga, J. F., and K. Dechant. 1993. “Fax Poll: Altruism in Corporate America.” Academy of Management Executive 7 (3): 89–91.

Proposal Writing See Grantseeking

Psychology and Philanthropy See Prosocial Behavior

Public Intellectuals on Philanthropy Public intellectuals have been learned, reflective, and critical thinkers who have reached beyond the traditional audiences within academia, within elite cultural institutions, and within think tanks. They have communicated their political, cultural, and social perspectives and recommendations with the informed general public through their books, articles, and public appearances. Directly or indirectly, a very substantial propor-

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tion of American public intellectuals have addressed matters of charity and philanthropy, particularly as they have pertained to civil society. Indeed, from the New England Puritan clergy of the seventeenth century to John Gardner and Robert Payton in the last half of the twentieth century, public intellectuals have done much to articulate critically the changing nature and scope of American traditions of giving and caring. Probing, tightly argued sermons by New England Puritan clergy such as John Cotton and Salomon Stoddard were heavily attended and seriously pondered in seventeenth-century towns and villages and had a shaping influence on social institutions. Interpretation of God’s will through scripture and dissemination of that interpretation through the sermon made the clergy the most significant public intellectuals of their society. Beginning in Old England in the 1580s but with constant doctrinal revisions in America, these sermons guided the emergence of charitable activity. An obstacle to charitable giving was old-line Calvinism, which held that man was an eternal sinner and could do nothing to ameliorate the world. A small minority were supposedly predestined to come into contact with God and experience regeneracy, but only God knew who these Invisible Saints were and how they might learn of their salvation. Human volition therefore counted for little. By proclaiming that man had some agency, the clergy opened the way for a great deal of charitable conduct. As the sixteenth century merged into the seventeenth, a struggling Puritan clergy tried to broaden its appeal by softening the Calvinistic line. Sainthood became probable, they argued, for those who came into contact with God through a remarkable saving or conversion experience; Invisible Sainthood became visible for those who could convince themselves and others, especially the local clergy, that they had had saving experiences and were therefore predestined as God’s saints. The underlying change that the Puritan clergy were outlining as they subtly framed this conceptual shift from Invisible to Visible Sainthood came through covenant theology. The Covenant of Grace echoed the traditional Calvinist notion of God’s allknowing supremacy and man’s sinfulness and powerlessness before God yet recognized the need of sinful man to struggle persistently to determine God’s in-

Public Intellectuals on Philanthropy

tentions. In contrast, the Covenant of Works held that there was a good chance that an individual was saintly and one of God’s elect if his outward conduct—his performance of good works in the here and now—reflected Christian values. As time transpired in the New England colonies, the clergy increasingly if subtly emphasized works over grace—charitable acts toward one’s family, neighbors, and even strangers in the community. Through a revitalized Covenant of Works, charitableness became a primary outward sign of inner grace. Through good works, the clergy held, it became more likely that one had or would have a converting experience and thus join the Visible Saints. Gradually, as the seventeenth century progressed, the proportion of unregenerates in local New England communities expanded owing to immigration, population growth, economic development, and the inability of many children of Visible Saints to experience conversion. The path of charitable good works to conversion and Sainthood seemed to be narrowing decidedly, and with it the power of the clergy. Responsive to this crisis, local clergy began by the late 1650s to elaborate a partial solution—the Half Way Covenant—that is, local churches would grant “half-way” membership for a Saint’s child when the youngster could not demonstrate a conversion experience. Children of Saints could attend services but could not partake in the Lord’s Supper. A few decades later, Salomon Stoddard, minister of the Northampton congregation, went further, proclaiming that whoever participated regularly in good works and attended church services regularly was exhibiting the qualities of Sainthood. “Stoddardism” spread, and by the end of the seventeenth century, external conduct, especially good works, had essentially replaced the Covenant of Grace. Old-line Calvinism was dead and charitable deeds had become the primary sign of Sainthood. Through a century of modifications, the Puritan clergy had made human agency through acts of care and kindliness the most probative sign of the godly life. As they loosened the Calvinist grip, they made charitable conduct central to the fabric of New England life. As architects of this shift from grace to works, New England clergymen were deeply consequential pubic intellectuals. They read their Bibles meticulously, stud-

ied multiple religious treatises, and extrapolated from these texts logically and deductively what God was communicating to their communities through earthly occurrences. When their influence seemed threatened, they rebounded by enhancing community charitable traditions. For English Quakers who founded the Pennsylvania colony and lived preponderantly in that area, the role of the public intellectual was less conspicuous. Initially, of course, English Quaker public intellectuals such as George Fox and John Woolman did much to flesh out the Quaker doctrinal position (Tolles 1963). They maintained that the Inner Light of God resided within each individual self and connected the individual to all other selves. Through intuitive introspection, one discovered one’s individual and collective Inner Light, and with it happiness. For them, feeling was to replace the reasoned Puritan analysis and close articulation of text. Unlike the Puritan congregation, which was restricted to Saints, the Quaker intellectual founders held that all were welcome to the Meeting House. This Meeting of Friends was to handle all business, lay and spiritual, within the community, especially charitable causes. Because all, regardless of race, class, or gender, possessed the Inner Light, founding theory held that all within the Meeting House were equal. When all intuited the Light of God within them, the meeting would reach accord on policy. In practice, especially in the new Pennsylvania colony, accord came most readily with the dispensation of charity—providing food, clothing, and health care to the needy. Whereas the Puritans tended to administer charity individually, the intellectual founders created a framework where Quakers did so collectively, abundantly, and often systematically. Individual charity was to run along a continuum into organized philanthropy. If English public intellectuals such as Fox and Woolman provided guidelines for Quaker life in Pennsylvania during the colony’s first forty or so years (1680–1720), these founding ideals weakened over the next half century. Increasingly, life came to center on the Counting House—the commercial center where money was made—rather than the Meeting House. The prosperous Quaker merchant—the “grandee”—operated out of his Counting House as he conducted global trade arrangements with a close eye

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on his balance sheet. Increasingly, the wealthy grandee, with his well-ornamented house, fancy dress, and plentiful dining table, represented the life Quakers sought. It became preferable to the austerity and plainness of their founding years, when outer circumstances were considered problematic diversions from the Inner Light of God (Tolles 1963). Many successful Quaker merchants centered their operations in Philadelphia, and it evolved into the most cosmopolitan city in British North America. As Philadelphia grew, it became a center of culture and education. Plentiful booksellers and libraries emerged, and a rich intellectual life came into being. NonQuaker and Quaker, the emerging intellectual class promoted charitable giving to enhance the culture and civility of the community, creating libraries and hospitals and advancing scientific investigation, education, music, and the arts. By the middle decades of the eighteenth century, a good portion of this intellectual class consisted of public intellectuals. They were represented by Quakers such as Anthony Benezet and William Allen, but increasingly by men of other religious proclivities, such as Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush, as well. They established intellectual and scientific centers, including the Junto, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the American Philosophical Society. They also championed the creation of hospitals and public health programs and launched antislavery and prison reform societies. With Franklin, himself formerly a Quaker, in the lead among Philadelphia’s public intellectuals, the older doctrine of charity—traditionally an individual virtue—shaded increasingly into organized collective philanthropy. In the 1760s and 1770s, a younger generation of Pennsylvania Quakers revolted against the worldly ways of their parents, charging that their parents had ceased to live in austerity and dedication to the Inner Light of God. They emphasized original Quaker doctrine, the primacy of the Meeting House, and inner emotion over outward intellectual articulation. Reattaching to the “pristine” doctrines of the seventeenthcentury English founders, this younger generation repudiated political power and economic success. Since even Indians had the Inner Light within them, the new generation refused to support Indian wars in

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western Pennsylvania or even to pay for a militia. To testify in court, English practice required the swearing of an oath, which violated traditional Quaker practice. Thus, Quakers could not participate in legal proceedings. The flight from the outer world was culminated at the time of the American Revolution when Quakers withdrew from public office and from support for the American military effort. As Quakers abdicated from what they called the Outward Plantation for the Inner Light and the doctrines of Fox and Woolman, they did not carry very many late-eighteenth-century public intellectuals with them. Rather, Charles Brockden Brown and other of these Quaker intellectuals of the time continued to make common cause with non-Quakers, such as Franklin, to critique and often defend the public policy of the new nation and to continue to make Philadelphia a center of culture and the arts. If figures such as Brown lacked influence within the new generation of pious Quakers, they exercised it among a wider public, especially in their advocacy of charitable giving and philanthropic organizations. By the early nineteenth century, Quaker public intellectuals such as Brown and Benjamin Lundy would launch a nation-shaking crusade against slavery. Until late in the seventeenth century, the Virginia colony witnessed a scramble for economic profits and, save for a few clergy, intellectual activity was slighted. Over several generations, however, a wealthy and powerful planter class emerged in the Northern Neck section of the Virginia tidewater, which gained hegemony over the House of Burgesses and considerable influence in the Assembly (Greene 1988, 92–99). In the mid- to late eighteenth century, the leading planter-politicians of the area—including such men as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and James Madison—began to exert a profound influence not only in the affairs of the Virginia colony but of the emerging nation. Public service for a richer civil society had become a central quality within tidewater planter-political culture. As governor of Virginia, Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. His neighbor, Madison, wrote the main lines of the new federal Constitution and perhaps the most insightful of the Federalist Papers. Not only was John Marshall a profound tidewater legal thinker; he au-


thored the major decisions of the early Supreme Court. Giving the new nation four of its first six presidents, these and other tidewater planters also exercised a decisive shaping influence on the early federal executive branch. It is not difficult, then, to argue that a good many tidewater planters were exceedingly important public intellectuals. Often trained in the law, they read widely in the ancient classics, in John Locke and Isaac Newton, and in other seminal texts of the emerging Enlightenment. As they rose from practical issues of local governance such as land surveys and taxation in the Virginia Assembly to more theoretical and philosophical concerns in the House of Burgesses, they became even more attuned to the intellectual and ethical concerns of public life. Primarily slaveholders as well as public thinkers, they were imbued with a paternalistic benevolence and a sense of Christian charitable duty to care for women and African American slaves. Perhaps more articulately than other Virginia planter-intellectuals, men such as Jefferson and St. George Tucker espoused public postures that were both libertarian and constrictive. Premising that there was only a finite amount of freedom in the world, they insisted that propertied white males had to be able to exercise their freedom if they were to find God’s laws and therefore happiness. As white male freedoms expanded, they felt that the opportunities for blacks and women had to be constricted. During the Revolutionary War and the formation of the new national government, Virginia planterclass public intellectuals aligned with public intellectuals elsewhere—thinkers imbued with New England Puritan values, such as John Adams and Noah Webster, and those from thriving Philadelphia, such as Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush—who became a central part of that collectivity known to us as the Founding Fathers. Never since has America had so many public intellectuals at the seat of public power. Their interest in matters charitable and philanthropic was conspicuous and central to their conceptualization of civil society. Most Founding Fathers were familiar with Samuel Johnson’s dictionary projects defining philanthropy as “love of mankind; good nature” (Friedman and McGarvie 2003, 7). Noah Webster carried the perspective somewhat further in

his own dictionary work. He defined philanthropy as “benevolence towards the whole human family; universal good will.” For Jefferson, philanthropy represented charitable feeling that, when acted upon, provided well-intended individuals with “the approbation of their neighbors, and the distinction which that gives them” (ibid.). Few Founding Fathers found problems with Adam Smith’s assertion in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that “benevolence” was part of what makes us human by curbing our selfish tendencies: “And hence it is that to feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish [affections], and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes perfection of human nature; and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole grace and propriety.” In the late eighteenth century, as they spoke of benevolent affections and sometimes invoked the term “philanthropy,” most Founding Fathers were drawing on the pervasive colonial tradition of individual charitable giving. But with the American Revolution and the new national government, as their lives became less communal and relied increasingly on the rational dictates of law and national planning, they felt the need for organized philanthropic societies and other institutions to solve deep social problems. As such, they were following the lead of Benjamin Franklin’s and Charles Brockden Brown’s Philadelphia. The charitable impulse shaded increasingly into institution-centered philanthropic endeavors. As the primary public intellectuals of their day, the Founding Fathers had been troubled by the constraints of the British mercantile order, where officials from England had limited their economic development. Comparatively low-cost raw materials were to be exported to the mother country, where they were turned into more costly manufactured goods and sold back to the colonists and others at a profit. Optimally executed, the controlled markets of mercantilism gave Britain a favorable balance of trade and considerable profits at America’s expense. The Founding Fathers wanted to be done with such a controlled marketplace. Save for Alexander Hamilton and a few other “High Federalists,” Founding Fathers refused to replace British mercantile imperatives with a new

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American mercantile order. Increasingly, they saw to it that the capitalist marketplace replaced residual mercantile controls. For most of them, contract-law principles were central to this drift toward privatization and the open marketplace. Especially in the northern states of the new nation, contract law allowed each member of society the legal right to enter into an agreement with another that would be equally binding on both. It promoted enhanced rationalism in social relationships and repudiated the colonial American premises of equity, morality, deference, and communalism. Together, the Founding Fathers insisted that the open marketplace, sustained by contract law, would bring forth a republican society based on equality, freedom, and individual responsibility. Voluntarism became more fashionable. More than governmental actions, voluntary societies became the chosen institutions through which to address social needs. Church-state separation was another legacy of the Founding Fathers that profoundly influenced emerging nineteenth-century voluntary societies. As the historian of religion Sidney Mead brilliantly articulated in The Lively Experiment (1963), disestablishment was no less important than the emergence of open-market capitalism. Deists and rationalists, the Founding Fathers made alliance during the Revolutionary War with those who had embraced pietism and an emotional religion of the heart. The pietists joined with them to help pursue the cause of independence. In turn, they promised the pietists freedom from the coercions of established religions; they did this through provisions for church-state separation in the new state constitutions and in the First Amendment to the federal Constitution. Without assistance from government coercions or substantial funds from public treasuries, religious denominations and benevolent associations had to rely upon private persuasion to garner supporters. The French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville, writing about his travels to American in the 1830s, described brilliantly in Democracy in America how private, voluntary associations were the crucial social and reform institutions in a decidedly open-market, capitalist American political economy. They provided comradeship amidst the rigorous competition of the marketplace and primary agencies for reformers to

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rally against slavery, intoxication, prostitution, and other social ills. This was one of the most fundamental legacies of the Founding Fathers, who, as powerful public intellectuals, had contributed to the main lines of philanthropic reform in the new nation. Historian Richard Hofstadter (Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, 1963) and political scientist Louis Hartz (The Liberal Tradition, 1955) were the first scholars to discern a major watershed in the lives of American public intellectuals during the antebellum period. Both underscored a fundamental political transformation that was central to Jacksonian politics. Whereas the electoral constituencies of the Founding Fathers had been relatively small and homogeneous and had somewhat similar economic interests, during the Jacksonian period electoral constituencies (swelled by near universal white male suffrage) housed competing interests. Voters in an electoral district began to split, for example, over the propriety of inflationary or deflationary currency, over governmental versus private assistance in the building of internal transportation networks, and just what to do over the nagging questions of slavery. To appeal to the conflicting interest groups in their electoral constituencies, politicians eschewed the theoretically nuanced and relatively precise pronouncements of a Jefferson or a Madison and tried to straddle issues through clichés and slogans. In his veto of the recharter of the Bank of the United States, for example, Andrew Jackson spoke of a “Monster Bank” that was a blight on the nation. Running for president in 1840, William Henry Harrison skirted most significant public issues and boasted of being born in a log cabin and drinking hard cider. Anti-intellectualism took deep hold in American life even as antebellum political life became less elitist. Hofstadter and Hartz pointed out that this was not the sort of climate where public intellectuals flourished in national politics. John Quincy Adams lost reelection in 1828 to Jackson, and despite his brilliance, Abraham Lincoln found considerable advantage in using humanistic vagaries to address complicated issues. Clear, logical, precise social critiques therefore shifted decidedly by the middle decades of the nineteenth century to figures outside of the political mainstream. Because this mainstream was narrowing as


sectional tensions heightened and Civil War ensued, there was hardly a diminution of public intellectuals—simply a shift in their place in society. William Lloyd Garrison and his close Boston-centered abolitionist followers were so distraught by black bondage that they pressed for an end to all forms of human exploitation. They believed that each individual, regardless of race, gender, or other externalities, should be free to pursue God’s dictates without compromising before earthly power arrangements. For Garrison, a philanthropic organization, the American Anti-Slavery Society, was to help engineer the miracle of making this “Government of God” a reality. Emerging from the 1848 women’s suffrage convention at Seneca Falls, reflective intellectuals such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony called for consistency with the egalitarian principles of the Declaration of Independence—full rights for women, highlighted by the vote. They promoted voluntarist suffrage organizations on the national, state, and local levels to promote this goal. Finally, sensing that the potential for a godly society was crumbling owing to sinful, self-centered power machinations, public intellectuals such as Lewis Tappan and Gerrit Smith generated groups to distribute Bibles, religious tracts, and other moral imperatives to preserve godly institutions and values. No few of the activist intellectuals in antislavery, temperance, Bible distribution, and peace societies corresponded regularly through the Evangelical United Front—an interlocking directorate of benevolent reform agencies most active in New England and the Midwest (perhaps America’s first “Independent Sector”). As the Civil War approached, public intellectual participants in the Front appeared to be discernible in two separate camps. George Fredrickson’s classic, The Inner Civil War (1965), remains the clearest portrayal of this divergence. Garrison and Stanton were joined by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, Walt Whitman, Wendell Phillips, and others who cried for free, untrammeled individuality against the constraints of traditional society. These “Prophets of Perfection” were not displeased by splits in the churches, in the political parties, and in other traditional agencies of social control as the debate over slavery and states’ rights eroded the cohesion of traditional institutions.

As traditional earthly institutions weakened, they argued, the institutions in God’s kingdom (the essence of philanthropy) would hold full sway and free, unfettered individuality would reign. Countering them were conservative public intellectuals such as Francis Lieber, Orestes Bronson, Francis Parkman, and Horace Bushnell, who sought an organic, hierarchically structured, class-based, and disciplined society in which all members were bounded by mutual duties and obligations. Tradition and social cohesion (rooted in the churches), promoted by cultivated ruling elites, were prized over untrammeled individuality. However, these intellectual conservatives feared that the traditional institutions of social control, such as the churches, were breaking down. As the Civil War erupted, they hoped that a militarily organized North might restore institutional cohesion and social control to the entire nation. In 1862, a nonprofit agency closely tied to the Union war effort—the Commission of Inquiry and Advice in Respect of the Sanitary Interests of the United States Forces (the Sanitary Commission)— came into being. It consisted of prominent anti-institutional “Perfectionists” and pro-institutional conservative public intellectuals. It is striking that under wartime exigencies these two camps were able to agree on a statement of purpose. The commission was to advise the federal government on how to save the lives of injured or sick troops on the battlefield. The Union medical, transportation, food supply, and weapons manufacture efforts were to be reorganized “scientifically” for troops to be better cared for and supplied so that they might be effective combatants. Conservatives saw the Sanitary Commission effort as a way to restore institutional discipline to society through reform (tradition had to give way to change so as to restore tradition). Perfectionists, too, were willing to brook with new institutional efficiencies and social controls so as to repulse the Confederate military effort and usher in a new era of free individuality under the government of God. In other words, Sanitary Commission responsibilities were making conservatives more reformist and Perfectionists more willing to work within traditional institutions. This bridging of the substantial antebellum divide among Sanitary Commission public intellectuals

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Portrait of the Executive Committee, U.S. Sanitary Commission. (Medford Historical Society Collection/Corbis)

continued as the war proceeded. Conservatives, for example, heralded Lincoln’s January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation as a wartime expedient forcing the Confederacy to divert troops from the front line to monitor the slaves who might now try to escape. Perfectionists felt that the Proclamation was a sign of an emerging kingdom of God but agreed with the conservatives that it made the Union war effort more efficient. The accord persisted toward the end of the war as Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and other traditional constitutional liberties in the interests of greater military efficiency and discipline. The Sanitary Commission—the first nonprofit organization to be run by public intellectuals—was blurring the sharp antebellum differences of its members. Immediate

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discipline and efficiency were becoming primary, and goals such as untrammeled individual freedom (Perfectionists) and traditional hierarchic social order (conservatives) were becoming less relevant. Organizational efficiency through transformational reform was the perspective of late-nineteenth-century shapers of large national corporations such as Standard Oil and U.S. Steel. Through vertical and horizontal integrations, they established vast conglomerates that reduced productive costs, enhanced profits, and sometimes moved toward quasi-monopolistic positions. With their earnings, the entrepreneurs behind these enterprises, such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, established America’s first large nonprofit foundations, which, among other goals,


funded public intellectuals. But one of these captains of industry, Carnegie, was himself a public intellectual and a crucially important theorist of what philanthropy should be. The Gospel of Wealth (1889) succinctly stated his position on philanthropy, which he proceeded to implement. Capable, energetic, prudent men were efficient producers and made substantial profits, Carnegie postulated, but the incapable and lazy lost whatever capital they periodically garnered (a quasi–social Darwinist perspective). It was the duty of the efficient man of wealth to provide “moderately” for his dependents but to use the preponderance of his assets to provide benefits for humankind during the course of his life: “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced” (Burlingame 1992, 12). In administering his “surplus” wealth, Carnegie said, the emerging philanthropist should not simply give funds to the needy, for that would make permanent beggars. Instead, he should give library buildings, meeting halls, hospitals, parks, swimming pools, and similar secular institutions to the community. The community had to promise to maintain and augment these institutions to benefit the entire local citizenry, especially its most needy members. An unfortunate youngster could, for example, become learned through a community library, find pleasure at a park or swimming pool, and find his way to wealth so that he, in turn, could dispense his surplus capital to the community. That, not government taxes or public expenditures, was the way to address social problems efficiently with no check on the accumulation and dispensation of surplus capital. Carnegie’s conditional and prioritized gifts established a national network of Carnegie libraries and a plethora of other institutions. Perhaps more important, The Gospel of Wealth established principles of philanthropic gift making for no few of America’s wealthy in the century that followed. Moreover, central philanthropies such as Goodwill Industries have raised and dispensed their wealth consistent with the Carnegie principles. Jane Addams was a public intellectual who offered the twentieth century a very different approach from Carnegie’s. In Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), she explained the emerging settlement-house tradition by drawing heavily on her own Chicago experiment. She combined the Social Gospel tradition of compassion

for the unfortunate with a passion for pragmatic local community action. Unlike Carnegie, Addams respected the individual regardless of his or her social and economic status or how much wealth he/she accumulated. Progress resulted not from efficient producers of wealth who became donors but through planned, cooperative responses to social problems. Social Christianity, carried out through the cooperative efforts of government, churches, private organizations, and caring individuals, was the way to remedy the increasing social ills of the industrial age. Two thousand people a week, largely immigrants and the poor and unemployed, poured into HullHouse to receive everything from hot lunches to child-care services and information on job prospects. Privileged upper-class women donated their labor to the settlement house, and trained social workers were hired. Indeed, together with professional intellectual women such as Mary Richmond, Addams helped to shape the social work profession. Although Addams emphasized actions over social philosophy, she underscored values and orientations based on the dignity of the individual in a caring community. That community would be facilitated by mixes of capitalism and socialism, women’s suffrage and black suffrage, pragmatic urban social reform, and the centrality of the welfare of children and their parents. Participatory democracy was very important, but so were social work professionals. In a large part, Addams fleshed out and concretized the Progressive reformist response to Carnegie and other captains of industry. When he launched the Niagara Movement and then the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), W. E. B. Du Bois enlisted Addams’s support. Like Addams, he prioritized individual dignity in caring communities. In fact, he thought well of the settlement-house movement. In The Souls of Black Folk (1903 [1996]), Du Bois explained how it was imperative to crusade for enhanced black dignity and pride in an era of racial disfranchisement, deepening segregation, and lynching. “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” Du Bois wrote. Black philanthropic institutions, especially churches and mutual aid societies, were imperative to revive black pride and dignity in the face of deepening discrimination.

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These institutions could be run optimally through a “talented tenth” of educated professionals who would fortify black literary, artistic, and philosophic traditions and thereby cultivate a sense of racial pride. Through self-help and racial solidarity, blacks would be energized to protest long and hard against the color line and in behalf of full rights of citizenship. With government—local, state, and federal— promulgating many of the discriminatory measures, Du Bois emphasized that organized black philanthropy must become a primary path to redress grievances. Inclined toward socialism through much of his life, Du Bois hoped that eventually government could become a champion of poor and oppressed minorities. Three friends and pubic intellectuals of the Progressive period who were especially close to Theodore Roosevelt—Herbert Croly, Walter Weyl, and Walter Lippman—argued that government actions were wholly consonant with the philanthropic spirit. In The Promise of American Life (1909), Croly maintained that the Jeffersonian vision of the happy, self-sufficient citizen could only be attained by Hamiltonian means—impartial government regulation of business and labor. Croly favored consolidation of both corporate power and labor unions, both compelled to act cooperatively for the public well-being by a powerful, heavily regulatory federal government run by knowledgeable elites. In this vision, government became the key to the good society, assuring that all Americans could live the Jeffersonian ideal of abundant and creative lives. Weyl’s The New Democracy (1912) went further in championing the concept of government as the major philanthropic player. America had a great “social surplus” of material resources, which, if allocated by government to the needy, could wipe out poverty and thus promote a heightened, more efficient individualism. Wise allocation of the social surplus did not require elite hegemony, Weyl argued. There would be overwhelming democratic support for massive expansion of government welfare expenditures and gradual expansion of public ownership over industry. In A Preface to Politics (1912), young Walter Lippman was closer to Croly than to Weyl. Statesmen with “creative will and insight,” he said, were needed to prod society

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toward its “dynamic purpose” through wise interventions and regulation of the corporate structure. Abbreviated versions of the thoughts of Croly, Weyl, and Lippman appeared in their journal, The New Republic, which had a readership that appealed to more than scholars and intellectuals. Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt, seeking a comeback in the election of 1912, read their essays and befriended them. They provided Roosevelt with the basis for his “New Nationalism” campaign program—a view of philanthropy compatible neither with Carnegie nor Addams. Roosevelt would represent Lippman’s bold leader with creative insight; he would shape business and labor together under a dynamic federal government, which would make society realize its Jeffersonian potential under an emerging urban industrial order. In one of the few twentieth-century presidential elections contested over clearly articulated and intellectually grounded philosophies, Woodrow Wilson opposed Roosevelt with his “New Freedom.” Government would only intervene in the economy to break up large corporate and labor consolidations, Wilson insisted, thus restoring the competitive marketplace society of the Jeffersonian era, under which philanthropy was preponderantly in private hands. After narrowly defeating Roosevelt and Republican incumbent William Howard Taft, however, the Wilson administration accepted much of the New Nationalism agenda—government regulation of banking and interstate commerce, federal subsidies for vocational education and highway improvement, a graduated income tax, and other measures for the public wheel. At least partially, the three New Republic editors not only promoted the notion of national, government-centered philanthropy but can be credited with having a decisive impact upon public policy. They had contributed to the ideological basis of what eventually became the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and the Great Society. Running for president in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered an extraordinary speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco defining the ideological contours of what he hoped would be the New Deal. It marked him out as a rather substantial public intellectual. Rejecting Herbert Hoover’s reliance on international monetary agreements and


nongovernmental associations (national and international) cooperatively working to mend the global depression, FDR saw the problem as one of better American resource management. Free western lands had always been available for new economic resources, FDR argued, but since the end of the nineteenth century, that had ceased to be an option. The western frontier was no longer. If the current depression and future depressions were to be avoided, closer central coordination of the deployment and expansion of existing resources was mandatory. Diverse national planning boards headed by skilled experts would coordinate private-sector enterprises so that they satisfied guidelines for productivity and efficiency in ways that were consistent with the national interest. Private philanthropy could certainly help, and experts could be drawn from both foundations and private businesses, but FDR’s vision of social planning and efficiency saw the federal government as the primary promoter of the social good. Like the New Republic editors and Theodore Roosevelt, FDR saw government as the center of matters philanthropic. In The Good Society (1937), Walter Lippmann backed away from that framework, fearing that centralized government planning was leading to the destruction of individual liberty. But by that point in the New Deal agenda, FDR and his “brain trust” was itself moving away from the notion of a planned society to the concept of a broker state. Society was like a pie consisting of slices of diverse interest groups—unions, corporations, foundations, advocacy groups such as the NAACP and the National Association of Manufacturers, and so forth. Rather than try to hold back the intensely competitive essence of the interest groups through national planning guidelines, the federal government continuously brokered deals with shifting coalitions of interest groups to promote national economic recovery and other social ends. This perspective—“pluralism,” as it came to be called by post–World War II public intellectuals—represented the vague beginnings of a three-sector view of society (government, private, and nonprofit sectors). John Gardner, director of the Carnegie Corporation until 1964, when he became President Lyndon Johnson’s secretary of health, education, and welfare and went on to found Common Cause and the INDE-

SECTOR, was perhaps the most influential of these postwar intellectuals. When Gardner spoke, elites at all levels tended to listen. He propounded “heavy traffic” between government agencies, private enterprise, and nonprofit foundations and felt that American universities were good venues to formulate proposals that integrated the three sectors. An elitist in the tradition of Walter Lippman, he felt that welleducated, humane, progressive leaders could help American society achieve its “dynamic purpose” by communicating ideas and information to “concerned citizens.” For Gardner, this was “liberal pluralism”— the dynamic behind American democracy. A moderate Republican, he warned the business and nonprofit communities that if they did not address basic social problems with ideas and money, government would have to take up the slack. A champion of Cold War resistance to the Soviet Union, Gardner despised McCarthyism and favored the emerging civil rights movement. Yet his publications and speeches represented an abstract defense of American founding ideals and values. They housed no explicit championship of concrete measures to assure racial equality and offered no open (or even private) opposition to the Red Scare. Like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Gardner championed a moderate “vital center”—a society based on accord in the values of liberal capitalism. Even when he founded the volunteer organization Common Cause to enhance the democratic process, Gardner spoke at a level of generality that revealed his insulation from the day-to-day problems of the poor, women, and racial minorities. When the sociologist and public intellectual C. Wright Mills spoke of a “power elite” of wealthy white males (preponderantly Protestants) who met on close social terms and dominated the national political economy, he almost certainly had men like Gardner in mind (Plaut 2003). The civil rights movement consisted of a vast number of nonprofit organizations, such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the Congress of Racial Equality, working cooperatively, for the most part, toward a common goal. From the mid-1950s until at least the mid-1960s, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was not only the central leader of the

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movement but also its most well-known public intellectual. King had been influenced heavily by Walter Rauschenbusch and other proponents of the Social Gospel, who insisted that God and religious experience be moved from the church into the streets, where poverty and injustice obtained. Christianity was obligated to directly overcome social hardship. As a graduate student at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, King sought a philosophy to move the Social Gospel into direct confrontation with American racial inequalities. He found one element of this philosophy in Mahatma Gandhi, who had liberated 350 million Indians from British rule in 1947. Love, compassion, and nonviolence could overcome hatred and evil, King perceived, and lead to far-reaching social transformation. Gandhi’s teachings seemed quite compatible with a formidable point of reference for King, the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, especially as those teachings had been articulated in African American churches. Indeed, black churches were to provide fundamental support for the SCLC and other voluntary civil rights organizations. At Crozer Seminary, King also developed two supplements to the Social Gospel and Gandhi’s principle of nonviolence for his intellectual and tactical arsenal. From the study of Hegel, he premised that progress would only take place through painful struggle of one condition against its opposite and that the individual could play a formidable role in this struggle. Although King did not agree with Karl Marx’s rejection of God as a moving force in human affairs, he drew from Marx the necessity for the underprivileged to break the hold of established wealth and power. With a formidable set of ideas, King began his public crusade against American racial inequalities in the wake of the monumental U.S. Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), which declared racially separate education inherently unequal. He moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Albany, Georgia, and other southern bastions of inequality to launch movements demonstrating that “nonviolent resistance does resist.” He inspired civil rights workers to recognize that they were not to “defeat or humiliate the opposition, but to win his friendship and understanding.” Since all

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humans, even economic elites, were members of the same human family, the government was to be the prod for sense and morality “to cut off the chain of hate” (King 1992). When the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens Council, local hate groups, and local and state governmental authorities turned their arms, dogs, and fists against King’s nonviolent volunteers, the conscience of the nation resonated deeply. More than the Eisenhower presidency, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations intervened to quell the violence and promote elements in King’s cause. King’s philosophy and tactics became tonic to a racially troubled nation. To be sure, the tonic was only partially absorbed. Massive resistance persisted. By the late 1960s, that resistance was evolving into a potent white backlash that politicians such as Richard M. Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew harnessed. Moreover, perhaps the most profound black Muslim public intellectual, Malcolm X, offered a telling black separatist critique of King’s philosophy and methods. Passive resistance simply made blacks defenseless, Malcolm X argued, in the face of white hatreds. He called for black race pride, nationalism, and the end of integration; blacks should not aspire to be part of a morally and aesthetically inferior white civilization. For Malcolm X, voluntary organizations would give structure to a superior black civilization, and he had little faith in governmental assistance. Whereas King felt that government dollars and protection could be a valuable part of civil rights philanthropy, Malcolm X wholly disagreed. During the last decades of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first, public intellectuals have had a less conspicuous presence in American life. Increasing confinement to the universitybased world of intense scholarly specialization has contributed to the problem. In matters philanthropic, however, they have hardly been silenced. Sparked by the end of the Cold War and a shift in global attention to experiments with civil society in areas where dictatorial regimes had predominated, much of their concern has been with the imperatives of citizenship within societies in mixed but primarily marketplace economies. Founder of the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy Robert Payton has toured much of the world observing experiments in “voluntary action


for the public good.” Ruling out governments (driven by bureaucratic inefficiencies) as the locus for compassionate citizenship for the general well-being, Payton has seen the private sector as too profit-oriented and self-interested to drive the citizenship van, instead noting the creative spark within nonprofit organizations. This, along with compassionate, civicminded philanthropists, must become the backbone of civil society, Payton has postulated. In recent years, Payton has tried to stimulate dialogue on social and cultural concerns in behalf of civil society between generations, especially between retired people and college students. Relatively independent of day-to-day marketplace and government pressures, the old can convey to the young much of their “wisdom” on the nature of the good society that they have learned during their work lives. In turn, the young can convey energy and passion to the old as they express their hope that a creative, noncoercive civil society can yet be achieved. This sort of interchange was central to the work of Erik Erikson, architect of the notion of the adolescent “identity crisis” within an eight-stage human life cycle. A giving and sharing dialogue between the old and the young substantially helps the young come into maturity with a fervor for life. It also gives the old joy and a sense of contributing to the social good as well as a measure of pride as they enter their final years. A public intellectual with enormous influence during the last half of the twentieth century in psychoanalysis and interdisciplinary discourse, Erikson described philanthropy in a 1962 Harvard Medical School address as no less than “the Golden Rule in the Light of New Insight” (Erikson 1964). He elaborated his perspective until his dying day, especially in his Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Gandhi (dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr.) and in an essay on Jesus’ Galilean ministry. For Erikson, the Golden Rule was “a hidden theme” in many of civilization’s most memorable sayings. It premised a species-wide identity—that all humans were of the same essential qualities—and Erikson suggested that humans garnered the greatest fulfillment through intergenerational giving and receiving. He rephrased the Golden Rule along the lines of this intergenerational rapport: “It is best to do to

another what will strengthen you even as it will strengthen him, that is, that will develop his best potentialities even as it develops your own.” Drawing on William James, Erikson insisted that each partner in this intergenerational exchange of giving and receiving became “most intensely active and alive.” Seeing the Golden Rule as “inclusivity” beyond traditional tribal, class, ethnic, and national identities, Erikson characterized it as the most essential dimension of philanthropy, for it promoted a “truly universal ethics.” When the Golden Rule had full play, the world’s adults would feel “universal responsibility” to care for “every child conceived” and global hostilities would recede. Lawrence J. Friedman References and further reading Addams, Jane. 1910 [1990]. Twenty Years at Hull-House. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Burlingame, Dwight. 1992. The Responsibilities of Wealth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Coles, Robert. 1993. The Call to Service: A Witness to Idealism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Croly. Herbert David. 1909. The Promise of American Life. New York: Macmillan. Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. 1903 [1996]. Souls of Black Folk. Grand Rapids, MI: Candace. Erikson, Erik H. 1964. Insight and Responsibility. New York: W. W. Norton. Fredrickson, George M. 1965. The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union. New York: Harper. Friedman, Lawrence J., and Mark McGarvie. 2003. Charity, Philanthropy, and Civility in American History. New York: Cambridge University Press. Greene, Jack P. 1988. Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Hartz, Louis. 1955. The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Hofstadter, Richard. 1963. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. New York: Knopf-Vintage. Jacoby, Russell. 1987. The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe. New York: Basic Books. King, Richard. 1992. Civil Rights and the Idea of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Lippmann, Walter. 1937. An Inquiry into the Good Society. Boston: Little, Brown. Mead, Sidney E. 1963. The Lively Experiment: The Shaping of Christianity in America. New York: Harper and Row.

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Plaut, Julie. 2003. “John Gardner.” Ph.D. dissertation in progress, Indiana University. Said, Edward. 1994. Representations of the Intellectual. New York: Pantheon/Random House. Smith, Adam. 1759 [1984]. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Tolles, Frederick B. 1963. Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682–1763. New York: W. W. Norton. Weyl, Walter Edward. 1920. The New Democracy. New York: Macmillan. Wright, Conrad E. 1992. The Transformation of Charity in Pre-Industrial New England. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Public Philanthropy Public philanthropy involves two primary patterns of giving and volunteering: those directed by government to the nonprofit sector, and those directed to government by citizens and private entities. The first pattern relates to government support of nonprofits through grants and government initiatives designed to stimulate private philanthropy and voluntarism. The second relates to donations of financial resources or voluntary service to the public sector by individuals or private entities. Although the extensive literature addressing the origins and history of U.S. philanthropy and the relationship between government and the nonprofit sector addresses both of these categories of philanthropic activity, the term “public philanthropy” is not widely employed in either academic literature or philanthropic practice. When it is employed, the term is associated with various and sometimes competing conceptualizations. For example, it sometimes connotes philanthropy by individuals. A local philanthropist might be described by her “acts of public philanthropy, which included extensive service to boards and the establishment of a family foundation,” or the term might be used to refer to philanthropic activities aimed at influencing public policy. Thus, conceptual gaps exist in the definition and understanding of public philanthropy. Empirical gaps exist as well. The literature that does exist on public philanthropy is largely descriptive in nature and analytically insufficient. More reliable estimates related to

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government grantmaking, participation in government-led voluntary programs, and the magnitude of volunteering in government by private citizens are needed. There is little research available on the extent or efficacy of public philanthropy. Questions remain as to whether government grants to nonprofits displace private philanthropy, whether fundraising by government for public-sector initiatives creates competition with nonprofits for resources, and whether voluntary contributions to governments “crowd out” such contributions to the nonprofit sector. Finally, discussions of public philanthropy have raised concerns about the “blurred” boundaries between the public and nonprofit sectors.

Government and the Nonprofit Sector: An Evolving Relationship A close and entwined relationship between governmental and charitable entities spans the history of the United States and helped to shape the development of public philanthropy (Hall 1994; Boris and Steuerle 1999). From early community-led initiatives to provide for basic education and disease control, to societies organized for collective action, early institutions of higher education, and hospitals, notions of philanthropy, the public good, and the sometimes interchangeable roles of private and governmental partners as grantors and grantees have evolved. It was with the establishment of the federal government that distinctions between public- and private-sector initiatives to provide for the public good and institutional distinctions began to emerge (Hall 1994). Today, efforts continue to characterize the relationship between government and philanthropic actors and activities. The role of government in philanthropy takes several distinct forms. Government entities, for example, may be contractors, seeking to engage the services of nonprofit organizations with the expertise to deliver, say, substance abuse counseling or health education. Or they may be collaborators, working to jointly maintain national parks or preserve wetlands. The government is often a funder and animator, seeking to support nonprofit organizations and stimulate philanthropy and voluntary action (Smith 1999). In recent decades, public philanthropy, characterized as a partnering relationship between government and the

Public Philanthropy

nonprofit sector, has intensified in both scale and scope. It is the alternative roles of government in public philanthropy, as grantor and grantee, that are explored below.

Philanthropy Directed by Government Funding Although alternatively characterized as competing with, displacing, or collaborating with nonprofit organizations in its activities, government makes financial investments, particularly at the federal level, to both support and stimulate the nonprofit sector (Salamon 1995). The provision of mechanisms that exempt individual and corporate contributions to nonprofit organizations from taxation accounts for a significant source of subsidy to nonprofit organizations. Over the past fifteen years, the combined revenues of the nonprofit sector more than doubled, from $2.7 trillion in 1982 to $6.9 trillion in 1997 (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 2002). Throughout this period, government funding served as a major source of nonprofit revenue. In 1997, grants, contracts, and reimbursements from local, state, and federal agencies constituted 31.3 percent of nonprofit revenues (ibid.). Although virtually all fields of nonprofit activity enjoy some measure of government funding, such funding is most pronounced in the fields of social services, health care, and education and research. The current scenario has been described as “an elaborate pattern of ‘nonprofit federalism’” (Salamon 1995, 68) that serves to link government and nonprofit organizations broadly. An important distinction must be drawn, however, between public funding that is of a “thirdparty” nature, in which government support is characterized primarily by contracts for services with nonprofits (often undertaken by state and local governments as a result of federal grants) or by reimbursements to nonprofits and individuals and programs of a grantmaking nature. Grants differ in nature from direct and indirect government action, such as activities associated with contracts for services, reimbursements, and regulations related to the nonprofit sector. It is governmental programs of a grantmaking nature that fall under the umbrella of the term “public philanthropy.”

Government grants involve a direct payment by a donor government agency to a recipient nonprofit organization. Thus, government takes on the role of grantor, and the nonprofit becomes the grantee. Grants do not generally involve the provision of a direct service or product to government (Beam and Conlan 2002, 341–343). They typically take one of two forms: They may be formula grants, which are allocations of federal funds to states or localities based on distribution methods prescribed administratively or by law, or they may be project grants, which are associated with the delivery of specific services or products and take place in the form of scholarships, fellowships to individuals, and various grants for research, training, planning, construction, and survey (ibid., 344). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education are the two largest government grantmakers, both by number of grants and expenditures, and Medicaid is the largest single program (ibid.). Trends at the state and local levels generally mirror federal trends, with grants being largely directed at programs related to education, welfare, and highways, though the situation is complicated by additional state and local tax revenues. Thus, in public philanthropy directed by government, government may be financier, partner, and stimulator. Public philanthropy is associated with programs as varied as project grants to nonprofit arts organizations by the National Endowment for the Arts, research grants to individual scientists or universities by the National Science Foundation, planning and operating grants to local nonprofit radio stations from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, block grants to states from the U.S. Department of Justice, and the stimulation and creation of programs such as Head Start and metropolitan councils of government. Public Engagement and Voluntarism Public philanthropy also involves activities undertaken by government to foster voluntary participation in the nonprofit sector and to engage the public in civil society activities. It is thought that such aspects of public philanthropy are associated with the creation of social and human capital (Hornbeck and Salamon 1991). Efforts by government to stimulate voluntarism and

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participation in civic life, particularly as it relates to other national social priorities, have been evidenced throughout American history. A hallmark of such public philanthropic initiatives was the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In this program, numerous citizens were recruited to carry out the public good through service roles such as cleaning up public parks. President John F. Kennedy’s initiation of the Peace Corps and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s founding of Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) during the War on Poverty are also examples of public philanthropy in which government partners with nonprofits to engage citizens in service and voluntary action in response to national priorities. Similarly, now housed under the auspices of Corporation for National and Community Service, VISTA and AmeriCorps enjoy elevated status as part of a national strategy aimed at stimulating voluntary service through grant programs, public education campaigns, and subsidies to individuals to serve in nonprofit settings. The more recently formed Freedom Corps plays a convening role to stimulate national service in relationship to the alleviation of national security concerns.

Philanthropy Directed to Government Despite the fact that the lion’s share of charitable contributions and voluntary service is directed by individuals and private entities toward nonprofit organizations, substantial contributions are also directed at government. Although empirical evidence related to the nature and scope of volunteering for public agencies is limited, research indicates that more than 20 million Americans volunteer for government, much of it at the county and metropolitan levels (Brudney and Kellough 2000). Thirty-six percent of state agencies participating in a systematic national study utilized volunteers in their work, particularly in areas of service delivery (ibid.). In many communities across the United States, for example, public school districts, public libraries, fire departments, and even police departments enjoy the service of volunteers. Various local, county, and state agencies have set up fundraising mechanisms to support special program initiatives or to supplement tax

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revenues. Similarly, at the federal level, mechanisms to raise and receive charitable contributions are evidenced in such notable examples as the Library of Congress Trust Fund and the Centers for Disease Control Foundation. Angela L. Bies See also Civil Society; Economic Theories of Nonprofits; Government–Nonprofit Sector Relationship; Grantmaking; Social Capital; Voluntarism. References and further reading Beam, David R., and Timothy Conlan. 2002. “Grants.” In The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 340–380. New York: Oxford University Press. Boris, Elizabeth T., and C. Eugene Steuerle, eds. 1999. Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Brudney, Jeffrey L., and J. Edward Kellough. 2000. “Volunteers in State Government: Involvement, Management, and Benefits.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29 (1): 111–130. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 1994. “Historical Perspectives on Nonprofit Organizations.” In The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, edited by Robert D. Herman, 3–43. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ———. Forthcoming. Documentary History of Philanthropy and Voluntarism. Unpublished manuscript. Hornbeck, David W., and Lester M. Salamon, eds. 1991. Human Capital and America’s Future: An Economic Strategy for the ’90s. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. INDEPENDENT SECTOR. 2002. New Nonprofit Almanac and Desk Reference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Salamon, Lester M. 1995. Partners in Public Service: Government-Nonprofit Relations in the Modern Welfare State. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Smith, Stephen Rathgreb. 1999. “Government Financing of Nonprofit Activity.” In Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, edited by Elizabeth T. Boris and C. Eugene Steuerle. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

Public Relations and Philanthropy for Nonprofits Nonprofits are dependent for their success on effective public relations, or managing relationships with key stakeholder groups—including donors, who provide philanthropic dollars that help charitable non-

Public Relations and Philanthropy for Nonprofits

profits carry out their mission. New knowledge, based on theory and research, holds that fundraising is best understood as relationship management and thus is a specialization of public relations. Yet donors constitute only one of many groups who have a stake in a specific nonprofit and with whom relationships must be managed if the organization is to succeed and survive.

Historical Similarities The evolution of nonprofits, public relations, and fundraising in the United States is intertwined. For example, in 1643, Harvard College produced the first public relations brochure, “America’s First Fruits,” to help three of its ministers raise funds in England for the fledgling institution. In the early 1900s, nonprofits commonly employed publicists to create awareness and pave the way for fundraising drives, which largely were carried out by nonspecialists whose primary responsibilities lay outside of fundraising—for example, chief executive officers (CEOs) and trustees. The first publicity firm, the Publicity Bureau, was founded in Boston in 1900, and Harvard University was its first client. The first fundraising firms were established immediately following World War I, when the number of nonprofits surged. Some firms, such as Ketchum, began as both a public relations and fundraising agency, although almost all later divided into two entities or dropped one of the functions. A substantial number of the early fundraising consultants came out of journalism and public relations—for example, John Price Jones. The career path continued in later eras when many public relations employees were asked to start in-house fundraising departments. A noteworthy difference in evolution is that public relations became an internal, staff function of nonprofits decades before fundraising. Fundraisers were not added to the staffs of charitable organizations until after World War II, while public relations practitioners were hired much earlier. Illustrating the time lag, the predecessor of the American College Public Relations Association (ACPRA) was founded in 1917, but it was not until 1949 that the first university staff fundraisers joined the association. ACPRA and the American Alumni Council merged in 1974 to form the Council for Advancement and Support of

Education (CASE), which today represents public relations, alumni relations, and fundraising practitioners for colleges and universities. The first national association for fundraising staff of all types of charitable organizations, now named the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), was founded only in 1960. Although public relations predated fundraising as an internal organizational function, public relations is subsumed by fundraising in most charitable nonprofits today. In other words, relationships with donors have been given superior importance over relationships with equally and sometimes even more important stakeholder groups.

Conceptual Similarities The term public in public relations refers to relations that take place in the public arena, as opposed to private relations; it does not refer to managing an organization’s relations with a generic, mass public. Rather, public relations traditionally has been concerned with eight stakeholder groups: media, employees, consumers, community residents, government, investors, donors, and members. Resulting specializations include media relations, employee relations, community relations, government relations, and donor relations. Definitions of the function are diverse; however, scholars generally agree with the following: “Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends” (Cutlip, Center, and Broom 2000, 6). Like most commonly accepted definitions, the one offered by Cutlip, Center, and Broom is grounded in systems theory and the necessity of two-way communication. The former prescribes that organizations do not exist in isolation; rather, they are interdependent with groups and other organizations in their specific and general environments. Stakeholders, or strategic publics, are affected by or can affect an organization’s behavior. Donors—like investors of publically owned corporations—are “enabling publics,” meaning they enable the organization to exist. Two-way communication is necessary because an organization must listen to, as well as talk to, those on whom it is dependent for success and survival in order to adjust to its environment. But as businesses have learned, concentration on

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one public at the exclusion of others can lead to dysfunction and even disaster (witness, for example, Enron’s death because of its undue concentration on stockholders). Donors are but one public with whom a charitable organization must be concerned. Consumers of the organization’s services may seek alternative services, community residents may oppose an organization’s plans, government agencies may impose restrictions that curtail the organization’s economic viability, and media may criticize an organization’s operations. In such situations, donors are not of primary importance. A charitable organization must have a strong public relations program in place to scan the environment and counsel trustees, CEOs, and other senior managers on advisable action. When public relations is subsumed by fundraising, organizations suffer from environmental blinders, meaning that strategic publics other than donors are ignored. A definition of fundraising gaining increasing acceptance is as follows: “Fund raising is the management of relationships between a charitable organization and its donor publics” (Kelly 1998, 8). Fundraising concentrates on the juncture where the interests of donors and the organization meet. Rather than generating revenue as the line function of marketing does, fundraising is a staff function that counsels senior management on how to most effectively manage environmental relationships with donors. The purpose of fundraising, then, is not just to raise money, but to help charitable organizations manage their interdependencies with donor publics who share mutual goals and objectives.

Applied Similarities Both public relations and fundraising have evolved through four stages, which represent four models of practice: Press Agentry, Public Information, TwoWay Asymmetrical, and Two-Way Symmetrical. Although current practitioners employ all four models in their work, they practice one predominantly, which indicates their and their organization’s viewpoint about the purpose of public relations and fundraising. The first three models are asymmetrical, meaning that the organization’s interests and needs supersede those of related publics. The result is propaganda and per-

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suasion. Only the most recent model, Two-Way Symmetrical, strives to reach mutual understanding between the organization and its strategic stakeholders. ROPES is a five-step process that describes and prescribes how both public relations and fundraising should be practiced symmetrically. The five consecutive steps of the process are as follows: research, objectives, programming, evaluation, and stewardship. Details of the process can be found in references to Kelly. Summarizing here, fund raising begins with research in three progressive areas: (a) the organization for which practitioners work, (b) the opportunity or problem faced by the organization, and (c) the publics related to both the organization and the opportunity. The second step is setting specific, measurable objectives that are derived from organizational goals and supported by research. Objectives are not limited to attitude change or dollar totals. Programming consists of planning and implementing activities designed to bring about the outcomes stated in the objectives. These activities are categorized by the two purposes of cultivation and solicitation. Evaluation monitors programming and later determines if the set objectives were met. Stewardship completes the process and provides an essential loop back to the beginning of the process. Four sequential elements are basic to stewardship: reciprocity, responsibility (including responsible gift use), reporting, and relationship nurturing. Whether dealing with donors or other strategic publics, the theory holds that public relations and fundraising practitioners should spend 25 percent of their time on research, 15 percent on objectives, 30 percent on programming (equally divided between cultivation and solicitation), 10 percent on evaluation, and 20 percent on stewardship. Testing in the field has confirmed that practitioners do follow the ROPES process with only moderate variation among types of practitioners. For example, studies of members of AFP and the Public Relations Society of America’s Counselors to Higher Education professional interest group showed that allotment of time does not differ significantly among the two groups. Similarities must be further documented and examined to understand the contributions of public relations and fundraising to the well-being of charitable nonprofits. Kathleen S. Kelly


See also Fundraising; Nonprofit Management References and further reading Cutlip, Scott M., Allen H. Center, and Glen M. Broom. 2000. Effective Public Relations, 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Grunig, James E., ed. 1992. Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Grunig, Larissa A., James E. Grunig, and David M. Dozier. 2002. Excellent Public Relations and Effective Organizations: A Study of Communication Management in Three Countries. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kelly, Kathleen S. 1991. Fund Raising and Public Relations: A Critical Analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ———. 1998. Effective Fund-Raising Management. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ———. 2001a. “ROPES: A Model of the Fund-Raising Process.” In The Nonprofit Handbook: Fund Raising, 3d ed., edited by James M. Greenfield, 96–116. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ———. 2001b. “Stewardship: The Fifth Step in the Public Relations Process.” In Handbook of Public Relations, edited by Robert L. Heath, 279–289. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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R Reciprocity

recognition, or, in more crass examples, a more substantial material return. A business owner may donate to a cause because the advertising the transaction brings to the business will draw in new customers. Sometimes, of course, such direct reciprocity is not stated as a motive in the account given by the donor but is attributed by others who believe the gift was given only in order to “get something in return.” More commonly, however, the form of reciprocity connected to philanthropy is indirect. For example, when people say they are “grateful” for their general advantages in life or for their good fortune and that they want to “give something back somehow” in return, they are talking about reciprocity. In fact, one type of indirect reciprocity, which Kenneth Boulding (1981 [1973]) labeled “serial reciprocity,” is absolutely central to the practice of philanthropy (see also Moody 1994; Payton 1988). Serial reciprocity exists when people repay the benefits they have received— for example, from a parent, a friend, a mentor, an anonymous stranger, or a previous generation—by providing benefits to a third party, someone other than their benefactor. Serial reciprocity is what people mean when they say, “Pass it on,” “One good turn deserves another,” or “Don’t pay me back; do something similar for someone else instead.” In scholarly work, reciprocity is characterized in many different ways (it is similar to altruism in this respect). Applied to philanthropy, reciprocity may be

It might seem odd or even inappropriate to consider how philanthropy might be driven by something as utilitarian as reciprocity. But when people give reasons for engaging in philanthropic acts, it is not uncommon for them to cite reciprocity-related motives. The donor of a new campus building, for example, might say she “just wanted to give something back to this place that did so much for me,” or a mentor to inner city kids might express the hope that the children would “grow up and be successful and do the same for someone else.” Andrew Carnegie, while still a teenager, was offered the use of the personal library of Colonel James Anderson, and he later cited this as partial motivation for establishing free libraries around the country. These familiar-sounding examples all point to the central importance of reciprocity, of “giving back,” as a motive for giving, and perhaps even as a key philanthropic value. In some form, reciprocity is a common and persistent motivation for philanthropy across time and cultures and may also be seen as a pervasive cultural value supporting the philanthropic tradition. Both everyday experience and social scientific research suggest that reciprocity often drives philanthropic acts, but what is meant by reciprocity varies. Sometimes the reciprocity involved is very direct—for example, when a donor requires something tangible “in return” for his or her gift—perhaps some form of

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Reciprocity

thought of as a motivation for philanthropy, as a justification for philanthropy offered in ex post facto accounts, as an ethical virtue similar to gratitude and the Golden Rule, as a moral norm that serves to keep the chain of good works going in a society, or as a celebrated cultural value that is part of what is good about society. Philosophers have long identified reciprocation and gratitude as indispensable elements in the virtuous life. Lawrence Becker (1986) summarized the philosophical understanding of reciprocity as a virtue, pointing out that it requires “fitting and proportional” returns for benefits received. Social scientists have noted the functional and cultural importance of reciprocity, not only in modern Western societies but in native and Eastern cultures as well. Sociologist Alvin Gouldner (1960) offered a famous analysis of what he called the “norm of reciprocity,” which he argued was essential for stable social systems. Some later sociological work has looked at the complex structures of reciprocal give and take that people create, whereas other work has focused attention on how reciprocity provides people in a society with a way of making sense of experiences and giving meaning to actions, including philanthropic actions such as organ or blood donation. Robert Wuthnow’s (1991) research on why people act compassionately and volunteer, for instance, revealed that people often refer back to those who helped them in the past when explaining why they now help people in the present; they often describe feeling an “obligation” or “duty” to do good because of the good they have received. In this sense, they practice the norm of reciprocity through serial reciprocity. Social psychologists have also found ample experimental evidence for the existence of a norm of reciprocity, or at least for a widely felt disposition to reciprocate (see, for example, Fisher et al. 1983). They find that people will often feel uncomfortable until they are able to “return favors” or create equity in their relationships in some way. Of course, sometimes making direct “repayment” to a benefactor is impossible, or even inappropriate, such as when an altruistic benefactor clearly does not want a “return.” Similarly, sometimes the original benefactor is unknown, as with the proverbial Good Samaritan passing by on the

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road when someone is unconscious and in need of help, or the benefactor may even be deceased. In cases like these, studies have shown that people will try to meet the requirements of reciprocity by making serial returns to third parties. And, not surprisingly, the evidence indicates that recipients are indeed more likely to give to a third party who is similar to their own benefactor, if they can. Deciding whether and how to do a reciprocal act, then, requires reading situational cues and assessing whatever information is available in order to decide what is a “fitting and proportional” response. Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss called reciprocation “the essence of social life” (1980 [1957]), and his colleagues have chronicled very complex systems of indirect or even circular reciprocation in native cultures such as that of the Trobriand Islanders, practitioners of the famous “Kula Ring” of gift giving (see Mauss 1990 [1925]). Reciprocal systems of gift giving form both the moral and the economic core of many cultures around the globe, and such complex systems laid important foundations for our current Western cultural values and practices such as “Pass it on.” Anthropologists have also interpreted the relationships within families, and between generations, as adhering to a norm of (serial) reciprocity. Children in Japanese culture, for example, are taught that they should repay the sacrifices made for them by their parents by making similar sacrifices for their own children. More generally, obligations between generations in a general sense have been described as based on a sense of reciprocity—doing good for future generations is perhaps the most appropriate way to repay what one owes to past generations. There are many instances in modern philanthropic practice where this sort of justification for “giving to posterity” is key. Reciprocity, even in its serial form, might still be criticized by some as an improper philanthropic motive and value, as detracting from the “altruism” or benevolent and purely charitable intentions of “true” philanthropy. Critics fear that practicing philanthropy because of reciprocal “obligations” may strip philanthropy of its voluntary character. But the fact remains that people do very often think about their philanthropic activity in this way, as driven at least in part by reciprocity. Reciprocity, in its “serial” or indirect

Religion and Philanthropy

forms, loses some of its utilitarian edge and becomes more akin to values such as gratitude and stewardship. And there is no reason to assume that motives of reciprocity cannot exist alongside motives of altruism— looking at how reciprocity is connected to philanthropy reveals, in fact, just how mixed and often ambiguous the motives for philanthropy usually are. Michael Moody See also Altruism, Stewardship References and further reading Becker, Lawrence C. 1986. Reciprocity. London: Routledge and Kegan, Paul. Boulding, Kenneth. 1981 [1973]. A Preface to Grants Economics: The Economy of Love and Fear. New York: Praeger. Fisher, Jeffrey D., Arie Nadler, and Bella M. DePaulo, eds. 1983. New Directions in Helping. Vol. 1, Recipient Reactions to Aid. New York: Academic Press. Gouldner, Alvin. 1960. “The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement.” American Sociological Review 25 (2): 161–178. Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1980 [1957]. “Reciprocity: The Essence of Social Life.” In The Pleasures of Sociology, edited by Lewis Coser and Bernard Rosenberg. New York: Macmillan. Mauss, Marcel. 1990 [1925]. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by W. D. Halls. New York: W. W. Norton. Moody, Michael. 1994. “Pass It On: Serial Reciprocity as a Principle of Philanthropy.” In Essays in Philanthropy, no 13. Indianapolis: The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Payton, Robert L. 1988. Philanthropy: Voluntary Action for the Public Good. New York: ACE/Macmillan. Wuthnow, Robert. 1991. Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Red Cross See American Red Cross

Religion and Philanthropy The connections between religion and philanthropy are abundant and diverse. Some are spiritual, some psychological, some economic, and some institutional. There are at least four major elements of the relationship between religion and philanthropy that merit ex-

amination. First, and perhaps most important, religion appears to be a primary motivator of philanthropic behavior, of giving and volunteering for the benefit of others. This phenomenon has been demonstrated by multiple studies (Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1988–1996). Second, religious institutions, especially congregations, are both the most common recipients of such giving and among the most important sources of philanthropic funding for other causes (Kaplan 2000; Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1993). Third, scholars have illuminated the specific roles of religion in shaping particular modes of and approaches to philanthropic and voluntary action, and even in contributing to the formation of the institutional character of American society (Hall 1984, 1990; Jeavons 1994). Finally, in addition to these more immediate, visible impacts of religion on philanthropy, some argue that organized religion, at least in Europe and in the United States, is primarily responsible for creating the “social space” for the development of an “independent sector” in Western democratic cultures (Adams 1986; Stackhouse 1990). In each of these matters it is important for those with an interest in philanthropic and voluntary behavior in broader terms to understand the particular effects of religion, because religious tenets and practices have shaped, and in many cases strengthened, such activity.

Religion as a Motivational Factor in Giving Those who are familiar with the teachings of the Bible, the Koran, and other scriptures of the major religions will not be surprised to hear that research shows that persons with strong affiliations with and experiences in these religious traditions are more generous givers than those who do not have such affiliations and experiences. The studies of the INDEPENDENT SECTOR and others have demonstrated that those who are active in worship communities of various types are on the whole more likely to give to a variety of charitable causes, and to give more to charity overall, than those who are not. For example, 74 percent of those who participate at least occasionally in worship services give to charity, whereas only 50 percent of those who never attend do so, and the more often one attends the more likely one

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Men holding tithing trays (Lynda Richardson/Corbis)

is to give. The percentage of income given to charities by individuals correlates positively with frequency of attendance at worship. The proportion of household income given to charity averages 0.6 percent for those who never attend worship, 1.2 percent for those who attend once or twice a month, and 2.9 percent for those who attend worship services weekly (Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1996). It should also be noted that the contributions from religiously active individuals and households go not only to the congregations and religious institutions of which they are members, but also to a broad range of charitable causes. Indeed, giving from such persons and households accounted for more than 90 percent of all the dollars given by individuals to charities in the United States in 1995. Participants in religion also tend to volunteer more than nonparticipants. They thus give more of their time as well as more of their money to further charitable causes.

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These data and others demonstrate that affiliation with and involvement in a religious community tends to increase generosity markedly. As one of these reports noted, “The incidence of religious involvement and attendance at religious services is thus a predictor of the total level of giving and volunteering” (Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1996, 5). The reasons for this are many and complex, and they need to be better understood. Among them, however, is the plain fact that all these traditions teach and encourage particular practices of and approaches to giving as an element of “living the faith.” To cite but one example, probably the best-known teaching on giving is “tithing.” This practice, which has its roots in the Old Testament, involves giving 10 percent of one’s income (or wealth) to charity. As originally conceived in the Hebraic tradition, the practice took a number of forms. In Genesis 28: 10–22, Jacob promises to give back to God “a tithe” of


all he has (or will receive) in recognition of God’s blessings to him. In Chapters 12 and 14 of Deuteronomy, the Israelites are instructed to offer a tenth of their produce (or income) as a contribution to support the temple and the priests, their community, and “the widows and the orphans”—that is, those in need in their midst. In Deuteronomy 26, the tithe is again spoken of as a gift to be made, in this case of the “first fruits” of the harvest, as a sign of thanksgiving. There is evidence that early Christians saw the tithe as a minimum level of giving to the church and the needs of the poor to be expected of all the faithful. Jesus moved away from such prescriptions but exhorted his followers to be even more generous through stories such as that of “the widow’s mite” (Mark 12: 41–44). And the Apostle Paul follows in this vein, praising those who “give beyond their means” (2 Cor. 8: 3) and those who are “cheerful givers” (2 Cor. 9: 7) Muslim teachings on charitable giving could also be cited. Most prominently, giving alms to care for those less fortunate is one of the five “pillars,” or essential practices, of Islam. Beyond the impact of specific teachings, there are other reasons religious persons tend to be more generous. Those who participate in religious congregations also generally see giving modeled on a regular basis as a public act, and giving is a learned behavior. Finally, those who are active in congregations often get to see immediate, positive effects of their giving— in a way that is often not true with giving to and through other kinds of charities—and the psychological and spiritual satisfaction of that experience may reinforce and heighten their generosity.

Religious Institutions as Recipients and Sources Annual reports of the American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) Trust for Philanthropy in Giving USA (Kaplan 1994, 1996–2000), and of the National Council of Churches in Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches (Lindner 1998– 2000), prove the remarkable generosity of Americans toward religious bodies—congregations, denominations, religious orders, and such. These organizations are, as a group, the largest beneficiaries of charitable

giving in the United States. According to Giving USA, from 1990 to 2000 donations to “religion”—including churches and other explicitly religious institutions—accounted for roughly 45 percent of all charitable giving by individuals. This is probably a conservative figure. If one included gifts made by individuals to other types of institutions with religious roots and characteristics—such as some colleges, social service agencies, hospitals, and the like—findings might show that religious causes and activities drew as much as two-thirds of charitable donations. Less often recognized is the fact that religious congregations are also sponsors and very significant sources of funding for other charitable and philanthropic activity. Although some scholars have argued that congregations should be seen as “member benefit” rather than “public benefit” organizations—or bodies largely serving only their own members, there is ample evidence that these bodies serve many needs in their wider communities, benefiting people beyond their own membership. In some communities, congregations, or the programs they sponsor directly (and sometimes house in their own buildings), are the most common providers of day care for children, elder care, after-school recreation, and even emergency food and clothing. In fact, 24 percent of the budgets of congregations (on average) is spent on contributions to “nonreligious activities” that often serve many people outside their membership or given away to other organizations in the community to offer needed services to nonmember individuals. Typically, 10 to 15 percent of a congregation’s budget goes to other organizations in the form of donations (Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1993, 77–80). Recent studies have documented the extraordinary role religious congregations play in actually housing and delivering social services, health services, recreation, and even arts programs in communities where such services and programs are most needed and other nonprofits are least present (see Cohen and Jaeger 1998; Cnaan 1999). Thus, the role of religious organizations as both financial supporters and providers of social (and other) services is surely noteworthy.

Religion as a Critical Influence Religion has played a key role in shaping particular practices and institutional forms of philanthropic and

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voluntary activity in the United States. First of all, as several historians have observed, congregations were the archetype for voluntary membership organizations in colonial America. In many localities, congregations were the first such institutions, providing a model for communal activity that could be adopted and adapted for other public, but nonreligious, purposes (Adams 1986). Second, programs and organizations growing out of congregations, such as women’s auxiliaries and benevolent societies, provided the foundations for many local social welfare and civic projects that continue today as secular agencies. Indeed, questions about the secular versus the religious control and character of such social welfare agencies loomed large at the time of the emergence of charitable organization societies and the scientific philanthropy movement in the second half of the nineteenth century. Ironically, some of the key features of the new “scientific” approaches to charity—such as personal visitation and assessment of individuals’ needs—had their origins in practices of the women’s auxiliaries (Bremner 1956; Hall 1990). Third, religious bodies developed the models for the first large, national voluntary agencies in the early to mid-1800s in the form of various missionary, Bible, and tract societies that came to be known as the “Benevolent Empire” (Hall 1984; Bremner 1988). The importance of these organizations in demonstrating the potential power of large voluntary agencies and in developing the organizational mechanics for such agencies should not go unnoticed. In yet another way, then, the function of religion, or at least of religious organizations, has been important to philanthropic practice more broadly understood.

Religion in the Creation of Social Space Last but certainly not least, religion has played a foundational role in making possible the existence of a politically independent nonprofit or voluntary sector. Some scholars have noted that it indeed seems somewhat odd that governments should have come to allow privately controlled groups and organizations to take such a major role in the public sphere—shaping public policy, advocating for causes, delivering services—especially when they could do these things in

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ways that might put them in competition with or in opposition to government itself. Yet this acceptance is a prominent feature of the political economy of the United States, and also common in Western Europe, and provides the essential foundation for philanthropic and voluntary activity. Some scholars have contended that religion played the primary role in creating the “social space” for these organizations. They have argued that advocates of “marginalized faiths” rebelling against established religions in Europe and the colonies secured the right of voluntary association for themselves by working (and often suffering) for freedom of religion. As one scholar wrote, “In the name of God they claimed the right to be, to organize, to care for neighbor, and to set forth their views publicly. . . . What religious communities fought for was eventually institutionalized: The right of people to form intentional religious associations outside established [that is, state-controlled] religion was more and more tolerated, acknowledged, celebrated, and subsequently expanded to include non-religious charitable and ethical organizations” (Stackhouse 1990, 25–26). This view is confirmed by an examination of the special legal mechanisms that have been created to deal with churches. These legal concepts treat religion as essentially a separate sphere of public activity allowed to exist within civil society but largely beyond government control or regulation (Dane 1998). Although the secular nonprofit sector is subject to more government scrutiny and regulation, nonreligious private philanthropic and voluntary organizations do operate with considerable independence of government control while pursuing public purposes. This freedom may well derive from the precedent set by the churches. Thomas H. Jeavons References and further reading Adams, James Luther. 1986. “The Voluntary Principle in the Forming of American Religion.” In Voluntary Associations: Socio-Cultural Analysis and Theological Interpretation, edited by J. Ronald Engel, 13–37. Chicago: Exploration Press. Bremner, Robert H. 1956. “‘Scientific Philanthropy,’ 1873–1893.” Social Service Review 30: 168–173. ———. 1988. American Philanthropy, 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Cnaan, Ram. 1999. The Newer Deal: Social Work and Religion in Partnership. New York: Columbia University Press. Cohen, Diane, and A. Robert Jaeger. 1998. Sacred Places at Risk: New Evidence on How Endangered Older Churches and Synagogues Serve Communities. Philadelphia: Partners for Sacred Places. Dane, Perry. 1998. “The Corporate Soul and the Encounter of Law and Church.” In Sacred Companies, edited by Jay Demerath, 50–61. New York: Oxford University Press. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 1984. The Organization of American Culture. New York: New York University Press. ———. 1990. “The History of Religious Philanthropy in America.” In Faith and Philanthropy in America, edited by Robert Wuthnow and Virginia Hodgkinson. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Hodgkinson, Virginia, and Murray Weitzman, eds. 1986–1996. Giving and Volunteering in the United States. Biannual. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. ———. 1993. From Belief to Commitment: The Community Service Activities and Finances of Religious Congregations in the United States. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Jeavons, Thomas H. 1994. When the Bottom Line Is Faithfulness: Management of Christian Service Organizations. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kaplan, Ann E., ed. 1994, 1996–2000. Giving USA. New York: American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) Trust for Philanthropy. Lindner, Eileen, ed. 1998–2000. Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. New York: Abingdon Press. Stackhouse, Max L. 1990. “Religion and the Social Space for Voluntary Institutions.” In Faith and Philanthropy in America, edited by Robert Wuthnow and Virginia Hodgkinson, 22–37. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR.

Responsive Philanthropy The term “responsive philanthropy” came into use with the formation of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) in Washington, D.C., in 1976. Initially, it reflected the feeling among some in the nonprofit world that traditional philanthropy should become more responsive to the needs of the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, women, and other disadvantaged groups. Proponents of responsive philanthropy emphasized social action and advocacy for these groups. In Social Change Philanthropy in America, Alan Rabinowitz identified “less traditional charities” as the target of NCRP’s responsive philan-

thropy concept (1990, 54). Over time, the definition of the term expanded to include public accountability of philanthropy, funding of constituency-controlled organizations, the totality of grantmakers’ interactions with disadvantaged and disenfranchised grantseekers (rather than just their grantmaking), and, during the 1990s, the effort to counter the propaganda and policy tsunami from right-wing foundations and the conservative public policy apparatus. The NCRP succeeded the Donee Group, a coalition of public-interest, social-action, and volunteer groups acting as advisers to the prominent Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, also known as the Filer Commission. The commission had been organized by John D. Rockefeller III to assess the potential impact of the Tax Reform Act of 1969 on private foundations and to develop an agenda for private philanthropy that might help to avoid such drastic action by the government in the future (Commission 1975). The Donee Group critiqued the research and deliberations of the Filer Commission, charging that traditional philanthropy had provided minuscule funds for social action and advocacy for disadvantaged groups and that this neglect would perpetuate existing inequalities in income, opportunity, and social and political justice (Donee Group 1975). The NCRP adopted this agenda. “Responsive philanthropy,” it said, was necessary to address the injustices that the Donee Group had cited. To further this concept, the NCRP also named its newsletter Responsive Philanthropy. It has been continuously published since 1978. Other organizations committed to responsive philanthropy also came into being following the Filer Commission and Donee Group reports. These include Women in Foundations/Corporate Philanthropy (now Women in Philanthropy) (circa 1977), Funding Exchange (1979), National Network of Grantmakers (1980), Neighborhood Funders Group (1980), Funders for Gay and Lesbian Issues (1982), Hispanics in Philanthropy (1983), Women’s Funding Network (1985), Native Americans in Philanthropy (1990), and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (1990), to name the most prominent. Two similar organizations had formed prior to the Filer Commission: the Association of Black Foundation Executives (1971) and the National Black United

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Fund (NBUF) (1972), both stimulated by the urban race riots of the late 1960s. Of all these groups, only the NBUF and the Women’s Funding Network represented disenfranchised grantseekers, as the Donee Group and the NCRP did. All the others were creations of concerned grantmakers. Another term that has become popular among most of these organizations is “social change philanthropy” (Ostrander 2002). In 1979, at a widely reported national conference in Dallas, NCRP, NBUF, and forty-eight other national organizations challenged the United Way movement as being unresponsive philanthropy because it did not allow participation in charitable workplace fundraising by social action and advocacy organizations representing minorities and women. This challenge was carried to the U.S. Congress later in the year in hearings about the federal government’s Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), which United Ways ran. The government changed its CFC regulations in 1980 to allow participation by some non–United Way organizations, and subsequent court decisions expanded the participation. But President Ronald Reagan’s administrations attempted to roll back this participation, especially to exclude advocacy organizations. The issues were not fully resolved until 1987 with passage of legislation permanently allowing advocacy and nontraditional organizations to easily participate in the CFC. Meanwhile, city and state governments throughout the United States were opening up their workplace charity drives in similar fashion. Nearly 200 local, state, and national alternatives to United Way organized during the 1980s and 1990s to raise charitable contributions in the workplace (Brilliant 1990). NCRP research studies further elaborated the concept of responsive philanthropy. In 1980, the organization published a highly controversial report on the quality of public reporting by 206 of the largest foundations (private, community, and corporate), thereby including public accountability as part of responsive philanthropy (NCRP 1980). A follow-up study was published just on public reporting of corporate charitable giving (Bothwell 1989). The NCRP worked with the INDEPENDENT SECTOR and the Council on Foundations to institutionalize part of this agenda, gaining passage of legislation in 1998 and 1999 re-

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quiring easy public access to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990 for charities and Form 990 PF for private foundations. Meanwhile, the concept of responsive philanthropy was also being expanded to include giving to constituency-controlled organizations. The National Black United Fund, Women in Foundations/Corporate Philanthropy, key member foundations of the Funding Exchange, Funders for Gay and Lesbian Issues, Hispanics in Philanthropy, Women’s Funding Network, Native Americans in Philanthropy, and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy all promoted this approach. In 1987, the NCRP launched a study of corporate giving for racial and ethnic populations rating corporate giving programs for their support for constituency-controlled giving. Reports were issued in 1993, 1995, and 2000. In 1989, the NCRP commenced studies of the larger community foundations, expanding further the concept of responsive philanthropy. Not only did these studies report on the foundations’ funding of social action nonprofits and public reporting, they also examined the services the foundations provided to these organizations, the foundations’ staff and board diversity, how the foundations’ gift solicitation practices affected their grantmaking to organizations of and representing the disenfranchised, and whether the foundations’ grantmaking and interactions were empowering of disenfranchised peoples. Conservative academicians at Smith College expressed concern about responsive philanthropy. Writing in 1994, they said: “Currently, the foundation world is debating whether grants should be given primarily to projects committed to continued social change or to support established private institutions. . . . The current concerns of many public policy foundations are increasing the political power of the poor, minorities, and women; monitoring the performance of government and industry; and remaining ‘open and responsive’ to new currents of social change” (Nagai et al. 1994, 36). Nevertheless, in evaluating foundation funding of progressive social movements, sociologists at Ohio State University found that only 1.1 percent of all foundation grants went to these organizations in 1990 ( Jenkins and Halcli 1999). A later study by the National Network of

Rockefeller, John Davidson, Sr.

Grantmakers reported that 2.1 percent of all foundation grants went for progressive social change in 1997 (National Network of Grantmakers 1998). Scholar and foundation executive Emmett D. Carson wrote: “While there are numerous examples of the innovative leadership provided by foundations to support the development of hospitals, libraries, education, arts and culture, and scientific research, foundations have not shown the same level of risk-tolerance in the area of social justice advocacy. . . . Foundations have focused only a small amount of their total grant monies on programs directed at helping people of color or on advocacy-related social justice activities” (Carson 1999, 249). A final expansion of the concept of responsive philanthropy occurred in the late 1990s when the NCRP issued two research reports highlighting conservative foundations’ key roles within the conservative political movement in helping to create and develop nonprofit infrastructure organizations (such as the Heritage Foundation). Rutgers University professor Jon Van Til subsequently documented that the term “responsive philanthropy” included countering “the propaganda blitz from far-right foundations and their key intellectual-marketers” (Van Til 2000, 179). Robert O. Bothwell See also Social Change Funds References and further reading Bothwell, Robert O. 1989. “Trends in Corporate Reporting on Philanthropic Efforts.” In The Future of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Virginia Hodgkinson and Richard W. Lyman. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Brilliant, Eleanor L. 1990. The United Way: Dilemmas of Organized Charity. New York: Columbia University Press. Carson, Emmett D. 1999. “The Roles of Indigenous and Institutional Philanthropy in Advancing Social Justice.” In Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America, edited by Charles T. Clodfelter and Thomas Ehrlich. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (Filer Commission). 1975. Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector. Washington, DC: Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. Donee Group. 1975. Private Philanthropy: Vital and Innovative? Or Passive and Irrelevant? Washington, DC: Donee Group. Jenkins, J. Craig, and Abigail Halcli. 1999. “Grassrooting the System? The Development and Impact of Social

Movement Philanthropy, 1953–1990.” In Philanthropic Foundations: New Scholarship, New Possibilities, edited by E. C. Lagemann, 229–256. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nagai, Althea K., Robert Lerner, and Stanley Rothman. 1994. Giving for Social Change: Foundations, Public Policy, and the American Political Agenda. Westport, CT: Praeger. National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). 1980. Foundations and Public Information: Sunshine or Shadow? Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. ———. 1978–. Responsive Philanthropy. Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. National Network of Grantmakers. 1998. Social Change Grantmaking in the U.S.: The Mid-1990s. San Diego: National Network of Grantmakers. Ostrander, Susan. 2002. E-mail communication to author, October 13. Paprocki, Steven L., and Robert O. Bothwell. 1993. Corporate Grantmaking: Racial/Ethnic Populations, Phase One. Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Rabinowitz, Alan. 1990. Social Change Philanthropy in America. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Van Til, Jon. 2000. Growing Civil Society: From Nonprofit Sector to Third Space. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Rockefeller, John Davidson, Sr. (1839–1937) John D. Rockefeller Sr. was born in 1839 in a small village in rural New York State, the son of a patent medicine salesman. His long life spanned nearly a century during a time when a revolution was taking place in American business organization. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Rockefeller was a young man on the make in Cleveland, Ohio, the sole supporter of his abandoned mother and younger siblings. There, while still in his twenties, he grew wealthy as a produce supplier to the Union Army. He reinvested his profits in drilling rigs that pumped a new fuel for interior lighting, kerosene. Convinced that the oil business had bright prospects, Rockefeller continually expanded. By 1910, Standard Oil had made him the wealthiest man in the world. Even before he became a billionaire, Rockefeller contributed regularly to charitable activities. During the last forty years of his life, however, he retreated

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focused on raising educational standards, promoting medical research, and funding public health campaigns. Grants from Rockefeller philanthropies helped transform a select number of American universities into world-class institutions, while foundation support backed the emergence of new social science disciplines such as psychology and sociology. The most lasting contribution made by the more than $540 million Rockefeller devoted to charitable giving occurred in medical and biological research. The Rockefeller Institute was home to dozens of Nobel Prize–winning scientists—who, among other ventures, isolated vitamins, identified hormones, and produced vaccines that dramatically reduced the terror of numerous insect-borne diseases, including yellow fever. By his death in 1937, Rockefeller had given more than $500 million to charity. Judith Sealander References and further reading Chernow, Ron. 1998. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. New York: Random House.

Rockefeller Family John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) on his eighty-third birthday (Bettmann/Corbis)

from direct control of his corporate empire and concentrated on creating a linked network of philanthropic foundations. Indeed, Rockefeller was among the first to make large-scale use of the incorporated foundation and to declare that its most important purpose was to solve social problems, not relieve individual suffering. Until a major reorganization in 1928–1929, the six most significant foundations endowed by Rockefeller were independent entities, though they consulted on common agendas. The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the General Education Board, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, the International Health Board, successor to the Rockfeller Sanitary Commission, the International Education Board, and the Rockefeller Foundation

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For nearly a century and a half, charity and philanthropic giving have been considered essential duties for members of the Rockefeller family, part of a set of basic values transmitted from generation to generation. The tradition began in November 1855, when sixteen-year-old John D. Rockefeller recorded his first charitable donations to the Baptist church in his Ledger A. The phenomenal wealth he amassed following his creation of the Standard Oil Company in 1870 enabled him and his wife, Laura, to impart a philanthropic legacy to their only son, John D. Rockefeller Jr. By the year 2000, a fifth generation of Rockefellers had become active philanthropists. John D. Rockefeller Sr. (1839–1937) began his habit of charitable giving even before he became a wealthy man. Baptist churches, schools, and social causes favored by the church, such as temperance, received his support in the 1860s and 1870s; during the 1880s, he channeled larger sums through the American Baptist Home Mission Society and the American

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Baptist Education Society (ABES). His contributions enabled a small school for African American women in Atlanta to maintain its single-sex status and evolve into Spelman College, and his gifts of $35 million between 1889 and 1910 allowed his denomination’s University of Chicago to become a major research university in a very short time. In 1893, Rockefeller hired the chief fundraiser for the ABES, the Reverend Frederick T. Gates, to be his philanthropic adviser. Gates brought order to the flood of appeals overwhelming Rockefeller’s office. He managed Rockefeller’s giving according to the guidelines that Rockefeller had elaborated but also sought to administer it scientifically in order to make it more effective. Gates wanted philanthropy to do more than temporarily relieve misery and distress: Scientifically applied, philanthropy should seek to cure problems at their root cause. He urged Rockefeller to establish philanthropic institutions staffed by experts that would attack problems intelligently and systematically rather than giving to a number of institutions that would only treat the symptoms of a problem. Gates became the principal architect of the major organizations Rockefeller established: the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (established in 1901; now Rockefeller University); the General Education Board (active from 1903 until 1964); the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease (1909–1913); and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913) with its China Medical Board and International Health Board. Rockefeller also established the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (1918– 1929), a tribute to his wife. The work of these philanthropic corporations contributed significantly to the shape of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector in the United States. John D. Rockefeller Jr. ( JDR Jr., 1874–1960), joined his father’s office in 1897 and worked closely with Gates in establishing the various Rockefeller philanthropies. The philanthropic office that Gates established in the Standard Oil building in Manhattan (and later housed at Rockefeller Center) was the beginning of a family institution that would provide an expert staff for JDR Jr. and subsequent generations; it also served as a training ground as JDR Jr.’s sons began their careers.

JDR Jr. created several philanthropic organizations on his own: the Bureau of Social Hygiene (1913–1940), the International Education Board (1923–1938), the Davison Fund (1934–1942), and the Sealantic Fund (1938–1973), and he helped his sons by endowing their foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, in 1952. His biographers estimate that JDR Jr.’s total giving amounted to $537 million. His personal philanthropy ranged around the world, supporting colleges and universities; churches and religious organizations; conservation and the development of national parks; and the restoration and preservation of historic sites. Libraries and museums, cultural organizations, hospitals, and relief agencies also received millions of his dollars. JDR Jr. did not simply offer money in support of causes that he valued; he often offered his time and energy in fundraising campaigns for such organizations as the United War Work Campaign during World War I and the United Negro College Fund. JDR Jr.’s wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874– 1948), left her own mark on philanthropy as a collector and patron of art and as one of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art in 1929. She also was interested in the social welfare of women, especially housing, and worked to develop the Grace Dodge Hotel for business and professional women in Washington, D.C., in 1921–1922 and the Bayway Community Center, which began in 1919 as a model home for a working family near a Standard Oil plant in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Like her husband, she not only gave her money but her time, energy, and leadership to projects that interested her. JDR Jr. and Abby had six children, a daughter and five sons, each of whom used a portion of his or her wealth to pursue philanthropic interests. Abby “Babs” Rockefeller Mauzé (1903–1976) established the Greenacre Foundation (1968), which developed Greenacre Park on East 51st Street in Manhattan in 1971. Nelson A. Rockefeller (1908–1979) expanded the family’s tradition of public service into politics as governor of New York State (1959–1973) and vice president of the United States (1974–1977). As a philanthropist, art and Latin America were his specialties. He became one of the leaders of the Museum of Modern Art, but he also established the Museum of

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Primitive Art (1954–1974), which he transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, named for his son who disappeared in New Guinea while collecting indigenous art. In 1946, Nelson established the nonprofit American International Association for Economic and Social Development, which worked on rural economic development and education in South America before closing in 1968. In 1947, he formed a for-profit corporation with a philanthropic purpose, the International Basic Economy Corporation (IBEC), which developed businesses in several industries in an attempt to foster investment and development in South America. Venture capitalist Laurance S. Rockefeller (1910–) made his mark in philanthropy in cancer research and the environment. In 1960, he became chairman of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and led a successful fundraising campaign that by 1973 had transformed MSKCC into “the largest privately operated non-profit institution in the country dedicated to the conquest of cancer” (Moscow 1977, 317). As a conservationist, he was affiliated with more than fifty organizations, several of which he founded—the American Conservation Association (1958), the Grand Teton Lodge Company (1956), the Woodstock Foundation (1968), and the Conservation Foundation (cofounder, 1948)—and he purchased the land that became the core of the Virgin Islands National Park. He also helped expand Haleakala National Park on the Hawaiian Island of Maui. Winthrop Rockefeller (1912–1973) made his mark in politics and philanthropy in Arkansas after moving there in 1953 and establishing Winrock Farms. In 1956, he created the Rockwin Fund (renamed the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation in 1974) to promote the development of education and public health in Arkansas. In politics, he was appointed to lead the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission (1955–1964), which became a stepping stone to his election to two terms as governor of Arkansas (1967–1971). He died from cancer in 1973, and in his will he challenged the trustees of his estate to be “venturesome and innovative” in using his bequest to develop institutions to help people help themselves. In

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1975, the trustees created the Winrock International Livestock Research and Training Center, focusing on research and training in farming. David Rockefeller (1915–) made his career in banking and economics, becoming president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, but he had varied interests in philanthropy. He joined the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 1940 and, as chairman, oversaw its transformation into Rockefeller University. He took a special interest in foreign affairs and formed the Trilateral Commission in 1973 to bring together leaders from North America, Europe, and Japan to recommend policies that would promote economic and political cooperation between these regions. He made New York City a special focus of his philanthropic leadership, spurring efforts to revitalize both Lower Manhattan’s financial district and the Morningside Heights neighborhood. He also promoted various kinds of philanthropic work among his business colleagues, including the Business Committee for the Arts in 1966, formed to foster more corporate patronage of the arts and, in 1964, the International Executive Service Corps, established to encourage businessmen to become volunteer advisers for businesses in the developing world that needed managerial and entrepreneurial expertise. Although his brothers were more in the public eye, John D. Rockefeller III ( JDR 3rd; 1906–1978) more actively pursued philanthropy as a career, partly as a family obligation but also because he saw philanthropy as an effective means of meeting social needs and fostering understanding among the peoples of the world. A trip to Japan in 1951 as a member of the American mission to conclude a peace treaty with Japan led JDR 3rd to create programs to improve relations between Americans and the peoples of Asia. He revived the Japan Society (1952) and established both the Asia Society (1956) and the Asian Cultural Program of the JDR 3rd Fund (1963–1979), which was continued as the Asian Cultural Council following the fund’s dissolution. To help improve living conditions within Asia, he founded the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs (1953, renamed Agricultural Development Council in 1963), which sought to strengthen professional capabilities within

Rockefeller Family

Asia to deal with problems of agriculture and rural development. As early as 1934, JDR 3rd had identified birth control and population issues as one focus of his philanthropic energies. In 1952, he established the Population Council to conduct research in human fertility and reproductive science, develop contraceptive devices and procedures, and help underdeveloped countries create and implement family planning programs. During the 1960s, JDR 3rd actively promoted family planning to world leaders and became a widely known public advocate for population control. JDR 3rd also took the lead in promoting research into and public awareness about the role philanthropy plays in American life. In 1969, as Congress debated tax reform proposals with possible dire consequences for charitable giving, JDR 3rd created the Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy, led by business executive Peter G. Peterson (the Peterson Commission), and lobbied against proposals for increased restrictions on foundations while acknowledging the need to correct abuses and misconduct. He saw these political attacks as symptoms of a mistrust of philanthropy and a lack of understanding about its role. In an attempt to change these attitudes, JDR 3rd founded the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (1974), led by Aetna chairman John H. Filer (the Filer Commission), which issued its findings and recommendations in the report Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector (1975). JDR 3rd also contributed significantly to Yale’s Program on Non-Profit Organizations, the first of what soon became a growing number of academic centers dedicated to the study of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. Each generation of Rockefellers has created its own organizations to tackle new problems of concern. In 1940, JDR Jr.’s five sons formed the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to coordinate their philanthropy and enhance the effectiveness of their giving. Their sister joined the organization as a trustee in 1955, and their father provided an endowment for the fund in 1952. Such generational and intergenerational cooperation has been a hallmark of Rockefeller philanthropy, as parents, uncles, and aunts encourage and nourish the

charitable impulses of the next generation. By the time the Rockefeller Brothers Fund marked its fiftieth anniversary in 1990, leadership of the fund was passing to the children of the Brothers’ generation, known as the Cousins. In 1967, the Brothers helped their sons and daughters establish a new institution, the Rockefeller Family Fund, to address the concerns of their generation, starting with poverty, housing, and education. By March 1999, when the Family Fund commemorated more than thirty years of grantmaking, fifty-three members of three generations of the Rockefeller family had served on the board. In addition to the collective family philanthropy, certain members of the Cousins’ generation also created their own philanthropic organizations to respond to their specific concerns, and two Cousins— John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV in West Virginia and Winthrop P. “Win” Rockefeller Jr. in Arkansas— followed Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller’s pursuit of politics as their chosen method of public service. The best known of the Cousins’ individual philanthropies is the Synergos Institute, founded in 1987 by Peggy Dulany (daughter of David Rockefeller), which describes itself as “an independent, nonprofit institute dedicated to developing effective sustainable solutions to global poverty” (Synergos). Although members of the younger Rockefeller generations may have both diminished financial resources when compared with their parents and a different sensibility toward wealth and power than the Brothers’ generation, they have displayed an abiding interest in philanthropy and public service and may well leave their own mark on the world through their philanthropy. Kenneth W. Rose References and further reading Chernow, Ron. 1998. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. New York: Random House. Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz. 1976. The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Fosdick, Raymond B. 1956. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.: A Portrait. New York: Harper and Brothers. Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. 1988. The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America’s Greatest Family. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

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———. 1991. The Rockefeller Conscience: An American Family in Public and in Private. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Kert, Bernice. 1993. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family. New York: Random House. Moscow, Alvin. 1977. The Rockefeller Inheritance. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Reich, Cary. 1996. The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908–1958. New York: Doubleday. Rockefeller Archive Center, http://www.rockefeller.edu/ archive.ctr/. Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY. Papers of the Rockefeller family, including those of John D. Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller III, and Nelson A. Rockefeller, and records of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Rockefeller Family Fund. Rockefeller Brothers Fund, http://www.rbf.org/. Rockefeller Family Fund, http://www.rffund.org/. Rockefeller Foundation, http://www.rockfound.org/. Rockefeller University, http://www.rockefeller.edu/. Synergos, http://www.synergos.org/. Winks, Robin W. 1997. Laurance S. Rockefeller: Catalyst for Conservation. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Rosenwald, Julius (1862–1932)

Julius Rosenwald (1862–1932) (Library of Congress)

Born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1862, Julius Rosenwald was the son of German Jewish immigrants. Following his father into the family clothing business in 1885, he opened a factory in Chicago that made men’s seersucker suits. The enterprise prospered, but it was Rosenwald’s decision to enter a partnership with Richard Sears to promote a new venture—selling a wide variety of goods using mail-order catalogs—that made the Chicago clothier a millionaire many times over. As a founding partner of the Sears-Roebuck Company, Rosenwald had the resources to expand his locally based charitable giving to embrace a much larger cause: racial justice in America. In 1917, he endowed the Julius Rosenwald Fund, specifying that the new foundation spend all its principal and interest within a generation after his death. By the time of his death in 1932, he was well known as a fighter against bigotry and segregation. From 1917 until its dissolution in 1948, the fund concen-

trated on projects meant to improve the lives of African Americans. By 1940, a network of model schools linked fourteen southern states. Although still segregated, black pupils studied in more than 5,300 clean, well-lit structures that contained from one to six classrooms. The Rosenwald Fund had hoped that its schools would act to “shame” local officials throughout the South into spending greater amounts on the education of African Americans, or perhaps even into outlawing discrimination based on race. That did not happen, even though the fund required local school districts to provide at least half of the money used to construct a “Rosenwald” building. In addition to promoting better education for black youngsters, the Rosenwald Fund provided grants to sustain black colleges in the North as well as the South and sponsored several regional health

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centers for blacks during decades when many American hospitals refused admittance to minority patients. The Rosenwald Fund did not end legalized bigotry. Nonetheless, its efforts sowed seeds that nurtured the post–World War II civil rights movement. Judith Sealander

Rush, Benjamin (1746–1813) Benjamin Rush, physician and patriot, advocated liberation for African slaves and humane treatment of the poor and the mentally ill. He advanced education, prison reform, and temperance. Shaped by the Reverend Gilbert Tennent’s Second Presbyterian Church and the Nottingham Academy, run by the Reverend Samuel Finley, Rush, at age thirteen, entered the College of New Jersey at Princeton, where graduates were urged to commit to public-spirited activity. Pursuing medicine meant study in Edinburgh, where Rush earned his medical degree and was exposed to the Scottish Enlightenment and to the Whig ideas of republicanism. Returning in 1769, Rush was appointed professor of chemistry at the College of Philadelphia. His commitment to medicine and republicanism grew naturally out of religious beliefs formed early in life in the wake of the Great Awakening. By healing the sick, and by promoting greater freedom and equality, Rush believed he was doing the divine will in his profession and in his philanthropy. Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He served as surgeon general during the Revolutionary War and as Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Charter member of the American Philosophical Society, Rush was the first American to hold a chair in chemistry and to publish on that subject. He also wrote an early textbook on psychology. Controversial therapy—bloodletting—during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 led to a malpractice suit against Rush. His reputation was harmed, but the court exonerated him. Indeed, few acknowledged that Dr. Rush was one of the only

Benjamin Rush (1746–1813) (Library of Congress)

physicians to remain in Philadelphia during the epidemic, assisted by Africans loyal to him. In An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, upon Slave-Keeping (1773), Rush equated slavery with the Parliament’s abuse of colonial laborers. Deeply disturbed by slavery, he helped form the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (1774), becoming the organization’s secretary and president. He also played a key role in the emergence of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1783, the Humane Society of Philadelphia was founded, and Rush contributed to its preventative medicine approach. In 1786, he helped establish a free dispensary for the poor. The Philadelphia Dispensary was one of the first free clinics in North America. Affording the poor privacy was important; many went without medical care because they were unwilling to accept charity in public. The dispensary allowed people living in “virtuous poverty” to be attended with

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dignity. In addition, the doctor’s essay on the harmful effects of alcohol became an educational tool of the temperance movement. Rush was a great promoter of schools in the new nation. Principal founder of Dickinson College in 1783, he also played a key role in founding Franklin College (Franklin and Marshall). Rush argued for free schools, to be available to every child, and for the importance of women’s education in a republic. In his eulogy for Rush in 1813, President John Adams said that he knew “of no Character living or dead, who has done more real good in America.” Human rights were central to Rush’s work in voluntary moral associations in the new republic. Commit-

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ted to the claim that all were created equal, he sought more humane living conditions for those on the margins of society. John Kloos References and further reading Abzug, Robert H. 1994. Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Benjamin Rush, http://www.benjaminrush.com. D’Elia, Donald J. 1974. Benjamin Rush, Philosopher of the American Revolution. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society. Goodman, Nathan G. 1934. Benjamin Rush: Physician and Citizen, 1746–1813. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

S Sage, Margaret Olivia Slocum (1828–1918)

Olivia fell under Emma’s tutelage and graduated in 1847. She then supported herself for more than twenty years in a series of paid teaching positions until her marriage to Sage in 1869. Meanwhile, the family’s financial situation worsened. Joseph Slocum became involved in some unwise business ventures. These included a partnership with Olivia’s husband-to-be, Russell Sage, who was already wealthy and looking for other business opportunities in the newly created state of Wisconsin. The family home was sold in 1857 and Olivia and her mother were forced to take refuge with relatives in West Troy. In West Troy, Olivia renewed an old acquaintance with businessman and politician Russell Sage. Twelve years her senior, Russell Sage was lonely, having lost his wife to cancer in 1867. Russell Sage had amassed his fortune by dealing in wholesale produce, banking, grain, horses, and warehousing. He proposed to Olivia, and she accepted. Marriage to Russell Sage transformed Olivia’s life. She moved to New York City and acquired the status of a wealthy matron. Although she now had access to Sage’s fortune, he was one of the most ridiculed men of the age. Seeking a voice and believing that she had a moral mission, Olivia created a separate persona from the greedy image of her husband, emphasizing benevolence and public duty. She became known as Mrs. Russell Sage, philanthropist.

Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, wife of businessman Russell Sage (1816–1906), founded the principal American foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences, the Russell Sage Foundation for Social Betterment. She was the heir of her husband’s $75 million estate and between 1906 and 1918 disbursed more than $45 million to various charities, organizations, and institutions. Olivia was born on September 8, 1828, to Joseph and Margaret Jermain Slocum in Syracuse, New York. Her father operated a line of boats on the canal and had acquired warehouses and stores as well as considerable acreage of land. The economic conditions of the time threatened the financial and social security of the Slocum family, however, and when Olivia was nine her family fell on hard times; by 1841, when Olivia was thirteen, her father had been forced to put 500 acres up for sale to pay his debts (Crocker 2000). Although finances were lean, Olivia was able to attend Troy Female Seminary, thanks to a loan from a wealthy uncle. The seminary was one of a handful of institutions of higher education for women then in existence and was run by educator and writer Emma Willard. Women trained at Troy went out as teachers throughout the nation, frequently setting up their own schools based on the Troy seminary model.

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A devout, lifelong Presbyterian, Mrs. Sage excelled at volunteer work, organizing, and fundraising. She donated time to missionary and benevolent societies and was associated with the New York Exchange of Women’s Work and the New York Women’s Hospital. The hospital experience provided a valuable apprenticeship in handling money. Mrs. Sage was the treasurer and also was involved in fundraising for the hospital’s new building. In the 1890s, she became more civically engaged. She was among the founders in 1891 of the Emma Willard Association, an alumnae organization for Troy Female Seminary, and she supervised the collection of biographical data for the volume Emma Willard and Her Pupils, which contains information on the lives of 3,500 of the more than 12,000 women who attended Troy from 1822 to 1872 (Crockett 2002). Mrs. Sage also identified with the plight of the “educated woman” and began to speak out for women’s suffrage at this time. In 1906, Olivia Sage inherited her husband’s fortune and launched into philanthropy. Although Mrs. Sage experienced great pleasure in donating her money, philanthropy was not without its darker side and challenging experiences. She was often bombarded with requests and applications for donations. Her funds went primarily to churches, missions, other religious causes, and universities. Of the nineteen colleges named in her will, each received about $800,000. Other organizations and institutions included the Russell Sage Foundation, which continues today to focus on its original mission. Asia M. Muhammad References and further reading Croker, Ruth. 1996. “From Widow’s Mite to Widow’s Might: The Philanthropy of Margaret Olivia Sage.” American Presbyterians 74, no. 4 (Winter): 253–264. ———. 2002. “Margaret Olivia Slocum (Mrs. Russell) Sage (1828–1918).” In Notable American Philanthropists, edited by Robert T. Grimm Jr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Deforest, Robert W. 1918. “Margaret O. Sage, Philanthropist.” The Survey 41: 151. Hammack, David C. 1994. Social Science in the Making: Essays on the Russell Sage Foundation, 1907–1972. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

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Salvation Army Started in the United States in 1880, the Salvation Army is an evangelical Christian organization dedicated to serving the needy. Today, it is based in London and has an international presence in more than 100 countries. Its worldwide programs include a range of social, medical, educational, and other community services. Accommodations for the homeless, occupational centers, and registered counseling are just a few of the ongoing services provided. The Salvation Army also responds to arising emergencies such as fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. The Salvation Army grew out of the unconventional approach to evangelical work that William Booth undertook in the mid-1800s as he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ on the streets of London. Some of his first converts to Christianity included thieves, prostitutes, and drunkards. He originally intended for his converts to worship in the established churches of England, but these congregations did not extend a warm welcome to the poor, homeless, and destitute. In order to preserve the renewed spirit of his followers, William Booth decided to form the East London Christian Mission (later the Christian Mission). Soon, these men and women joined Booth and his wife, Catherine, in the streets, working to save others who were like themselves. The name of the organization was changed to the Salvation Army in 1878. Booth was its first “general.” The military style continues to structure the organization, providing discipline and leadership. The name change was inspired by a note that Booth made in the margins of the Christian Mission’s annual report. Paying particular attention to its preliminary statement, “The Christian Mission is a volunteer army,” he crossed out the word “volunteer” and replaced it with “salvation.” According to the organization’s current materials, the Salvation Army “exists to serve the Lord by serving men, women and children at their greatest point of need, reaching the soul by meeting the needs of the body” (Salvation Army 2001, 5). Tangible aid—meals, clothing, help with life and job skills—is offered so people can devote attention to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This basic approach has not varied over the years.

Sanger, Margaret

Winston, Diane. 1999. Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Sanger, Margaret (1879–1966)

Gen. William Booth (1829–1912), founder of the Salvation Army (Library of Congress)

The U.S. branch of the Salvation Army began in 1880 when General Booth sent eight Salvationists to lead the way in America under the leadership of Lieutenant Eliza Shirley. Salvation Army doctrines follow conventional Christian beliefs, and its articles of faith emphasize God’s purposes of saving. The Army’s services strive to advance the Christian religion, relieve poverty, and benefit the community as a whole. National headquarters for the Salvation Army in the United States are located in Alexandria, Virginia. The country is divided into four territories: Central, East, South, and West. Within these territories there are approximately forty smaller divisions. Meredith Deneau References and further reading The Salvation Army, http://www.salvationarmy.org (cited October 15, 2001). The Salvation Army United States of America, http://www. salvationarmyusa.org (cited October 16, 2001). The Salvation Army United States of America. 2001. Unto the Least of These: National Annual Report 2001. Alexandria, VA: Journey Communications.

Margaret Sanger led a successful campaign to remove the stigma of obscenity from contraception and to establish a nationwide system of clinics where women could obtain reliable birth control services. She organized research to improve methods, won court battles that changed obscenity laws, laid the groundwork for acceptance of birth control by organized medicine, and finally, in the year before her death, she witnessed the United States Supreme Court affirm her belief that there was a fundamental right to practice contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut). Born Margaret Louise Higgins in Corning, New York, she was the sixth of eleven children. Her father, a free-thinking political radical, earned a poor living as a stone mason, while her mother struggled to make ends meet and maintained the Roman Catholic faith of her Irish ancestors. Margaret Higgins admired her father’s rebelliousness, but she was also haunted by her mother’s premature death from tuberculosis at the age of fifty. In 1902 Margaret left nursing school to marry the architect William Sanger, and she had three children despite developing tuberculosis. In 1911 the Sangers moved to New York City to participate in the radical activism that they both found attractive. Margaret worked as a home nurse on the Lower East Side and as an activist in the New York Socialist Party. She began to find fault with radical comrades whose attitudes toward women seemed little different from those of other men and became convinced that women needed a distinctive voice representing them as an interest group. She argued that control of their bodies was the paramount issue for women. Sanger attempted to mobilize a mass demand for legalized contraception through the publication of her The Woman Rebel (where the term “birth control” was coined in the June 1914 issue). After being indicted for violation of the postal code, Sanger departed for Europe in October 1914. Left behind were her instructions for mass distribution of her how-to-do-it

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pamphlet Family Limitation, which provided the most detailed and informed discussion of contraceptive techniques available in English. During exile in Europe, Sanger began to develop a more cautious propaganda that exploited the rhetoric of social science and sought to win social elites to the cause of sexual liberation. In the Netherlands, Sanger found contraceptive advice centers staffed by midwives and attended classes in the fitting of the vaginal diaphragm, which became the primary method she recommended. Sanger returned to the United States and, in October 1916, opened a women’s clinic in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, where 464 mothers got contraceptive advice during the ten days before a police raid closed the center. Her trial and brief imprisonment made Sanger a national figure, and in appealing her case, she won a 1919 clarification of the New York State obscenity law that established the right of doctors to provide women with contraceptive advice for “the cure and prevention of disease.” Sanger interpreted this decision as a mandate for doctor-staffed birth control clinics. She played down her radical past and found financial angels among socialites, philanthropists, and her second husband, J. Noah Slee, the manufacturer of Three-In-One Oil. Such support allowed her to organize the American Birth Control League in 1921 and the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in New York City (1923). The first doctor-staffed birth control clinic in the United States, the clinic provided case histories that demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of contraceptive practice and served as a model for the nationwide network of over 300 birth control clinics by the late 1930s. During the 1930s, Sanger organized a major lobbying campaign to remove contraception from the federal anti-obscenity law. The effort failed, but Sanger was able to win an important revision in federal law with U.S. v. One Package (1936), which established the right of physicians to receive contraceptive materials. In 1937 the American Medical Association recognized contraception as an ethical medical service. Sanger served as first president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952. She raised

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subsidies for research in reproductive biology throughout her career. Vindication for her persistence came in the 1950s, when she brought the work of the biologist Gregory Pincus to the attention of her longtime ally Katharine Dexter McCormick, who subsidized the development of the birth control pill first marketed in 1960. James W. Reed References and further reading: Chesler, Ellen. 1992. Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in the United States. New York: Simon & Schuster. Margaret Sanger Papers Project, http://www.nyu.edu/ projects/sanger.

Self-Help Groups Self-help groups are autonomous, voluntary assemblies of people in similar situations or predicaments, or with the same disease or condition, who join together to cope with and resolve their troublesome issue through sharing knowledge and providing mutual social and emotional support (Borkman 1991, 1999). In self-help groups (also called “mutual aid groups”), individuals take responsibility for dealing with their own issue through helping themselves, but self-help is facilitated within a group context of mutual sharing and support in helping others. This mutual helping highlights an unusual volunteering situation. Although one typically thinks of giver and recipient as two different people, in self-help/mutual aid the recipient is also the giver and vice versa; Frank Reissman’s (1965) concept of the “helper” therapy principle that the helper receives more benefit than the recipient of the help is widely quoted in the selfhelp group literature. Although the public often uses the terms “selfhelp group” and “support group” synonymously, researchers make an important distinction between the two. Support groups are those controlled and run by professionals, whereas self-help/mutual aid groups are autonomous, self-run, and self-governing (Kurtz 1997). Contemporary self-help/mutual aid groups are often identified as originating in the 1930s when Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery, Inc., were founded. Although these organizations shared impor-

Self-Help Groups

After three months without a drink, John finds himself an Alcoholics Anonymous crusader, helping the good work of saving others by telling of his successful fight. Photograph circa 1950. (Bettmann/Corbis)

tant features with the earlier friendly and fraternal societies (Morris 2000; Katz and Bender 1990), the earlier mutual aid societies emphasized material assistance, such as insurance or health benefits, and the new ones emphasized emotional aid (that is, a creative form of lay group therapy) or created alternative meaning perspectives that provided new, nonstigmatizing identities (Borkman 1999; Rappaport 1993). Self-help groups had become institutionalized in the United States by the 1990s (Borkman 1991). Alcoholics Anonymous, the grandfather of twelve-step and contemporary self-help groups, is widely known and referenced in the popular media. New self-help groups now spring up to aid families and others after

every major airline crash or tragedy. Innovative groups have evolved around ambiguous medical conditions, helping the medical community to educate the public as well as to define, research, and provide treatments for the conditions. Thousands of groups have been created to support families, friends, and others touched by war. Self-help groups represent an ambiguous place in the third sector as conventionally defined by scholars. Their giving and volunteering activities do not fit perfectly into traditional definitions of philanthropy. The most widely used definition—the structural-operational one used by the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (Morris 2000)—excludes

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self-help groups (along with other grassroots organizations, informally organized groups, and memberbenefit organizations that primarily serve their members) from the third sector (Smith 2000). Similarly, the volunteering and giving of self-helpers to each other is usually unrecognized by scholars as philanthropy not only because of the organizational context in which they are contributed but also because of the traditional definition of philanthropy as “the giving of time or valuables (money, security, or property) for public purposes” (Salamon 1999). For researchers, this means that foundation grants and individual donations of money and/or volunteer time to a nonprofit organization are counted in surveys of the field, whereas time and resources contributed to self-help groups are not. The beneficiaries of a mutual benefit group for those with a particular disease, for example, would not be included in the traditional definition of philanthropy, but the medical organizations researching the disease would be, since the long-term beneficiaries would be the public at large. Philanthropy has been distinguished from mutual aid since the late 1940s (Beveridge 1942). The distinction continues today, with the assumption that philanthropy is altruistic, a selfless giving to others both reflecting and reinforcing “public perceptions of philanthropy as an attitude of benevolent superiority” (Wright 2001, 400; Munn-Giddings 1998). Fortunately, a broader conceptualization of philanthropy is emerging that includes self-help. This definition specifies the informal giving of money, goods, unpaid assistance, and emotional support interpersonally to family, friends, or strangers (O’Neill 2001; Havens and Schervish 2001; Schervish and Havens 2002). The broader conceptualization of philanthropy focuses on caritas, or caring, within a new explanation of why people give to others. Instead of resorting to the frequent explanations of volunteering as altruism or (calculated) reciprocal giving based on trust, Paul G. Schervish and his colleagues developed an inductively based theory of giving as caring for the other grounded in the identification of the other as part of a “we-ness” (Schervish and Havens 2002). Schervish originated these ideas from an analysis of the philanthropic behavior of wealthy individuals and then tested them in national representative survey data. He wrote, “The

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identification theory is fundamentally a relational one and these relations can be fostered and expanded: voluntary assistance derives from identification, identification derives from encounter, encounter derives from relationship, and relationship derives from participation” (Schervish and Havens 2002, 50). Roger A. Lohmann’s (1992) concept of “the commons” is a third-sector theory that captures the distinctiveness of self-help groups and ties them conceptually to the broader view of philanthropy. The commons is a public arena of action where “autonomous self-defining collectives of voluntarily associating individuals” create and maintain their own meaning perspectives and sense of reality (Lohmann 1992, 18). Self-help groups develop and use experiential knowledge, sharing their personal, lived experiences; this accumulating knowledge results in a “meaning perspective” of how members of a group define their common problem, determine how to workably resolve it, and create a modified identity (Borkman 1999). Support groups are unlikely to develop a distinctive meaning perspective but follow the ideology of the professional leader (Borkman 1999; Kurtz 1997). Among autonomous groups there are likely to be different solutions to an issue: In groups of persons with mental illness, for example, one finds a continuum from the strident “psychiatric survivors,” at one extreme, to groups that value psychiatric help, at the other (Emerick 1991). Similarly, the National Gay and Lesbian Network helps people adapt to their sexual orientation, whereas Homosexuals Anonymous rejects the gay or lesbian orientation and tries to help members “live free of homosexuality” (White and Madara 1998, 274). The concept of the commons encompasses various organizational forms as well as activities such as conventions or workshops that apply well to selfhelp/mutual aid. Although the term “self-help group” is conventionally used, in fact, self-help assumes many diverse organizational forms, from informal kitchen table groups to legally incorporated nonprofit agencies to complex national and international structures with chapters and central umbrella organizations. His theory also captures the focus on: (1) intangible social action rather than monetarily oriented action, that is, volunteer time, emotional support, and care as a gift

Self-Help Groups

to group members; (2) the authenticity of interaction as whole persons in the group, in contrast to the segmented roles found in therapist-client or physicianpatient relationship; and (3) intrinsic valuation. A specific commons should be evaluated in terms of its own criteria, since it is an autonomous social unit that has created its own worldview, rather than in terms of the universalistic criteria of professionals, such as efficiency, consistency, and accountability. The moderate amount of research on self-help groups that has been conducted especially since the 1980s is by an interdisciplinary group of social scientists, including psychologists, social workers, nurses, educators, and sociologists. These researchers have framed self-help groups as alternative therapies and human services, not as voluntary action or philanthropy (Borkman 1999; Karlsson et al. 2000). They have been preoccupied with the benefits of individual participation in groups and the descriptive cataloging of the types and diversity of groups (Kurtz 1997; Kyrouz and Humphreys 1998; Borkman 1999). There is a paucity of direct data on self-help/mutual aid groups since the voluntary-sector framework has infrequently guided research. Researchers who have viewed self-help members as the equivalent of clients, patients, or consumers of therapy or human services have done research on what participants receive but not what they give. From the more inclusive third-sector viewpoint, the people who attend a meeting are volunteering to make the meeting happen; they are providing emotional support to the extent that they listen. Many supportive activities occur before and after meetings, through phone calls, e-mail messages, and social visits. Group leaders are contributing by helping maintain the group as a forum for volunteering and giving unpaid assistance and emotional support to others. But there is little data on all this activity; indeed, researchers have only indirect data estimating the numbers of groups and attendees and documenting what attendees feel they receive from the groups they attend. Robert Wuthnow studied the small-groups movement among a representative sample of adult noninstitutionalized Americans. He concluded that “four out of every ten Americans belong to a small group

that meets regularly and provides caring and support for its members” (Wuthnow 1994, 4). In this well-designed survey, the most frequent kinds of small groups were Sunday school classes and Bible study groups. Third in frequency were self-help groups, which claimed one-eighth of all small-group members (ibid., 70). Wuthnow estimated that there were between 8 million and 10 million American adults who belonged to self-help groups and, assuming an average of twenty persons per group, an estimated 500,000 groups (ibid., 76). But no data exist on how often groups meet, how often members attend meetings, and what other supportive relationships they have in addition to meetings. If a meeting had twenty attendees who met for an hour, and ten of these attendees spent an average of 18 minutes before and after the meeting talking to others, then one meeting would involve 23 hours of volunteering in the form of giving emotional support. Many studies of what self-helpers receive from group participation consistently report a very high percentage of members who feel that they were understood by others, that they received empathetic support and encouragement, and that they were more hopeful because of their participation (see reviews by Kurtz 1997; Borkman 1999; Wuthnow 1994). More research is needed that frames self-help/mutual aid groups as voluntary assemblies in which emotional support and unpaid assistance are measured as well as conventional forms of giving to others. Self-help/mutual aid appears to be a dynamic source of philanthropy that has been invisible, ignored, and lost to view in third-sector scholarship. Thomasina Borkman References and further reading Beveridge, Sir William. 1942. Social Insurance and Allied Services. London: H. M. Stationary Office. Borkman, Thomasina. 1991. “Introduction to the Special Issue on Self-Help Groups.” American Journal of Community Psychology 19 (5): 643–650. ———. 1999. Understanding Self-Help/Mutual Aid: Experiential Learning in the Commons. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Emerick, Robert E. 1991. “The Politics of Psychiatric SelfHelp: Political Factors, Interactional Support, and Group Longevity in a Social Movement.” Social Science and Medicine 32 (10): 1121–1128.

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Havens, John J., and Paul G. Schervish. 2001. “The Methods and Metrics of the Boston Area Diary Study.” Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly 30, no. 3 (September): 527–550. Karlsson, Magnus, Eva Jeppsson Grassman, and Jan-Hakan Hansson. 2000. “Self-Help Groups in the Welfare State: Treatment Program or Voluntary Action?” Paper presented at the ARNOVA Conference, New Orleans, November 15–18. Katz, Alfred H., and Eugene I. Bender. 1990. “Self-Help and Mutual Aid in History: Enduring Motives and Current Trends.” In Helping One Another: Self-Help Groups in a Changing World, edited by A. H. Katz and E. I. Bender, 9–21. Oakland, CA: Third Party. Kurtz, Linda Farris. 1997. Self-Help and Support Groups: A Handbook for Practitioners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kyrouz, Elaina M., and Keith Humphreys. 1998. “A Review of Research on the Effectiveness of Self-Help/Mutual Aid Groups.” In The Self-Help Sourcebook: Your Guide to Community and Online Support Groups, 6th ed., edited by Barbara J. White and Edward J. Madara, 71–82. Denville, NJ: Northwest Covenant Medical Center. Lohmann, Roger A. 1992. The Commons: New Perspectives on the Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Morris, Susannah. 2000. “Defining the Nonprofit Sector: Some Lessons from History.” Voluntas 11, no. 1 (March): 25–43. Munn-Giddings, Carol. 1998. “Mutuality and Movement: The Significance of Self-Help/Mutual Aid Groups to Voluntary Action and Social Change.” Paper presented at the Third International Conference of the International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR), Geneva, July 8–11. O’Neill, Michael. 2001. “Research on Giving and Volunteering: Methodological Considerations.” Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly 30, no. 3 (September): 505–514. Rappaport, Julian. 1993. “Narrative Studies, Personal Stories, and Identity Transformation in the Mutual Help Context.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 29, no. 2 ( June): 239–256. Riessman, Frank. 1965. “The ‘Helper’ Therapy Principle.” Social Work 10 (2): 27–32. Salamon, Lester M. 1999. American’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer, 2d ed. New York: Foundation Center. Schervish, Paul G., and John J. Havens. 2002. “The Boston Area Diary Study and the Moral Citizenship of Care.” Voluntas 13, no. 1 (March): 47–71. Smith, David Horton. 2000. Grassroots Associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. White, Barbara J., and Edward J. Madara, eds. 1998. The Self-Help Sourcebook: Your Guide to Community and

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Online Support Groups, 6th ed. Denville, NJ: Northwest Covenant Medical Center. Wright, Karen. 2001. “Generosity vs. Altruism: Philanthropy and Charity in the United States and United Kingdom. Voluntas 12, no. 4 (December): 399–416. Wuthnow, Robert. 1994. Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America’s New Quest for Community. New York: Free Press.

Serial Reciprocity See Reciprocity

Service Clubs Service clubs are organizations formed by volunteers to assist their larger communities. Assistance provided by these clubs may be monetary as well as voluntary in nature. Service clubs have been a part of the American philanthropic infrastructure for most of American history. During the pre–Revolutionary War era, many of the early service clubs provided vital services for communities. During the Civil War era, they often provided needed assistance to the soldiers fighting in the Union and Confederate armies as well as the soldiers’ families. After the Civil War, the depression of 1873–1878 caused hardships for many people. In this environment, many of the forms of service clubs with which we are familiar today developed. Soup kitchens, breadlines, and free lodging houses, for example, were formed for those needing assistance. In 1870, Jewish welfare agencies formed the United Hebrew Charities, and several other new societies were founded during the same period. Service clubs were most clearly defined with the rise of “scientific philanthropy,” which began in the 1880s and stretched into the early 1900s. During this time, hundreds of agencies were organized to fight diseases, crime, poverty, misery, and other societal ills. The concept of the formal service club also grew out of the tendency of reciprocity that has long existed in the United States and in other nations. People have traditionally shared food with their neighbors if they were hungry, cared for them when they were sick, and comforted them in times of sadness and pain. The formalization of some of these processes through or-

Service Learning

ganized entities served as the foundation for the development of service clubs. Today, there are scores of service clubs in the United States and globally. Some are individual organizations. Others such as Lions, Rotary, and Kiwanis are large organizations with dozens of chapters or affiliates. Although the services provided and the set of constituents served vary widely, service clubs are alike in that they are not merely social clubs but interested in assisting those in need in the community. Kyle Farmbry References and further reading Bremner, Robert H. 1988. American Philanthropy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gaylin, Willard, Ira Glasser, Steven Marcus, and David Rothman. 1978. Doing Good: The Limits of Benevolence. New York: Pantheon. Joseph, James A. 1995. Remaking America: How the Benevolent Traditions of Many Cultures Are Transforming Our National Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Vonhoff, Heinz. 1960. People Who Care: An Illustrated History of Human Compassion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Warner, Amos G., Stuart A. Queen, and Ernest B. Harper. 1930. American Charities and Social Work. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.

Service Learning How can educators transmit the philanthropic tradition to students in a way that is internalized and enduring? One strategy is to integrate philanthropy into school curricula so that philanthropic issues and traditions are studied as a topic and related to other disciplines such as economics, history, the social sciences, literature, the arts, and law. The study and analysis of philanthropy is an important educational goal. However, that strategy may not be the best way to inculcate philanthropic ideals, motives, and habits. An alternative strategy for developing dispositions for and habits of philanthropy focuses on engaging students in educationally meaningful philanthropic activities through community service.

Definition Service learning is defined as a “course-based, creditbearing educational experience in which students (a)

participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and (b) reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility” (Bringle and Hatcher 1995, 112). This definition helps differentiate service learning from other types of educational experiences that take place in the community (for example, internships, practica, fieldbased instruction, and cooperative education) and also differentiates service learning from volunteering. Unlike many practica and internships, service learning is linked to a course and has the intentional goal of developing civic engagement in students. Unlike volunteering, service learning represents academic work in which the community service activities are used as a “text” that is interpreted, analyzed, and related to the content of a course in a way that permits a formal evaluation of the academic learning. Thus, in service learning, students do not receive academic credit for engaging in community service; rather, academic credit is based on the academic learning that occurs as a result of the community service. The community service activities are intentionally selected to be aligned with the educational objectives of the course, and they are selected with community partners so that the community service is meaningful to them and their clients. Thus, high-quality service learning classes demonstrate reciprocity between the campus and the community, with each giving and receiving, each teaching and learning. In addition, service learning incorporates reflection activities that provide opportunities for “intentional consideration of an experience in light of particular learning objectives” (Hatcher and Bringle 1997, 153). These activities may take a variety of forms, including journal writing, other written assignments, group discussion, multimedia presentations, and reports to the community agency (Hatcher and Bringle 1997; Eyler, Giles, and Schmiede 1996). Effective reflection activities should fit five guidelines: They should (1) clearly link the service experience to the learning objectives; (2) be structured; (3) occur regularly; (4) provide feedback from the instructor; and (5) include the opportunity to explore, clarify, and alter values (Hatcher and Bringle 1997).

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Principles of good practice have been offered to guide the integration of service into academic study when designing service learning courses (for example, Howard 1993; Jacoby and Associates 1996; Honnet and Poulson 1989). Several organizations provide important support and resources for the development of service learning, including the Corporation for National and Community Service (K–12 and higher education, http://www.nationalservice.org); the National Society for Experiential Education (K–16, http://www.nsee.org); Compact for Learning and Citizenship (K–12, http://www.ecs.org/clc); Campus Compact (higher education, http://www.compact. org); the National Youth Leadership Council (K–16, http://www.nylc.org); and the American Association for Higher Education (http://www.aahe.org).

History The roots of service learning can be traced to multiple historical antecedents that reflect diverse philosophical, political, social, religious, and educational influences (Stanton et al. 1999). Because service learning is “learning by doing,” it finds its philosophical roots in the writings of Williams James and John Dewey (see Giles and Eyler 1994; Hatcher 1997), who stressed the importance of pragmatic approaches to educating students to be active citizens. Political activism in various forms (for example, civil rights movement, voter education) and government-based programs (Civilian Conservation Corps) also precipitated interest in relating community activities and social reform to educational goals. Various faith-based approaches to education have promoted outreach, service, and missionary work that influenced current approaches to service learning. In addition, numerous educational movements (such as the land-grant movement in higher education, cooperative education, experiential education, and federal work study) are related to a desire to produce educationally meaningful community involvement of students in the curriculum. Research on Outcomes There has been a dramatic increase in service learning classes in K–12 and higher education. However, there is limited research evidence documenting the effectiveness of service learning in reaching educational

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objectives of the course, the curriculum, and the institutional mission. The need for research on service learning has not gone unnoticed. Conferences were conducted in 1991 and 1993 to develop research agendas for service learning (Giles et al. 1991). Issues, topics, and questions for research have been identified in several works (see, for example, Giles and Eyler 1998; Howard et al. 2000). In addition, progress along these lines occurred through the work of a Research Advisory Council convened by Campus Compact in 1997–1998 and with Campus Compact’s “President’s Declaration on the Civic Responsibility of Higher Education” (Boyte and Hollander 1999). Does service learning, as an intervention, enhance students’ academic learning, commitment to civic involvement, and philanthropic behaviors? The most compelling evidence about the positive effects of service learning comes from self-report measures. To date, very limited research has been conducted on the outcomes of service learning in K–12 (see Furco and Billig 2002). A large five-year postgraduation follow-up survey of college students found that those who participated in service learning programs made gains in civic responsibility (for example, future plans to volunteer, efficacy to change society, and commitment to influence social values); in academic development (including contact with faculty and aspirations for an advanced degree); and in life skills (such as leadership skills, interpersonal skills, and conflict resolution skills) when compared to nonparticipating students (Astin and Sax 1998). Moreover, an annotated summary of research conducted on service learning in higher education concluded that service learning is related to the following benefits: • Academic learning (for example, grades, application, problem analysis, cognitive development) • Personal development (for example, selfefficacy, personal identity, spiritual growth, moral development) • Interpersonal development (for example, ability to work with others, leadership, communication skills) • A decrease in stereotypes and an increase in cultural and racial understanding

Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann

• Social responsibility (for example, citizenship skills, commitment to service) (Eyler et al. 2001) Service learning provides an effective strategy for engaging in meaningful community activities. Robert G. Bringle References and further reading Astin, A. W., and L. J. Sax. 1998. “How Undergraduates Are Affected by Service Participation.” Journal of College Student Development 39: 251–263. Boyte, H., and E. Hollander. 1999. Wingspread Declaration on the Civic Responsibility of Research Universities. Providence, RI: Campus Compact. Bringle, R. G., and J. A. Hatcher. 1995. “A ServiceLearning Curriculum for Faculty.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 2: 112–122. Eyler, J., D. E. Giles Jr., and A. Schmiede. 1996. A Practitioner’s Guide to Reflection in Service-Learning: Student Voices and Reflections. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University. Eyler, J., D. E. Giles Jr., C. M. Stenson, and C. J. Gray. 2001. At a Glance: What We Know about the Effects of Service-Learning on College Students, Faculty, Institutions, and Communities, 1993–2000, 3d ed. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University. Furco, A. and S. H. Billig. 2002. Service Learning: The Essence of the Pedagogy. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Giles, D. E., Jr., and J. Eyler. 1994. “The Theoretical Roots of Service-Learning in John Dewey: Towards a Theory of Service-Learning.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 1: 77–85. ———. 1998. “A Service Learning Research Agenda for the Next Five Years.” In Academic Service Learning: A Pedagogy of Action and Reflection, edited by R. A. Rhoads and J. P. F. Howard, 65–72. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Giles, D., E. P. Honnet, and S. Migliore, eds. 1991. “Research Agenda for Combining Service and Learning in the 1990s.” Raleigh, NC: National Society for Internships and Experiential Education. Hatcher, J. A. 1997. “The Moral Dimensions of John Dewey’s Philosophy: Implications for Undergraduate Education.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 4: 22–29. Hatcher, J. A., and R. G. Bringle. 1997. “Reflection: Bridging the Gap between Service and Learning.” College Teaching 45: 153–158. Honnet, E. P., and S. Poulsen. 1989. “Principles of Good Practice in Combining Service and Learning.” In Wingspread Special Report. Racine, WI: The Johnson Foundation.

Howard, J. 1993. “Community Service in the Curriculum.” In Praxis I: A Faculty Casebook on Community Service Learning, edited by J. Howard, 3–12. Ann Arbor, MI: OCSL Press. Howard, J. P. F., S B. Gelmon, and D. E. Giles Jr. 2000. “From Yesterday to Tomorrow: Strategic Directions for Service-Learning Research.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, Special Issue (Fall): 5–10. Jacoby, B., and Associates. 1996. Service-Learning in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Stanton, T. K., D. E. Giles Jr., and N. I. Cruz. 1999. Service-Learning: A Movement’s Pioneers Reflect on Its Origins, Practice and Future. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann (1774–1821) “There can be no disappointment where the soul’s only desire and expectation is to meet his adored will and fulfill it,” claimed Elizabeth Seton, educator and philanthropist (Dirvin 1975, 212). Elizabeth Ann Seton saw it as God’s will for her to educate children. Known as the founder of the parochial school system in the United States, she poured her heart into carrying out this task and took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. She also founded the first religious community for women in the United States, the Sisters of St. Joseph. After her death in 1821, she became the first U.S.-born individual to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint.

Early Years and Education Elizabeth Seton had a difficult childhood with much sadness and instability. She was born Elizabeth Ann Bayley on August 28, 1774, in New York City. Her mother died when she was not yet three years old. Her father remarried a year later, and Elizabeth was raised by her father and stepmother. Her sister, Catherine, died at age two. Elizabeth went to a private school called Mama Pompelions. Here she learned to play the piano and to speak French and studied other subjects appropriate to young women in the upper classes. At age nineteen, she married William Magee Seton, a wealthy businessman. The first four years of her marriage were prosperous and happy. During this period of financial security, Elizabeth was able

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At this point, Seton’s finances were very limited. She moved back to New York City to look for a teaching position to support her children. After her plan to take in boarders collapsed, she began a school, which failed, in part because many New Yorkers distrusted her Catholicism. Invited by Father William Dubourg of St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore to come to his city and open a girls’ school, Seton left New York in June 1808 and opened the Paca Street School in Baltimore, which at first had only four boarders in addition to her three daughters (Biography Resource Center 2000).

Elizabeth Seton (1774–1821) was the first American to be canonized and an important contributor to Catholic education. (Library of Congress)

to participate in the social life of the postwar city and, in 1797, had time to found the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children. This organization was one of the first charitable organizations in New York. Ironically, it would only be a few years before Elizabeth would become a widow herself. Soon after she founded the organization, William’s shipping business went bankrupt and William became very ill. Elizabeth and her husband moved to Pisa, Italy, in an attempt to find a climate that might improve William’s failing health. William passed away in December 1803 of tuberculosis. After only six years of marriage, Elizabeth became a widow and was left to raise five children by herself. While in Italy, Elizabeth was influenced by Catholicism. When she converted to Catholicism in 1805, she became an outcast to her Episcopalian family. She wrote in her journal: “I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic church: for if Faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek it where it first began, seek it among those who received it from God himself ” ( Jarvis 1984, 60).

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Career Highlights and Major Philanthropic Contributions The Paca Street School earned Seton the title “patroness of the parochial school” in the United States. The curriculum consisted of not only typical subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic but also chapel time. Seton wrote, “There are in the country, and perhaps too many, mixed schools, in which ornamental accomplishments are the only objects of education: we have not that I know where their acquisition is connected with and made subservient to, pious instruction” (Dirvin 1975, 219). The school eventually led to a religious community that formed from a group of women dedicated to educating children and caring for the poor. In the spring of 1809, the Sisters of St. Joseph, the first religious society in the United States, was created with five members. The community helped to found orphanages and hospitals but was primarily concerned with helping to establish the school. On March 25, 1809, Seton took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. On June 1, she and four others dressed for the first time in formal religious habit. Three weeks later, they moved to a permanent base in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Once in Emmitsburg, the group considered uniting with the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul of France. The community decided to remain separate, but it adopted, with some modifications, that order’s rules. In 1812, the group took the name Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, electing Seton as Mother Superior, and the Paca Street School became Saint Joseph’s Academy. Seton trained sisters to become teachers and wrote textbooks in addition to helping

Settlement Houses

the poor, sick, and disadvantaged black populations of Maryland ( Jarvis 1984, 102). Under Mother Seton’s direction, the work of the community expanded. The sisters opened the first North American Catholic orphanage in 1814 in Philadelphia and established another one in New York City three years later. They opened free schools in New York in 1818 and in Philadelphia in 1820. In 1817, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph obtained incorporation from the state of Maryland for the purpose of “works of piety, charity and usefulness, and especially for the care of the sick, the succor of aged, infirm and necessitous persons, and the education of young females” (Biography Resource Center 2000). Mother Seton braved many hardships in the community’s early days, including those in her own life. Although poverty continuously threatened the community, she was somehow able to form her sisters into effective teachers. Mother Seton taught French and music many hours daily, mothered the children of the school and the poor of the neighborhood, translated French biographies, prepared original meditations, and composed exquisite hymns ( Jarvis 1984, 103). Her daughter Anna Maria was the first to join the community following the adoption of the new rules, but she died on March 12, 1812, of tuberculosis. This was a very difficult time for Mother Seton. Rebecca, another daughter, passed away in 1816 of tuberculosis. Seton’s life was marked with sadness, but she remained strong to pursue what she saw to be her purpose in life. On January 4, 1821, Mother Seton died of tuberculosis at age forty-seven. By her death, twenty-one communities of the Sisters of Charity had been established. In 1959, Pope John XXIII proclaimed Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton Venerable, and she was beatified on March 17, 1963. In 1975, she became the first native American to be canonized (Catholic Online 2000). Seton Hall University was founded in 1856 by Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, Seton’s nephew. Laura Rupkalvis References and further reading Biography Resource Center, “Elizabeth Seton,” http://www. galenet.com/servlet/BioRC/ (cited November 1, 2000).

Catholic Online, “Elizabeth Seton,” http://www.catholic .org/saints/seton.html (cited August 20, 2000). Dirvin, Joseph. 1975. Mrs. Seton: Foundress of the American Sisters of Charity. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Feeney, Leonard. 1975. Mother Seton: Saint Elizabeth of New York (1774–1821). Cambridge, MA: Ravengate Press. Jarvis, William. 1984. Mother Seton’s Sisters of Charity. New York: Columbia University Press. Power-Waters, Alma. 1957. Mother Seton and the Sisters of Charity. Farrar, Straus.

Settlement Houses Settlement houses were established in the late nineteenth century as residences for young college students and graduates who wished to live among and help the urban poor to improve their working and living conditions. The first settlement house, Toynbee Hall, was founded in England in 1884. Samuel Barnett, an Anglican clergyman who believed traditional charity (“almsgiving”) was failing to close the growing wealth and social-class gap, attracted enough support within his church and Oxford University circles to build a residence for fourteen university students in the East London slums. Concerned about the impact of industrialization on the working poor in U.S. cities, Stanton Coit visited Toynbee Hall for three months in 1886 and returned to the Lower East Side of New York City to establish the first American settlement—Neighborhood Guild, which later became University Settlement. During the next few years, College Settlement (New York City, 1889), Hull-House (Chicago, 1889), and Andover House (Boston, 1891) were all established by young men and women inspired by the Toynbee model. Soon, a settlement movement had emerged in America. By 1897, there were 74 houses; by 1905, more than 200; and in 1910, more than 400 (Davis 1974 [1967], 12). In the early days, the relationship between the settlements and existing charity organizations, which had grown in number during the second half of the nineteenth century, was somewhat antagonistic. As the settlement movement rapidly spread, charity leaders became concerned that the settlement houses were

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Settlement Houses

Exterior of University Settlement House (Museum of the City of New York/Corbis)

drawing philanthropic resources away from their efforts. In the view of the early settlers, charities reflected the prevailing mentality of the times: that poverty was the result of the laziness and other moral flaws of individuals. The approach of charitable organizations was to assess the worthiness of the poorest individuals and to conduct friendly visits to offer assistance. Settlement workers claimed that their own approach was one of “reciprocity.” They sought to get to know the families in their neighborhoods and to join with them in resolving social and economic concerns (see Davis 1974 [1967], 18–22; Carson 1990, 65–68). Over time, these two groups of “social workers” found that although their methods differed, their purposes were often similar, and they began to collaborate more extensively. Although each settlement developed its own program activities and “personality,” the early houses shared much in common. Their staffs were largely young, college-educated, unmarried men and women

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with well-established parents who often were clergy or professionals and were involved in philanthropic or social reform activities (Davis 1974 [1967], 33–39). The primary method of settlement residents was to open their houses for clubs, lectures, music, recreation, libraries, and educational activities. As more and more of their working-class neighbors began to meet at the house around shared interests, residents recruited volunteer help from among their families and acquaintances. Clubs and classes often served as magnets for bringing children to the house; mothers would follow, and as families became more comfortable with the residence, even men would form their own groups. Gradually, workers and neighbors would join together on neighborhood improvement projects. Analysis of the social and economic structure of the neighborhood was important to the settlers, who published their studies as a means of bringing about reform. Nearly all the settlements became involved in issues related to garbage removal, housing conditions, and access to public education. Settlement houses also led pioneering efforts to create public baths, kindergartens, summer camps, public parks and playgrounds, labor unions, and consumer leagues. They were instrumental in promoting public health advances such as pasteurization of milk, community nursing, and control of contagious diseases such as tuberculosis. Settlement houses depended for financial support primarily on “subscriptions” by wealthy patrons. Often, well-connected members of local society sat on house boards of directors and were repeatedly called upon to donate funds and solicit their friends and family for support. Head workers were constantly challenged to seek funds. Early on, they formed federations and associations to spread the word about settlement work and to draw in volunteers and money for neighborhood projects. Individuals from philanthropic families were sometimes attracted by friendships with or the work of particular head workers. For example, Anita Blaine, daughter of inventor Cyrus McCormick, and Louise DeKoven Bowen, daughter of a leading Chicago businessman, had long associations with Jane Addams and offered significant financial support to Hull-House (Barbuto 1999, 15, 31).

Smithson, James

Edward Everett Hale, famed author and orator, founded the Hale House settlement in Boston in 1895 and until his death in 1909 used his connections to ensure survival of the house. New York banker and philanthropist Jacob Schiff provided Lillian Wald with ongoing support for New York’s Henry Street Settlement. Although the movement peaked between 1890 and 1920, a notable characteristic of settlement houses was their ability to shift and change with the times (see Trolander 1987). During the first decade of the twentieth century, as waves of immigrants poured into American cities, settlement houses found ways to overcome language barriers and offer activities that would help their new neighbors “assimilate” and learn American ways while also preserving the richness of their own cultures. World War I brought restriction of foreign immigration, but soon came the new demands of the first black migration from the southern states. Unfortunately, the ability of the settlements to garner resources to support such changes in activity and focus diminished over time. The impact of both world wars and the Great Depression eroded the traditional base of wealthy settlement-house benefactors. Furthermore, the growth in popularity of community chests as a means of charitable giving put pressure on the settlements to standardize their programs and compete against one another. In the 1950s and 1960s, many houses actually merged in order to maintain financial support. The more than 100 settlements that still exist have frequently reshaped their structures and programs, methods of service delivery, and neighborhood relationships. Since the 1940s, professional social workers have dominated and the residence component of settlements has disappeared. Since the 1960s, most settlements have received at least some funding from government-sponsored programs, which tend to emphasize individual adjustment rather than group activities and neighborhood cohesion. Natalie Ammarell References and further reading Addams, Jane. 1998 [1910]. Twenty Years at Hull-House. Reprint, New York: Penguin Putnam. Barbuto, Domenica M. 1999. American Settlement Houses and Progressive Social Reform: An Encyclopedia of the

American Settlement Movement. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press. Carson, Mina. 1990. Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American Settlement Movement, 1885–1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Davis, Allen F. 1974 [1967]. Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890–1914. Reprint, New York: Oxford University Press. Trolander, Judith A. 1987. Professionalism and Social Change. New York: Columbia University Press. Woods, Robert A., and Albert J. Kennedy, eds. 1970 [1911]. Handbook of Settlements. Reprint, New York: Arno.

Sierra Club See Environmental Movement; Muir, John

Smithson, James (1765–1829) Although British scientist James Smithson never stepped on American soil, the generosity he showed the United States in death made him an important figure in the history of American philanthropy. By making a charitable bequest to the American government “for the establishment of an institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” he epitomized public philanthropy and demonstrated the controversial position of philanthropy in the early American republic (Rhees 1879, 2). Born into the British aristocracy in 1765, James Smithson was the illegitimate child of Hugh Smithson and Elizabeth Keate Macie. In 1786, he graduated from Oxford University and devoted the rest of his life to chemistry, mineralogy, and travel. Never marrying, Smithson died in Italy in 1829 and left his sizeable estate to his nephew. If the nephew did not produce an offspring, Smithson directed the bequest to the United States and for the creation of an organization modeled on the Royal Institution in England. In 1835, Smithson’s nephew died without any heirs and the United States was notified of the bequest. When the bequest arrived in the United States in 1838, many Americans believed philanthropy represented a threat to democracy: wealthy, elite individuals used philanthropy to obtain power and fame. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the legality of

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donor intent and charitable corporations remained an open question. In 1819, the United States Supreme Court even endorsed states’ ability to limit philanthropy in Philadelphia Baptist Association v. Hart’s Executors. Twenty-five year later, the Supreme Court reversed itself and finally solidified the legitimacy of charitable trusts in Vidal, Girard, et al. v. Philadelphia (1844). With the future of philanthropy being debated, it is not surprising that the Smithson bequest experienced many setbacks before it established the Smithsonian Institution in 1846. Early on, numerous southern U.S. Senators argued against accepting the gift, believing America should not be beholden to the charity of foreigners. Even after Congress accepted the bequest, public officials and others hotly debated how the bequest should be used. Unable to resolve these particulars, congressmen then turned to how the dispersal of the bequest should be governed. The Smithsonian Institution subsequently became a corporation, chartered by the federal government, and governed by trustees who were elected or appointed federal officials. In the end, Smithson’s bequest illustrated public philanthropy, an important and oftenrepeated aspect of the American philanthropic tradition marked by the donating of private money to public entities for public purposes. Robert T. Grimm Jr. For Further Reading Hafertape, Kenneth. America’s Castle: The Evolution of the Smithsonian Building and Its Institution, 1840–1878. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1984. Hall, Peter Dobkin. 2002. “James Smithson,” In Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, edited by Robert T. Grimm, Jr., 297–301. Westport, CT and London: Oryx Press. Rhees, William J., ed. The Smithsonian Institution: Documents Relative to Its Origin and History. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections XVII, Publ. No. 328. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1879. [Republished in 1901 with more documents and two volumes].

Social Capital The term “social capital” refers to the benefits social actors derive from their membership in social net-

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works. The concept is currently of great interest among academics in numerous social science disciplines and used in much theoretical and empirical work. The concept is also being discussed by practitioners and policy makers, who seek to use it in a variety of settings. It has great relevance to philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. Its creation is held to be pervasive throughout the nonprofit sector and its influence to extend well beyond it. Despite its popularity and use, however, there are a number of conceptual and empirical issues associated with social capital.

Definitional Issues Although reference in the United States to “social capital” can be traced back to 1916 (Putnam 2000, 19–20), scattered academic use of the term dates from the 1950s and sustained, widespread interest began in the mid-1980s with Pierre Bourdieu (1986, 248). The concept was popularized in sociology by James Coleman (1988) and then more generally by Robert Putnam, primarily and most recently in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000). Specific definitions of the term abound and this is an issue in the academic literature. A recent survey, for example, listed twenty definitions that focused on different aspects of social capital, including its sources, its substance, and its effects (Adler and Kwon 2002, 18–21). The source of social capital lies in social structure, specifically the social relations in which actors are embedded: “To have social capital a person must be related to others, and it is those others, not himself, who are the actual sources of his or her advantage” (Portes 1998, 7). The substance, or nature, of social capital includes norms, such as trust and reciprocity (either in relation to specific others or generalized), that develop between people in social networks as well as the solidarity that develops as a product of common group fate. These factors may lead to a variety of effects at individual and group levels because social capital facilitates coordination, reduces transaction costs, and enhances the flow of information. These, in turn, enhance any number of social activities, such as the prospects for job attainment, the efficient exchange of goods, and community integration. In addition, definitions differed on whether the social relations are (1) between a given actor and others,

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(2) among actors within a collectivity, or (3) both (Adler and Kwon 2002, 19). In the first view, social capital is a resource located in the external linkages of a focal actor. Here, actors pursue instrumental ends by converting the social obligations of those in their network into personal benefits (Portes 1998, 6), such as economic capital, for example (Bourdieu 1986, 243). Social capital in this case is an individual (although limited) property. In the second view, the focus is on the benefit for the collectivity (group, organization, community, and so on) of the ties among its members. Social capital conceptualized in this way is a collective, public good. For Coleman, the benefits are the facilitation of action for individuals who are within a structure. Although Putnam has acknowledged the private benefits of social capital, his main focus has been on networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. Putnam’s definition is the one used in much of the current research and, with few exceptions, among practitioners and policy makers. The most popular current distinction is between bridging and bonding social capital (Putnam 2000, 22–23). Bonding social capital results from networks between similar or like-minded individuals. These are inward looking and tend to reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups. An example would be an ethnic fraternal association. Bonding ties promote specific reciprocity (between individuals) and group solidarity. Bridging social capital, in contrast, results from ties between heterogeneous actors. These ties are outward looking and encompass people across diverse social cleavages, for example, the ties in many social service organizations. Although potentially more fragile, bridging networks are better for linkages to external assets or for information diffusion (such as job information). They also generate broader identities and more generalized reciprocity. Groups sometimes have networks that promote both types of social capital simultaneously. The ties between the members of a white congregation, for example, may be bonding on some dimensions (such as race) and bridging on others (such as class). The diversity of definitions and uses of social capital has led to a number of critiques of the concept.

Tom Schuller, Stephen Baron, and John Field maintained that one question is “whether a term that can be defined so variably has failed to attain a proper status of accepted intelligibility” (Schuller et al. 2000, 24). They argued, however, that the many definitions are due primarily to the immaturity of the concept. Another concern has been the huge range of social issues to which the concept has been applied. According to Alejandro Portes, “The point is approaching at which social capital comes to be applied to so many events and in so many contexts as to lose any distinct meaning” (Portes 1998, 3). Schuller, Baron, and Field maintained that this criticism is related more to the fact that the concept has often been applied as a metaphor than it is to its inherent utility (Schuller et al. 2000, 26).

Positive and Negative Consequences Most theory and research has focused on the positive benefits of social capital. These benefits have been held to accrue to individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Putnam (2000) cited a host of benefits, including better democracy, education and child welfare, safe and productive neighborhoods, economic prosperity, health, and happiness. Portes (1998, 9–14) reviewed three basic functions of social capital. First, it can be a source of social control. For example, tight networks are useful to parents, teachers, and other authorities as they seek to maintain discipline and promote compliance among those under their charge. Second, it can be a source of parental and kin support. Intact families and those where one parent has the primary task of rearing the children generate more social capital than single-parent families or ones where both parents work. Children benefit accordingly in terms of both education and development. Third, social capital can be a source of benefits through extra-familial networks. This is the most commonly cited benefit of social capital. In sociology, for example, networks are often invoked in work on stratification, particularly the use of networks to obtain jobs. There have been theoretical discussions of possible negative aspects of social capital, but these have not been the subject of much research. Putnam (2000) pointed to some potentially negative effects

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of bonding social capital. With its emphasis on ingroup solidarity, it may promote out-group antagonism and reinforce the negative individual, group, and community consequences of that antagonism. Portes (1998) outlined four negative consequences of strong group ties. First, they may lead a group to exclude outsiders and therefore restrict access to group opportunities or benefits. They may also lead to excessive claims on group members. When norms of reciprocity are strong, those in a group with resources may face many demands from others, who cite their right to these based on mutual assistance. These ties may also result in restrictions on individual freedoms. The demands for conformity, backed by social control, brings up the classic tradeoff between solidarity and individual freedom. Finally, there may be downward leveling norms. If group solidarity is cemented by common experience of adversity and opposition to mainstream society, individual success will undermine group cohesion (because this is based on the impossibility of success). In this way, social capital may keep members of a downtrodden group in place and force its more ambitious members to leave.

Measurement of Social Capital The measurement of social capital is also problematic. One recent review found more than 100 indicators that have been proposed and, in most cases, used (MacGillivray and Walker 2000). Even among those using Putnam’s definition, there is no agreed-upon way to measure social capital. Measures range from psychological factors or attitudes related to trust or reciprocity to structural features of networks. Moreover, the units of analysis range from individuals to nations. These variations make it very difficult to compare the results of different research studies and evaluate their contributions. The examples presented below illustrate the range of approaches to measurement of social capital that different researchers have taken. In 2001, Putnam, in conjunction with the Saguaro Institute at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, carried out a major study to measure the extent of social capital in American communities. The project was academic in orientation. Although community involvement was sought,

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the primary goal was to establish a baseline measurement of social capital as defined by the institute. In all, nearly 30,000 people in more than thirty sites were interviewed. Ten dimensions of social capital were considered, including social trust, interracial trust, diversity of friendships, conventional politics participation, protest politics participation, civic leadership, associational involvement, informal socializing, giving and volunteering, and faith-based involvement. A summary of the results of the study is currently available on the Web site of the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley (http://www.cfsv.org/community survey). The results showed that the strength of residents’ social ties to their communities predicted the quality of community life and residents’ happiness better than other measures, such as education or income levels. In addition, communities varied widely on many of the measures. At the other extreme are studies carried out at the policy level. Ambitious work using the idea of social capital is being done by projects in Canada on social cohesion (through the Canadian Policy Research Networks), in Britain through National Statistics, and at the World Bank through its Social Capital Initiative. These and other projects have developed measures of social capital. Alex MacGillivray and Perry Walker (2000) reported on a community development project in the United Kingdom that had academic goals to develop measures of local social capital by assessing the social capital outcome of people’s involvement in sixteen projects to regenerate urban areas. Researchers developed thirteen measures of human and social capital. The latter included both interpersonal measures, such as whether people looked out for each other, and formal organizational and community measures, such as the availability and use of facilities. The results showed that although there was variation, all the projects generated positive effects and gains in social capital. In their review, Schuller, Baron, and Field outlined four major methodological challenges (2000, 26–31). In the first place, researchers should resist the temptation to use sophisticated statistical techniques that the quality or the quantity of the data cannot support. Indicators used at this point are often limited, and the validity of the resulting data may be a central concern.

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Also, a mix of qualitative and quantitative measures should be used. Second, there may be temporal issues. Social characteristics such as norms develop and change slowly. It may be difficult to discern changes in factors such as trust over time and then isolate these changes from other factors that in a long time scale are bound to be present. Third, the aggregation of data is another issue. A problematic assumption is often made that social capital can be aggregated from lower to higher levels—from the individual to the community level, for example. There are, however, qualitative differences in social capital depending on the level, and operationalization needs to be different according to level. Fourth, circularity can be a problem. Is social capital a characteristic of a flourishing community or the means to achieve it? Social capital has been used both as an explanatory variable in relation to some outcome (such as cohesion) as well as an indicator of it. In this way, it is used simultaneously as cause and effect.

Social Capital, Nonprofits, and Philanthropy Social capital has been considered at the individual, organizational, interorganizational, and community levels of analysis. It has been used in studies of families, youth behavior, schooling and education, public health, organization studies, neighborhoods, democracy and governance, economic development, and general problems of collective action (see Adler and Kwon 2002, 17). Social capital is relevant to philanthropy and nonprofit organizations in many ways. In addition, the social capital created by philanthropy and nonprofits is especially useful in a variety of settings, including religion, community development, poverty, education, and health. Social Capital and Philanthropy Christiaan Grootaert (2001) outlined a number of ways that foundations can promote social capital. First, they can use local-level social capital to deliver projects. To the extent that existing local organizations and associations participate in funded projects, their social capital will be enhanced by their involvement. Second, funders should also create enabling environments. Wider political and policy environments, such as good government and competent bureaucracy,

will support social capital. These environments may be fostered through funder encouragement of local organizational involvement and the provision of incentives for people to participate. Third, funders should also invest in social capital by directly supporting existing and emerging organizations. Participation in the project planning process as well as project delivery by local groups, individual nonprofits, and confederations or coalitions of organizations will build community social capital. Finally, funders should promote research and learning about social capital. This includes work on the theory and the measurement of social capital, the assessment of its contributions, the strategies for working with local organizations, and the micro-macro linkages between different forms of social capital. Allan Wallis, Jarle P. Crocker, and Bill Schechter (1998) discussed a number of major funder initiatives associated with their interests in poverty and community development. These included the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation’s general interest in the concept and funding of Robert Putnam’s work. Others funders included the National Civic League (training for community-based organizations), the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (health-focused community programs), the MacArthur Foundation, and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. In addition, the World Bank (through its Social Capital Initiative) has used social capital as a guiding idea in program development and evaluation. Social Capital and Nonprofit Organizations Numerous authors have held that nonprofits, such as neighborhood and community associations, sports clubs, cultural associations, and other voluntary organizations, are potential sources of social capital generation. These organizations provide the networks along which information flows and support the development and application of norms and sanctions. Organizations, however, may differ significantly in their social capital potential. Carla M. Eastis (2001) looked at variations in types of groups and how this affected social capital development, building on the contingency theory dimensions of technology and characteristics of raw materials that are processed. These were operationalized in several

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musical groups as social resources and musical content. The dimensions were seen as causing differences in specific organizational characteristics, such as size, member skills, and patterns of authority. These influenced the experience of membership and led to qualitative variations in social interations, which, in turn, affected the production of social capitial, including networks and norms. Dietlind Stolle and Thomas R. Rochon (2001) maintained that not all associations contribute to social capital in the same way or to the same degree (depending upon their goals) and that an association’s effect on social capital depends on the inclusiveness of the association. They examined 102 associations in three countries on twelve measures of social capital. The findings indicated that all indicators were positively associated with group membership. Different types of social capital were found in different organizational sectors (for example, cultural organizations developed a wide range of forms of social capital, whereas political associations were less likely to have generalized trust). In addition, the level of diversity in an association had an effect on the connection between social capital and membership. More diverse associations were more likely to have members with high levels of trust and reciprocity. Debra C. Minkoff (2001) looked at nonlocal groups. Most theory and research have emphasized the social capital benefits coming from local community and grassroots groups through their horizontal, face-to-face social networks. National organizations lack these features and have been held to be less relevant for social capital. Minkoff argued, however, that national social movement organizations also provide important social capital benefits by “providing an infrastructure for collective action, facilitating the development of mediated collective identities that link otherwise marginalized members of society, and shaping public discourse and debate” (Minkoff 2001, 192). Social Capital and Religion Michael W. Foley, John D. McCarthy, and Mark Chaves (2001) considered social capital generation in congregations, community development and social service organizations, local coalitions of religious bod-

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ies, and denominations. Congregations can provide structured access to resources, such as extended social networks, broader social linkages, and resources and outcomes, such as information flows, free spaces, socialization, community services, political participation, and authority and legitimacy. Denominations and supracongregational organizations can encourage the local activities of congregations and provide local leaders with ties that are helpful in mobilizing resources for local initiatives. Interfaith coalitions link congregations and para-church organizations in local programs that benefit communities. They may also serve as collective advocates, help in the recruitment of volunteers, and provide community education. Finally, congregation-based organizing networks may be a catalyst for organizing and empowering people in poor communities. They function through exploiting existing social capital, for example, by developing leadership and expanding the social networks between leaders and community members. They also develop and promote organizational linkages between and among congregations. These linkages between congregations with different characteristics expand socially heterogeneous social ties. Social Capital and Poverty Many, if not most, of the policy and practitioner considerations of social capital involve efforts to deal with poverty. Mark R. Warren, J. Phillip Thompson, and Susan Saegert (2001) pointed out that these efforts often build upon notions of social capital as a community asset. Social capital constitutes a means by which financial and public services can be increased and used more effectively. It has been shown to be effective in increasing access to affordable housing and to micro-credit and other community enterprises, in increasing neighborhood safety, and in improving schools. It can function in several ways, including helping make investment strategies work and helping the poor to act collectively and to forge alliances with outside actors to get resources that are necessary for combating poverty. Inherent in this is the view that the poor can be active agents for the betterment of their community and become partners in community development programs. For example, congregationbased organizations may serve as the basis for build-

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ing more overtly political interfaith organizations that seek to build power for social change by engaging in political, but not partisan, activity. Three major levels of social capital are held to be useful for poor communities. The first, bonding social capital within communities, is held to be foundational for the other levels to be effective. The other levels are bridging social capital, consisting of networks across communities, and networks creating synergy between communities and financial and public institutions. Social Capital and Community Development This is the area where the notion of social capital has probably been most widely used by academics, funders, and practitioners. Nonprofit organizations have played and continue to play prominent roles in community development efforts and are usually seen by analysts and researchers as critical for success. According to Patricia K. Felkins (2002), community building includes activities that promote alliances and coalitions. Increasing social capital and trust also facilitates coordination and cooperation among different organizations and agencies. Nonprofits, in their roles as mediating structures, can be key actors in these processes. Felkins examined six social service organizations with missions that included community building. She concluded, “The nonprofit sector also serves a valuable function in linking corporations and neighborhood groups in cooperative projects” (Felkins 2002, 6–7). Besides providing services to meet specific needs, the organizations were also concerned with issues of social justice, were active in local and national networks and alliances organized to help build community at the neighborhood level, engaged in advocacy, and provided training and resources to neighborhood people. William H. Simon (2001) pointed out that local nonprofits have a number of advantages, including relational density and synergy, a geographic focus, and face-to-face interactions. Community organizations can pursue a variety of community goals, including overcoming market limitations, building social capital, and representing interest-group outlooks and agendas. They may also be able to breach the conventional boundaries between levels of government and types of enterprises (Musso et al. 2002).

Robert J. Chaskin and colleagues (2001) examined community capacity and capacity building. Community capacity involves resources, problem-solving ability, and commitment. These can be found in individuals, organizations, and networks. Capacity enables a community to provide goods and services as well as to organize, plan, and make decisions. It can be developed through leadership, organizational development, and organizational collaboration. Nonprofits can be involved in all of these. The authors found that three nonprofits described in case studies provided goods, services, access to resources, and opportunities; leveraged and brokered external resources; developed human capital; created and reinforced community identity and commitment; and supported community advocacy. David Wright (2001) gave an overview of the results of the Pew Charitable Trust’s Neighborhood Preservation Initiative in working-class neighborhoods. Community foundations in nine mid-sized cities partnered with neighborhood-based organizations and community actors. The evaluation concluded that the program was a success, in large part because of the successful collaborations among local organizations. Wright wrote that the “promising organizational model that emerged stresses shared capacity: enabling a constellation of partner organizations linked on strategic joint projects, strengthened in turn by technical and financial support from foundation and intermediary partners, to act collectively on neighborhood goals. As a model, the shared capacity approach proved to be effective and durable and appears to offer solid promise as a replicable approach in other neighborhoods” (Wright 2001, 167). Social Capital and Education James Coleman (1988) began the discussion of social capital and education and considerations of this relationship have continued. Pedro Noguera (2001) pointed out that schools have the potential for building either positive or negative social capital. Social capital is undermined when academic failure is high, low achievement is accepted, and schools are isolated from the community because residents are seen as threatening. Poor social capital may also contribute to the exodus of families with resources, which further

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marginalizes the community. Effective social capital is created when schools are sources of opportunity and support for students. The key factor determining which form of social capital will be produced is the nature of the relationship between the school and the community, including parents. Those that achieve positive academic outcomes for their students rely heavily on the support and cooperation of parents. This observation builds on Coleman’s points about the effectiveness of network closure for value congruence. If the values of parents and the school are consistent, students will have more adherence to norms promoting good educational outcomes, including attendance, compliance with rules, and concern for achievement. Jon Lauglo (2000) used these ideas in the investigation of how social capital works to alleviate disadvantages that immigrant youth might face in adaptation to school. An argument has been made that social-class advantage breeds educational advantage, that the social circumstances of upbringing and resources make it easier for nonimmigrant students to succeed in school and stay in school longer, and that the children of immigrant parents do not do as well in school because their parents lack an understanding of the dominant language and are less familiar with the educational system. Research findings on Asian and Latino groups from studies that controlled for class differences, however, showed that Asian and Latino children of immigrant parents outperform their peers (even those from the same ethnic background). They have more positive attitudes toward school, have the support they need for orderly learning conditions, and make schoolwork a priority. Immigrant families are striving for success in new social environments and value education for their children. In addition, they also have solidarity with like-minded others in the immigrant community. These advantages lead to a number of social capital factors, including cohesive family, monitoring by parents, parents’ involvement with the school, and religious participation. Pamela Munn (2000) discussed how schools in England use the notion of social capital to combat the problems entailed by having to expel students. Consistent with the points made above, efforts include strengthening the involvement of parents. In addition,

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English schools use extra-familial networks. On the one hand, they attempt to extend students’ networks through the use of mentors who can provide emotional and perhaps employment support. Mentors also provide social control, as will buddy systems with older students. On the other hand, a more closed network (such as a special unit set up within the school) may be used to provide a sense of solidarity or safety for students. An important point is that there are tradeoffs to each approach and the pros and cons of these alternative types of network approaches need to be evaluated. Social Capital and Health Sherman A. James, Amy J. Schulz, and Juliana van Olphen (2001) pointed out that there has been a long-standing interest in the impact of socioenvironmental factors on health. Theorists start with the premise that the manner in which social relationships are structured in a society is a powerful determinant of the health status of all members of the society. Factors such as group membership, mutual respect, and trust are related to social integration, social cohesion, and social support—well-established predictors of positive physical and mental health outcomes for individuals. In addition, data on social capital and mortality at the community level also support the idea of negative community-level outcomes due to factors such as disrespect, lack of trust, income inequality, and community disempowerment. The authors laid out a conceptual model focusing on the health outcomes associated with the nature of group relationships and the resources these can mobilize. Key is how network interactions with particular characteristics shape the social support and other resources that might impact individual and community health. Wolfgang Bielefeld References and further reading Adler, Paul S., and Seok-Woo Kwon. 2002. “Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept.” Academy of Management Review 27: 17–40. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by J. G. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greenwood. Chaskin, Robert J., Prudence Brown, Sudhir Venkatesh, and Avis Vidal. 2001. Building Community Capacity. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

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Coleman, James. 1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.” American Sociological Review 94 (Supplement): S95–S120. Community Foundation of Silicon Valley. “The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey,” http://www. cfsv.org/communitysurvey/ (cited January 13, 2003). Eastis, Carla M. 2001. “Organizational Diversity and the Production of Social Capital: One of These Groups Is Not Like the Other.” In Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective, edited by Bob Edwards, 157–168. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Felkins, Patricia K. 2002. Community at Work: Creating and Celebrating Community in Organizational Life. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Foley, Micheal W., John D. McCarthy, and Mark Chaves. 2001. “Social Capital, Religious Institutions, and Poor Communities.” In Social Capital and Poor Communities, edited by Susan Saegert, J. Phillip Thompson, and Mark R. Warren, 215–245. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Grootaert, Christiaan. 2001. “Social Capital: The Missing Link?” In Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life, edited by Paul Dekker and Eric Uslaner, 9–29. New York: Routledge. James, Sherman A., Amy J. Schulz, and Juliana van Olphen. 2001. “Social Capital, Poverty, and Community Health: An Exploration of Linkages.” In Social Capital and Poor Communities, edited by Susan Saegert, J. Phillip Thompson, and Mark R. Warren, 165–188. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Lauglo, Jon. 2000. “Social Capital Trumping Class and Cultural Capital? Engagement with School among Immigrant Youth.” In Social Capital: Critical Perspectives, edited by Stephen Baron, John Field, and Tom Schuller, 142–167. New York: Oxford University Press. MacGillivray, Alex, and Perry Walker. 2000. “Local Social Capital: Making It Work on the Ground.” In Social Capital: Critical Perspectives, edited by Stephen Baron, John Field, and Tom Schuller, 197–212. New York: Oxford University Press. Minkoff, Debra C. 2001. “Producing Social Capital: National Social Movements and Civil Society.” In Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective, edited by Bob Edwards, 183–193. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Munn, Pamela. 2000. “Social Capital, Schools and Exclusion.” In Social Capital: Critical Perspectives, edited by Stephen Baron, John Field, and Tom Schuller, 168–181. New York: Oxford University Press. Musso, Juliet A., Alicia Kitsue, and Terry L. Cooper. 2002. “Faith Organizations and Neighborhood Councils in

Los Angeles.” Public Administration and Development 22: 83–94. Noguera, Pedro. 2001. “Transforming Urban Schools through Investments in the Social Capital of Parents.” In Social Capital and Poor Communities, edited by Susan Saegert, J. Phillip Thompson, and Mark R. Warren, 189–212. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Portes, Alejandro. 1998. “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 24: 1–24. Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Schuller, Tom, Stephen Baron, and John Field. 2000. “Social Capital: A Review and Critique. In Social Capital: Critical Perspectives, edited by Stephen Baron, John Field, and Tom Schuller, 1–38. New York: Oxford University Press. Simon, William H. 2001. The Community Economic Development Movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Stolle, Dietlind, and Thomas R. Rochon. 2001. “Are All Associations Alike? Member Diversity, Associational Type, and the Creation of Social Capital.” In Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective, edited by Bob Edwards, 143–156. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Wallis, Allan, Jarle P. Crocker, and Bill Schechter. 1998. “Social Capital and Community Building, Part 1.” National Civic Review 87: 253–272. Warren, Mark R., J. Phillip Thompson, and Susan Saegert. 2001. “The Role of Social Capital in Combating Poverty.” In Social Capital and Poor Communities, edited by Susan Saegert, J. Phillip Thompson, and Mark R. Warren, 1–30. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Wright, David J. 2001. It Takes a Neighborhood: Strategies to Prevent Urban Decline. Albany, NY: The Rockefeller Institute Press.

Social Change Funds Social change funds, which have proliferated in the United States since the 1970s, have played a critical role in helping to change the field of philanthropy. They have supported organizations that traditionally have not received the benefits of philanthropy, particularly groups advocating for social change and seeking to empower those who have been marginalized through poverty and/or discrimination. They have attempted to change the nature of philanthropy by

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involving different groups of people in the philanthropic process. And many of them have expanded the scope of workplace giving. Their thrust is best captured by the slogan: “Change, not Charity” (Funding Exchange). The word “progressive” is sometimes added to distinguish these funds from conservative funds, which seek a different form of social change. The largest concentration of social change funds belong to four national groups—Funding Exchange, National Alliance for Choice in Giving, National Black United Fund, and Women’s Funding Network. Social change funds share unique elements, and an array of issues are central to many of the challenges that social change funds face.

Impact and Distinctiveness of the Social Change Funds If criteria for measuring success include not only how much money has been raised but also impact—how the funds have contributed to social change—the funds appear to have had significant successes. The world of philanthropy is now different than it was before the social change funds were started. In the past, traditional grantmakers did not fund most of the groups that initially were funded by the social change funds. The social change funds provided the funding to help many groups to organize and stay afloat. They coached groups that served marginalized populations and/or were social-action oriented on how to approach foundations. The social change funds also provided these groups with a seal of approval that made a difference in the foundation world. Today, many foundations fund these groups. At the same time, United Ways, which shunned many of the grantees in the past, courted a number of them and brought them on as member agencies. The United Way donor-option program, allowing donors to designate their contributions to non–United Way agencies, was also created in large measure in response to the work of the social change funds. Thus, the very broadening of the base of funds available to marginalized populations must be seen as an important measure of the success of these funds. Since 1990, social change funds have been the focus of a small but growing body of research (Rabinowitz

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1990; Abzug 1996; Odendahl 1990; Ostrander 1995, 1997; Perlmutter 1988; Perlmutter and Kramer 1998; Silver 1998). These funds have also been growing in number. Yet despite their growth and contributions, they face significant challenges as they seek to adapt to a changing environment. Novel in their conception, and part of larger movements for social change in the 1970s and 1980s, as the twentieth century ended progressive social change funds faced a competitive marketplace and a conservative environment. Increasingly, as more traditional foundations funded more of their grantees and United Ways broadened their giving, social change funds have been challenged to distinguish themselves from the competition. Yet distinctions between the social change funds and other philanthropic entities are real, and social change funds continue to play a special role. A social change mission is central to what makes social change funds distinctive. First of all, it affects whom and what they fund—organizations that are pursuing social and economic justice. The grantees are trying to change inequitable systems and, especially, empowering people who have not traditionally had power and supporting their efforts to solve their own problems. Although a variety of grantmakers give some money for social change, in 1998 only 2.4 percent of all U.S. institutional funding went to progressive social change (National Network of Grantmakers 1998). Most reports of funding do not even have a category for social change. Many traditional foundations target issues that reflect their priorities; they also generally insist on funding projects, not operating costs, thereby controlling which activities a grantee pursues and restricting the grantee’s ability to decide on priorities. Social change funds are willing to let grantees define their priorities and to fund operating expenses, not simply projects. Additionally, though most philanthropic activity can be seen as “risk-averse” (Fink 1990, 159), social change funds take deliberate risks and sometimes support groups without 501(c)(3) status under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), something traditional grantmakers rarely do. The distinctiveness of these social change funds goes beyond whom and what they fund to how they fund. What fundamentally distinguishes the social

Social Change Funds

change funds is their nontraditional answer to the question of “ownership”: Whose organization is it and who controls it? Whereas control of more traditional funds—including private foundations, community foundations, and United Ways—has tended to be in the hands of already powerful groups, mostly corporate, wealthy, white, and male, social change funds represent philanthropy “by and for those who have largely stood outside [traditional philanthropy’s] decision-making process” (ibid., 150). Although they are organized in different ways, most share an effort to employ different, nontraditional philanthropic models that involve the way they are structured and governed, how decisions are made (particularly how funds are to be distributed), and the roles that grantees, community activists, and donors play. Many funds attempt to break down the traditional divide between the wealthy and those who are the recipients of funding. Social change funds are conscious of trying to create boards that are not predominantly white and male. African American funds have boards dominated by, or exclusively composed of, blacks; and women’s funds are dominated by women. Social change funds also aim for broad diversity that includes race, gender, sexual orientation, and economic class. Since donors play an indispensable role in the philanthropic process, defining their appropriate role remains a challenge. Social change funds discuss how much influence donors should have and whether donors should identify specific issues or groups they do or do not want to support. They are particularly concerned about how to keep from putting power back in the hands of the wealthy, especially because of the growing popularity of donoradvised funds, in which donors make a substantial gift to establish a separate fund within the social change fund and then advise the fund on how the money should be distributed.

Fundraising Challenges and Strategies Fundraising and Mission The distinctive mission of social change funds has implications for every element of their operation, including fundraising. Since most of the funds are classified by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as “public

charities,” they are required to continuously raise new money from the public. Many board and staff members believe their fundraising must be consistent with their goals of empowerment and democracy. This means reaching out to a broad spectrum of potential donors, not just the wealthy, and avoiding elitism (Capek 1998, 2:21). Tension between fund values and the need for fundraising often creates dilemmas. When planning fundraising events, for example, decisions have to be made regarding the extravagance of the event. Highprice events bring in more money, but they also are more exclusive and cater primarily to the wealthy. Similarly, since events often revolve around an honoree, should funds honor the “big names” that can attract big money, or ordinary people who have contributed to their communities? Should women’s groups honor men or only women? Further, should the funds accept corporate sponsorships from companies whose products are associated with problems in their communities (such as alcohol consumption or cigarette use)? Democratizing fundraising suggests developing large numbers of less affluent donors. But membership drives are time-consuming and can result in very small gifts. Direct mail campaigns and workplace campaigns are the primary means of getting to large numbers of nonwealthy donors, but both of these are expensive methods. In an effort to end elitism and minimize differences among those with different levels of wealth, some funds have decided to list donors alphabetically rather than in categories that indicate their levels of support. Some funds have such a suspicion of elitism that they have repelled people with money in the past, although more recently they have come to recognize the need to be more pragmatic. Fundraising, Controversy, and Advocacy Social change funds face other challenges to fundraising. One is the public perception that many of the social problems that were originally targeted by the social change funds have been solved. The funds have to convince donors that many of the basic problems persist, but, in doing so, they are dealing with issues that remain controversial and affect the ability to

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raise funds. Being controversial and supporting controversial organizations can both attract and alienate donors. Consequently, some funds feel caught between the need to educate their donors about what makes them distinctive and the imperative of not alienating individual donors or corporations, particularly those in which they want to conduct workplace campaigns. The funds also must decide how to handle the often controversial groups and issues for which they are raising funds. Since establishment support is sought in raising money, decisions may be made to avoid controversial fundraising events such as a provocative theatrical production. Controversial grantee actions may also pose challenges in fundraising. For example, a fund’s member agency may be organizing a boycott of a major corporation at the same time the fund is approaching the corporation for funding. And many corporations have been pressured to stop funding women’s funds because they support abortion rights groups and women’s health centers that perform abortions. Controversy, however, can help gain visibility and emotional support to energize donors. In Philadelphia, a controversy erupted in 1980 when the United Way turned down Womens Way’s application for membership with a letter stating that, under a previously undisclosed agreement with the Catholic Archdiocese, the United Way could not admit agencies that contravened the teachings of the Catholic Church. The disclosure created an uproar that not only made Womens Way more visible but also caused United Way to create its donor-option program, which has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Womens Way and to other groups that are not members of the United Way. Social change funds also must decide how much advocacy to do themselves. Grantees often worry that the funds will preempt their roles of advocating on particular issues. Therefore some prefer that the funds remain silent. When the funds do speak out, they must walk a fine line to ensure that they do not take over the role of grantees. Their advocacy may also alienate some potential donors. However, without standing for something, the funds themselves have a harder time raising money.

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Fundraising Strategies Social change funds employ a variety of fundraising methods. Traditional approaches to fundraising include the pursuit of individual, foundation, and corporate gifts, as well as special events. In addition, innovative fundraising methods have been attempted by many funds. For example, one fund has organized partnerships with different women’s professional networks that raise money and decide on grants in related issue areas (for example, real estate women dealing with homelessness, legal and health professionals handling violence against women). Almost all the funds identify the involvement of a younger generation as a critical issue, since current donors are concentrated in the thirty-five-year-old to sixty-four-year-old range. The funds are addressing this need through an array of methods, such as special giving groups for younger donors and increased use of computer technology. Many social change funds either have or are planning to develop endowments. Endowments, however, present important questions. Can these relatively new funds have successful endowment campaigns when donors might be concerned about their longevity and staying power? One fund has housed its endowment in a community foundation to answer the question of what happens if the fund ceases to exist. Are the social change funds too small to deal with endowments? And if they are successful, will endowments make them lose their cutting edge? Some take the view that endowments could free a fund to be more controversial. Pressure from grantees to give away as much as possible annually makes it difficult for the funds to withhold grants and put money into an endowment fund. However, many believe an endowment could provide the funds with some security and a way to finance their operating expenses. The Workplace Campaign and United Way Some funds raise money primarily through workplace campaigns. Two different approaches characterize the funds’ methods of dealing with the United Way, the organization that has dominated workplace giving. The first focuses on organizing “combined campaigns” in which social change funds are equal partners with United Way and donors may give directly to

Social Marketing

the social change funds. United Way and the social change funds often disagree about who should manage these campaigns, however, and United Way has wanted to retain control of the process. The second approach to working with United Way is to take part in United Way’s donor-option program. This program allows workplace donors to designate non–United Way agencies during a United Way campaign. However, this option is not available everywhere, since some United Ways have resisted it, and many funds have encountered difficulties with United Ways’ methods of administering the program and believe donor option prevents genuine access to donors.

Relationships between Social Change Funds Social change funds acknowledge their shared missions and challenges through their memberships in national organizations. At the local level, some funds have found ways to collaborate. Such efforts have included coalitions to expand workplace giving, joint educational programs, public support for another fund under fire, and collaborating on funding initiatives. Although increasing collaboration requires overcoming significant obstacles, including shortage of time and resources and narrow self-interest, individual fund leaders recognize that making more strategic use of relationships presents possibilities for advancing a social change mission in their communities. Felice Davidson Perlmutter and Vicki W. Kramer See also Responsive Philanthropy References and further reading Abzug, Rikki. 1996. “Reinventing Fundraising: Realizing the Potential of Women’s Philanthropy.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 6: 311–315. Capek, Mary Ellen S. 1998. Women and Philanthropy: Old Stereotypes, New Challenges. St. Paul: Women’s Funding Network. Clift, Elayne. 2001. “A Culture of Giving: Organizing to Change the Face of Philanthropy.” Toward Freedom 50 (3): 10–11. Fink, Justin. 1990. “Philanthropy and the Community.” In Critical Issues in American Philanthropy, edited by J. Van Til, 133–164. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Funding Exchange, http://www.fex.org/home.html. Klein, Kim. 1988. Fundraising for Social Change. Inverness, CA: Chardon Press.

May, Michael. 1999. Are We Ready? Social Change Philanthropy and the Coming $10 Trillion Transfer of Wealth. Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. National Network of Grantmakers (NNG). 1998. Social Change Grantmaking in the U.S. New York: NNG. Odendahl, Teresa. 1990. Charity Begins at Home. New York: Basic Books. Ostrander, Susan A. 1995. Money for Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ———. 1997. “Charitable Foundations, Social Movements, and Social Justice Funding.” In Research in Social Policy: Social Justice Philanthropy, vol. 5, edited by J. H. Stanfield, 169–190. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Perlmutter, Felice Davidson. 1988. “Alternative Federated Funds: Resourcing for Change.” In Alternative Social Agencies, edited by F. D. Perlmutter, 95–108. New York: Haworth Press. Perlmutter, Felice Davidson, and Vicki W. Kramer. 1998. “Social Change Funds: Challenges to Their Survival.” Paper presented at the ARNOVA Conference, Seattle, WA. Rabinowitz, Alan. 1990. Social Change Philanthropy in America. New York: Quorum. Silver, Ira D. 1998. “Buying an Activist Identity: Reproducing Class through Social Movement Philanthropy.” Sociological Perspectives 41 (2): 303–321. Steketee, Nan. 2000. “Workplace Fundraising: Supports Community Based Organizations.” Grassroots Fundraising Journal 19 (4): 6–8.

Social Marketing Social marketing is the application of marketing concepts and tools drawn from the private sector to programs designed to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences to achieve social goals. It is distinct from “nonprofit marketing,” which applies to all of the influence challenges of a nonprofit (or governmental) organization, and from “fundraising,” which focuses on only one specific kind of behavior. Thinking about social marketing was originally stimulated in the 1950s by sociologist G. D. Wiebe, who asked, “Why can’t we sell brotherhood like soap?” (Wiebe 1951–1952). The intellectual roots of social marketing are found in the work of marketing professors Philip Kotler, Gerald Zaltman, and Sidney Levy at Northwestern University in the late 1960s. This scholarship was matched in practice in the 1970s

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by ambitious family planning campaigns in developing countries and efforts to address high blood pressure and other public health issues in the United States. Over the next forty years, social marketing broadened its purview from a narrow focus on “social” products and services to accommodate any effort to influence a behavior where the objective is ultimately to influence socially desirable behavior. This has taken the field into domains such as crime and abuse prevention, environmental protection, and participation in the 2000 U.S. Census. It also has led scholars to explore how its methodology can apply to influencing policy makers, the media, volunteers, and a campaign’s own staff. The field has also matured in conventional ways and now has its own textbooks, journals, and annual conferences. There are managers with “social marketing” job titles and multitudes of requests for proposals from government agencies, foundations, and nonprofit organizations mandating a social marketing component. The attention of both practitioners and scholars has turned to developing an understanding of best practices, a core of “accepted theory,” and a solid base of empirical evidence documenting success. Social marketing institutes and workshops have sprung up in places such as Washington, D.C., Tampa, Sacramento, and Glasgow, Scotland. Over the years, a consensus has emerged around the features that make social marketing a particularly powerful set of concepts and tools to bring about social change. First, the field is fanatical about focusing on behavior change as the bottom line of all that it does. This helps it avoid the trap of many alternative programs that emphasize awareness building or education or that consider their job accomplished if they bring about attitude change. As the commercial marketing mantra emphasizes: If we don’t “move the needle,” we should not be investing resources in the program. In social domains with limited resources—as well as when confronting dramatic challenges and expectations—this admonition is especially appropriate. The focus on behavior naturally leads social marketers to place the target audience at the center of all behavior-change efforts. Scholars have recognized that many “do-gooding” social programs have fallen into the mistake of believing so fanatically in their own cause that they view uncooperative target audi-

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ences as the enemy preventing success. Social marketers reject this approach and attributes lack of success to the organization’s failure to fully understand target audiences. Greater understanding enables organizations to accurately determine what must be done to move the target audience from where they are now (mentally and behaviorally) to where the program— and society—wants them to be. Social marketers believe that behavior-change programs must ultimately be driven by target audiences. This emphasis on consumers, in turn, has several ramifications. First, it puts a premium on target-audience research. This is not only formative research that must be carried out before a campaign can be developed but also routine pretesting of campaign components with target audiences along the way and systematic monitoring of program progress over time. The latter is common in the private sector, where risk taking followed by rapid adjustment is the tactical norm, as contrasted with the nonprofit or government approach, which tries to find the best strategy and then stick with it until it is time for the final evaluation. Second, attention to target audiences leads to a recognition of audience diversity and the need for segmentation. Social marketers eschew the “one-bestcampaign” approach that is all too common in the social sector. In place of this, they emphasize multiple approaches to multiple targets, with their diversity not always characterized by standard demographic categories but by more subtle distinctions related to their lifestyles and psychological profiles. For example, many antidrug and antismoking campaigns aimed at youths zero in on “sensation-seekers” as most likely to be engaging in undesirable behaviors. Campaign planners found that they can be more effective with such groups if they can find ways to associate the behaviors the program seeks with the specific motivations and interests of this group. Recent U.S. antismoking campaigns have found success by tapping this segment’s need for rebellion, positioning antismoking behavior as rebellion against the tobacco industry. Social marketing approaches also emphasize the use of a full array of what is called in the private sector “the marketing mix.” Although they make full use of communications vehicles such as mass media ad-

Social Movements and Philanthropy

vertising, public relations, and the Internet, they know that behavior is often driven by at least three other program elements. The first is the development of the right behavior or behaviors to market in the first place (in the private sector, this would be called product planning). The second is to seek to reduce all of the costs and barriers that may be keeping the target audience from behaving as the program desires (the private sector’s price setting). The third is to make the behavior easy and convenient to carry out (in the private sector, this involves distribution and logistics). Today, despite dramatic success and widening acceptance, the field still faces barriers to further diffusion from the lack of understanding of its special advantages and out of suspicion among many administrators and rival scholars of anything that seems tainted with the field of commercial marketing. It also faces the challenge of any new discipline in that there are not yet academic programs where one can get a terminal or advanced degree in social marketing—although social marketing courses and course modules are becoming more common. Fortunately, the broad trend toward increased application of commercial concepts and tools in the nonprofit and governmental sectors bodes well for the future growth of this promising new approach. Alan R. Andreasen References and further reading Andreasen, Alan R. 1995. Marketing Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Harvey, Philip D. 1999. Let Every Child Be Wanted: How Social Marketing Is Revolutionizing Contraceptive Use around the World. Westport, CT: Auburn House. Kotler, Philip, Ned Roberto, and Nancy Lee. 2002. Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rothschild, Michael. 1999. “Carrots, Sticks and Promises: A Conceptual Framework for the Management of Public Health and Social Issue Behaviors.” Journal of Marketing 63 (4): 24–37. Wiebe, G. D. 1951–1952. “Merchandising Commodities and Citizenship on Television.” Public Opinion Quarterly 15 (winter): 679–691.

Social Movements and Philanthropy Social movement philanthropy is funding that supports some kind of advocacy or organizing for social change,

especially change toward the equitable distribution of political and economic resources. A social movement is “a collective attempt to organize or represent the interests of a previously unorganized or politically excluded group” ( Jenkins and Halcli 1999, 230). Social movements in the twentieth century included those for civil rights, labor, women’s equality, the environment, consumer rights, gay and lesbian rights, and so on. Advocacy and organizing are the main activities of social movements. Advocacy is any attempt by people to influence public decisions—that is, decisions affecting the lives of large numbers of people—on behalf of a collective interest. There are two main types of advocacy in social movements. Political advocacy aims to influence governmental policy. Social advocacy aims to influence policy in nongovernmental institutions, such as corporations and various kinds of nonprofit organizations, including schools and universities, hospitals, social welfare agencies, community groups, and religious organizations (Reid 2000). “Organizing” is a specific type of advocacy that emphasizes people acting collectively on their own behalf; other forms of advocacy involve speaking or acting on behalf of others. Organizations that do advocacy, in contrast to organizing, often consist mainly of professionals—lawyers, social workers, researchers, lobbyists, and so on—who work to improve the circumstances of various constituencies such as low-income people, the elderly, or youth. Organizing instead emphasizes mobilizing constituencies to act on their own to obtain access to power and resources. Organizing includes learning leadership skills and other skills of active citizenship. Although professional advocacy is certainly an important part of social movement work, the distinction between organizing and professional advocacy matters because a major aim of social movements is to increase the participation of people who have not previously been political actors. Organizing is more likely than other forms of advocacy to accomplish this goal. Advocacy on behalf of others is especially important for people who have difficulty speaking and acting on their own behalf, such as children. Although funding for any kind of social movement activity is still very small, philanthropy has been more supportive of professional advocacy than it has been for organizing.

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The Significance of Social Movement Philanthropy Because efforts by citizens to influence the policies of government and other institutions in society are central to democracy, it is vitally important that philanthropic resources be available to support movement work. Funding that supports participation by those who do not have access to sufficient resources to support their own advocacy and organizing is especially important, since a lack of resources interferes with active citizenship and contributes to a society where only people who have resources are able to act effectively. Citizen participation outside of government and electoral politics occurs most often through nongovernmental nonprofit organizations. The cost of sustaining nonprofit social movement organizations is high; it includes office rental, equipment such as phones and computers, stationery, postage, and so on. Staff salaries typically are the main cost. Funding usually comes from some kind of philanthropy—individual or organizational—since neither government nor the for-profit sector is a significant source of funds for movement activity. In a time of shrinking government and widespread distrust of government officials, people are turning more and more to nongovernmental nonprofits and philanthropy to address the pressing issues of the day. This shift is sometimes described as a growth of “civil society,” a term that calls attention to ideals of active citizenship, including social movements, outside of government. Another useful concept that explains why social movement philanthropy is increasing in importance is that of “social capital,” defined as the shared trust and social networks that are critical building blocks for both civil society and democracy. Philanthropy has recently been very interested in supporting organizations and activities that contribute to civil society and social capital. Both, however, are sometimes seen as indirect routes to change, and interest now seems to be turning more directly toward democracy and civic engagement. A main concern is how to expand resources and opportunities for democratic participation by constituencies such as low-income people, women and men of color, and others who have historically lacked

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the collective political, economic, and social power to be civically engaged in ways that could alter their common circumstances. The concern with democracy and civic engagement seems to be bringing about more interest by foundations in funding advocacy and organizing as part of strengthening democracy. One indication of that interest is the recent publication of the Community Organizing Toolbox: A Funder’s Guide to Community Organizing, published by the Neighborhood Funders Group, an affinity group of the Council on Foundations, in 2001. The apparent increased interest in funding organizing and advocacy has been influenced by concerns about low rates of democratic participation in the United States. This includes well-documented low voting rates (especially among young people) and the less-well-documented decline in civic participation in local communities and neighborhoods. Some have described this decline as being at crisis levels (Putnam 2000). Others agree that there are problems with low levels of citizen engagement in electoral politics, as well as in the more traditional voluntary associations such as Kiwanis Clubs and PTAs, but argue that other important forms of citizen participation and democratic action are thriving around local issues such as schools, housing, and safety (Wuthnow 1999). This kind of involvement is sometimes called “politics with a small p” (Ridings 2001). This local organizing has frequently been led by community women, often African American, Latina, and Asian American women as well as working-class white Anglo women (Naples 1998). The work of Texas activist Ernest Cortes, director of the national Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), is an example of the kind of community organizing that is taking place across the United States. This activity often builds on churches and other faith-based organizations that are already well established in individual communities (Warren 2001).

Charitable Foundation Monies and Social Movements Only 1 percent of charitable foundation grants—one cent on the dollar—goes to support any kind of social movement activity ( Jenkins and Halcli 1999). In 2000, this would have amounted to about $150 mil-


lion, since the total monies granted by foundations of all types that year was about $15 billion (“Foundation Giving Trends, 2000,” 2002). One percent is still twice the proportion given to social movement causes in 1970. Citing a clear trend upward, leading researchers have concluded that “social movement philanthropy has become institutionalized as a significant force in American society” ( Jenkins and Halcli 1999, 253). Part of what allows for this claim is the fact that most social movement advocacy and organizing occur through nonprofits that, like the great majority of nonprofits, are themselves very small, and so even a relatively small amount of philanthropic support enables them to increase their capacity and the work they do. Also, while money certainly matters to the capacity of social movements, a significant portion of the work of advocacy and organizing is still a volunteer activity. Thus, a little bit of financial support goes a long way.

The Danger of Co-optation A long-standing debate exists about whether movement organizations should take money from foundations or should instead raise all their funds from their own membership and constituents. One side says that monied elites who own and run charitable foundations seem unlikely to support social change aimed at empowering marginalized and excluded groups and redistributing wealth and income, since elites benefit from the current power structures and distributional arrangements. From this view, then, taking money from foundations risks co-optation by funders who may use their power to undermine movement goals. Those on the other side of this debate argue that, though co-optation may happen, effective advocacy and organizing cost money, and since the typical constituents of justice organizing are usually people who do not have money, they have little choice but to accept money from philanthropic elites. A substantial body of research explores the question of whether foundation funding does in fact co-opt social movements, with particular attention to the 1960s civil rights movement. Generally, the conclusion is that foundation support moderates movement goals and activities but does not directly co-opt them ( Jenkins and Halcli 1999).

A new “social relations” perspective on movement philanthropy argues that—depending on the kind of relationship that exists between funders and movement grantees—social movement leaders and their constituencies have more leverage to influence funders than has been previously acknowledged, and co-optation may be less of a threat than previously thought (Ostrander 1995). In some foundations that support movement activity, people from movement organizations actually make the decisions about grants. Haymarket People’s Fund, located in Boston, Massachusetts, and other members of the national Funding Exchange were pioneers of this way of making grant decisions. Some members of the Women’s Funding Network, a national movement of women’s funds, also use this method (Brilliant 2000). Susan A. Ostrander See also Advocacy and Nonprofit Organizations References and further reading Arons, David. 1999. Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Brilliant, Eleanor L. 2000. “Women’s Gain: Fund-Raising and Fund Allocation as an Evolving Social Movement Strategy.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29, no. 4 (December): 554–570. “Foundation Giving Trends, 2000.” 2002. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, March 7, 16. Jenkins, J. Craig, and Abigail Halcli. 1999. “Grassrooting the System? The Development and Impact of Social Movement Philanthropy, 1953–1990.” In Philanthropic Foundations: New Scholarship, New Possibilities, edited by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, 229–256. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Naples, Nancy, ed. 1998. Community Activism and Feminist Politics. New York: Routledge. Neighborhood Funders Group. 2001. Community Organizing Toolbox: A Funder’s Guide to Community Organizing. Washington, DC: Neighborhood Funders Group; also available at http://www.nfg.org. Ostrander, Susan A. 1995. Money for Change: Social Movement Philanthropy at Haymarket People’s Fund. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Putman, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Reid, Elizabeth J. 2000. “Understanding the Word ‘Advocacy’: Context and Use.” In Structuring the Inquiry into Advocacy, edited by Elizabeth J. Reid, 1–7. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

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Ridings, Dorothy. 2001. “Citizen Democracy.” National Civic Review 90, no. 2 (Summer): 119–122. Warren, Mark R. 2001. Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wuthnow, Robert. 1999. Loose Connections: Joining Together in America’s Fragmented Communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Stanford, Leland (1824–1893) and Stanford, Jane Lathrop (1828–1905) Amasa Leland Stanford was born March 9, 1824, to Josiah and Elizabeth Phillips Stanford in the Watervliet township of New York’s Mohawk Valley. At seventeen, Leland, as he was known, began studies at Clinton and Cazenovia preparatory academies in upstate New York. After studying law in Albany, New York, Stanford chose to move west and establish his law office in Port Washington, Wisconsin, where he also entered local politics. After two years of successful practice, Stanford returned to Albany to marry Jane Lathrop. Jane Elizabeth Lathrop was born August 25, 1828, in Albany, New York, to Dyer and Jane Ann Shields Lathrop. “Jennie,” as her husband would call her, was raised and educated at home as were most young women of her generation, although she briefly attended the Albany Female Academy. Following their marriage on September 30, 1850, Jane and Leland would make their first home together in Port Washington. The faltering fortunes of Port Washington, coupled with a devastating fire that destroyed Stanford’s law office and extensive library, turned the eyes of the young and ambitious Leland Stanford westward once again. In June 1852, Leland Stanford departed for California to join his brothers. Over the next three years, he established a career in business, selling supplies to the miners in the gold fields of California, while his wife resided in Albany, New York. In 1855, Stanford was reunited with his wife, and the couple decided to make Sacramento their home, exchanging one state capital for another. Leland bought the Stanford Brothers firm in Sacramento from his brothers Phillip and Josiah and reentered the political scene. In late June 1861, the Central Pacific

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Railroad was chartered in Sacramento by a group of businessmen, including Leland Stanford. Just over two months later, on September 4, 1861, the thirtyseven-year-old New York transplant, who had stumped the state for Abraham Lincoln, was elected governor of California. On May 10, 1869, Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad, drove the ceremonial last spike (made of solid gold) at Promontory, Utah, to connect the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads. On May 14, 1868, at age thirty-nine, Jane Stanford gave birth to a healthy son at the Stanfords’ Sacramento home. Leland DeWitt Stanford, who later chose to be called Leland Stanford Jr., became a prominent focus of his parents’ lives. During the 1880s, the Stanford family undertook two tours of Europe. Leland Stanford Jr., though only in his early teens, used the trips to gather historical objects for the museum he hoped to someday establish in San Francisco. During their second trip, which began in May 1883, the Stanfords visited Troy, where Leland Jr. contracted a fever. Three weeks after arriving in Florence, Italy, Leland Stanford Jr.’s health declined rapidly, and on March 13, 1884, he died of typhoid fever. Although the Stanfords were devastated by the death of their only child, they were inspired by his intelligence and interests to create an educational institution in California in his memory. On November 11, 1885, Leland and Jane Lathrop Stanford established and endowed the Leland Stanford Junior University for the purpose of educating the children of California. In the founding grant, Jane and Leland provided for the university’s initial endowment, defined the scope, responsibilities, and organization of the institution, and named the first board of trustees. Stanford University opened on October 1, 1891, as a coeducational, nonsectarian, and tuition-free university (tuition was instituted in 1920) that welcomed all students regardless of social position or economic status. Jane and Leland Stanford’s support of educational efforts took forms other than their own university, but it was the Leland Stanford Junior University that would benefit most greatly from their largesse. Leland Stanford took an active role in the planning and

Stewardship

construction of the university. Jane focused her energy on the plans for a memorial museum on the campus, housing Leland Stanford Jr.’s collections of antiquities and ethnological artifacts and the Stanfords’ own collection of European art and western American landscapes. On June 21, 1893, shortly after the celebration of the university’s second commencement, Leland Stanford died at his Palo Alto home at the age of sixtynine. Stanford’s death created an unforeseen and significant financial crisis for the university because Stanford managed the university as if it were part of his estate. With his death, Leland Stanford’s assets were frozen and all income to the university was halted. Jane Stanford refused to allow the university to close. She used her own income, as executor of the estate, to support the university through six difficult years in which the federal government sought early payment on the long-term loans made in the 1860s for building the Central Pacific Railroad. In March 1896, the United States Supreme Court rejected the government’s claims against the estate of Leland Stanford. The estate’s assets were released from probate in December 1898. As surviving founder of the university, Jane granted control of the university’s endowment and management to the board of trustees on June 1, 1902. She died less than three years later on February 28, 1905, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Margaret J. Kimball References and further reading Bartholomew, Karen, Claude Brineger, and Roxanne Nilan. 2001. A Chronology of Stanford University and Its Founders, 1824–2000. Stanford, CA: Stanford Historical Society. Clark, George T. 1931. Leland Stanford: War Governor of California, Railroad Builder, and Founder of Stanford University. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Davis, Margo, and Roxanne Nilan. 1989. The Stanford Album. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Elliott, Orrin Leslie. 1937. Stanford University: The First Twenty-Five Years. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Nagel, Gunther. 1985. Iron Will: The Life and Letters of Jane Lathrop Stanford. Stanford, CA: Stanford Alumni Association. Stanford, Leland, and Jane Stanford. Papers. Stanford University Archives. Stanford, CA. Stanford University. 1891. Exercises of the Opening Day of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University, 1891.

Stewardship A “steward” is someone entrusted with the responsibility of caring for certain possessions, gifts, or other valuables that usually belong to someone else. Although the original meanings of “steward” and “stewardship” were primarily economic, involving care of a master’s property or household, it is the religious interpretation of stewardship that has animated philanthropic giving and service for centuries. The religious notion of stewardship holds that everything we have—even the earth we inhabit—belongs to God, and that we are permitted to use it but must take care to use it well, and perhaps even to improve it. The Christian principle of stewardship, as articulated by John Calvin and John Wesley, has long been the primary foundation on which religious institutions promote giving and voluntary service among their members. But this religious idea has also been adopted by nonreligious philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie. Stewardship has become the central value of the modern environmental movement, one of the more vibrant parts of the voluntary sector in the United States and elsewhere. These secular uses of the religious idea of stewardship illustrate one way in which religious values have predominated throughout the history of the Western philanthropic tradition. In classical Greece, the word most closely associated with what we call “stewardship” was oeconomia (for steward, oeconomicus). It meant the person charged with care of a household—this term is also the root for what we now call “economics.” “Household” meant real property, the land and the improvements on it, but stewardship often extended to protection of a family as well. “Steward” appeared for the first time in English about 1,000 years ago. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in this early use a steward was “an official who controls the domestic affairs of a household, supervising the service of his master’s table, directing the domestics, and regulating household expenditures.” The original written form of “steward” in Old English was stigweard. Stig meant a domestic building of some sort; weard meant guard—the word from which “warden” also derived. In these uses, it is clear that the property over which the steward has responsibility is not the steward’s property, but the

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master’s. In the medieval context in which the word originated, the steward’s sole focus of loyalty was to his master. When that master was in fact the king of the realm, the king’s steward became an important and powerful official. The meaning of “stewardship” in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition adds a spiritual dimension while retaining this original economic dimension. Stewardship, especially in the Christian tradition, has become a spiritual metaphor, a pious responsibility, and a weekly religious practice. This is the meaning of the term for many Americans. The idea of stewardship has a long ecclesiastical history. The spiritual metaphor of stewardship is drawn in Judaism and Christianity first from the Torah or Old Testament (Leviticus, 19, 33–34, for example). In Christianity, in particular, the word “steward” carries a weighty heritage, and there are key references to Christians as God’s “stewards” throughout the New Testament. The apostle Paul identified himself as a steward: “This is how one should regard us,” he wrote to the Corinthians, “as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4: 2). The apostle Peter exhorted his fellow Christians: “As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received” (1 Peter 4: 10). The Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25: 14–30; Luke 19: 11–27) is usually interpreted as a lesson in stewardship, that is, as a call to make positive use of the gifts— even monetary ones—that God provides. In this parable, a master gives different amounts of gold (“talents” were gold coins) to several servants for safekeeping, and the servants who use the gold to procure more gold for return to the master are rewarded as “wise and faithful stewards,” (Matt. 25: 23—sometimes translated as “good and faithful servants”), whereas the servant who simply hid the gold away is punished. The medieval church perpetuated and extended the idea of stewardship. Stewardship, “based on the recognition that all gifts come from God and must be used to his glory, and applying equally to all types of gifts, whether of money, time or talents” (Maquarrie 1967, 333), was at the center of the church’s claim that

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it had the right to be the mediator between God and humankind. The church, in other words, could dictate proper use of God’s property. In the late nineteenth century, especially in the United States, as the Christian churches professionalized their fundraising appeals to meet their growing budgetary needs, the term “stewardship” became widely used as a virtual euphemism for “giving money” or “tithing” (Conway 1995). Stewardship in this narrower usage did have theological origins, however, especially in Protestantism. John Calvin made this connection between the spiritual and practical philanthropic responsibilities of stewardship: “Let this, therefore, be our rule for generosity and beneficence: We are the stewards of everything God has conferred on us by which we are able to help our neighbor, and are required to render account of our stewardship” (1950, 3: 695). Even more significant is John Wesley’s famous explication of the Christian as a “good steward,” a metaphor providing a religious rationale for philanthropic responsibility. Wesley, the founder of Methodism, gave a sermon in Newcastle, England, in May 1768 entitled “The Good Steward.” In this sermon, he addressed three points: (1) that we are God’s stewards; (2) that our stewardship ends when we die; and (3) that we may expect to account for what we have done or failed to do as stewards. Wesley said that we have been entrusted with “our souls, our bodies, our goods, and whatever other talents we have received,” observing, “Of all these, it is certain we are only stewards” (1991, 421). Among the goods over which we have stewardship, Wesley declared, God “has committed to our charge that precious talent which contains all the rest, money. . . . Indeed, [money] is unspeakably precious, if we are ‘wise and faithful stewards’ of it; if we employ every part of it for such purposes as our blessed Lord has commanded us to do” (ibid., 422). Today, the larger religious meanings of stewardship—for example, as a general philanthropic responsibility to take care of God’s world—are often submerged in what becomes a dreary burden of annual pledge appeals in churches. Yet the people in the pews are the backbone of American philanthropy, considering that one out of every two philanthropic dollars is given to a religious institution. Moreover, the general

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religious notion of stewardship as more than just an obligation to tithe, as an obligation (owed to God) to “do good,” as Cotton Mather preached in early America (see Bremner 1988, 12), has remained. In fact, this general meaning of stewardship has been adopted by philanthropists, social reformers, and activists—some religious, some not—who think of and describe their work as fulfilling an obligation of “stewardship,” an obligation owed either to God, to previous generations, or even to a specific individual. Many famous philanthropists in America have turned to the doctrine of stewardship to explain their motives and justify their philanthropy. John D. Rockefeller and William Penn believed that wealth was a gift from God entrusted to certain people for proper management, just as the master’s property was entrusted to his steward. Andrew Carnegie (1962 [1889]) espoused an explicitly secular “gospel of wealth” that mirrored the religious gospel of stewardship. He believed that along with great wealth came a great obligation to use that wealth for the public good. Recent studies by Paul Schervish and his colleages (1994) suggest that this sort of gospel continues to motivate wealthy benefactors. They analyzed the “narratives” offered by wealthy philanthropists to describe what had guided their giving and identified a “moral stewardship model” that recurred in many of these accounts. Perhaps the most prominent contemporary use of the idea of stewardship by philanthropic actors is in the modern environmental movement. The need for responsible “stewardship of the earth” is a common refrain heard from both environmental philosophers and movement activists (Nash 1989). Environmental stewardship involves the recognition of our responsibility to maintain, and perhaps improve, the natural world that we have inherited and which we will bequeath to future generations. Stewardship is the opposite of both neglect and abuse of the environment. It requires, at least, the preservation and proper management of “natural resources” (following the original economic meaning of stewardship); but more than this, it usually requires the restoration of overexploited nature as well. The modern notion of environmental stewardship is typically presented as a wholly secular one; only oc-

casionally are the religious origins of the idea acknowledged. Among those who do trace these religious origins, there has been considerable debate over whether the Judeo-Christian responsibility to be a “steward of God’s creation” does, in fact, encourage environmental stewardship (Passmore 1974). When God gives man “dominion” over nature (Gen. 1: 26–28), does this justify total human control to use nature for human needs, or does having it really mean being a “steward” or “caretaker” of God’s creation, to “till it and keep it” (Gen. 2: 15)? Many religious environmentalists and proponents of what has been called “eco-theology” have tried to advance the second interpretation, that God’s natural resources are entrusted to human stewards for preservation and improvement rather than exploitation (Moody 2002). However, this religious environmental ethic has also been criticized for being too “anthropocentric” in conceptualizing man as a separate steward managing nature rather than seeing man as a part of nature (see Dubos 1972). Overall, stewardship in modern usage is a powerful philanthropic concept, deeply moral in its concern for the well-being of others and rooted in ancient and enduring religious and social values, but also economically grounded in its concern for wise investment and management of resources. Stewardship is about more than maintenance; it is about visionary management. Stewards have temporary control over, but not ownership of, an inheritance. They also have an obligation to manage this inheritance in such a way that it can be passed along even better and stronger than it was when they received it. There is a profound implication of trust in the idea of stewardship—“steward,” “trustee,” and “curator” are in many ways comparable terms. Being a steward means accepting responsibility, but fulfilling this responsibility is never easy. Stewards lack an adequate job description or work plan. They must decide what, exactly, they are stewards of. Should all parts of the inheritance be preserved? What parts should be improved upon, or perhaps discarded? And modern stewards may have a variety of “masters.” These can be individuals, institutions, or generations. Nevertheless, it is the desire to fulfill these difficult responsibilities of stewardship that motivates a great deal of the activity we call philanthropy. Robert L. Payton and Michael Moody

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Stokes, Caroline Phelps, and Stokes, Olivia Eggleston Phelps

See also Moral Philosophy and Philanthropy; Reciprocity; Religion and Philanthropy References and further reading The Bible. 1971. Revised Standard Version. New York: American Bible Society. Bremner, Robert. 1988. American Philanthropy, 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Calvin, John. 1950. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Carnegie, Andrew. 1962 [1889]. The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. Edited by Edward C. Kirkland. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Conway, Daniel. 1995. “Faith Versus Money: Conflicting Views of Stewardship and Fundraising in the Church.” New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising 7 (Spring): 71–77. Dubos, Andre. 1972. A God Within. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Maquarrie, John. 1967. Dictionary of Christian Ethics. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Moody, Michael. 2002. “Caring for Creation: Environmental Advocacy by Mainline Protestant Organizations.” In The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism, edited by Robert Wuthnow and John Evans, 237–264. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nash, Roderick F. 1989. The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Oxford English Dictionary, 6th ed. 1976. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Passmore, John. 1974. Man’s Responsibility for Nature: Ecological Problems and Western Traditions. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Schervish, Paul G., Platon E. Coutsoukis, and Ethan Lewis. 1994. Gospels of Wealth: How the Rich Portray Their Lives. Westport, CT: Praeger. Wesley, John. 1991. “The Good Steward.” In John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology, edited by Albert C. Outler and Richard P. Heitzenrater, 419–430. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.

Stokes, Caroline Phelps (1854–1909), and Stokes, Olivia Eggleston Phelps (1847–1927) The Phelps Stokes sisters, Caroline and Olivia, are among America’s first women philanthropists who drew on their own wealth to pursue a philanthropic vision. Neither married; their social views of the world were formed by the interplay between their Christian

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beliefs and their travel to remote and impoverished areas of Africa and Asia. The poverty they witnessed so impressed them that they devoted much of their philanthropy to helping the poor and advancing the cause of women, African Americans, and American Indians. The two sisters were inheritors of a strong, faithdriven family tradition of social philanthropy that began with their grandfather, Anson Greene Phelps, a successful New York businessman who was a leader of the New York State Colonization Society, which helped to found the Republic of Liberia following the American Civil War. Among the monuments to the sisters’ legacy are buildings for religious and educational purposes at Columbia and Yale universities, Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and Berea College. As a later consequence of the Phelps Stokes family’s commitment to the abolitionist cause, and with the guidance of their oldest nephew, Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, the sisters undertook in 1901 the building of model tenement housing (“The Tuskegee”) for African American families in New York City. Throughout their lives, Caroline and Olivia’s philanthropy emphasized improving education for underprivileged minorities and housing conditions for the poor. These themes were perpetuated by Caroline’s bequest, in 1909, of nearly $1 million to endow the Phelps-Stokes Fund, one of the earliest private foundations, and the first family foundation, in the United States. Her will specified that the income thus generated be directed toward “the creation and improvement of tenement housing in New York City” and “for educational purposes in the education of Negroes both in Africa and the United States, North American Indians and needy and deserving white students”—a mandate remarkably progressive for its time. As members of the board, Olivia and her youngest nephew, Anson Phelps Stokes (1874–1958), gave primary leadership as the fund set its course. The early work of the Phelps-Stokes Fund is particularly notable for its innovative research studies. In a series of path-breaking reports, the fund’s first director, the Welsh educator Thomas Jesse Jones,

Stokes, Caroline Phelps, and Stokes, Olivia Eggleston Phelps

brought the statistical techniques of the new social sciences to bear on the educational needs of people of color in both the United States and Africa. Negro Education in the United States (1912) was the first scholarly study to demonstrate the disproportionate effects of racially segregated school systems and was commonly cited in budget debates in southern state legislatures. Similarly, Education in Africa (1922), Education in East Africa (1925), and Education, Native Welfare, and Race Relations in East and South Africa (1934) set forth data on the inadequacies of the colonial schools and the state of race relations in African countries. In 1934, Anson Phelps Stokes joined Fred Keppel, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, at a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, to award a pair of grants to launch the South African Council on Race Relations. There followed a series of publications directed at influencing policy and race relations. The Problem of Indian Administration (1928, also known as the Meriam Report) was the first major study to argue the case for Native American self-determination and tribal sovereignty. Art and the Color Line (1939) was the fund’s eloquent response to the refusal by the Daughters of the American Revolution to allow the African American operatic diva Marian Anderson to sing in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Encyclopedia of the Negro (1946), edited by W. E. B. Du

Bois, and Alan Paton’s South Africa Today (1975) were also distinguished contributions. In the 1950s, the fund and its president, Frederick Douglass Patterson, were instrumental in establishing the United Negro College Fund to support historically black colleges. In the 1980s, under the leadership of president Franklin Hall Williams, the fund adopted a philanthropic strategy of seeding and providing support to new nonprofit organizations advancing its charter mission. The fund’s interest in the historically black colleges led naturally to work with the tribally controlled American Indian colleges. In 1987, the fund helped establish the American Indian College Fund as a major philanthropic entity dedicated to the education of Native Americans. Other notable organizations that the fund helped launch include the Boys Choir of Harlem, the Jackie Robinson Foundation, and the Bishop Desmond Tutu Southern African Refugee Scholarship Fund. Engaging the problems of a changing world in the twenty-first century, the Phelps-Stokes Fund develops programs that focus on human rights, participatory democracy, sustainable development, and the educational needs of the urban and rural poor, especially people of color, in Africa and the United States. Ronald Austin Wells Reference and further reading “The Phelps: Stokes Fund.” http://www.psfdc.org

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T Tappan, Arthur (1786–1865), and Tappan, Lewis (1788–1873) Arthur Tappan, born in 1786, and his brother Lewis Tappan, born in 1788, grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts, in a pious and humble Calvinistic family. The Sabbath was strictly observed and their father prided himself on being the only shopkeeper in town who did not sell alcohol. The boys were not, however, homebodies. Each took a seven-year apprenticeship (Lewis in Boston and Arthur in New York) to learn about the business world in which their father operated. Their success in business as young men enabled them as middle-aged adults to pursue their philanthropic and charitable activities, focused mainly on abolitionist activities. Lewis converted to an evangelical Christian viewpoint in 1827; Arthur by that time had already adopted that stance. In 1828, Lewis moved to New York in order to join Arthur in his silk importing company. They set out to express their evangelism through their business interactions and treatment of younger associates. Their convictions led them to become interested in the abolitionist movement. They began to work with a benevolent society aimed at educating citizens about the “sin of slavery” (Wyatt-Brown 1969, 114). They soon were organizing the meetings themselves. Arthur performed more of the philanthropic activities; Lewis focused on the business so that they would have the financial means to continue their charitable work.

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As the abolitionist movement gained support, antiabolitionists became more fervent in their activities. In 1834, after the brothers sponsored an antislavery week, Lewis’s house was attacked, as was Arthur’s store. The brothers were not deterred, however, as their religious convictions spurred them on. When the

Arthur Tappan (1786–1865) (Library of Congress)

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Amistad case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841, Lewis convinced John Quincy Adams to represent the Africans accused of piracy and murder. The Africans were found innocent, and Lewis received great praise for his benevolent actions on their behalf. Meanwhile, Arthur had founded and served as first president of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The society became a target for anti-abolitionist attacks, and the focus of dissent among other antislavery groups, and disbanded in 1840, less than a decade after it had been founded. Its effects were long-lasting, however. The abolitionist movement headed in an increasingly political direction, an ironic twist for the highly religious brothers, who had no interest in combining business and benevolence with politics. The brothers remained faithful to their evangelical beliefs and were horrified at the violence increasingly associated with the antislavery movement. They continued to support the freeing of slaves, even at the expense of doing business with the South, a decision that eventually cost Arthur his silk-trading company. Although the names of the Tappan brothers are not well known today, their convictions serve as a model of Christian benevolence in antebellum society. Emily M. Hall References and further reading Winter, Rebecca J. 1977. The Night Cometh: Two Wealthy Evangelicals Face the Nation. South Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library. Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. 1969. Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War against Slavery. Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University.

Tax Deduction and Philanthropy The federal tax treatment for charitable contributions has a complex history, variable effects, and a contingent future. Adopted by Congress in 1917, four years after the enactment of the income tax, the allowance of a deduction for charitable contributions has been repeatedly modified, often (but not always) to make it more generous. Although the neutral design of the deduction does not target particular types of charities, donations from lower-income taxpayers enjoy no or little tax subsidy, and charities supported by the 30

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percent of taxpayers who itemize their deductions enjoy a subsidy that increases with the donor’s tax rate. The estate-tax deduction is scheduled to vanish as a consequence of the repeal of the estate tax, but at the same time Congress is seriously considering proposals to extend a limited deduction to nonitemizers under the income tax. Importantly, the deduction has been allowed only for gifts to qualified organizations, not to individuals, no matter how deserving.1

Current Scope of the Tax Deduction For donations to religious, charitable, and educational organizations (“charities”), donors can claim, in general, a charitable-contribution deduction for the amount of money and the fair market value of property contributed. The deduction sometimes yields to other congressional concerns in the design of the income tax, though. The amount that a donor can deduct in any given year might be limited, depending on the donor’s income, the type of charity to which the contribution is made, and whether the gift is in the form of money or property. However, there are no comparable limits under the estate tax. As a threshold matter, the current income-tax deduction for charitable contributions is an “itemized” deduction. This means that only a taxpayer who is willing to give up the standard deduction enjoys a specific deduction for charitable contributions (along with the other itemized deductions, such as home mortgage interest and state and local property and income taxes). Second, an individual is not permitted to “zero out” income by giving it to charity. Taxpayers donating more than half of their adjusted gross income (and sometimes less) find that the amount deductible is capped.2 Excess amounts may be carried forward subject to the same rules, but unused carryforwards vanish after five years.3 For most taxpayers, the amount contributed represents a small percentage of income in any given year, but this is not necessarily true for those who have reached the end of their working lives and make gifts out of savings, or who receive large amounts of excluded interest income from tax-exempt bonds. Moreover, a gift of property may be deducted at its fair-market value, rather than the (often lower) amount the donor paid for it, with-


out triggering tax on the unrealized appreciation.4 As a notable example, because of these rules, Bill Gates will never enjoy a full income-tax deduction for his multibillion-dollar gift of Microsoft stock to his private foundation. These rules have bred an industry of “planned giving” advisers to help donors minimize income and estate taxes while combining private and philanthropic goals. The bewildering array of vehicles include charitable lead and charitable remainder trusts; charitable gift annuities; the part-gift, part-sale technique; and family foundations.

History and Rationale of the Deduction The original federal income tax, enacted in 1913, did not contain a deduction for charitable contributions. The income tax started out small, in the sense that it applied low rates to income above a fairly high base, and so affected few individuals. Shortly thereafter, however, began a pattern that has continued to this date, in which higher tax rates spurred Congress to create deductions for certain personal expenses. Concerned that the high marginal rates imposed to finance World War I would deter donations to war charities, Congress created an allowance permitting individuals to reduce up to 15 percent of their taxable net income by charitable contributions. Over the years, even as general tax rates and exemption amounts changed, Congress sporadically increased this limit, both in percentage terms and by using gross income rather than taxable income as a base (although adding a distinction between public charities and private foundations), and created a deduction for contributions by corporations. Rarely, though, has Congress explicitly set forth its rationale for the design of the allowance.5 This variable and ad hoc history suggests that Congress views the charitable-contribution deduction as a subsidy to encourage gifts to charities rather than as an intrinsic feature of a proper income-tax base, and thus its design is contingent on other concerns of an income tax. Although Congress has never made the allowance subject to proof that charities provide social benefits at least equal to the value of the forgone taxes, government budget estimators do include these forgone taxes in its annual list of “tax expenditures”—provi-

sions that reflect a departure from the normative tax base and function like direct government outlays.

Effects of the Allowance and Limits of the Deduction Congressional revenue estimators have calculated that, for fiscal year 2003, the charitable-contribution deduction will cost $43.2 billion in forgone individual income tax (and an additional $4 billion in forgone corporate tax).6 Of course, these figures do not suggest that repeal of the deduction provision would increase government revenues by these amounts: Political pressures might induce Congress to expend increased amounts, either through direct grants to charities or otherwise, to make up for the charitable sector’s lost resources. A tax deduction for the amount of the gift is not the same thing as a tax credit for the amount of the gift. To illustrate, a $100 contribution by a taxpayer whose top tax bracket is 35 percent still “costs” the taxpayer $65—had the taxpayer not made the gift, she would have kept $65 of that $100 after paying tax. Thus, the incentive effect of a deduction system varies with any given taxpayer’s marginal tax bracket—with the government’s “share” of the gift rising with the taxpayer’s income. Indeed, the father of the tax expenditure concept, Stanley Surrey, charged that allowing itemized deductions under a progressive tax schedule results in an “upside down subsidy.” As Richard and Peggy Musgrave commented, “A philosopher-economist might observe that the opportunity cost of virtue falls as one moves up the income scale” (1984, 348). Specifically, the federal treasury loses no revenue on account of contributions made by the 70 percent of taxpayers who do not itemize their deductions. Moreover, most taxpayers have a marginal income-tax rate of only 15 percent, and so even for such taxpayers who itemize, the government’s share of their giving is minimal. Finally, those taxpayers most likely to itemize their personal deductions are homeowners who claim home mortgage interest expenses and property taxes, or those living in areas that adopt high state and local income taxes: that is, the better off. Policy makers are concerned not only that high-income taxpayers have more of their dollar of giving paid for by all taxpayers, but also that high-income

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taxpayers typically contribute to different types of charities than do low-income taxpayers. Thus, some have questioned the fairness of the charitable-contribution deduction, suggesting instead substituting a tax credit (of some percent of the gift) in order to provide the same tax benefit for every dollar contributed (McDaniel 1972). For example, a tax credit equal to 35 percent of a $100 gift would save both a highbracket and a low-bracket taxpayer $35. Because of the different types of charities favored by high-income and low-income taxpayers, though, such a tax credit would not only redistribute benefits from taxpayers with higher marginal rates to those with lower marginal rates, but also could result in a shift in federal support away from higher education, hospitals, and the arts and toward religion and health and welfare (Feldstein 1975, 222). More generally, providing a government subsidy through the tax system leaves charities vulnerable to changes in the level of subsidy simply because of general changes in that tax system. Most important, both a deduction and a credit depend on the taxpayer’s otherwise having tax liability. Second, as Congress lowers marginal income-tax rates—as it did in the Reagan administrations and in the phased-in Bush rate cuts starting in 2001—the “price” of giving rises. Contrariwise, as Congress raises marginal income-tax rates, as it did in the first year of the Clinton administration, the price of giving falls. The scheduled repeal of the estate tax (which permits an unlimited estate-tax deduction for charitable contributions) terrifies many in the sector. Charities vary in the degree to which they depend on contributions from donors who enjoy significant tax savings; for example, higher education would be more likely to experience drops in giving than churches. Indeed, debate over the estate-tax repeal renewed an interest in the behavioral effects of the tax deduction.7 Economists have long worried about the “efficiency” of the deduction—whether a dollar of forgone taxes induces at least an extra dollar of donations. Many theories exist of why people give to charity. Consider the pure altruist: He cares simply about increasing the charity’s activities, and so a dollar of support from another source (such as the government) would “crowd out” his support once the charity

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reached a level of activity he believed to be adequate. Studies find incomplete crowd-out, however, suggesting that donors give because of social pressures rather than (only) to support an identifiable need ( Jencks 1987, 326–328; Steinberg 1989). For example, James Andreoni (1989, 1990) posited a “warm glow altruist,” whose satisfaction increases with the amount of her gift to the charity. Others suggest that giving sends a social signal—that a certain level of giving to a particular charity is either expected of those in the group or simply a reflection of one’s wealth or income (Glazer and Konrad 1996). Under these models, giving may even be excessive. What does the motive for giving have to do with tax policy? If the policy behind the charitable-contribution deduction is to spur donations, then tax subsidies are wasted on donations that would have been made anyway. As a separate matter, even an “efficient” subsidy might yield to other revenue or policy concerns. Ironically, fairness and efficiency operate inversely here. In general, the deduction is efficient only for higher-income taxpayers. After all, lowbracket taxpayers’ after-tax price of donations is close to their before-tax price (and for nonitemizers, these are the same thing). Moreover, even highbracket taxpayers are often just time shifting—making contributions in years when tax rates are highest, rather than changing their lifetime amount of giving (Randolph 1995). Of course, once a high-income taxpayer hits the percentage-of-income limits, tax considerations recede.8 Improved data permit recent economic models to distinguish between temporary and permanent changes in the price of giving, and, while the issue is by no means settled, studies now show that taxpayers’ responsiveness to permanent changes in tax rates is much lower than previously estimated. Notably, studies of giving after the drastic rate cuts of the 1980s found that predictions of severe falloffs in contributions failed to predict taxpayer response. Instead, donations increased overall and at every income level except the highest, where the fall in donations was smaller than predicted (Auten, Cilke, and Randolph 1992; Clotfelter 1990). In sum, the recent studies imply that the “amount of extra giving prompted by the charitable


deduction may be less than its budgetary cost” (Cordes 2001).

Proposals for Change Although the charitable sector must be aware of general tax-reform proposals that indirectly affect the tax treatment of contributions, proposals occasionally surface that specifically address one or more of the issues outlined above. In the 1970s, the Treasury Department described a model to repeal the deduction as a proxy for not taxing the charities’ beneficiaries, which would conform to the tax treatment of private gifts. Some of the flattax proposals of the late 1990s advocated repealing the charitable-contribution deduction along with other itemized deductions. A more targeted proposal— which has never completely gone away—would increased tax subsidies (through either an enhanced deduction or an additional tax credit) for contributions to those charities that serve the poor. From 1981 to 1986, Congress granted nonitemizers a modest above-the-line deduction for charitable contributions; this provision was permitted to expire when, as radical simplification, the 1986 Tax Reform Act increased the standard deduction in order to reduce the number of itemizers. Recent years have brought a bewildering variety of proposals for a new nonitemizer deduction. The Senate Finance Committee included a version in a broader charity tax package it passed in June 2002. This version would allow an above-the-line deduction for nonitemizers for charitable giving, but only up to $250 ($500 for married couples filing a joint return). Moreover, the allowance would be in effect for only two years because of revenue concerns (it is estimated that the provision will cost $2.6 billion in forgone tax). Although supported by INDEPENDENT SECTOR and other charities,9 this proposal has been criticized for costing badly needed revenue without really inducing additional giving. Of most concern, the twoyear effective date invites time-shifting (indeed, the high floor invites single-year bunching), while the relatively low caps for such a brief period invite claims that the IRS would be hard pressed to audit.10 For these reasons, the bill requires the Treasury Department to complete a study by the end of 2003 that

measures the effect of the proposal on charitable giving and taxpayer compliance. Finally, this proposal should prompt policy makers to consider whether to reduce the amount of the standard deduction by the assumed amount for charitable contributions, and whether to impose a floor under contributions by itemizers as well (Cordes et al. 2000). Evelyn Brody References and further reading Andreoni, James. 1989. “Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence.” Journal of Political Economy 97 (6): 1447–1158. ———. 1990. “Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of ‘Warm Glow’ Giving.” Economic Journal 100 (401): 464–477. Auten, Gerald E., James M. Cilke, and William C. Randolph. 1992. “The Effects of Tax Reform on Charitable Contributions.” National Tax Journal 45: 267–290. Auten, Gerald E., Charles T. Clotfelter, and Richard L. Schmalbeck. 2000. “Taxes and Philanthropy among the Wealthy.” In Does Atlas Shrug? The Economic Consequences of Taxing the Rich, edited by Joel Slemrod, 394–424. New York: Russell, Sage, and Harvard University Press. Brody, Evelyn. 1998. “Of Sovereignty and Subsidy: Conceptualizing the Charity Tax Exemption.” Journal of Corporation Law 23 (4): 585–629. ———. 1999. “Charities in Tax Reform: Threats to Subsidies Overt and Covert.” Tennessee Law Review 66 (3): 687–763. Brody, Evelyn, and Joseph J. Cordes. 1999. “Tax Treatment of Nonprofit Organizations: A Two-Edged Sword?” In Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, edited by Elizabeth T. Boris and C. Eugene Steuerle, 141–175. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Clotfelter, Charles. 1990. “The Impact of Tax Reform on Charitable Giving: A 1989 Perspective.” In Do Taxes Matter? The Impact of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, edited by Joel Slemrod, 203–235. Cambridge: MIT Press. Cordes, Joseph. 2001. “The Cost of Giving: How Do Changes in Tax Deductions Affect Charitable Contributions?” Emerging Issues in Philanthropy Seminar Series, Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (Urban Institute), and Center for Nonprofit Organizations (Hauser Center, Harvard University), April 1999. Cordes, Joseph, John O’Hare, and Eugene Steuerle. 2000. “Extending the Charitable Deduction to Nonitemizers: Policy Issues and Options.” Urban Institute, Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, series on Charting Civil Society, no. 7 (May).

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Dale, Harvey P. 1995. “Foreign Charities.” Tax Lawyer 48 (Spring): 657. Feldstein, Martin. 1975. “The Income Tax and Charitable Contributions: Part II—The Impact on Religious, Educational, and Other Organizations.” National Tax Journal 28, no. 2: 209–226. Gates, William H., Sr., and Chuck Collins. 2002. “Tax the Wealthy.” In The American Prospect 13, no. 11 ( June 17): 20. Glazer, Amihai, and Kai A. Konrad. 1996. “A Signaling Explanation of Charity.” American Economic Review 86 (4): 1019–1028. Jencks, Christopher. 1987. “Who Gives to What?” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, edited by Walter W. Powell, 321–339. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. McDaniel, Paul R. 1972. “Federal Matching Grants for Charitable Contributions: A Substitute for the Income Tax Deduction.” Tax Law Review 27: 377–413. Musgrave, Richard A., and Peggy B. Musgrave. 1984. Public Finance in Theory and Practice, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Randolph, William C. 1995. “Dynamic Income, Progressive Taxes, and the Timing of Charitable Contributions.” Journal of Political Economy 103 (August): 709–738. Simon, John G. 1987. “The Tax Treatment of Charitable Organizations: A Review of Federal and State Policies.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, edited by Walter W. Powell, 67–98. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Steinberg, Richard. 1989. “The Theory of Crowding Out: Donations, Local Government Spending, and the ‘New Federalism.’” In Philanthropic Giving edited by Richard Magat, 143–156. New York: Oxford University Press. Sullivan, Martin A. 2002. “Economic Analysis: The Senate Finance Committee’s ‘Care-Less’ Tax Policy.” Tax Notes 95 ( June 24): 1855. U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation. 1970. General Explanation of the Tax Reform Act of 1969. JCS-16-70, December 3. ———. 2002. Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures by Budget Function, Fiscal Years 2002–2006. JCS-1-02, January 17. Available at http://www.house.gov/jct. Notes 1. For discussions of the tax exemption for charities themselves, as well as other tax benefits for charitable activities, see Simon 1987; Brody 1998, 1999; and Brody and Cordes 1999. 2. High-income individual itemizers face a floor under certain combined itemized deductions, including charitable contributions. In general, these aggregate itemized deductions may be claimed only to the extent

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that they exceed 3 percent of the amount by which adjusted gross income exceeds a certain amount, which was $137,300 in 2002 (this amount is indexed for inflation). Although the rules prevent a taxpayer from losing more than 80 percent of these deductions, this is a permanent disallowance. 3. Simplifying greatly, if the charitable donee is publicly supported—such as a church, school, or broadly supported organization—then cash contributions may reduce the donor’s adjusted gross income by up to 50 percent. If the donee is, by contrast, a private foundation, then cash contributions may reduce the donor’s adjusted gross income by up to only 30 percent. If instead the donor contributes appreciated capital assets (such as artwork or corporate stock), then the percentage-ofincome limit is 30 percent for a public charity donee and 20 percent for a private foundation (but for private foundations, only publicly traded securities qualify for the fair-market-value deduction). Separately, donations of appreciated property are generally limited to the taxpayer’s cost or other basis to the extent the gain would not qualify as long-term capital gain if the donor instead sold the property. (An election is available to deduct only basis in order to take advantage of the higher percentage limits; this might make sense if the amount of appreciation is small.) Finally, a donor subject to one or more annual caps can carry forward the excess; these amounts are treated as charitable contributions made the following year subject to the same rules. Corporate donors, generally subject to the same rules, can deduct up to 10 percent of taxable income in any one year (Internal Revenue Code Section 170). 4. Taxpayers would come out ahead even if the underlying appreciation was taxed. The maximum long-term capital gains rate on “collectibles” is 28 percent, and on corporate securities it is 20 percent (18 percent for property acquired after 2001 and held for five years). By contrast, the charitable-contribution deduction for the same amount saves tax at the (higher) ordinary income rates. 5. In the 1969 Tax Reform Act, Congress declared that raising the adjusted-gross-income limit to 50 percent would “strengthen the incentive effect of the charitable contribution deduction” (U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation 1970, 75). The most explicit statement appears in the legislative history to Congress’s 1938 decision that the deduction be restricted to contributions made to domestic charities. The House Ways and Means Committee elaborated: “The exemption from taxation of money or property devoted to charitable and other purposes is based upon the theory that the Government is compensated for the loss of revenue by its relief from financial burden which would otherwise have to be met by appropriations from

Terrell, Mary Eliza Church

public funds, and by the benefits resulting from the promotion of the general welfare.” Harvey Dale (1995) objected to this declaration as “bad history, because there is no indication that the tax exemption, afforded since the end of the nineteenth century, was predicated on the quid pro quo rationale.” 6. U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation 2002, table 1. These figures combine separate line items for education, health, and other (such as social services). The estate-tax debate continues, because repeal will take effect only for year 2010 in the absence of additional congressional action. See, for example, http://www .responsiblewealth.org, the Web site of an organization cofounded by Bill Gates’s father to fight the repeal of the estate tax. See also Gates and Collins 2002. 7. Philanthropy is not solely inspired by the tax code, but the estate tax unquestionably provides a powerful incentive for charitably oriented people to stretch their giving. Estatetax repeal will most likely reduce charitable giving and bequests, particularly from estates in excess of $20 million, by an estimated $5 billion to $6 billion a year. This will certainly hit large charities that depend on bequests, such as hospitals, universities, and land conservancies. But it will also affect the entire nonprofit sector because one-third of all bequest dollars go toward creating or expanding foundations. 8. One study found that in 1995 more than one-fourth of charitable contributions by those in the highest income class exceeded the percentage-of-income limits and thus had to be carried forward (Auten, Clotfelter and Schmalbeck 2000). Sara E. Meléndez, president and chief executive officer of INDEPENDENT SECTOR, said, “We understand that the Senate chose not to move forward on the preferred version of charitable tax incentives introduced last year by the president because of current budget constraints. We are pleased, however, that the Senate has taken this important step to affirm the principle that the charitable contributions of all Americans will be recognized in the tax code” (http://www.independentsector.org/media/ CAREstatement.html). Martin A. Sullivan (2002) wrote, “According to preliminary data, about 42.5 million taxpayers itemized their deductions in 2000. The IRS’s ability (or desire) to scrutinize small amounts of charitable contributions on those returns is already strained to the limit. In 2000 this proposal would have added 85.7 million taxpayers to the pool of potential contributors claiming a deduction for charitable contributions. Either the IRS must expand its audit capabilities or taxpayers will be tempted to overstate deductions. Under either scenario, the proposal would likely cause a disproportionate amount of new complexity and discontent with the tax law.”

Terrell, Mary Eliza Church (1863–1954) Life Highlights Mary Eliza Church Terrell was a social activist and early feminist who advocated for women’s suffrage and civil rights. Born on September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee, to former slaves Robert Reed and Louisa Church, she went on to become a formidable educator, lecturer, and author. She is best known as the cofounder and first president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). The first black woman appointed by the D.C. Board of Education, Terrell also served on the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and established a District of Columbia branch and served as its vice president. As an active member of the National

Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954) (Corbis)

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Terrell, Mary Eliza Church

American Woman Suffrage Association, she was very involved in pushing for women’s rights, but of particular concern to her were the rights of black women. She stated this concern succinctly at a women’s suffrage convention in 1890: “A white woman has only one handicap to overcome—a great one, true, her sex. A colored woman faces two—her sex and her race. A colored man has only one—that of race” ( Jones 1982, 20). Terrell was a prolific writer whose opinion pieces appeared in several black newspapers and periodicals as well as the prominent white news media. She specifically addressed racial problems and issues such as Jim Crow laws, lynching, and the convict lease system. In her book, A Colored Woman in a White World (1996 [1940]), Terrell told her own life story in vivid detail.

Family and Education Mary Eliza Church, known as Mollie, grew up in a suburb of Memphis and white children were her first playmates (Sterling 1979, 12). Her father often took her on Sundays to visit the elderly Captain Church. She would later learn that this white man was her paternal grandfather and had been her father’s master. Captain Church had allowed his slave son to learn to read and write. Robert Church went on to become the South’s first black millionaire. Louisa Church was also an entrepreneur, owning her own hair salon. Robert and Louisa eventually divorced, and Mollie and her brother went to live with their mother. Mollie was sent to school in Ohio and later attended Antioch College and Oberlin College. Though it was her father’s desire that she live as a genteel lady, Terrell had other plans. After graduating from Oberlin in 1884, she taught at Wilberforce University and then at a high school in Washington, D.C. In 1891, she married Robert Terrell, a teacher and lawyer. She gave birth to four babies but only one daughter, Phyllis, survived. She and her husband later adopted their niece, Mary Church. Historical and Political Significance Terrell’s teaching career ended when she got married. She devoted herself to home life. She was precipitated into public life, however, when a lifelong friend was

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killed by a lynch mob. Shaken and outraged, she, along with Frederick Douglass, met with President Benjamin Harrison and urged him to publicly denounce lynching. She recalled that though Douglass “eloquently pleaded the case for antilynching legislation,” President Harrison did not act (ibid., 131). Terrell helped to found the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 when organizations such as the National Federation of Afro-American Women (NFAAW) and the Colored Women’s League (CWL) merged. These were voluntary organizations that had set out to improve the condition of black women. Night schools (where Terrell taught a class in German and English literature) and kindergartens were established to serve the needs of working parents ( Jones 1982, 22). The NACW adopted the motto, “Lifting as we climb” and endeavored to motivate and uplift black women. In 1897, Terrell articulated the nature of the NACW in the following manner: “We have become National, because from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Maine to the Gulf, we wish to set in motion influences that shall stop the ravages made by practices that sap our strength, and preclude the possibility of advancement. . . . We call ourselves an Association to signify that we have joined hands one with the other, to work together in a common cause. We proclaim to the world that the women of our race have become partners in the great firm of progress and reform. . . . We refer to the fact that this is an association of colored women, because our peculiar status in this country . . . seems to demand that we stand by ourselves” (ibid., 24). An active and dynamic lecturer, Terrell was sometimes amazed at the opportunities she was afforded. She lectured at a host of influential venues, such as NACW conventions, the International Council of Women (in Berlin, 1904), and the International Congress of Women (in Zurich, 1919), as well as forums across the United States. Seldom did she refuse an invitation to speak, viewing each occasion as an opportunity and even a duty to champion the cause of women and of civil rights. Mary Church Terrell lived to be ninety years old and even in later years remained very active. In her eighty-sixth year, she persisted in political activism,

Think Tanks

notably in her pursuit to revive the “lost” antidiscrimination laws of 1872–1873. These laws had established that “a respectable, well-behaved person without respect to previous condition of servitude” had the right to patronize public eateries and hotels. Later, owing to changes in the city of Washington, D.C.’s, administration, these laws had “disappeared from the new legal code, although there was no record of them ever being rescinded” (McCluskey 1999). As head of the Coordinating Committee for the Empowerment of D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws, Terrell became increasingly militant as she picketed and led delegations. Terrell also served as a key witness in a test case involving Thompson Cafeteria (Sterling 1979, 120). In this case, three blacks and one white person entered Thompson Cafeteria and were refused service. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices finally upheld the old laws. Terrell was a champion for justice her entire life, using all of her talents to the best of her ability to quicken America’s conscience. She died July 24, 1954, in Annapolis, Maryland. Nina Gondola References and further reading Jones, Beverly W. 1982. “Mary Church Terrell and the National Association of Colored Women, 1896–1901.” Journal of Negro History 67 (1): 20–33. McCluskey, Audrey Thomas. 1999. “Setting the Standard: Mary Church Terrell’s Last Campaign for Social Justice.” Black Scholar 29, no. 2/3: 47–53. Sterling, Dorothy. 1979. Black Foremothers: Three Lives. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press. Terrell, Mary Church. 1996 [1940]. A Colored Woman in a White World. New York: G. K. Hall. Voice from the Gaps. “Mary Church Terrell,” http://voices. cla.umn.edu/authors/marychurchterrell.html.

Think Tanks A think tank is an institute, corporation, or group organized for interdisciplinary research. The term applies to a wide range of nonprofit research organizations that engage in public policy analysis and research and often advocate solutions. Some are strictly nonpartisan, researching policy issues without regard to political outcomes; others see one of their

main functions as that of providing intellectual support to politicians or parties. Think tanks hold a unique position in the landscape of the U.S. political system. They belong to the nonprofit sector, yet influencing public policy decisions is one of their main objectives and abilities. With the increasing importance of government in the twentieth century, they have grown in influence, playing an ever-expanding role in state and federal policy-making. Think tanks first emerged on the American scene after the Civil War. These early research institutes specialized in social sciences. Set up by foundations, corporations, or private citizens, their goal was to aid the government in finding the most efficient policies for instituting reform.The aftermath of World War II saw a significant increase in the number of think tanks. Two influences were at work. First, the United States was no longer an isolationist country but a global power; accordingly, the government apparatus expanded, and with this expansion came the greater need for policy advisers. Second, the nuclear threat of the Cold War stimulated the development of governmentally funded defense-policy think tanks. During the 1960s, the influence of think tanks increased even more. This was the age of what James Smith called the “action intellectual,” or the “godchildren of the progressive era” (Smith 1991). The think tanks of this period were dedicated to the applied social sciences, such as statistics, economics, and social experimentation. They were set up or contracted to research social issues ranging from race relations to inflation and welfare reform. Much of the research done by these institutes was then applied in governmental legislation, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. This was possibly the period of greatest government and policy research institute cross-pollination. The most recent change in the nature of think tanks may have come as a direct result of this heavy cross-pollination. Both liberal and conservative intellectuals began to see the benefits of influencing governmental decisions through applied policy research, as well as the danger of not doing so. As a result, specialized think tanks arose with a distinct emphasis on advocacy.

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The think tanks of today find themselves in an extremely competitive environment, a marketplace of ideas, and have therefore adopted many of the same strategies used by interest groups. They lobby in order to maintain their influence in the policy decisionmaking network. Think tanks rely on various channels to increase their prominence among policy makers. The most important channels are the following: 1. Presidential elections: Candidates often adopt a think tank’s “blueprint” on domestic and foreign policy as their own or are greatly influenced by one or more of these in the policies they propose. This is evidenced by several of recent presidents. Jimmy Carter had such a relationship with the Trilateral Commission, Ronald Reagan honed his ideas with the Heritage Foundation, and Bill Clinton was greatly aided by the Progressive Policy Institute. 2. Cross-fertilization: If a think tank’s ideas greatly aid a presidential candidate, who then goes on to win the presidency, it is often the case that newly vacant administrative posts will be offered to think tank scholars. Additionally, think tank scholars may be asked to participate in White House advisory boards. Furthermore, given the cyclical nature of governmental administrations, think tanks often become havens for former policy makers during their party’s off-season or upon their retiring from duty. There are many instances of this mutually beneficial arrangement, which provides a good job for the former policy maker and clout and connections for the think tank. One key example of importance to foreign policy decisions is the State Department’s “Diplomat in Residence” program, wherein diplomats take up residence in think tanks to write and research between assignments. 3. Lectures and seminars: Lectures and seminars are used in two ways. First, members of Congress, the executive, and White House staff are invited to these talks under the

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guise of social events and/or educational programs. This gives the think tank scholars a chance to showcase their ideas directly to decision makers. Second, by lecturing to professional groups, academics, and at-large conferences, think tank scholars raise the visibility of their institutions. 4. The media: By setting themselves up as experts, think tank scholars are in a prime position to appear as regular guests on television and radio news shows. Furthermore, in addition to their scholarly writings, these same researchers use newspapers to promote their ideas, often in op-ed form, to the general public. The exposure of think tank ideas to the greater public very much increases their standing among policy makers. 5. Quick, condensed response: Some think tanks have specialized in rapid, short-format responses to congressional queries, as well as one-page “executive memoranda” outlining, in their view, the important aspects of issues up for consideration on Capitol Hill. This technique is perhaps best exemplified by the Heritage Foundation. Think tanks continue to play an important nonpartisan research role as well as an advocacy role in democracies today. Sabina Calhoun References and further reading Abelson, Donald E. 1996. American Think-Tanks and Their Role in US Foreign Policy. New York: St. Martin’s. Dolney, Michael. “Think Tanks in a Time of Crisis.” Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, http://www.fair .org/extra/0203/think_tanks.html. Gellner, Ernest. 1994. Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals. New York: Penguin. Lehman Social Sciences Library, http://www.columbia.edu/ cu/lweb/indiv/lehman/guides/ttanks.html. Smith, James Allen. c. 1991. The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite. New York: Maxwell Macmillan International. Stone, Diane. 1996. Capturing the Political Imagination: Think Tanks and the Policy Process. Portland, OR: Frank Cass.

Tuckerman, Joseph

Truth, Sojourner (c. 1797–1883) Isabella Baumfree was born into slavery circa 1797 in upstate New York. Isabella would later become Sojourner Truth, passionate abolitionist and activist for women’s rights. As a young slave woman, Isabella bore four or five children fathered by a fellow slave named Thomas. Most of them were taken from her and sold. Her youngest son, Peter, was illegally sold into the southern slave trade. When Isabella learned of this, the Van Wagenen family helped her petition the courts and members of the Dumont family for the release of her son. Slavery was abolished in New York State in 1827. In 1828, Peter was finally returned to Isabella. In 1829, Isabella moved to New York City with Peter.

While in New York City, Isabella worked as a laundress and domestic. She had always been a religious person, and following her move she became involved with the John Street Methodist Church and the Black African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. In 1843, Isabella changed her name to Sojourner Truth and began actively preaching and speaking out on the societal ills of slavery and oppression of women. Her speeches easily drew crowds, owing to her radical views opposing ideas and behaviors accepted by many in the majority population. Truth is perhaps best known for a fiery speech she delivered at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?” Sojourner Truth dedicated her life to abolishing slavery, advocating for women’s rights, and campaigning for slave reparations. She remained an active speaker until her death on November 26, 1883, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Amelia E. Clark References and further reading “Truth, Sojourner.” http://www.encarta.msn.com/ encyclopedia_761569810/sojourner_truth.html. Hine, Darlene Clark, ed. 1993. Black Women in America. Vol. 2, M–Z. New York: Carlson. Painter, Nell Irvin. 1996. Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol. New York: W. W. Norton. White, Deborah Gray. 1985. Ar’n’t I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South. New York: W. W. Norton.

Tuckerman, Joseph (1778–1840)

Sojourner Truth (c. 1797–1883) (New-York Historical Society)

Joseph Tuckerman, an important philanthropic figure of the early nineteenth century, was a Unitarian clergyman who served as “minister to the poor” of Boston beginning in 1826. Born into an established, wealthy family, Tuckerman had a comfortable if uneventful childhood as the son of the founder of the first fire insurance company in the United States. Tuckerman studied at Harvard and then served as the pastor of a church in the Boston suburb of Chelsea. After contracting a throat ailment that made public preaching difficult, he gave up his pulpit and became minister-at-large to the poor of Boston under the auspices of the American Unitarian Association. In that capacity, he worked and wrote extensively, emphasizing the importance of encouraging

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and enabling the poor to reduce their poverty by helping themselves. A posthumous selection of his writings (chiefly drawn from his reports on his service as minister to the poor), entitled Joseph Tuckerman on the Elevation of the Poor, was published in 1874 (see Hale 1971 [1874]). As minister to the poor, Tuckerman worked primarily with poor Protestant families that were unaffiliated with a church. By the end of 1827, he had helped 170 families—at a time when there were about 65,000 inhabitants of Boston. Because the demands upon the ministry soon expanded beyond Tuckerman’s capacity to meet them, he enlisted the cooperation of ministers in other Protestant denominations (and strove to enlist the cooperation of Catholic clergy as well) to supplement the Unitarians’ efforts. Tuckerman’s work with the poor consisted chiefly of personal visits in which he offered a range of moral and practical advice. He tried to find work for those in need of jobs, and he emphasized the importance of frugality and sobriety. To aid the children of the poor, Tuckerman advocated the expansion of public education while also helping to establish a reform school and a vocational school. Although he offered moral counsel to the poor, Tuckerman denied that poverty was necessarily a sign of vice. He understood that unemployment and low wages were major causes of poverty, and believing that workers were often underpaid, Tuckerman called on employers to raise wages. But Tuckerman strongly opposed granting doles to relieve the poverty of able-bodied people. He contended that self-reliance was sapped when the poor were offered such payments. Tuckerman strove to organize Boston’s charities, to prevent duplication of efforts among some twenty-six different philanthropic organizations, and to ensure

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that their funds were expended more efficiently. His efforts in this direction foreshadowed attempts at charity organization that became far more common in American cities two generations later. Although Tuckerman’s service to the poor was mostly in the private sphere, he also held government posts. In 1830, he was elected as an overseer of the Boston poor; in that capacity, he distributed relief to the sick and destitute residents of his ward. In 1833, commissioned by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Tuckerman wrote a report on the Massachusetts Pauper System. In the report he opposed a state system of support for the poor, which he thought would undermine their self-reliance; instead he advocated charitable relief undertaken and administered on the local level. He died in Havana, Cuba, on April 20, 1840. Joel Schwartz References and further reading Channing, William Ellery. 1903 [1841]. “A Discourse on the Life and Character of the Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, D.D.” In The Works of William E. Channing, D.D., 578–599. Boston: American Unitarian Association. Hale, Edward Everett, ed. 1971 [1874]. Joseph Tuckerman on the Elevation of the Poor: A Selection from His Reports as Minister at Large in Boston. New York: Arno Press and New York Times. McColgan, Daniel T. 1940. Joseph Tuckerman: Pioneer in American Social Work. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Schwartz, Joel. 2000. Fighting Poverty with Virtue: Moral Reform and America’s Urban Poor, 1825–2000. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Tuckerman, Joseph. 1838. The Principles and Results of the Ministry at Large in Boston. Boston: James Munroe.

Tzedakah See Jewish Philanthropy in American Society

U Underground Railroad

“Railroad” stops consisted of homes, barns, and other places where fugitive slaves were able to hide during their trek into northern states where slavery was illegal. Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Laws in 1850, which required marshals to obey requests from any other state to turn over fuguitive slaves, most of the routes stretched into Canada. Connecting the locations where fugitive slaves would hide during the day were paths that initially were traveled by foot at night. Over time, however, more intricate means of moving fugitive slaves between stops on the railroad were developed, including hidden compartments in wagons, coaches, and boats. There is no definite date when the Underground Railroad began; its development was more likely a gradual process. However, the “challenge” of fugitive slaves was being widely articulated by slave owners as early as the mid-1600s, less than a quarter of a century after the first African slaves arrived in the American colonies in 1619. These slaves reportedly quickly learned that the colonial tensions between the British, Dutch, and French provided them with ample support if they chose to run into a territory that was controlled by another group of European colonists. In time, Quakers and other groups philosophically opposed to slavery began to play more active roles in aiding fugitive slaves within their abolitionist activities. Their actions, supporting the

The Underground Railroad was a network of abolitionists and former slaves who served as guides and provided shelter, hiding places, and pathways for fugitive slaves fleeing the South prior to the end of slavery in the United States. This informal, secret network of individuals in several states aided slaves in their escape to freedom in northern states and Canada. It was most active in states that divided the slaveholding South from the non-slaveholding North in the years preceding the U.S. Civil War. In particular, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were areas of great activity. In later years, Michigan, New York, and Massachusetts also became important for the activities of the Underground Railroad in ensuring safe passage for slaves fleeing to Canada. Although the exact number of slaves who fled to their freedom in this way is unknown, thousands traveled along the railroad, risking recapture during their entire flight. Ultimately, the journey led to freedom for scores of individuals and families. A number of fugitive slaves themselves repeatedly returned to southern slaveholding states to lead hundreds of other slaves to their freedom. Their activity was key to the success of the Underground Railroad. The most famous of these fugitive slaves was Harriet Tubman, who is credited with having traveled south nineteen times and leading more than 300 slaves to their freedom.

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Underground Railroad

Slaves escape by way of the Underground Railroad, an informal network of abolitionists. (Library of Congress)

growth of the railroad, were the source of slaveholder frustration for a number of years. In 1774, George Washington is reported to have complained about losing a male slave who was able to find his way north with the assistance of Philadelphia Quakers. The early 1800s proved to be the most active period for the Underground Railroad. These were also the years of the most organized and militant of abolitionist activities. It was often the success of groups of slaves that were able to make it to freedom that helped to encourage further abolitionist activities. The increasing abolitionist resolve helped not only to ensure the safe movement of fugitive slaves to freedom but also to strengthen the consensus in many northern communities about the conditions of slavery. The activities of supporters of the Underground Railroad also helped to strengthen the animosity in many southern communities against what was perceived as interference from the North in southern affairs. As a result, the activities of the Un-

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derground Railroad and the hundreds of people who supported it caused some of the tensions leading to the Civil War. There are a number of stories about how the Underground Railroad received its name. One popular version tells of a slave owner who chased a fugitive slave to the banks of a river separating a southern slaveholding state from a northern non-slaveholding state. After crossing the river, the slave supposedly disappeared into what the slave owner proclaimed must have been an “Underground Railroad.” Kyle Farmbry References and further reading Breyfogle, William. 1958. Make Free: The Story of the Underground Railroad. New York: J. B. Lippincott. Buckmaster, Henrietta. 1968. Let My People Go: The Story of the Underground Railroad and the Growth of the Abolition Movement. Boston: Beacon. Cockrum, William M. 1969. The History of the Underground Railroad as It Was Conducted by the Anti-Slavery League. New York: Negro Universities Press.

Union Movement and Philanthropy

Franklin, John Hope. 1994. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans. New York: McGraw Hill. Gara, Larry. 1996. The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Kashatus, William C. 2002. Just over the Line: Chester County and the Underground Railroad. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Union Movement and Philanthropy Given the antagonism toward unions by captains of industry who established the early philanthropic foundations, coupled with union suspicion of anything fashioned with their wealth, it may be assumed that organized labor and foundations would keep their distance from one another. But in fact, a panoply of significant connections have occurred since early in the twentieth century—from the indirect to the direct and from confrontational to supportive and collaborative. American labor unions and private foundations both arose from a maturing industrial capitalism after the Civil War. The union movement was well developed by 1900, around the same time that the earliest large foundations were established. The fortunes of unions have oscillated widely, however, hitting low points in the 1920s, the 1980s, and into the twenty-first century, while foundations have grown enormously. Although foundations and unions both enjoy exemption from taxation under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), the similarity ends there. Foundations serve charitable, educational, and other activities serving the public good, whereas labor unions are classified as self-help organizations providing benefits to their members. The usual connection between foundations and other tax-exempt organizations—grantmaking—rarely applies to unions, though some unions have set up fundraising arms to which foundations may make tax-deductible donations, for example, the National Education Association’s National Foundation for the Improvement of Education. Grants have also gone to groups established by dissident union members, such as Teamsters for a Democratic Union and Miners for Democracy. Some unions have adapted the foundation tradition of naming organizations after prominent figures. Such figures in

the labor movement include Sidney Hillman, Joseph Beirne, Eugene V. Debs, Cesar Chavez, Bayard Rustin, Jerry Wurf, and David Dubinsky. The most prominent clash between organized labor and a philanthropic foundation arose from a strike of miners at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, part of the Rockefeller industrial empire, in 1914. In an event called the Ludlow Massacre, state militia torched the tents that miners’ families were living in after being evicted from company-owned homes during the strike. Ten strikers, eleven women, and two children died in the attack. To investigate, the Rockefeller Foundation hired a former Canadian labor minister, W. L. Mackenzie King. In tumultuous hearings by the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, union officials, religious leaders, and others called for severe limitations on foundations, if not their elimination altogether. The commission’s final report termed foundations “reflections of creeping capitalism” and said foundation “policies must inevitably be colored, if not controlled, to conform to the policies of . . . corporations from whose wealth they were founded” (Magat 1998, 45). Union suspicion was fueled by other events that led workers and union leaders to view foundation founders as “malefactors of great wealth.” Andrew Carnegie, for example, fought unions in a bloody strike at Homestead Steel in 1892. Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor urged communities to reject Carnegie’s philanthropic efforts to strengthen public libraries. Unions brought foundations under congressional scrutiny again in 1947, when a Rhode Island foundation funded through the Textron Corporation was accused of financing the purchase of textile plants that were then liquidated and moved out of the state, resulting in the loss of several thousand jobs. The Textile Workers Union accused the corporation of using “so-called charitable foundations” for self-serving business advantage. In response, the Revenue Act of 1950 required arm’slength dealing between tax-exempt organizations (mainly foundations) and substantial contributors. At the opposite ideological pole, conservatives have sometimes attacked foundations for their relations with organized labor. In the 1950s, congressional investigating committees accused foundations and grant

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recipients with Communist subversion. Those affected included such organizations as the Inter-University Labor Education Committee, the Highlander Folk School, and the Progressive Education Association. In the late 1960s, unions joined in criticism of foundations as means of tax avoidance and other financial manipulation. Social and political issues also played a role. Southern members of Congress resented foundation support of civil rights, especially voter registration of African Americans. The resulting Tax Reform Act of 1969 imposed many restrictions on foundations, though it fell short of the most severe proposals, such as a twenty-five-year limit on the life of foundations. Research has been a major link between foundations and unions, beginning with the Carnegie Institution’s magisterial eleven-volume Documentary History of American Industrial Society (Commons 1910–1911). Before World War I, the Russell Sage Foundation made pioneering studies of child labor, health and safety in the workplace, and conditions of women’s work. Louis Brandeis and Josephine Goldmark cited the foundation’s research in a court case upholding the constitutionality of a law prohibiting night work by women. Foundation-supported research on labor also figured prominently in social science centers that flourished in the 1920s. The forerunner was the Brookings Institution. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial funded the University of Chicago’s large-scale empirical research on such subjects as the Chicago Building Trades, the Railroad Labor Board, and the Chicago Federation of Labor. The National Bureau of Economic Research was funded by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Commonwealth Fund. Foundation research into labor matters has sometimes been controversial. Elton Mayo, a towering figure in industrial relations research, was brought to the United States under grants from the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations in 1923. He broke new ground in exploring the psychological and social habits of industrial workers, notably at the Hawthorne Works of Western Electric near Chicago. This work aroused the opposition of labor unions. Foundation and union interests have converged in many areas, however. The Twentieth Century Fund,

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founded by department store magnate Edward A. Filene in 1919, helped draft and lobby for the National Labor Relations Board in the 1930s. After World War II, the Ford Foundation, through a subsidiary, the Fund for the Republic, financed a series of analyses of labor unions. Ford also was a major contributor, along with other foundations, to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, founded in 1986 and regarded as a credible counterpart to business-oriented think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute. The major foundation-funded Brookings Institution has conducted ground-breaking labor research, particularly on the interface with government of labor/management affairs. Other common areas of interest include matters involving black workers, education, women, health and the environment, and farmworkers. In the 1920s, a maverick foundation, the Garland Fund, supported A. Philip Randolph’s efforts to organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Decades later, the Taconic Foundation and other funders supported a national organization of black trade unionists named after Randolph. In the 1980s, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and others made grants of more than $1 million to the Chicago Teachers Union as part of a school reform effort. Farm-organizing efforts assisted by foundations have ranged from the Great Depression–era Southern Tenant Farmers Union to Cesar Chavez’s farmworker movement in the 1960s. Unions and foundations have collaborated on cultural programs, ranging from films to the art and theater programs of the notable “Bread and Roses” project of the Drug and Hospital Employees Union. Schools for Women Workers at Bryn Mawr and in the South received foundation grants, as did the post–World War II Coalition of Labor Union Women and Cornell University’s Institute for Women and Work. The list of foundation projects that have made advances supporting labor concerns is long. The Kaiser Foundation’s pioneering prepaid health maintenance experiment enrolled millions of union members. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has involved unions in programs to reduce smoking and combat drug and alcohol abuse. The Youth Project, an umbrella organization for foundation and individual phi-


lanthropy, was instrumental in the struggle to recognize brown lung disease. It also funded a Citizen/Labor Energy coalition, which delayed natural gas decontrol, prevented winter shutoffs, and fought utility rate hikes. The seeds of stronger connections between organized labor and foundations were sown with the election of John Sweeney to the presidency of the AFL-CIO in 1995. That event energized labor to search out old and new constituencies, beginning with intellectuals and the academic community, with which many foundation staff members have an affinity. The strong bonds that liberals and intellectuals forged with labor in the 1930s and 1940s loosened after World War II. Disenchantment arose from disclosures of union corruption and racketeering, jurisdictional disputes, featherbedding, and denial of democratic rights of union members. Unflagging AFL-CIO loyalty to administrations during the Cold War, and its support of the Vietnam War in particular, and continued union discrimination against minorities further distanced the labor movement from potential allies in the liberal community. Soon after Sweeney’s election, forty-three liberals and intellectuals issued a statement celebrating “the rebirth of a strong and progressive labor movement.” Labor teach-ins were held at several universities, and Sweeney created a full-time position of liaison with foundations within the AFL-CIO and staffed it with a former foundation official. A consortium of private and community foundations, the Neighborhood Funders Group, established a Working Group on Labor and Community in 1997, declaring, “Organized labor . . . represents a potential ally of enormous significance for low-income and working-class communities.” By 2002, it had grown to 250 members, ranging from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations to such lesser-known funds as the Discount Foundation and the Hyman Foundation. One of them ran a campaign for justice for Haitian nursing home workers. Another worked with a union organizing drive to develop a career and wage ladder for early childhood education teachers. The AFLCIO itself in 1999 created a Union Community Fund, which, similar to the United Way, will raise funds and allocate them to human service needs iden-

tified by working families in communities around the country. Unions also drew closer to the religious community. A National Interfaith Committee for Workers Justice was established in 1996. That same year, the New World Foundation established a fund, to which several other foundations have contributed, that assists projects to empower the poor to address such issues as denial of benefits to contingent workers, the exploitation of immigrants in sweat shops, and health hazards in unregulated industries. Altogether, after decades of virtual disengagement, unions and foundations were brought together as never before by political and economic changes in the wake of welfare reform, the decline of industrial, middle-class jobs, and the burgeoning of the minimum-wage service sector. Richard Magat References and further reading Billitteri, Thomas J. 1999. “Organizing Better Links to Labor: Foundations Begin to See Unions as Allies on Social-Policy Fronts.” Chronicle of Philanthropy 11, no. 11 (March 25): 9–12. Commons, John R., et al. 1910–1911. Documentary History of American Industrial Society. 11 vols. Cleveland: A. H. Clark. Crowe, Kenneth C. 1993. Collision: How the Rank and File Took Back the Teamsters. New York: Scribners. Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth A. 1994. Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945–1960. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Gitelman, Howard M. 1988. Legacy of the Ludlow Massacre: A Chapter in American Industrial Relations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Judd, Karen. 2002. “Philanthropists and Labor Unions: A Growing Partnership.” NYRAG Times (Winter): 10–11. Kanigel, Robert. 1997. The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency. New York: Viking. Lankford, John. 1964. Congress and the Foundations in the Twentieth Century. River Falls: Wisconsin State University. Lichtenstein, Nelson. 1999. “Falling in Love Again? Intellectuals and the Labor Movement in Post-War America.” New Labor Forum (Spring/Summer): 18–31. Magat, Richard. 1998. Unlikely Partners: Philanthropic Foundations and the Labor Movement. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Samson, Gloria Garrett. 1996. The American Fund for Public Service: Charles Garland and Radical Philanthropy. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

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Samson, Gloria Garrett, and Richard Magat. 1997. “Grants for Labor: The Record of the Garland Fund and the Ford Foundation.” Labor’s Heritage 8, no. 4 (Spring): 58–77. Serrin, William. 1992. Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town. New York: Times Books.

United Negro College Fund (UNCF) The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is the nation’s oldest and most successful African American higher education assistance organization. It is credited with being the first organization to apply the concept of cooperative fundraising to the field of higher education. In the 1940s, private higher education for African Americans suffered a crisis when financial gifts from benefactors and foundations decreased as a result of the Great Depression and World War II. It was during this time, in 1943, that Dr. Frederick Douglass Patterson, president of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), wrote an open letter in the Pittsburgh Courier to the presidents of other private black colleges urging them to “pool their small monies and make a united appeal to the national conscience” (http://www.uncf.org). His idea led to the establishment of the UNCF on April 25, 1944. The organization at first made its headquarters in New York City. In 1994, the UNCF relocated to Fairfax, Virginia. Patterson served as its first president, from 1944 to 1958 and from 1964 to 1966, and William Trent was the organization’s first executive director, serving from 1944 until 1963. Dr. Patterson’s orchestrated appeal was in hopes that private black colleges could become more financially sound. The UNCF’s mission to enhance the quality of education by providing financial assistance to deserving students, raising operating funds for member colleges and universities, and increasing access to technology for students and faculty has virtually remained the same since its incorporation with twenty-seven member colleges in 1944. The primary objective has been to provide educational opportunities for young people who otherwise might not attend college. In its first annual campaign in 1944, the UNCF received support from many prominent

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Americans, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller, raising that year $765,000, a sum three times greater than that raised by the individual colleges in separate campaigns the previous year. In 1963, the UNCF began its second capital campaign with a White House ceremony hosted by President John F. Kennedy. The president donated the Pulitzer Prize money he had received from his book Profiles of Courage (1956) to the campaign. In 1972, the UNCF launched a public awareness campaign with the slogan “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” one of the most recognized advertising slogans ever created. In 1974, the first UNCF telethon was launched with Nancy Wilson and Clifton Davis as hosts. The UNCF has experienced a long history of support from prominent community and national leaders. In 1990, publisher Walter H. Annenberg pledged $50 million to UNCF’s capital campaign, Campaign 2000, which was hosted by President George Bush. The organization expanded its vision when it received a contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop partnerships to promote education in South Africa. In 1999, the UNCF was named administrator of the $1 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Millennium Scholars Program. Since its inception, the UNCF has grown to fund thirty-nine private black colleges and universities, administering more than 500 designated scholarships and fellowships to graduate and professional schools throughout the country. It has raised more than $1.8 billion to promote higher education achievement and has helped more than 300,000 students earn undergraduate and graduate degrees. Many alumni of historically black colleges and universities who were able to earn degrees thanks to UNCF funding have become leaders in their fields of study and work. Nicole A. Streeter References and further reading “Frederick Douglass Patterson, 1901–1988.” United Negro College Fund Archival History. Fairfax: United Negro College Fund. United Negro College Fund, http://www.uncf.org (September 19, 2001).

U.S. Sanitary Commission

U.S. Sanitary Commission (USSC) The U.S. Sanitary Commission (USSC) was a voluntary, privately funded relief organization that worked for the betterment of the health and welfare of Union soldiers during the Civil War. A forerunner of the American Red Cross, the USSC coordinated homefront charity efforts and improved health conditions for the voluntary army. The activities of the USSC led to the reform of medical sanitary practices by the military and demonstrated that a nationalized system of private benevolence could be a viable adjunct to government. This national system particularly provided women with a model of coordinated political action useful in the future temperance and suffrage movements. At the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 voluntary troops (Maxwell 1956, 1). Women organized to contribute to the war effort and ensure that soldiers from their communities would have adequate medical supplies, food, and clothing. However, the supplies collected and forwarded by the independent community relief agencies often failed to reach their destinations, demonstrating the need for an improved distribution system. At the same time, there was concern about the high death rate from disease in the military camps and hospitals. During the recent Crimean War, Florence Nightingale had initiated revolutionary sanitation measures that dramatically lowered the mortality from infection and illness. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, one of the first female physicians in the United States, was a friend of Florence Nightingale and an advocate of her medical sanitation practices. Blackwell organized the Women’s Central Relief Association (WCRA) in New York to help distribute supplies and to encourage this new science of sanitation. The WCRA felt an official connection with the army was needed and sent its president, Henry W. Bellows, a Unitarian minister, and its secretary, Frederick Law Olmsted, designer and superintendent of New York City’s Central Park, to Washington, D.C. The U.S. Sanitary Commission grew out of the Women’s Central Relief Association and was the only voluntary wartime agency officially sanctioned. The USSC was chartered by the federal government in

June 1861 to collect and distribute supplies, to provide medical assistance for the volunteer troops, and to survey and make recommendations for sanitary improvements in the military hospitals and camps. However, even the organization’s governmental supporters were skeptical of the ability of this civilian-led agency to be effective, with President Lincoln concerned the USSC would be a “fifth wheel of the coach” of the military. Under the administrative skills of Frederick Law Olmsted, the USSC organized a national system to facilitate the collection and distribution of needed blankets, clothing, food, and other supplies from women in thousands of northern communities. During the war, more than $15 million in supplies were collected and disbursed by the USSC (Maxwell 1956, 297). Additional cash contributions were raised through private sources and a wide network of Sanitary Fairs. The USSC also provided improved medical care and assistance to the sick and wounded in major battles such as Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Fredericksburg. Its efforts were especially notable the summer of 1862 during the Virginia peninsula campaign, when the USSC secured, converted, and staffed passenger steamers as floating hospitals to treat and evacuate thousands of wounded soldiers. The sanitary techniques advocated by the USSC, including ventilation, improved diet, segregation of the ill, washing, latrine placement, and sterilization of instruments, as well as inspections of military camps by private physicians, helped greatly reduce the army’s mortality rate due to infection and disease. The USSC also acted as a liaison between the volunteer soldiers and the regular army, recorded and tracked patients in hospitals, expedited discharge and pension procedures and facilities, recorded burials, and communicated to widespread communities on the progress of the war. The USSC was most effective for the first two years of the Civil War, during which time the U.S. Army Medical Bureau adopted its approaches to sanitation. As the war lingered, women became more pressed to provide supplies. Additionally, the growing bureaucracy of the USSC began to raise charges of corruption. Finally, other relief organizations began to compete for the same contributions and relief supplies,

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United Way

most notably the Western Sanitary Commission in St. Louis and the United States Christian Commission, an offshoot of the Young Men’s Christian Association. The U.S. Sanitary Commission nevertheless remained an important supplement to government and military resources until its dissolution at the end of the war in 1865. Al Lyons See also American Red Cross References and further reading Attie, Jeanie. 1998. Patriotic Toil: Northern Women and the American Civil War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Geisberg, Judith Ann. 2000. Civil War Sisterhood: The U.S. Sanitary Commission and Women’s Politics in Transition. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice. 1891. My Story of the War. Hartford, CT: A. D. Worthington. Maxwell, William Quentin. 1956. Lincoln’s Fifth Wheel: The Political History of the United States Sanitary Commission. New York: Longman’s, Green. “The Sanitary Commission and Other Relief Agencies,” http://www.civilwarhome.com/sanitarycommission.htm. Stille, Charles J. 1866. History of the United States Sanitary Commission, Being the General Report of Its Work during the War of the Rebellion. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.

United Way See Federated Fundraising

Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) By definition, unrelated business income (UBI) refers to revenues received by tax-exempt organizations that result from the regular carrying on of trade or business activities that are unrelated to the organization’s exempt function. Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 513(a) considers unrelated trade or business as any income-generating or trade-for-profit activity regularly conducted by a tax-exempt organization “which is not substantially related to the exercise or performance by the exempt organization” (Hopkins 1998, 632) of its charitable, educational, or other purpose or function constituting the basis for its exemption, regardless of how the funds will be used. Generally, tax-exempt organizations are taxed at the prevailing corporate

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rates for unrelated business income less deductions for allowable expenses. Such expenses are those that are solely related to and directly connected with the specific unrelated business income activity. Federal legislation deeming charitable organizations in the United States to be exempt from paying taxes originated with the Tariff Act of 1894 and was later substantiated by the statutory law of tax-exempt organizations in 1913. In 1950, a major modification to the law concerning tax-exempt organizations included a ruling on unrelated business income, which introduced, for the first time, stipulations and conditions that could cause nonprofit organizations to be taxed. Prior to 1950, a “destination-of-income test” was used to determine the taxable status of income. This practice allowed income from any source to be earned tax-free by nonprofit organizations if the use of the income was committed to charitable purposes. Concerns began to surface from both the business sector and from Congress that nonprofit organizations were being allowed to unfairly compete with for-profit organizations in carrying on trade activities and running business ventures. Of additional concern to Congress was that nonprofits were becoming tax-exempt industrialists that could effectively remove for-profit corporations from participating in certain markets and industries, thereby eventually eroding the federal government’s much-needed corporate income tax base. Also included in the 1950 ruling were provisions concerning “feeder organizations.” Pursuant to IRC Section 502(a), “Organizations operated for the primary purpose of carrying on a trade or business for profit shall not be exempt from taxation on the grounds that all of its profits are payable to one or more tax-exempt or charitable organizations” (Hopkins 1998, 762). The landmark case that prompted Congress to enact the UBI tax laws involved the ownership and operation of Mueller Macaroni Company by the New York University Law School in 1951. The university was gifted ownership of the macaroni factory by a donor and subsequently continued to operate the company in direct competition with other pasta manufacturers. Since the university used the revenues from the company to support the educational needs of the institution, all of the profits derived from the

Utopian Thought, Philanthropy in

pasta-making venture were originally untaxed. With enactment of the new law in 1950 concerning unrelated business income and feeder organizations, the destination of the income became irrelevant and the source of the income became the determining factor regarding taxation. Throughout the years since 1950, flurries of congressional hearings and heightened efforts by both the small business lobby and the charity lobby have prompted modifications to the UBIT ruling, leading to the increased application of a “commerciality doctrine.” Although not specifically included in tax code, the commerciality doctrine is a general standard of law used to determine whether tax-exempt status can be denied or revoked if a substantial part of the taxexempt organization’s activities or operations consist of commercial-type dealings that are similar to those of for-profit organizations. Originally, the UBIT ruling applied to only some tax-exempt organizations, such as charitable and educational ones. In 1969, modifications to the ruling extended the applicability of the unrelated business income tax to virtually all tax-exempt organizations. This modification was in response to the many tax-exempt religious organizations, social clubs, fraternal societies, business leagues, and the like that began to operate substantial commercial activities such as hotels, factories, media and publishing franchises, and restaurants. In 1977, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that travel tour programs conducted by alumni associations of tax-exempt colleges and universities were social and recreational in nature rather than educational, and as such were to be considered taxable as unrelated business income. Similarly, the rental of facilities to the public and the sale of advertising by tax-exempt organizations are generally considered unrelated business income (Hopkins 1998, 629–695). Debates continue regarding the UBIT policy as nuances of the law, such as the meanings of the terms “substantially related” and “regularly conducted,” are continually tested by charities. Businesses persist in their criticism about unfair competition, and Congress routinely reexamines the U.S. Treasury’s tax revenue loss consequences. Contemporary arguments reflect the need and desire of charities to diversify their revenue streams by increasing commercial activ-

ities to help offset declines in government grant programs and increased competition for private donations. Yet charities must weigh the potential conflicts between their primary mission and commercial activities. Such activities, for example, may have a negative or neutralizing effect on private donations (Brody and Cordes 1999). Elizabeth R. Crabtree References and further reading Brody, Evelyn, and Cordes, Joseph. 1999. The Unrelated Business Income Tax: All Bark and No Bite? Emerging Issues in Philanthropy series. Washington, DC: Urban Institute and Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organization. Hopkins, Bruce R. 1998. The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations, 7th ed. New York: Wiley. Ohio State University. “Tax Manual—Unrelated Business Income,” http://www.ctlr.ohio-state.edu/webhelp/ Tax_Manual/Unrel_Bus_Income/UBI.htm (cited September 9, 2002). Sansing, Richard. 1998. “The Unrelated Business Income Tax, Cost Allocation, and Productive Efficiency.” National Tax Journal 51, no. 2 ( June): 291–302. Steuerle, Eugene. 2000. When Nonprofits Conduct Exempt Activities as Taxable Enterprises. Emerging Issues in Philanthropy series. Washington, DC: Urban Institute and Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organization.

Utopian Thought, Philanthropy in Utopians describe imaginary worlds, depicting optimally structured and well-functioning societies. The vast utopian literature, beginning with Thomas More (1516) and continuing up to the present in the works of such writers as Ernest Callenbach (1975) and Guy Dauncey (1999), describes the ways in which polity, economy, informal institutions, and voluntary action are organized in these imagined societies and how their interactive workings play out within them (Van Til 1988). Utopian concerns relate to contemporary issues in philanthropic studies in a number of ways, especially in terms of the structure and significance of the voluntary sector in society. For the student of philanthropy, the Utopian literature provides three major strands of theoretical interest: 1. Analysis of the roles played by voluntary service, charitable and/or philanthropic

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Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), author of Utopia and Chancellor of England under Henry VIII (Corbis)

action, and nonprofit organization in the good society 2. Analysis of the interrelations between major societal sectors and institutions in such societies 3. Analysis of dysfunctional aspects of thirdsector activity and organization in society

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Philanthropy figures prominently in the work of classical utopians, although Thomas More, the creator of the concept, paid it scant attention in describing the well-ordered structures of his Utopia. Many prominent utopian theorists who followed, such as Gerrard Winstanley (1682) and James Harrington (1656), echoed More’s judgment that the basic task in creat-


ing a utopia lay in righting the unequal distribution of wealth, income, and power. The answer to this reconstruction was typically viewed, in what would eventually become a tradition of utopian socialism that led to the communal constructions of Robert Owen and the revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx, as the imposition of governmental policies that would serve to distribute resources and benefits more equally. Typically ignored in democratic utopianism’s focus on public control of the economy were the utopians’ own reliance on third-sector organizations in bringing about the structural changes. To Marx, of course, philanthropy provided an instrument by which the ruling class maintained its control of the workers, whom it both employed and dominated. Like its cousin institution, religion, philanthropy served as an “opiate of the people” that deflected attention from the evils of class domination. Philanthropy, Marxists asserted, masked greed and control in the veils of its purported beneficence, creating a submissive crowd of supplicants and recipients unlikely to give either voice or support to calls for redistribution and revolution. In the commonplace expression of contemporary philanthropy, for this crowd, the only problem attached to “tainted money” is that there “tain’t enough” of it. Two leading socialist utopians of the late nineteenth century, Edward Bellamy and William Morris, were particularly observant regarding the hegemonic uses of philanthropy. In Bellamy’s classic Looking Backward, Dr. Leete, the utopian host to the narrator (Mr. West, who has gone to sleep in the year 1888 and awakened in the year 2000), is explaining that even invalids play an important role in Utopia: “All our sick in mind and body, all our deaf and dumb, and lame and blind and crippled, and even our insane, belong to (our) invalid corps, and bear its insignia. The strongest often can do nearly a man’s work, the feeblest, of course, nothing; but none who can do anything are willing to give up. In their lucid intervals, even our insane are eager to do what they can.” “That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps,” I said. “Even a barbarian from the nineteenth century can appreciate that. It is a very graceful way of disguising charity, and must be grateful to the feelings of its recipients.”

“Charity!” repeated Dr. Leete. “Did you suppose that we consider the incapable class we are talking of objects of charity?” “Why, naturally,” I said, “inasmuch as they are incapable of self-support.” But here the doctor took me up quickly. “Who is capable of self-support?” he demanded. “There is no such thing in a civilized society as selfsupport. . . . The necessity of mutual dependence should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual support; and that it did not in your day constituted the essential cruelty and unreason of your system.” (Bellamy (1996 [1888], 63–64)

This excerpt exemplifies the richness of the utopian perspective as it pertains to such issues as caring, giving, mutual support, and organized philanthropy. For Mr. West, as for so many contemporary Americans, caring for the needy in society is a duty to be rather soberly discharged, one that must be carefully engineered by charitable organizations to assure that those in need are not neglected. But in Utopia, as Dr. Leete explains, the division between the truly needy and the self-sufficient melts before the recognition that all persons are dependent upon each other, enmeshed as they are in one great social network of mutual support. The tension between individual and collective provision of social support is one of a wide range of issues raised clearly and provocatively by the utopian tradition. Other issues pertaining to philanthropy and the third sector in that literature include population control (generally viewed favorably); crime and punishment (with a particular concern for capital punishment, ranging from its abolition by More to its democratization by the Marquis de Sade); voluntary suicide (advocated by More); national service (widely viewed as an important part of civic education); religious tolerance and pluralism (also widely approved); educational pedagogy (developed in considerable detail by utopians such as Rousseau); communal social care (a favorite cause of utopians since More); open sexual relationships (a pet topic of a few utopians that dates back at least to the medieval mythical land of “Cockaigne,” in which priests and nuns cavort at will and the most active among them are named “abbot” and “abbess”); guild organization

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(favored by evolutionary socialists); and residential patterning in a variety of ordered communal structures (of which Charles Fourier’s are perhaps the most complex). Similar issues have also been considered in the “distopian” literature, which creates images of frightening or dysfunctional futures. These “negative utopias” have become highly popular in current mass culture, particular in film versions. (See, for example, the novels of Aldous Huxley, Ursula LeGuin, George Orwell, and Ray Bradbury.) A review of utopian constructions on these issues suggests alternative structural and institutional patterns that, though they may seem “unrealistic” or audacious to contemporary eyes, may be useful in expanding the limits that contemporary social solutions place upon the human potential for cooperation, social innovation, and collective and individual achievement. Perhaps the most intriguing construction in the utopian literature based on voluntary association is that of Charles Fourier. Building a communal society on the basis of “passional attraction,” the eccentric Fourier imagined the erection of a series of “phalansteries,” each consisting of a carefully selected population of between 1,500 and 1,600 residents joined in voluntary association. The phalanstery, located on a pleasant site within reach of the city, attracts persons of various levels of wealth and income to a life of ever-changing leisure. These individuals work only as long as they need to in an ever-shifting, team-based pattern of task performance. Fourier explained, writing in 1838: In work, as in pleasure, variety is evidently the desire of nature. Any enjoyment prolonged, without interruption, beyond two hours, conduces to satiety, to abuse, blunts our faculties, and exhausts pleasure. A repast of four hours will not pass off without excess; an opera of four hours will end by cloying the spectator. Periodical variety is a necessity of the body and of the soul, a necessity in all nature; even the soil requires alteration of seeds, and seed alteration of soil. The stomach will soon reject the best dish if it be offered every day, and the soul will be blunted in the exercise of any virtue if it be not relieved by some other virtue. If there is need of variety in pleasure after indulging in it for two hours, so much the more does labor require this diversity, which is continual in the

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associative state, and is guaranteed to the poor as well as the rich. (Fried and Sanders 1964, 126–150)

Sociologist Joan Roelofs (2003) noted the difficulties involved in organizing small group work and leisure in two-hour time blocks and suggested that Fourier’s vision would only become viable once a system of “computer dating” was introduced. Industrialist Robert Owen, a more conventional philanthropist than Fourier, built two notable utopian communities housing workers he employed at below-market wages plus generous medical, educational, and recreational benefits. New Lanark (Scotland) was begun in 1799 and featured a reduction in working hours from twelve to ten hours per day and a prohibition of child labor. Home to 1,400 workers, New Lanark was succeeded by the New Harmony community in Indiana, which Owen established in 1824. The philanthropic approach is nearly always ambiguous in its motives and effects, as the historian Kevin Robbins noted in his working definition: “individual or collective action, imposed, incumbent, or voluntary on the part of donors, intended to enhance public order” (Robbins 1999, 1). A recent biographer of Owens noted that he was not beyond imposing his will upon others: “Owen’s business methods show the gentle philanthropist to have the financial teeth of a shark” (Royle 1998, 17). The role of utopia has always been to expand the envelope, to extend the vision of what is achievable “if only” we had the vision, the good luck, and the commitment to build a better society. As Robert Nozick (1974) suggested, perhaps the best utopias emerge where process, rather than framework, is given primary attention. It is significant that Nozick’s conception of utopia is itself based in the third sector, resting as it does on the ability to choose between and among associations. Such a conception, he asserted, “treats us as inviolate individuals, who may not be used in certain ways by others as means or tools or instruments or resources.” Utopia, he concluded, “allows us, individually or with whom we choose, to choose our life and to realize our ends and our conception of ourselves, insofar as we can, aided by the voluntary cooperation of other individuals possessing the same dignity. How dare any state or group of individuals do more. Or less” (Nozick 1974, 334).


Nozick is not the only theorist to note the primacy of voluntary and philanthropic action in society. The third sector has been seen as “first” in its ability to innovate; it is the home of poets and dreamers as well as of managers and service-providers (Young 1988). Scholars and activists concerned with philanthropy might do well to recall the big social dreams of the utopians and their conceptions of the role that the third sector itself may play in bringing some of those dreams into reality. Jon Van Til References and further reading Bellamy, Edward. 1996 [1888]. Looking Backward. New York: Dover. Fried, Albert, and Ronald Sanders. 1964. Socialist Thought: A Documentary History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.

New York Public Library. “Utopia,” http://www.nypl.org/ utopia (cited January 7, 2002). Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. Robbins, Kevin C. 1999. “History of Philanthropy in the West.” Syllabus. Indianapolis: Indiana University. Roelofs, Joan. 2003. Foundations and Public Policy: The Mark of Pluralism. New York: State University of New York Press. Royle, Edward. 1998. Robert Owen and the Commencement of the Millennium: A Study of the Harmony Community. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Van Til, Jon. 1988. Mapping the Third Sector. New York: Foundation Center. Young, Dennis R. 1988. “The Nonprofit Sector as the First Sector: Policy Implications.” Part 2, no. 3, of Looking Forward to the Year 2000: Public Policy and Philanthropy. Spring Research Forum Working Papers. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR.

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V Venture Philanthropy

donor and the nonprofit strive to improve organizational capacity and strengthen infrastructure. This close working relationship is one of the cornerstones of venture philanthropy. Accountability and an emphasis on measurable outcomes is also a key component of venture philanthropy. By developing benchmarks for performance and evaluation, participants in venture philanthropy hope to build the financial independence of a nonprofit as well as enhance programmatic success. The ongoing contributions of the donor may include a position on the board of directors, volunteer opportunities, and a wide range of technical assistance supports. An important aspect of the model is the expectation that there will be a greater return on social innovation and change. Semantic shifts, taken from the business world, are used in the lexicon of venture philanthropy. Donors are sometimes called “social investors,” grantees are “investees,” nonprofit leaders are “social entrepreneurs,” and outcomes or goals are “returns on investments.” As in the venture capital business model, donors work closely with nonprofits to design appropriate exit strategies in order to increase capacity and sustainability for organizational independence. Critics of venture philanthropy point out that measuring results in the nonprofit sector is far more difficult than in the for-profit world. There are no “bottom line” proxies that perfectly reflect the work of

Venture philanthropy is a method of grantmaking based on certain business principles that combines time, money, and expertise to create partnerships between donors and not-for-profit organizations. The venture philanthropy approach to nonprofit funding utilizes strategic management assistance as an essential corollary to charitable giving in order to increase the productivity, effectiveness, and sustainability of the organization. According to the Center for Venture Philanthropy, venture philanthropy incorporates five key elements: 1. Investment in the long term (three- to sixyear business plans) 2. A managing partner relationship between the donor and the nonprofit 3. An accountability-for-results process 4. Provision of cash and expertise 5. A defined exit strategy An intensive, hands-on approach to grantmaking, the venture philanthropy model develops a long-term partnership between the donor and a nonprofit and is characterized by long-term funding commitments. The donor also provides human and intellectual capital to the nonprofit. This technical assistance may be in the form of enhanced technology, management assistance, or organizational skill building. Together, the

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Voluntarism

nonprofits. Venture capitalists invest large quantities of money, (sometimes) create big returns, and then exit the company. Creating sustainable social change does not happen quickly or easily, and three- to sixyear commitments, though longer than the usual grant period, may still not be enough to create lasting results and true social change. Others question whether the intensive involvement of donors is of lasting value to the organization. Policy decisions and program development may be best left to professionals within nonprofits rather than guided by donors, who may have a more superficial knowledge of complicated problems in the field. There is also a question of scale—some argue that increasing market share or creating cost efficiencies do not translate well to the nonprofit sector. Some aspects of venture philanthropy, such as the increased emphasis on accountability and building nonprofit capacity and infrastructure, make good sense in light of the rapid growth of the field and increased public scrutiny. Other aspects, such as pervasive donor involvement and the attempt to develop quantifiable measurement tools for complex social problem solving, are more challenging. Debate about the efficacy of the venture philanthropy model continues. Kathleen Odne References and further reading Billitteri, Thomas. 2000. “Venturing a Bet on Giving.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy, June 1, 1. Grossman, Allen, Christine Letts, and William Ryan. 1997. “Virtuous Capital: What Foundations Can Learn from Venture Capitalists.” Harvard Business Review (March/April): 36–44. Venture Philanthropy Partners and Community Wealthy Ventures. 2001. Venture Philanthropy 2001: The Changing Landscape. Reston, VA: The Morino Institute.

Voluntarism Volunteering is the cornerstone of the nonprofit sector and any philanthropic engagement. Civic society can exist only if individuals willingly assume roles and activities that they are not required or obligated to take on. Helping in soup kitchens, coaching soccer teams, and running local organizations are all activities whereby people are not compensated for their labor. The act of taking time off and helping another

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individual in need or serving a larger cause signifies the volunteer’s willingness to give away a needed resource. In essence, the volunteer takes time off from work, leisure, or sleep and donates this time, coupled with certain skills and labor, to improve the conditions of others. As an analogy, volunteering does for the philanthropic sector what an atom does for a molecule. When a group of individuals join together for a volunteer activity, an association can be formed and large projects can be carried out. Even in early societies, before money was invented, acts of helping existed. From defending tribe members to helping a neighbor plow his field, volunteering existed as soon as people started to live in communal habitats. As such, volunteering is the oldest form of assisting others. Only when money was invented could people help each other by donating money to substitute for time and skills. It is not surprising that some old languages, such as Hebrew, use the same root word both for acts of volunteering (hitnadvoot) and donations of funds (nedavoot). In ancient times, volunteering was almost exclusively geared toward people known to the volunteer. In this respect, volunteering creates the basis for mutual support. However, volunteering to help the stranger soon evolved, and many religious texts discuss helping the traveler, the stranger, and even the enemy. The definition of volunteering is quite complex. In fact, so many activities are hidden within this broad term that it is unclear whether it is sensitive enough to capture them all. A board member of the prestigious symphony, a political activist, a Junior League coach, a Big Brother, and a person giving a few hours a year to clean up a creek are all considered volunteers, yet they perform very different tasks and roles. David Horton Smith defined a volunteer as “an individual engaging in behavior that is not bio-socially determined (e.g., eating, sleeping), nor economically necessitated (e.g., paid work, housework, home repair), nor sociopolitically compelled (e.g., paying one’s taxes, clothing oneself before appearing in public), but rather that is essentially (primarily) motivated by the expectation of psychic benefits of some kind as a result of activities that have a market value greater than any remuneration received for such activities” (Smith 1982, 25).

Voluntarism

Teen volunteer at a senior center (Gabe Palmer/CORBIS)

This definition is helpful in two ways: (1) It determines many activities that are not regarded as volunteering, and (2) it sets the “net-cost” principle. The latter is a principle developed by Femida Handy and her colleagues (2000) suggesting that any activity in which the benefits to the acting individual can be assessed as greater than the cost to that individual or the activitey will not be considered as volunteering. Still, Smith’s definition does not state under what conditions a certain activity is to be defined as volunteering. An analysis of some 200 definitions of volunteering found that four key components appear in most definitions: (1) free will—that is, the person is free to choose whether to help, how many hours to help, and at what capacity; (2) no remuneration, or at least only reimbursement for expenses—in this respect, working for a reduced fee is often not considered to be a volunteer activity; (3) a beneficiary who is not immediately related to the volunteer—that is,

helping one’s family or friends is not a volunteer activity; and (4) work that is done under the auspices of a formal agency as opposed to informal work (Cnaan et al 1996). This last issue is quite important, as many international and local groups feel that volunteering is a regulated activity. For example, the Global Nonprofit Institutions Systems (GNIS) Project and the Economic Statistics Branch of the United Nations (2002) has defined a volunteer as “someone who willingly gives unpaid help, in the form of time, services or skills, through an organization or group.” Others would include more informal work as volunteering. Informal volunteering includes helping others or working to advance a cause individually and without supervision, rather than being under the auspices of an organization. For example, if one mentors a child as part of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, he or she is a formal volunteer, but if the same person on his or her own

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Voluntarism

volition mentors a child without agency involvement, he or she is an informal volunteer. Volunteers are active in almost any field of society. They are mostly active in nonprofit organizations but are also found in public settings (for example, schools, fire-fighting brigades, libraries, and the National Forest Service) as well as in the private sector (for example, for-profit hospitals, professional sports teams, and private newspapers) (Brudney 1999). In some countries, such as Canada, England, and Israel, the government offers funds and initiatives to encourage volunteerism. In fact, many organizations could not function without the free labor provided by volunteers. The various definitions of volunteering affect the statistics about volunteering. One major source finds that each year, about half of all adult Americans volunteer their services to assist others (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 2001). However, the rate fluctuates. INDEPENDENT SECTOR has conducted periodic surveys on volunteering since 1987. The 1987 study—the first formal measurement of volunteering in the United States—revealed that 45.3 percent of the adult population volunteered. Two years later, 54.4 percent reported volunteering. In 1998, the percentage rose to 55.5. But statistics for 2000 indicated that only 44 percent of Americans volunteered. This drop may indicate changes in levels of volunteering, or it may simply reflect changes in survey methods. The 1989 study included Americans who were age eighteen and older, whereas the 2000 survey only included those who were twenty-one or older. The U.S. Department of Labor (2002) also assessed rates of voluntarism in the United States. According to this study, about 59 million people did volunteer work at some point from September 2001 to September 2002. Thus, slightly more than one in four persons (27.6 percent) aged sixteen and over volunteered. This survey of 60,000 households found that the volunteer rate was higher among women (31.1 percent) than men (23.8 percent); that employed persons were more likely to volunteer than persons who were unemployed or not in the labor force; that the volunteer rate of college graduates was four times that of high school dropouts; that the majority of volunteers worked mainly for

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either religious or educational/youth-service-related organizations; and that volunteers spent a median of fifty-two hours volunteering during the year. Among the age groups, thirty-five- to fifty-fouryear-olds were the most likely to volunteer, with one in three having donated their time. Teenagers had a relatively high volunteer rate, 26.9 percent. Volunteer rates were lowest among persons age sixty-five and over (22.7 percent) and among those in their early twenties (18.2 percent). The differences between these findings and those of the INDEPENDENT SECTOR are methodological in nature and demonstrate the need for a commonly accepted definition of volunteering. About two-thirds of those who volunteer started at a young age. Working freely on behalf of others is a behavior learned early. Knowing this, many schools have instituted mandatory community service. This form of service is not entirely based on free will, and students are warned that if they do not comply with the requirement they will not graduate. Yet it sets in motion an opportunity to offer help to a needy person or a cause that eventually may lead to true volunteering (Sundeen and Raskoff 1994). High-school volunteering recently reached the highest levels in the past fifty years. The average number of volunteer hours per volunteer dropped from 218 hours per year in 1995 to 182 in 2000 (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 2001). The weak economy, women in employment, mass media, and fragmentation of the family are among the reasons cited for the decline. However, rates of volunteering may be cyclical; if so, future surveys may show a rebound. Alternatively, in the postindustrial era people may be less committed to a single organization or cause. Instead of giving hundreds of hours each year for several years to one organization, they move from one cause to another, giving fewer hours, protecting their autonomy, and seeking personal fulfillment rather than feeling obliged to support any one organization over the long term. The value of a volunteer’s time is rising. To assess the contributions of volunteers to an organization, or to society as a whole, researchers assign a value to an average volunteer hour and multiply this value by the number of volunteers and by the average number of

Voluntarism

volunteer hours per year. Although many methods were proposed to estimate the value of volunteer hours, Elizabeth Brown (1999) demonstrated that multiplying the estimated hours of volunteering by the average hourly compensation rate for paid labor is the best method. Using this system, the value of a volunteer hour in 1987 was $10.06, while in 2002 it was $16.05. The INDEPENDENT SECTOR (2001) estimated the overall value of volunteering in the United States at $239 billion. Another way to view the contribution of volunteers is to note how many full-time positions their overall contribution provides to society. The 83.9 million American adult volunteers represent the equivalent of more than 9 million full-time employees. There is not one corporation in the United States that employs so many people. To put this number in perspective, more than 1.2 million people volunteered for the American Red Cross in 1999. Ninety-seven percent of American Red Cross staff are volunteers. Adults over age twenty-five make up about 60 percent of Red Cross volunteers, and youth and young adults make up about 40 percent. In other words, the supply of blood in the United States and the American Red Cross response to natural disasters is almost exclusively at the hands of volunteers. In economic terms, volunteering is sometimes seen as a counterproductive activity. One takes from his or her wealth (time and skills) and furnishes it to others freely. However, this is a shortsighted view of volunteering. The rewards to the volunteers are manifold, although not monetary in nature. The literature discusses a host of rewards emanating from volunteer work, including finding personal fulfillment; serving a worthy cause; learning about a field that affects a family member or a friend; making an impact on the world; helping others in need; fulfilling a religious dictum; changing one’s life routine; finding social contacts; acquiring new skills; making business contacts; improving one’s resume; gaining social approval from friends and family as a caring, responsible individual; being appreciated by the served agency and its staff; and gaining an opportunity to transition into a desired workplace. It is difficult to categorize these motivations as either internal (altruistic) or external (egoistic) because many of them are both. Further, such divisions often

fail to take into account social issues, such as searching for companionship. In fact, for someone to decide to become a volunteer and be retained as one, many of the motivations listed above should exist simultaneously (Cnaan and Goldberg-Glen 1991). Very few people can be motivated by only one type of motivation. Furthermore, there is no clear formula of what most people look for in volunteer work. Different people require different combinations of motivations, and as long as the volunteer generates sufficient rewards, he or she will continue to devote time and skills. And although all these issues are crucial for the volunteer activity to occur, a person most often will not become a volunteer unless he or she is asked to become a volunteer. Most volunteers note that their decision to become a volunteer was mediated by a friend or acquaintance who approached them and asked for their help. Secondary to this is an advertised call for volunteers listed in papers or broadcasted on mass media. In both cases, potential volunteers need the “jump start” from the outside to unleash their volunteer potentiality. An important issue in volunteerism is volunteer management. With the exception of informal volunteering, volunteer work is an organized effort toward a common goal. Even if the organization is an “allvolunteer” organization, tasks are expected to be completed, people should be there on time, and information should be shared efficiently. This is especially difficult when some volunteers come once a week or even less frequently. Increased reliance on volunteers over the past half century has spurred the growth of volunteer administration, especially in hospitals, arts and culture institutions, and social welfare agencies (Brudney 1992; McCurley 1994). The Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA), an international professional association, works to train, certify, and promote the field of volunteer management. The key issues in volunteer management are: (1) how to recruit enough qualified volunteers; (2) how to introduce new volunteers to the host organization; (3) how to train volunteers to do the job expected of them; (4) how to retain volunteers; (5) how to make sure volunteers will come on time, meet deadlines, and not miss volunteer time; (6) how to encourage volunteers to do the best job possible; and (7) how to

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Voluntary Sector

fire a volunteer who is not meeting expectations. These issues are at the core of many training manuals and programs for volunteer administrators. Volunteer coordinators find that focused marketing, careful screening, personal attention, genuine appreciation, enhanced responsibilities, thank-you notes, preparatory work with paid staff, and ongoing feedback are key to successful volunteer management. Yet our knowledge is extremely limited as to how to best make volunteers effective and productive (Cnaan and Cascio 1998). A recent development in the field of volunteerism is e-volunteering (also known as online volunteering, virtual volunteering, cyber service, tele-mentoring, and tele-tutoring). The Virtual Volunteering Project is a Web site designed to encourage and assist in the development and success of volunteer activities that can be completed, in whole or in part, via the Internet (http://www.serviceleader.org/vv/). Many people cannot leave their homes or work for long hours but can devote time while connected to the Internet, either at work or home. E-volunteering enables them to contribute time and skills even if they are not physically present at an agency. Tasks such as conducting or analyzing survey data, providing technical assistance, helping with advocacy, writing letters, translating documents, and searching for information can be done at one’s computer to benefit a chosen organization. The use of e-volunteering has also spread to advertising volunteer opportunities. A host of Web sites are matching interested volunteers with local opportunities. Some are locally based, and some are national and international in their reach. Finally, a few Web sites are devoted to helping volunteers and volunteer administrators run their services (see, for example, http://e-volunteerism.com/). Ram A. Cnaan See also Volunteering References and further reading Brown, E. 1999. “Assessing the Value of Volunteer Activity.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 28: 3–17. Brudney, J. L. 1990. Fostering Volunteer Programs in the Public Sector: Planning, Initiating, and Managing Voluntary Activities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ———. 1992. “Administrators of Volunteer Services: Their Needs for Training and Research.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 2: 271–282.

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Clary, E. G., M. Snyder, and A. A. Stukas. 1996. “Volunteers’ Motivations: Findings from a National Survey.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 25: 485–505. Cnaan, R. A., and T. Cascio. 1998. “Performance and Commitment: Issues in Management of Volunteers in Human Service Organizations.” Journal of Social Service Research 24 (3/4): 1–37. Cnaan, R. A., and R. S. Goldberg-Glen. 1991. “Measuring Motivation to Volunteer in Human Services.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 27: 269–284. Cnaan, R. A., F. Handy, and M. Wadsworth. 1996. “Defining Who Is a Volunteer: Conceptual and Empirical Considerations.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 25 (3): 364–383. Global Nonprofit Institutions Systems (GNIS) Project and Economic Statistics Branch of the United Nations. 2002. Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Also available at http://www.jhu.edu/~gnisp/ index.html (cited January 6, 2003). Handy, F., R. A. L. Cnaan, J. L. Brudney, U. Ascoli, L. C. M. P. Meijs, and S. Ranade. 2000. “Public Perception of ‘Who Is a Volunteer’: An Examination of the Net-Cost Approach from a Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Voluntas 11 (1): 45–65. INDEPENDENT SECTOR. 2001. “Giving and Volunteering in the United States 2001.” Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. McCurley, S. 1994. “Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers.” In The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, edited by R. D. Herman, 511–534. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Smith, D. H. 1982. “Altruism, Volunteers, and Volunteerism.” In Volunteerism in the Eighties, edited by J. D. Harmann, 23–44. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Sundeen, R. A., and S. A. Raskoff. 1994. “Volunteering among Teenagers in the United States.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 23: 383–403. U.S. Department of Labor. 2002. Volunteering in the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor.

Voluntary Sector See Nonprofit Sector

Volunteering Volunteering involves the giving of time to a cause, a group, or another individual for no monetary pay. Volunteering is commonly defined as freely giving time

Volunteering

to others outside of one’s family for the public good, whether for a group or a cause. It is advocated in many countries and in the United Nations as a way of building and serving the community and bringing people together in serving common community goals. Patterns of volunteering vary by education, income, and culture. It is more formalized in developing nations with more urbanized cultures than in some developing nations where the connections among extended family and/or tribal structures remain central. In defining volunteers, some argue that volunteers can receive stipends for expenses but low pay, as do AmeriCorps volunteers in the United States. Others have argued that volunteers working for much lower pay should also be considered a type of volunteer (Smith 1982). Public perceptions of the meaning of volunteer range from giving time to helping others or the public for no pay but at some cost to the volunteer. Formal volunteering, or giving a commitment of time to an organization, is found to be more valuable and more costly than informal volunteering such as helping a neighbor. Even though volunteers can benefit from their volunteering, such as gaining social recognition or status, public perceptions regard people who engage in activities such as serving meals to the homeless are far more altruistic than a person who volunteers for the symphony in exchange for a free ticket. Volunteering covers a range from least to most altruistic, from greater rewards (social recognition) to greater personal cost (Cnaan, Handy, and Wadsworth 1996). The United Nations also has a broad definition of volunteering encompassing four general areas: (1) mutual aid, which includes self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or community groups in developing countries that jointly manage resources such as forests or water resources; (2) philanthropy or service to others or the community as a whole, which can include such activities as tutoring, mentoring, or caring for children or senior citizens through voluntary organizations; (3) campaigning or advocacy, which includes volunteers who advocate for a variety of causes, such as saving the environment, providing health care and education to persons with HIV/AIDS, or working to pass legislation to help people with disabilities; and (4) participation, which includes serving on committees as representatives to local government or on

commissions to solve community problems (Dingle 2001). What is most common, however, to all definitions of volunteering is that people give their time willingly to serve others for no pay (Wilson 2000).

Rates and Patterns of Volunteering by Nation Volunteering has been measured systematically in the United States since the 1980s by INDEPENDENT SECTOR, which sponsors biennial surveys of giving and volunteering in the United States. More recently, volunteering has been measured in other countries in the European Values Survey (EVS) and the World Values Survey (WVS) in an increasing number of countries. In the most recent EVS/WVS surveys from 1999 to 2001, there was a wide variation in the rate of volunteering by and within geographic regions of the world (see Figure 1.1). Certain patterns emerged. Volunteering rates seem more a pattern of culture than of type of government or level of development of the nation. When nations were compared to the Freedom House index on the assumption that free nations would have higher rates of volunteering, there was little relationship between levels of freedom and levels of volunteering. For example, volunteering rates in several countries that are ranked as partially free such as Argentina, Hong Kong, and the Central African Republic exceeded volunteering rates in most central and eastern European countries and some western European countries. The same finding occurred when comparing levels of development using the World Bank ranking of economic development from low to high income countries assuming that volunteer rates are higher in the more affluent nations. Such assumptions, however, could not be proved from the data. Some lower income countries such as Bangladesh, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and the Philippines have higher rates of volunteering than most other nations. In China and Vietnam, volunteer rates are high because volunteering is required. In some eastern and central European countries, such as Russia, Serbia, Romania, and Belarus, volunteer rates are low because of memories of required volunteering under Communist governments. Among middle income nations, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Chile, and Slovakia have higher rates of volunteering than most western European countries. Thus neither level of freedom nor

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Figure 1. Percentage of Adult Volunteers by Country within Geographic Region North America

USA Canada Mexico

66 47

36 South/Central America

Peru Puerto Rico Chile Argentina

45 45 43

22 Western Europe

Sweden Britain Finland Denmark Iceland Belgium Netherlands Greece Luxembourg Austria Ireland Malta Italy France W. Germany N. Ireland Spain E. Germany Portugal

54

43 33 32 32 31 31 30 28 28 28

37

25 23 21 20 15 15 12 Eastern Europe

Slovakia Czech Republic Slovenia Croatia Montenegro Belarus Latvia Estonia Bulgaria Hungary Romania Ukraine Lithuania Poland Serbia Russia

49

30 25 23 19 18 18 16 15 14 14 12 12 12 10 7 Asia

China Vietnam Bangladesh Philippines S. Korea India Japan

77 72

61 47

57

31

16 Africa

Tanzania Uganda Zimbabwe S. Africa

80 72

64 45 0

10

20

30

40 50 Percent (%)

60

70

80

Source: European World Values Survey, WORC, Tilburg University, Netherlands; World Values Survey, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan; CDATS World Values Project at Georgetown University.

90

Volunteering

wealth of the nation can be used to explain volunteer rates (Hodgkinson 2003). In an analysis of European nations, little relationship was found between volunteers and non-volunteers in their attitudes toward democracy (Halman 2003). Volunteers engage in a variety of activities, among which are helping behaviors in social services, health, and youth development; arts and cultural activities; protecting the environment; recreation and sports; advocacy; civil rights and social justice; monitoring government and business; and religious and spiritual activities. They work as individuals or in groups, for voluntary associations, schools, and government. They also found new organizations to address new needs. Volunteers perform different roles depending on the type of government. For example, individuals volunteer at much higher rates in social services in Anglo countries such as Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Some countries have much higher rates of volunteering for religious institutions, such as Mexico, Chile, Sweden, the Philippines, South Africa, and South Korea (see Figure 2). Several other countries have more than 10 percent of the adult population volunteering in sports and recreation, among which are the eastern and central European nations of Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Ireland, Canada, the United States, and Chile. The types of volunteering are determined by the type of government, history, and culture of the nation.

Characteristics of Volunteers For most nations, individuals with certain characteristics are more likely to volunteer. These characteristics include level of education, level of income, and membership and active involvement in religious or other organizations. In the United States where there is more in-depth research on volunteering, the characteristics of education and income can be overcome substantially if people are asked to volunteer. Consistently, individuals are four times as likely to volunteer if they are asked than if they are not, regardless of income, level of education, or minority status (Hodgkinson 2003; Hodgkinson 2002; Brown 1999). In other words, people who are active in organizations and who are asked to volunteer are far more likely to volunteer. Other characteristics, however, also were associated with adult volunteering. These were habits of in-

volvement started when young, including active membership in religious organizations, having membership in a youth group, having parents who volunteered, and having role models who helped others. If young people participated in any of these activities, they were far more likely to volunteer as adults. Unfortunately, the data available in the European and World Values Surveys are quite limited; however, analyses generally bear out the U.S. surveys. Education is clearly the most important indicator of voluntary activity. But attendance at religious services and membership in other organizations are associated with higher rates of volunteering.

Why Individuals Volunteer: Motives and Attitudes The research on why individuals volunteer is skimpy or ambiguous. Motives are multiple and complex both in individual terms and in national or cultural terms. Research in the United States shows that there is little relationship between volunteering and values (Dekker and Halman 2003; Wilson 2000). Some research suggests that certain motives and attitudes distinguish volunteers from non-volunteers. Volunteers are more likely to believe that they have the power to help others, and that they are motivated to meet the material needs of others and to enhance the moral basis of society (Brown 1999; Hodgkinson 2002). However, it seems that behaviors are more powerful predictors of rates of volunteering including activities when young, and membership in voluntary organizations and religious institutions as adults. Benefits of Volunteering Although most volunteering is carried out to help others, research has shown that there are benefits to volunteering. These benefits are unintended and come as a result of volunteering itself and are not the motives for volunteering. In other words, these benefits are the unintended consequences of volunteering. These include the beneficial effects to health because of social integration and support; the positive effects on mental health because of social activity and integration; and the belief by individuals that they can make a difference. Volunteering can also have a positive effect on life-cycle changes, including the mental and physical health of

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Figure 2. Percentage of Adult Volunteers by Country Russia Serbia Lithuania Poland Portugal Ukraine Hungary Romania Bulgaria E. Germany Spain Estonia Japan Belarus Latvia Montenegro N. Ireland W. Germany Argentina Croatia France Italy Slovenia Austria Ireland Malta Czech Republic Luxembourg Greece India Netherlands Belgium Iceland Denmark Mexico Finland Britain Chile Peru Puerto Rico S. Africa Canada S. Korea Slovakia Sweden Philippines Bangladesh Zimbabwe USA Uganda Vietnam China Tanzania

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10 12 12 12 12 14 14 15 15 15 16 16 18 18 19 20 21 22 23 23 25 25 28 28 28 30 30 31 31 31 32 32 33 36 37 43 43 45 45 45 47 47 49 54 57 61 64 66 72 72 77 80

0

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20

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Percent (%) Source: European World Values Survey, WORC, Tilburg University, Netherlands; World Values Survey, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan; CDATS World Values Project at Georgetown University.

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elderly people; however, the research in this area is somewhat ambiguous since most studies are cross-sectional and not longitudinal. Volunteering seems to help those who are unemployed find opportunities for employment, and might serve as an aid for occupational advancement, especially for women. Although research on the benefits of volunteering is quite limited, there are suggestive effects that volunteering aids health, social belonging, and meaning in life by acting on the behalf of others and community (Wilson and Musick 1999). Far more research, however, needs to be done about all aspects of volunteering including impact on community, on the recipients, and on the volunteer. Virginia A. Hodgkinson References and further reading Brown, Eleanor. 1999. “The Scope of Volunteer Activity and Public Service.” Law and Contemporary Problems 62, no. 4 (Autumn): 17–42. Clotfelter, Charles T., ed. 1999. “Amateurs in Public Service: Volunteering, Service-Learning, and Community Service.” Law and Contemporary Problems 62, no 4. (Autumn). Cnaan, Ram A., Femida Handy, and Margaret Wadsworth. 1996. “Defining Who Is a Volunteer: Conceptual and Empirical Considerations.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 25, no. 3 (September): 364–383. Dekker, Paul, and Loek Halman, eds. 2003. The Values of Volunteering: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Dingle, Alan, comp. 2001. Measuring Volunteering: A Practical Toolkit. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Ellis, Susan J., and Katherine H. Noyes. 1990. By the People: A History of Americans as Volunteers, rev. ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Grimm, Robert T., Jr. 2002. Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Halman, Loek. 2003. “Volunteering, Democracy, and Democratic Attitudes.” In The Values of Volunteering: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, edited by Paul Dekker and Loek Halman, 179–198. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Hodgkinson, Virginia, with Kathryn Nelson and Edward D. Sivak Jr. 2002. “Individual Giving and Volunteering.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 389–422. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Hodgkinson, Virginia A. 2003. “Volunteering in Global Perspective.” In The Values of Volunteering: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, edited by Paul Dekker and Loek Halman, 35–54. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. INDEPENDENT SECTOR. 1988–2002. Giving and Volunteering in the United States. Various editions. Washington, DC: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Salamon, Lester M., et al. 1999. Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. Skocpol, Theda, and Morris P. Fiorina, eds. 1999. Civic Engagement in American Democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Smith, D. H. 1982. “Altruism, Volunteers, and Volunteerism.” In Volunteerism in the Eighties, edited by J. D. Harmann, 23–44. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Wilson, John. 2000. “Volunteering.” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (August): 215–240 Wilson, John, and Marc Musick. 1999. “The Effects of Volunteering on the Volunteer.” Law and Contemporary Problems 62, no. 4 (Autumn): 141–168.

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work, including the Loebs, the Warburgs, the Lewisohn sisters, and the Morgenthaus. Settlement workers were considered family. In addition to a small core of nurses, there were “lay” workers who were not paid; Wald’s preferred title was “head worker.” The settlement attracted distinguished residents, including brilliant social activist Florence Kelley; Paul Kellogg (editor of the Commons); and English socialists Beatrice and Sydney Webb. Many philanthropists also visited. Henry Street served as a meeting place for unions and other progressive groups, and in 1909 the settlement hosted an event that led to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Wald’s creative energy resulted in path-setting programs at the settlement, including the first outdoor children’s playground, an arts and crafts program, and a theater and dance program that became the famous Neighborhood Play House. But her reform activities spread beyond the neighborhood to city, state, and nation. Wald was instrumental in obtaining special education for disabled children and in developing a school nurse program for New York City, then a novel concept. One of the founders of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, Wald served as its first president beginning in 1912. Although not generally defined as a “feminist,” Wald worked with suffragists to get the vote for

Lillian D. Wald was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 10, 1867. Her comfortable middle-class childhood and private school education provided little indication of her future as a social reformer. But inspired by a nurse who assisted with her sister’s difficult pregnancy, in 1889 Wald entered the New York Hospital School of Nursing and became a nurse. After working at the New York Juvenile Justice Asylum in New York City, Wald attended the Women’s Medical College. She also volunteered as a teacher of home nursing classes in the Lower East Side and was struck by the poor health and difficult living conditions of immigrant women and children. In 1893, Wald and Mary M. Brewster, a fellow student and nurse, took rooms in the Lower East Side and began helping poor neighborhood families. That work led to the founding of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and the Henry Street Settlement, now (since 1994) two separate, flourishing institutions. Brewster and Wald moved into the house at 265 Henry Street in 1895. Because of its visiting nursing services, the house was first called Nurses Settlement; in 1903, it was incorporated as the Henry Street Settlement. Purchase of the house and initial costs were paid for by financier Jacob Schiff, Wald’s lifelong friend and mentor. Other prominent Jewish philanthropists in New York provided support for Wald’s

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References and further reading Coss, Claire, ed. 1989. Progressive Activist. New York: Feminist Press of the City University of New York. Daniels, Doris Groshen. 1989. Always a Sister: The Feminism of Lillian D. Wald. New York: Feminist Press of the City University of New York. Davis, Allen F. 1967. Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890–1914. New York: Oxford University Press. Dufus, R. L. 1938. Lillian Wald: Neighbor and Crusader. New York: Macmillan. Siegel, Beatrice. 1983. Lillian Wald of Henry Street. New York: Macmillan and Collier. Wald, Lillian. 1991 [1915]. The House on Henry Street. Reprint, with an Introduction by Eleanor L. Brilliant. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press. ———. 1934. Windows on Henry Street. Boston: Little, Brown.

Walker, Madam C. J. (1867–1919)

Lillian Wald (1867–1940) (Bettmann/Corbis)

women. She participated in efforts to improve the working conditions of women and, in 1903, helped form the National Women’s Trade Union League. Wald played a major role in the establishment of the Federal Children’s Bureau in 1912; in 1913, she received a medal from the National Institute of Social Sciences for “distinguished services rendered to humanity.” She joined with Jane Addams in supporting Woodrow Wilson for president in 1916. Disappointed when the United States entered World War I, she nonetheless chaired the Nurses’ Emergency Council in wartime. In 1924, Wald visited the Soviet Union to give advice about public health nursing. Less than ten years later, ill health led to her resignation as the settlement’s head worker. Wald’s book, The House on Henry Street (1915), is a classic document of the settlement movement. Wald died on September 1, 1940; her New York Times obituary called her “Friend of the Poor.” Eleanor L. Brilliant

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Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867, on a Louisiana cotton plantation where her parents, Owen and Minerva Breedlove, had been slaves. She eventually became an entrepreneur in the cosmetics industry, a philanthropist, and a political activist and women’s advocate. Orphaned at seven and married at fourteen to escape her cruel brother-in-law, Sarah Breedlove became a mother at seventeen and a widow at twenty. In 1888, with little formal education and few skills, she moved to St. Louis, where she worked as a washerwoman for as little as $1.50 a day until the early 1900s. Around 1904, plagued with a common scalp disease that caused baldness, she developed an ointment that healed her scalp and restored her hair. After her marriage to newspaperman Charles Joseph Walker, she began to call herself “Madam” C. J. Walker, adopting a title that was commonly used by businesswomen of the day. During the next decade and a half Madam Walker traveled throughout the United States, the Caribbean, and Central America marketing her products. She trained a sales force of nearly 20,000 women who sold the shampoo and hair ointments that were manufactured at her Indianapolis factory. In 1917, as America’s cosmetics industry was just developing, Walker had the vision to gather her sales

Washington, Booker T.

agents together at a national convention where she urged them “to rise above the laundry and kitchen . . . to aspire to a place in the world of commerce and trade” (Indianapolis Freeman 1913). She also encouraged them to contribute a portion of their profits to civil rights causes. As president of the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, Walker created marketing plans, franchising opportunities, and distribution strategies as innovative as any of her era. As an early advocate of women’s economic independence, she provided lucrative incomes for thousands of black women who otherwise would have been consigned to jobs as maids, laundresses, and sharecroppers. Walker’s approach to philanthropy was nurtured by her connection to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Her numerous contributions went to a wide range of organizations, from orphanages, churches, and retirement homes for former slaves to commissions for promising artists and black colleges and boarding schools. In 1911, Walker astonished the citizens of Indianapolis when she pledged $1,000, an amount equivalent to $20,000 today, to the building fund of the city’s black YMCA. As part of an early effort among African Americans to support historic preservation, her 1918 contribution to the National Association of Colored Women helped save the Washington, D.C., home of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. A few weeks before her death in May 1919, Walker backed the antilynching campaign of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) with a $5,000 pledge, the largest gift the organization had ever received. Today, Walker’s legacy survives through two National Historic Landmarks: Villa Lewaro, her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, estate, and the Madam Walker Theatre Center in Indianapolis, a cultural arts center and office building. Madam Walker’s particular approach to philanthropy helped reconfigure the philosophy of giving among African Americans, who had long contributed the bulk of their charitable dollars to religious and fraternal organizations rather than to secular and political causes. Her strategically targeted donations—and the publicity they generated—provided symbolic and psychological impact far beyond their monetary value

as they signaled the potential for future giving within the black community. A’Lelia Bundles References and further reading Bundles, A’Lelia. 2001. On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker. New York: Scribner. Giddings, Paul. 1982. When and Where I Enter. New York: William Morrow. “Madam C J. Walker, 1867–1919: Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Social Activist,” http://www. madamcjwalker.com. Peiss, Kathy. 1998. Hope in a Jar. New York: Henry Holt. Indianapolis Freeman, September 20, 1913. Walker, Madam C. J. Papers. Indiana Historical Society Library, Indianapolis, and the Walker Family Collection of A’Lelia Bundles.

Waqf See Islamic Philanthropy

Watchdog Organizations See Charity Watchdogs

Washington, Booker T. (1856–1915) American educator Booker Taliaferro Washington was born on April 5, 1856, in Hale’s Ford, Virginia, on a tobacco plantation. His mother, Jane, was a slave, and his biological father was an unknown white man. Washington’s early life was spent living in a small shanty, where he slept on the floor, and working on the plantation. After the Civil War ended, life did not immediately change for Washington and his family. He was forced to work in the salt mines. There, he learned about a school for former slaves called Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. In 1872, after saving enough money, he left the mines to attend Hampton. It was said that he walked a significant part of the 400-mile journey. Initially denied entrance, Washington impressed the staff of the institution with his janitorial skills and maintained that role to help pay for his education. At Hampton Institute, Washington established his ideals for industrial education. Upon graduation, he returned for a short time to Malden to

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Washington, Booker T.

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) (Library of Congress)

teach, but he eventually was hired as a faculty member at Hampton. In 1881, upon the recommendation of Hampton’s founder, Washington was asked to come to Alabama to start another industrial school. When Washington arrived in Tuskegee, Alabama, he was surprised to find that no provisions had been secured for purchase of land or buildings. Slightly more than $2,000 for teachers’ salaries had been secured from the legislature as a favor to blacks who had supported a local politician. Washington faced the challenge of finding a suitable location for the school and eventually building the campus. During the early years, Tuskegee Institute was able to operate through the generous gifts of both food and money from local blacks and whites who agreed with the idea of industrial education for blacks. In 1882, Washington married his childhood sweetheart, Fannie Smith. A daughter, Portia, was born in

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1883. Fannie died unexpectedly the next year. In 1885, Washington remarried. His second wife, Olivia Davidson, also worked at Tuskegee. They had two boys, Booker Jr. and Earnest. Olivia died in 1889, and Washington married for the third time in 1893. He and his third wife, Margaret Murray, did not have any children. By 1891, Tuskegee Institute had grown to a campus of more than 540 acres with approximately 400 students. This was a huge increase from the 30 students who had started classes in a church building only ten years before. In 1896, Washington secured funding from the Slater Fund for Negro Education to open a separate agriculture school at Tuskegee. He had the foresight to hire George Washington Carver to lead this school. In the year prior to the start of Tuskegee’s agriculture school, Washington had probably his defining moment when he delivered a speech at the Southern States International Cotton Exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia. The speech, later referred to as the “Atlanta Compromise,” brought widespread attention to his beliefs on how blacks could best fit into society at that time. He believed that it was futile for blacks to worry about their place in society and that it was better to focus on becoming economically self-reliant through vocational training. All in the black community did not embrace these beliefs. Those in the white community also probably misread Washington’s intentions. He did not believe that blacks should permanently serve in a laboring capacity, but that economic self-sufficiency should be the goal for his generation. In 1901, Washington published an autobiography entitled Up from Slavery. The proceeds from this book went a long way in providing economic security for Tuskegee Institute, which had also benefited from the national recognition that came from his “Atlanta Compromise” speech in 1895. It was said that Andrew Carnegie learned of Tuskegee Institute by reading this book and soon became a supporter. The other key philanthropic individual of the time, John D. Rockefeller, also contributed to Tuskegee’s growth. Washington dined at the White House in 1901 with President Theodore Roosevelt—becoming the first black man to be invited to dinner at the White House. By 1904, Washington had successfully surrounded himself with what was called the “Tuskegee Ma-

Wealth and Philanthropy

chine.” This power base enabled him to be influential in many political decisions, and he became viewed as the key national adviser for the black community. He also was savvy in creating good public relations about his causes through the use of black newspapers and other publications. Early in the twentieth century, Washington declined to be involved in a race relations conference that was the impetus for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was suspicious of the group’s motives and “wanted nothing to do with its militant policies” (Booker T. Washington, 1992). The election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912 as twenty-eighth president of the United States may have been a turning point in Washington’s public rhetoric. Wilson had campaigned with assurances that he would pursue equal rights for blacks but did not follow through with these promises once in office. Stung by this maneuver, Washington surprised some by publishing an article with a tone more in line with the militant black leaders of the time. Despite this change in rhetoric, many believe that Washington had always done more behind the scenes than he outwardly made apparent or was given credit for. Washington chose to focus on what blacks could accomplish by learning industrial skills. He believed this direction would help his race secure better economic conditions. This approach was instilled into Washington from his time at Hampton Institute and was a key theme throughout his adult life. When looking at Washington’s accomplishments, one most remember that he lived during a time when blacks were not allowed to vote; most lived in poverty, and many were uneducated. The racial overtones in the fifty years after the Civil War made for political and social environments that were unstable at best. Although Washington’s ideals and philosophies for the time may not have been embraced by all, it is hard to argue that anyone could have had a greater impact. Washington died in November 1915. D. Martin Reeser References and further reading Baker, Houston A., Jr. 2001. Turning South Again: Rethinking Modernism/Rereading Booker T. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Booker T. Washington. 1992. Videocassette. The Black Americans of Achievement Video Collection. Produced and directed by Rhonda Fabian and Jerry Baber. 30 min. Schlessinger Video Productions. Harlan, Louis R. 1972. Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856–1901. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1983. Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915. New York: Oxford University Press. Mackintosh, Barry. 1972. Booker T. Washington: An Appreciation of the Man and His Times. Washington, DC: Office of Publications, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. McKissack, Patricia and Frederick. 2001. Booker T. Washington: Leader and Educator. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow.

Wealth and Philanthropy Several identifiable forces affecting wealth holders are currently changing the supply side of philanthropy so as to constitute a new physics of philanthropy. The new physics entails an innovative way of thinking, feeling, and acting in regard to philanthropy. In the new physics, wealth holders seek out rather than resist greater charitable involvement, approach their philanthropy with an entrepreneurial disposition, and make philanthropy a key ingredient of the financial morality they observe and impart to their children. The new physics of philanthropy begins with the recognition that the dramatic growth in wealth that has occurred over the past fifty years will, despite the recent downturn, continue at unprecedented levels over the next fifty years. The wealth transfer simulation model developed by Paul G. Schervish and John Havens at Boston College indicates just how much wealth will be changing hands and how it will be distributed among bequests to heirs, bequests to charity, estate taxes, and deductible settlement costs. Assuming a meager 2 percent growth rate and saving rates below historical levels, the model projects that the wealth transfer from final decedents to heirs, government, and charity for the period 1998 to 2052 will be $41 trillion, with $6 trillion of that in the form of charitable bequests. This is by every measure a low estimate. From 1980 to the present, an era including the 1980, 1982, 1991, and current recessions, the average real growth in gross domestic product (GDP) has

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been 3 percent. Modeling that 3 percent rate and historical levels of saving, the wealth transfer rises to $73 trillion and charitable bequests increase to $12 trillion. And if the growth rate were to average a still reasonable 4 percent and people were to save at rates slightly below historical levels, the projected transfer would jump to $136 trillion, including $25 trillion in charitable bequests (Havens and Schervish 1999; see also Table 1). To be clear, the foregoing projections of charitable bequests only measure what goes to charity when people die. They do not include lifetime, or inter vivos, charitable giving by individuals, which in 2000 totaled $152 billion (AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy 2001). Inter vivos giving over the same period, from 1998 to 2052, will total $13.2 trillion if it grows at a real annual rate of 2 percent; $18.1 trillion if it grows at 3 percent; and $25.4 trillion at 4 percent growth (see Table 2). Once again, these estimates, especially at the lower end, are conservative. Over the fifteenyear period from 1985 through 2000, the real annual rate of growth in charitable giving was 3.41 percent, while over the five-year stretch from 1995 through 2000 the rate of growth was 7.13 percent. Combining charitable bequests and inter vivos giving, we project that between $19 trillion and $50 trillion, in current spending power, will be given by individuals to charities between 1998 and 2052. For the twentyyear period from 1998 through 2017, the amount given will be between $5 trillion and $6.7 trillion (see

Table 2). To get a feel for how much that is, it is helpful to remember that the entire federal budget now hovers at a little more than $2 trillion, with annual nondefense discretionary spending totaling only about $300 billion. There is some additional important news that those who generate a substantial percentage of their charitable revenue from wealth holders will be glad to learn. Contrary to popular perception, wealth holders contribute large percentages of their income and wealth to charity, and as their wealth grows, they will contribute even more. At present, the richest 5 percent of households, defined in terms either of wealth or income, contribute approximately 40 percent (Schervish and Havens 2001) of the $152 billion inter vivos charitable dollars given by individuals (AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy 2001). Similarly, 2 percent of the value of estates (excluding spousal transfers) worth $3 million or more contribute 75 percent (Havens 2001) of the approximately $16 billion in charitable bequests (AFFRC Trust for Philanthropy 2001). An extrapolation of these trends in accordance with foregoing projections of charitable giving shows that millionaires will be responsible for at least between 53 percent and 66 percent of the astonishing $19 trillion to $51 trillion of charitable giving that is in the offing (see Table 2). As bountiful as these projections are, they do not take into account that wealth holders—indeed, the population at large—will probably become more

Table 1 Projections for Wealth Transfer and Charitable Contributions, 1998–2017 (1998 purchasing power)

20-Year Period from 1998–2017 Total wealth transfer Bequests to charity Inter vivos giving by individuals** Total charitable contributions Percent of total contributed by millionaires

Low Estimate (2% secular growth*) ($1998 in trillions)

Middle Estimate (3% secular growth) ($1998 in trillions)

High Estimate (4% secular growth) ($1998 in trillions)

$11.6 $1.7 $3.3 $5.0 54.2%

$14.2 $2.2 $3.6 $5.8 56.1%

$17.5 $2.7 $4.0 $6.7 58.0%

*This table is calculated for secular trends of 2 percent, 3 percent, and 4 percent in growth rates of both real personal wealth and real inter vivos giving. The actual real growth rate in inter vivos giving was 1.61 percent in the ten years from 1985 through 1995; 7.13 percent in the five years from 1995 through 2000; and 3.41 percent in the fifteen years from 1985 through 2000. **Calculated by the Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College, based on an initial estimate from AAFRC, Giving USA 2001, of inter vivos giving in 1998. Source: Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College, http://www.bc.edu/swri.

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Table 2 Projections for Wealth Transfer and Charitable Contributions, 1998–2052 (1998 purchasing power)

55-Year Period from 1998–2052 Total wealth transfer Bequests to charity Inter vivos giving by individuals** Total charitable contributions Percent of total contributed by millionaires

Low Estimate (2% secular growth*) ($1998 in trillions)

Middle Estimate (3% secular growth) ($1998 in trillions)

High Estimate (4% secular growth) ($1998 in trillions)

$40.6 $6.0 $13.2 $19.2 52.0%

$72.9 $11.6 $18.1 $29.7 57.5%

$136.2 $24.8 $25.4 $50.2 65.3%

*This table is calculated for secular trends of 2 percent, 3 percent, and 4 percent in growth rates of both real personal wealth and real inter vivos giving. The actual real growth rate in inter vivos giving was 1.61 percent in the ten years from 1985 through 1995; 7.13 percent in the five years from 1995 through 2000; and 3.41 percent in the fifteen years from 1985 through 2000. **Calculated by the Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College, based on an initial estimate from AAFRC, Giving USA 2001, of inter vivos giving in 1998. Source: Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College, http://www.bc.edu/swri.

charitably inclined as time goes on. Charitable giving, while spurred on by increased material wherewithal, is advanced even more by increased spiritual wherewithal. Research shows that several motivational vectors are at work on the supply side prompting wealth holders to allocate an ever greater portion of their financial resources to charity (Schervish and Havens 2001, 2002). One of these vectors is the desire of wealth holders to find a deeper purpose for their accumulated riches. Happiness is in part the result of making wise choices about how to close the gap between one’s history and one’s aspirations. As more individuals come to recognize at an earlier age that their financial resources exceed the material needs of their families, they will begin to focus more on how to allocate their excess wealth for the care of others (see Murphy 2001). Perhaps the most potent motivation for charitable giving, and indeed for all acts of care, is identification with the fate of others as akin to experiences. People almost always express this vector of identification in familial terms. The disposition of identification contrasts sharply with that of altruism to the extent the latter term connotes the prominence of selflessness. Research has consistently revealed that wealth holders, like all others who make charitable gifts, regard their philanthropy as an engagement of self, not an absence of self (Schervish and Havens 1997). Donors contribute when they perceive those whom they are helping as similar in some way to themselves, their spouse, their parents, their siblings, or their children.

In circumstances when people exert themselves on behalf of others, it is not the absence of self, but the identification of self, that matters. As such, it is philosophically inconsistent and practically unproductive to be looking to remove rather than to activate a commonality of interests (Martin 1994). Indeed, it has been and continues to be the wisdom of much good religion and psychology to set aside the model of selflessness in favor of a model of self-connection. As Thomas Aquinas took pains to point out in his writings on charity and friendship, it is the unity love of self with love of God and love of neighbor that grounds and generates a proper care for others. A third dispositional vector shaping the new physics of philanthropy is the entrepreneurial temperament of wealthy donors. The major attribute of financial security is that it offers a greater range of choice. Wealth holders find that philanthropy is an especially attractive outlet for their wealth because it is a particularly welcoming setting in which to be creative, purposeful, and effective producers of the world around them. In philanthropy, as in business, individuals harness their intelligence, skills, and finances most energetically when they find something that needs to be done, that they want to do, and that has a higher probability of being done successfully because of their hands-on involvement (Schervish et al. 2001). What is new about the so-called new philanthropy is not simply this entrepreneurial disposition, but how widespread and favored it has become. Never before have so many people, with so much wealth, with so

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much energy, and with so much entrepreneurial instinct concluded that productively employing their financial wherewithal for the care of others is the path to effectiveness and happiness for themselves and their children. The fourth animating force is that wealth holders are seeking, and finding in philanthropy, a more positive and productive dimension of financial morality than is to be found in simply eschewing leisure and limiting consumption. As wealth holders find that they and their children need to work for a smaller proportion of their lifetime, and as they reach the limit of their desire to consume, they come to recognize that a positive financial morality will require something more than instilling in their children the ethics of productive labor and conscientious consumption. As we have found in our interviews with wealth holders, more and more families are turning to philanthropy to explore what they perceive to be the profounder aspects of financial care and to teach them to their children (ibid., 2001). A fifth vector is the desire, as many summarize their incentive, “to give back.” But there is an even more vital impetus at work than this salutary phrase conveys. For behind the desire to give back is a sense of gratitude, and behind that gratitude is the appreciation of blessing, gift, luck, or fortune. There are many dimensions to the spiritual secret of money, but one of the most powerful is the recognition that just as my fortune is not due entirely to my own merit, others’ misfortune may not be completely attributable to their own failure. This realization, it turns out, is a generative one. It forges an identification between donor and recipient as the offspring of a common parentage—one in which Dame Fortune blindly metes out advantages and disadvantages regardless of merit and asks its children of good fortune to care for their less fortunate kin. A sixth vector contributing to the positive relationship between wealth and philanthropy concerns methods of fundraising that take into account the needs of donors for clarity, effectiveness, and significance in their giving. Fundraisers and charities are finding that donors are more inclined to give, and to give larger amounts, to the extent the latter are allowed to find the point of convergence where what

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needs to be done coincides with what they want to do. This means ensuring that donors are not just allowed but encouraged to go through a process of self-discovery about their material capacity, and more important, about their desire to be effective, to express their gratitude for good fortune, and to personally identify with the needs of people and causes that parallel their own experience. This discernment approach allows wealth holders the opportunity to reflect on their material capacities and spiritual inclinations in an atmosphere of liberty and inspiration, rather than one of guilt and dictated expectations. It does not deny the importance of charitable duty but seeks to make such duty self-discovered, and hence more wholeheartedly pursued and sustained. Taken together, the vectors of the new physics of philanthropy provide an increasingly important aspect of spirituality in an age of affluence—both because they are creating quantitative changes in the relationship between wealth and philanthropy and because they are generating qualitative changes in the relationship between wealth and self-fulfillment. As more people achieve financial security, an even greater number will become highly affluent. This latter group, too, will join wealth holders in looking for ways to answer the spiritual questions raised by wealth, namely, how to put into practice their identification with the fate of others by productively carrying out the choices made available by their freedom from financial constraint. In this way, the new physics of philanthropy is but one of the first positive fruits of a more comprehensive and consequential new physics of wealth and affluence. Paul G. Schervish References and further reading American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) Trust for Philanthropy. 2001. Giving USA 2001. Indianapolis: AAFRC. Fithian, Scott C. 2000. Values-Based Estate Planning: A Stepby-Step Approach to Wealth Transfer for Professional Advisors. New York: Wiley. Havens, John J. 2001. Estimation of Distribution of Charitable Bequests by Level of Wealth. Chestnut Hill, MA: Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College. Havens, John J., and Paul G. Schervish. 1997. “Social Participation and Charitable Giving: A Multivariate Analysis.” Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 8, no. 3 (September): 235–260.

Wells-Barnett, Ida B.

———. 1999. “Millionaires and the Millennium: The Forthcoming Transfer of Wealth and the Prospects for a Golden Age of Philanthropy.” Report, Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, October. Martin, Michael W. 1994. Virtuous Giving: Philanthropy, Voluntary Service, and Caring. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Murphy, Thomas B. 2001. “Financial and Psychological Determinants of Donor’s Capacity to Give.” In New Directions in Philanthropic Fundraising. Understanding the Needs of Donors: The Supply-Side of Charitable Giving, edited by Eugene R. Tempel and Dwight F. Burlingame. No. 28 (Fall): 33–49. Schervish, Paul G., and John J. Havens. 2001. “The New Physics of Philanthropy: The Supply-Side Vectors of Charitable Giving. Part 1: The Material Side of the Supply Side.” The CASE International Journal of Educational Advancement 2, no. 2 (November): 95–113. ———. 2002. “The New Physics of Philanthropy: The Supply-Side Vectors of Charitable Giving. Part 2: The Spiritual Side of the Supply Side.” The CASE International Journal of Educational Advancement 2, no 3 (March): 221–241. Schervish, Paul G., Mary A. O’Herlihy, and John J. Havens. 2001. “Agent-Animated Wealth and Philanthropy: The Dynamics of Accumulation and Allocation among High-Tech Donors.” Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College. Final Report of the 2001 High-Tech Donors Study, May.

Welfare Services See Human Services and Philanthropy

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862–1931) Reflecting on her antilynching efforts, Ida B. WellsBarnett wrote, “I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit” (Wells-Barnett 1970, 62). Ida B. Wells-Barnett was one of the most outspoken journalists, activists, and public speakers of her era. Her efforts to combat racial prejudice often threatened her life and career, but she continued to fight for civil rights. Born in Mississippi in 1862 to parents who were slaves, Wells was months old when the Emancipation

Proclamation was issued. She attended Shaw University (now Rust College), a Reconstruction-era institution run by white missionaries for the education of freed blacks of all ages. The combination of two experiences formed the groundwork for Wells-Barnett’s outspoken criticism of lynching and additional future efforts against racism. The first was in 1884 when she was forced to leave her seat in a first-class train car because a non–first class train car, reserved for tobacco smoking, was the seating area designated for blacks. Although she won her case against the C&O Railroad in the lower court, the Tennessee State Supreme Court eventually overturned that verdict. The second event was in 1892 when three of her friends, black male grocers in Memphis, were lynched after they provided competition to a nearby white grocer. Although part of an entire movement of black women journalists in the last half of the nineteenth century, Wells stood out as “The Princess of the Press” and became editor and co-owner of the militant Free Speech and Headlight, a Memphis weekly, when she was only twenty-one years old. Her articles condemning lynching led to her newspaper office being burned in 1892. At a speaking engagement in New York City that same year, she learned of a threat to her life if she continued her work in Tennessee. Rather than returning home, she went to England on a brief speaking tour and then settled in Chicago, where she continued her work against lynching. After 1892, Wells led the first antilynching campaign in the United States. She authored A Red Record (1898) and Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892), both of which gave detailed accounts of southern lynching and its history. Wells worked to organize antilynching societies, lecturing throughout much of the United States, Britain, and Scotland to raise awareness of lynching in the United States. After the lynching of the Memphis grocers in 1892, she wrote articles urging the black citizens of Memphis to leave and travel west—and hundreds did. In addition to being a leader in the antilynching movement, Wells became an instrumental figure in the women’s club and women’s suffrage movements. Influenced by English women’s civic groups, she participated in the black women’s club movement,

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with prominent African Americans of differing and radical ideologies, including W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. By working wholeheartedly for integration and against accommodation, she did not gain much support from white philanthropists, who often favored Washington’s accommodationist philosophies. Wells-Barnett, however, was not concerned with currying the favor of white elites: She had conducted her U.S. speaking tour completely financed by African Americans. Wells-Barnett’s vigilance and unwillingness to compromise with others made her a formidable organizer, an advocate who was often abandoned by the organizations she mobilized. She died in 1931 in Chicago, where a public housing project was later named for her. Through her uncompromising work as a journalist and speaker, WellsBarnett challenged some of the conservative philanthropic approaches to racial issues in America. Despite the obstacles she faced, her activism influenced her own generation and benefited future generations. Rebecca Roth Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931) (Bettmann/Corbis)

working to organize the Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, the National Association of Colored Women, the Alpha Suffrage Club (the first African American women’s suffrage organization), and the Ida B. Wells Club in Chicago. She also mobilized people in the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910. She started the Negro Fellowship League in 1910 in order to provide a community gathering place for young African Americans at a time when settlement houses and YMCAs were closed to blacks. In 1895, Wells married Ferdinand Lee Barnett, a lawyer and the founder and publisher of the Chicago Conservator, the first black newspaper in Chicago, and then bought the paper from her husband. The couple raised two children from Barnett’s previous marriage and four of their own. Ida B. Wells-Barnett opposed one of the most well-known African Americans of her time, Booker T. Washington, and sided—at one time or another—

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References and further reading The American Experience. Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice. 1989. Video. WGBH Educational Foundation. Boston: Public Broadcasting Service. Carlson, Shirley J. 1992. “Black Ideals of Womanhood in the Late Victorian Era.” Journal of Negro History (Spring): 61–73. “Just the Arti-Facts: Ida B. Wells,” http://www. chicagohistory.org/AOTM/Mar98/mar98fact2.html. “National Women’s Hall of Fame: Ida Wells-Barnett, 1862–1931,” http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php? action=viewone&id+167. Peebles-Wilkins, Wilma, and E. Aracelis Francis. 1990. “Two Outstanding Black Women in Social Welfare History: Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. WellsBarnett.” Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work (Winter): 87–101. Thompson, Mildred. 1990. “Ida B. Wells-Barnett: An Exploratory Study of an American Black Woman, 1893–1930.” Brooklyn, NY: Carlson. Wade-Gayles, Gloria. 1981. “Black Women Journalists in the South, 1880–1905: An Approach to the Study of Black Women’s History.” Callaloo (February–October): 138–152. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Papers. Regenstein Library, University of Chicago. ———. 1970. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Edited by Alfreda M. Duster. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Willard, Frances E.

Willard, Frances E. (1839–1898) Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was a female reformer in late nineteenth-century America who served as president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) for nineteen years. Under Willard’s leadership, the WCTU became the largest women’s organization of its day and is now the oldest continuing women’s organization in the United States (Langston 2002; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union 2002). Rallying around strong religious beliefs and the ideals of Victorian domesticity, Willard led the WCTU from the temperance movement to support wide-ranging causes affecting people in need. Her progressive ideas and impressive leadership made her an icon among middle-class women seeking greater representation and influence in a male-dominated society. Willard was born in 1839 to Methodist parents in Churchville, New York. At the age of seventeen, she entered the Milwaukee Female College, and in 1859 she graduated from Northwestern Female College. After teaching in secondary schools in Illinois and Pennsylvania, Willard took a two-year tour of Europe. When she returned in 1870, she assumed the post of president of Evanston College for Ladies, a new school that was absorbed into Northwestern University in 1873. At Northwestern, she was dean of women, one of the highest posts held by any female at a coeducational university (Langston 2002). During that same year, she cofounded and became vice president of the Association for the Advancement of Women. In 1874, she left college administration and became a founding member and secretary of the WCTU. In 1879, she assumed the presidency of the WCTU and led the organization until her death at age fifty-nine in 1898. Under Willard’s leadership, the WCTU grew from 27,000 members in 1879 to 149,000 in 1890 (Tyrrell 1996, 516). The WCTU sought political reform around temperance issues rather than outright protest against institutions selling alcohol. The movement supported total refrain from drinking rather than moderation on the basis that alcohol undermined moral and economic life. To achieve its goals, the WCTU advocated greater political freedom for women and expanded to include suffrage as a key tool

for success. Under Willard’s leadership, women combined in local groups to fight a number of moral and political issues following a “do-everything policy” that included women’s rights, suffrage, labor, child welfare, prostitution, and peace (Tyrrell 1996). It is difficult to contain Willard’s influence to any single area. Her progressive beliefs and skills in persuasion led women to issues that were previously outside their socially accepted realm. The WCTU’s identification of the temperance movement with Victorian ideals of domesticity was far more attractive to middle-class women than the more radical suffrage movement of the day. Indeed, Willard’s “home protection” cry brought women to the suffrage fight on a new moral, spiritual, and natural front (Marilley 1993). Willard supported equal rights for women and advocated suffrage on the belief that women must vote in order to protect the home and the family. This combination of prevailing social beliefs led the WCTU, with Willard at its helm, to become the largest and one of the most influential women’s organizations of late nineteenth-century America. Willard proclaimed herself a socialist later in her career and based her political beliefs on a social gospel she supported all of her life (Tyrrell 1996). Her view that alcoholism was a result of poverty rather than a root cause went against previous mainstream thought in upper-class, nineteenth-century American society (Langston 2002). Her work expanded into the international realm, and she helped found the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in 1883, helped organize the International Council of Women in 1888, and spread ideas of economic and political independence in Europe. Willard included men in her vision to achieve women’s goals, and she encouraged support from various religious denominations outside her Methodist upbringing (Tyrrell 1996). As a public speaker and advocate for women and the issues that concerned them, Frances Willard was a remarkable figure of late nineteenth-century America. The WCTU organized and expressed the voices of thousands of women as they gained political ground in a changing sociocultural landscape. Willard’s strong faith and ability to harness the power of domestic ideals drew her to women across the nation, and her progressive ideas led these women to greater

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heights in the public sphere. Early twentieth-century social reformers such as Jane Addams could not help but be shaped by the foundation that Frances Willard and the WCTU laid for women as advocates and defenders of both family and people in need (Marilley 1993). Alissa Saufley References and further reading Bordin, Ruth. 1986. Frances Willard: A Biography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Gifford, Carolyn D. 1995. Writing Out My Heart: Selections from the Journal of Frances E. Willard, 1855–96. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Langston, Donna. 2002. A to Z of American Women Leaders and Activists. New York: Facts on File. Marilley, Suzanne M. 1993. “Frances Willard and the Feminism of Fear.” Feminist Studies 19 (1): 123–146. Tyrrell, Ian R. 1996. “Frances Willard and Temperance.” In American Reform and Reformers: A Biographical Dictionary., edited by Randall M. Miller and Paul A. Cimbala, 511–521. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Willard, Frances E. 1889. Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman. Chicago: Woman’s Temperance Publication Association. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, http://www.wctu. org (cited July 29, 2002).

Winthrop, John (1588–1649) John Winthrop was highly influential in laying out a vision of ideal American society rooted in strong Puritan values as Massachusetts Bay’s first governor and one of America’s first historical chroniclers. His writings and journal entries remain highly informative accounts of early American life and span nearly twenty years. Winthrop is perhaps best known for a sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity” that he delivered in 1630 aboard the Arbella sailing for America. In it, he set forth a philosophy for communal life that required his fellow citizens to demonstrate their religious devotion through self-sacrifice for the sake of their neighbor and for the success of the commonwealth. Many of the societal ideals Winthrop presented, such as justice, mercy, and harmony for the common good, remain important elements of modern U.S. society. A native of Edwardstone, England, John Winthrop was born in 1588 to Adam Winthrop, lord of Groton Manor, and Anne Browne. He attended Trinity College, trained as a lawyer, and eventually became lord of

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Groton Manor in 1618. Winthrop married four times and was father to sixteen children. He spent much of his life consumed with his religious beliefs and mindful of his personal weaknesses. Throughout his life, he maintained journals in which he wrestled with his faith, confessed his sins, and struggled with the perceived corruption of the Church of England. As a Puritan, Winthrop believed in the inherent imperfection of humanity and society, but he also believed that God’s gift of salvation was given to those whose time and talents were directed toward glorifying Him on earth. Winthrop’s growing frustrations with the Church of England, along with increasing economic troubles at home, fueled his interest in immigrating to America and establishing a colony of believers committed to demonstrating their personal devotion to God through their unified communal life. When Winthrop was presented with the opportunity to lead a group of Puritan settlers to America, he readily accepted it. Investors from various trading companies formed the Massachusetts Bay Company and petitioned the king for a charter to establish a new colony in America. This particular charter not only allowed the Massachusetts Bay Company to obtain goods from America for trading but also empowered the colonists to establish a system of governance in America. Winthrop was identified as the man to lead this venture as the colony’s first governor. The Puritans were not separatists, but they were idealists. Winthrop knew that this was an opportunity for church and government to work together in creating a holy commonwealth. His justification for the venture included everything from converting natives to escaping the corruption of the Church of England to aiding England’s problem of poverty and overpopulation. Winthrop believed that the covenant relationship between God and believers made it imperative that neighbors respond to one another’s needs and that citizens establish a society above reproach. He conveyed these ideas to his fellow settlers in his sermon aboard the Arbella at the outset of their journey. Winthrop seemed well prepared to establish a perfect Puritan plantation, but upon their arrival, Winthrop and his fellow settlers found their new home to be less than hospitable. Dwindling supplies, expansive wilderness, and a fast approaching winter

John Winthrop (1588–1649) (Indianapolis Marion County Library)

Women, Higher Education, and Philanthropy

challenged Winthrop’s vision for a “city on a hill.” Within a few days of arrival, Winthrop’s son, Henry, drowned, and many other settlers died that fall. Of those who survived the winter, many returned to England, and the colony’s investors refused to finance the venture further. In the face of tragedy and trial, however, Winthrop remained steadfast, with his sights set on God’s will and his commitment to his fellow settlers. He seized control of the colony, maintained order, and led by example, building housing and rationing food supplies. His perseverance and his faith were integral to the growth and eventual success of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in those early years. Winthrop served eleven terms as governor, but his popularity as a leader wavered during his tenure. Periodically, he was not reelected as governor, but he remained an important influence on the colony’s leadership regardless of the office he held. Winthrop believed that relying on the judgment of a small, elite group of appointees was most beneficial to the colony, but not everyone agreed. At various times he was accused of overstepping his authority or wielding excessive power, but his influence on the colony’s institutions, order and survival, and character is undeniable. He died in Boston on March 26, 1649. Kathryn K. Frey References and further reading Dunn, Richard S., James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle, eds. 1996. The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630–1649. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Morgan, Edmund Sears. 1958. The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop. Boston: Little, Brown. Moseley, James G. 1992. John Winthrop’s World: History as a Story, the Story as History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Schweninger, Lee. 1990. John Winthrop. Boston: Twayne. Winthrop, John. 1998 [1630]. “A Model of Christian Charity.” Reprinted in Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States: Reader, edited by David Hammack, 20–27. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Women, Higher Education, and Philanthropy Historical Background For women in the United States, access to higher education closely parallels access to philanthropic re-

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sources. Higher education opportunities for women developed in the mid-nineteenth century in a variety of forms but suffered from the same unequal treatment given women throughout history. Colleges were founded as local community philanthropic enterprises influenced by organizers who attempted both to uplift and enlighten women while simultaneously keeping them in their traditional places. By the early twentieth century, women had greater access to higher education, but in institutions with dramatically fewer resources than those available for men’s schools. Founding gifts from donors and subscribers often predicted the fate of schools. Most of the earliest women’s seminaries and academies were founded by single gifts from benefactors but without endowments for perpetual support. Gradually, like their male alumni, women began accepting greater responsibility for philanthropy for their alma maters. U.S. colleges and universities often sprang from local, regional, and largely denominational interests devoid of a nation-building or public-policy agenda. The earliest efforts were missions of varying types and with varying degrees of success. The best-known ventures began in the Northeast, but the frontiers of the Midwest led the way in admitting women, something the South was loath to do until the civil rights legislation of the 1960s (Schmidt 1957; Curti and Nash 1965). Until the more pervasive chartering of state universities in the twentieth century, most colleges were founded through individual or collective acts of philanthropy. Among the first and strongest college founders were the Congregationalists of New England and the Presbyterians of the middle and southern states (Rudolph 1969; Schmidt 1957). The desire for educated male clergy drove much of the collegefounding era, but denominational rivalry, social reform movements, and the desire for social control soon became the dominant influences (Newcomer 1959; Solomon 1985). Founders were sometimes less concerned about the long-term financial vitality of their schools and colleges than about saving souls. Boards of trustees were regarded as mechanisms to ensure influence, to keep the college in touch with its constituents, and to maintain popular support. The financial health of colleges was clearly the purview of presidents. Competition for funds intensi-


View of Mount Holyoke Seminary, South Hadley, Massachussetts, the first U.S. college for women. Engraving, ca. 1870. (Bettmann/Corbis)

fied with the increasing number of colleges in the twentieth century. At the same time, more students who needed financial assistance were seeking entry. Presidents were expected to bridge the gap between tuition revenues and expenses by seeking philanthropic support from patrons, churches and congregations, and communities. In the nineteenth century, gifts from individuals unrelated to the institution tended to be conditional, restricted, and unpredictable (Stover 1930). In the early years of the twentieth century, presidents started turning to alumni for funds. Large gifts from alumni were often restricted to buildings, student life, and scholarships. As the needs for operating support intensified, so did the expectations for alumni to give (Curti and Nash 1965; Sears 1990 [1922]; Stover 1930). Thus, private gifts of alumni did not start colleges but were increasingly relied upon to maintain, improve, and advance colleges’ interests and ambitions. The earliest organized effort to institutionalize philanthropic support began in 1890 when a few Yale graduates established the Alumni Fund (Curti and Nash 1965). It took fifteen

years for the fund to reach its original goal, but by 1932 about 15 percent of the costs of a Yale education were paid for by small annual gifts from alumni (Flack 1932). Presidents attempted to reach alumni in several ways. One was through college commencements and other ceremonies, which administrators used to recognize and attract alumni donors. Another was the publication of pamphlets and other materials. The first college catalog was actually printed at Harvard in 1643 to elicit gifts rather than to present curricula offerings. Harvard in 1773 printed “The Donation Book” to honor benefactors, and after 1880, more presidents published annual reports, in part to inform potential donors of the progress and challenges of their institutions. Administrators were beginning to recognize the importance of keeping the needs of the institution foremost in the minds of alumni by communication, direct or indirect (Stover 1930). Alumni associations were organized to accomplish specific aims for colleges and universities. The first Alumni Association was organized at Williams College in

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1821, initially to raise $25,000 for a chapel. As more alumni associations were chartered, support for alma maters intensified and male graduates accepted greater responsibility for the financial stability and enhancement of their alma maters (Schmidt 1957). Research reveals that in the years that followed, the factors that influenced and motivated alumni philanthropic involvement included the ability of a college to help its undergraduates start the process of becoming alumni and to assume the rights and duties of alumni; the involvement and representation of alumni on governing boards; the organization of support around class reunions and affiliations; the ability of administrators to articulate, demonstrate, and publicize institutional successes; the effectiveness of administrators in communicating the needs of the college, and especially in charging the alumni association with meeting some specific goal; and the cohesion of athletics, especially at men’s colleges, and its role in stimulating alumni engagement and thus financial support (Curti and Nash 1965; Cutlip 1965; Flack 1932; Stover 1930.) For higher education for women, the period from 1825 to 1875 was characterized as a period of experimentation. Numerous schools calling themselves academies, seminaries, institutes, and colleges were established, a vast majority by denominations. At least six private schools for girls were incorporated between 1790 and 1820, but in the next thirty years, between 1820 and 1850, there were 104, with 96 more established in the single decade just preceding the Civil War (Newcomer 1959, 9). By 1872, twenty-nine states claimed a total of 175 institutions for women, with almost half of these calling themselves “colleges” (Woody 1966 [1929]). Success varied along with the curriculum and its standards. Most of these women’s schools were offering high school, some were junior colleges, and others had primary grades; some offered all grades. After 1850, it was the general practice that institutions grant diplomas and degrees. Entrance requirements were similar, but curricula varied in rigor and breadth. The difference was largely in resources, especially for libraries, laboratories, and faculty salaries. By all accounts, the sufficiency or insufficiency of resources from the beginning affected the viability of

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women’s colleges. Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts, chartered as a seminary in 1837 and as a college in 1888, is often regarded as the first college for women, but Salem Academy in North Carolina claims 1772 as its founding date. Emma Willard opened Troy Seminary in New York in 1821; Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, founded in 1834, offered college-level studies; and, in 1836, the State of Georgia chartered Georgia Female College (later Wesleyan), which claims to be the oldest chartered women’s college in the United States. Separate colleges populated the older sections of the country, while coeducation took hold in the pioneering midwestern states, which had seven of the first eight coeducational state universities. Oberlin College in Ohio became the first to open for both men and women in 1833, although coeducational classes were not allowed until 1837. Access for women was countermanded in the South, where only seven universities admitted women in the early twentieth century. Two states, Maryland and Mississippi, chartered separate public institutions for women, St. Mary’s of Maryland in 1839 and Mississippi College for Women in 1888. Ultimately, the seminary movement transformed into college opportunities for women and grew into three distinct patterns: (1) colleges for women only; (2) coordinate colleges associated with men’s colleges (Radcliffe at Harvard, Barnard at Columbia, and Newcomb at Tulane were the earliest of these); and (3) coeducational colleges (Schmidt 1957; Woody 1966 [1929]; Newcomer 1959). The supporters of seminaries and colleges were not necessarily in favor of women’s suffrage and general emancipation, but gradually the situation changed as more women were college educated. College graduates provided the leadership for the growing women’s movement. In the 1920s, the number of female graduates of colleges tripled and women pushed for more public roles in society. Factors promoting educational opportunities for women included the increasing need for teachers in the public elementary and secondary schools; the formation of literary clubs that gave organization and voice to educational demands; the growing number of women working, especially during and after the Civil War; the need for nurses and other healthcare professionals; and, particularly, the movement for equal rights for women (Newcomer 1959).


Equal educational opportunity was one of the goals of organized advocates of civil rights and of the feminist movement. The role of women leaders in the quest for passage of the Nineteenth Amendment was essential as women redefined “a woman’s place” to include a public dimension as an avenue to exercising public influence (Scott 1993). In particular, the women’s club movement—before and after suffrage— tended to concentrate on community activism and the importance of education (Woody 1966 [1929]). As women pressed community issues through women’s club organizations and churches and, increasingly, through exercising their voting privileges, women’s colleges thrived during the first half of the twentieth century. The 1960s led to greater access through coeducation, and the number of women college students doubled. Coeducation also led to a significant decline in the number of women’s colleges in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The highest number of women’s colleges was achieved in the 1960s, when 365 were operating, many under Catholic auspices; in 2002, there were 64 women’s colleges. Five of the ten oldest women’s colleges are located in the South.

Philanthropy in Women’s Education Early efforts at women’s education were plagued by problems. There were handicaps in securing financing, with acquiring ongoing support for operations and program expansion, and with acquiring endowments, all recurring themes throughout the history of women’s colleges. Researchers have cited the “chronic disparity in support enjoyed by men’s and women’s colleges” in terms of endowment, stating that “the total endowment of what might be regarded as the seven leading men’s colleges in the East was more than eight times as large as the seven women’s colleges” (Curti and Nash 1965, 206). Not surprisingly, by all measures southern colleges for women were poor compared to those in the North, and, notably, “compared with the best men’s colleges, the women’s colleges of the North were poor” (Woody 1966 [1929], 188). The founding gifts from donors and subscribers drove the early years of college finances. The type and extent of the founding gift—for example, whether it

was from a single gift or the gifts of many, conditional or unconditional, or designated only for capital and not for operating or endowment purposes—often predicted the financial health of an institution. A number of the earliest women’s seminaries and academies were established by families of distinguished educational leaders and teachers. Founding gifts were from stock subscriptions or by one-time gifts of $10,000 or less, given or bequeathed, sometimes accompanied by land. Hollins College in Virginia, initially the Female Seminary at Botetourt Springs, founded in 1842, was started by the family of Charles Lewis Cocke and benefited from an initial gift of $5,000 from John and Ann Hollins. Peace College in North Carolina was established in 1857 by a $10,000 gift from William Peace and was first operated by the Burwell family as Peace Institute. Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, established in 1837, is the first known example of a women’s school that was established by the solicitation method based on the model of Amherst. Founder Mary Lyon traveled for two years, collecting $27,000 from 1,000 subscribers in ninety communities, to amass the original operating dollars; she sold the location of Mount Holyoke in South Hadley, Massachusetts, to the community in exchange for $8,000. Augusta Female Academy, founded in 1842, later Mary Baldwin College in Virginia, collected fewer than two dozen gifts of $100 or less from small donations. Schools for black women emerged in the mid1800s, also from denominational and philanthropic interests. The Methodists established the Tuskegee Female College in Alabama with gifts of $37,000 in 1854; the Presbyterians founded Barber Scotia in North Carolina in 1867; and in 1881 the Rockefeller family established Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, later renamed Spelman College in honor of Laura Spelman Rockefeller. Bennett College in North Carolina was established in 1879 as a coeducational Negro college but was reorganized in 1926 as a college for black women. Bennett and Spelman remain women’s colleges; Tuskegee and Barber Scotia became coeducational. Of the eight most generously funded schools for women, five were established by gifts from men and three by gifts from women. Matthew Vassar established Vassar Female Academy of New York in 1865

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with gifts of $1.25 million, including his first gift of $400,000 in railroad stocks and bonds. Henry Wells founded Wells Seminary of New York with a $200,000 gift in 1868. Joseph Taylor established Bryn Mawr of Pennsylvania in 1884 with a gift of $800,000 to ensure equity between men’s and women’s colleges. Henry Durant started Wellesley in Massachusetts with gifts nearing $1 million by the time of its opening in 1875. John Simmons exceeded all prior gifts to found a women’s college with a bequest of $1.4 million to establish Simmons Female College in Boston in 1870. With an initial gift of $100,000 and total gifts of $3.5 million, Josephine Louise Newcomb memorialized her daughter Harriott Sophie by establishing Newcomb College at Tulane in Louisiana in 1886. In 1906, Indiana Fletcher Williams gave $500,000 and an 8,000-acre plantation for Sweet Briar College in Virginia, likely the strongest start for a southern women’s college. Perhaps best known is the generosity of Sophia Smith, who bequeathed nearly $400,000 for Smith College, with half for a building and half going toward an endowment. This was the first time a woman had devoted a fortune toward the endowment of a college exclusively for women (Curti and Nash 1965). Women’s colleges gradually learned to turn to their alumnae for philanthropy. Nearly thirty years after the first alumni association was chartered at Williams, the first alumnae association was organized in 1852 by the wife of the president at Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College; ironically, Cincinnati Wesleyan would close in 1892 due to lack of funds (Stover 1930). In the 1880s, Vassar and Smith recognized the need to give alumnae a greater voice in governance by appointing women as trustees. And, second only to Yale, Wellesley reached $1 million in gifts from alumnae, demonstrating that female givers could give substantial support to their alma maters (Curti and Nash 1965). In the 1890s, alumnae gifts averted a financial crisis at Wellesley as the alumnae association functioned as a fundraising apparatus. Likewise, Mount Holyoke representatives asserted that “the appeal to alumnae should be for regular gifts, not a pittance, but an amount commensurate with what the alumnae have received from the college and their ability to pay” (Stover 1930, 51).

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By the early 1900s, the importance of unrestricted giving to help meet costs and needs became the rule at women’s colleges rather than the exception, and soon annual alumnae fund drives were addressing operating deficits. This regularity called for a certain proficiency of business operations and led to institutions, instead of independent or quasi-independent alumnae associations, assuming the administrative function of collecting annual funds (Flack 1932, 123–124). Women’s schools also began capital campaigns in the 1920s. A 1926 survey by the firm of John Price Jones reported sixty-eight schools conducting campaigns totaling $150 million. Wellesley reached the highest level of alumnae giving, with 95 percent of its alumnae making donations (Stover 1930, 50). Although Cornell began a formal bequests program in 1924 and Harvard was the first to use a professional fundraising company, women’s colleges also started estate gift campaigns and employed professional counsel. John Price Jones managed fundraising for Smith and five other women’s colleges, and Marts and Lundy directed Mount Holyoke’s $3 million campaign (Curti and Nash 1965). The flow of philanthropy to women’s colleges in the Northeast appeared to be greater than in other regions of the country. Mount Holyoke, Vassar, and Radcliffe embarked on campaigns for $3 million each, Smith set a goal of $4 million, and Wellesley attempted to raise $2.75 million. Bryn Mawr was conducting a campaign for $2 million, and Wesleyan, the only southern college reported, was conducting a campaign for $1 million. Despite historic disparities, there are contemporary studies asserting that graduates of women’s colleges consistently give at higher percentages of participation than graduates of men’s or coeducational colleges. Over the ten-year period from 1977 to 1987, the Women’s College Coalition compared data from roughly half of the ninety-eight women’s colleges at that time with that of 354 private coeducational colleges. Among the findings in the 1988 report were that alumnae of women’s colleges are almost twice as likely to give to their alma maters as alumni of coeducational colleges, and that the average gift is 25 percent larger at women’s colleges. For the ten-year pe-

Women and Nonprofit Organizations

riod being studied, total giving to women’s colleges more than tripled. The report concluded that higher earnings, greater financial sophistication, more discretion of individual and family money, and more effective solicitation by colleges led to increased giving by women (Alumnae Giving at Women’s Colleges: A TenYear Report, 1988). Women’s colleges historically have had a complex set of circumstances, donor motivations, and access to financial wherewithal with which to contend. In the late 1800s and throughout the twentieth century, women have created and lived parallel power structures to men where their influence has evolved within invisible careers in the voluntary sector (McCarthy 1990). Work in the sector was regarded as “socially productive but not necessarily as economically productive” because the skills required were taken for granted, “assumed to be natural attributes of women deserving of no special compensation” (Steinberg and Jacobs 1993, 79, 102). Women learned to give time in lieu of money, a tradition and practice that has adversely affected institutions and causes of greater priority to women. Donations from women were usually generated from fundraising campaigns and canvassing organizations rather than through individual gifts. Women’s gifts tended to be smaller and more targeted than men’s. Moreover, women lacked control of wealth. These circumstances often put women’s causes at a disadvantage. Control of family wealth in European and American history has until recent decades been kept in the hands of men. Male children or other males were entrusted with fiduciary responsibilities. The doctrine of femme converte, where wives forfeited control of their estates and possessions, influenced women’s giving well into the twentieth century. Since women have not had access to the mechanisms by which wealth is acquired, they have had little voice in how wealth is distributed (McCarthy 1989). However, new research is beginning to show that individual traits and characteristics may be more important than gender or gender experiences in predicting philanthropic behavior (Schervish 1995). The twenty-first century will likely bring greater influence by women as they assume greater leadership roles in society. Laura Carpenter Bingham

References and further reading Alumnae Giving at Women’s Colleges: A Ten-Year Report. 1988. Washington, DC: Women’s College Coalition. Curti, Merle, and Roderick Nash. 1965. Philanthropy and the Shaping of American Higher Education. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Cutlip, Scott M. 1965. Fundraising in the United States: Its Role in America’s Philanthropy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Flack, Harold, ed. 1932. An Alumni Fund Survey: A Report on Fund Raising in American Colleges and Universities. Ithaca, NY: The American Alumni Council. McCarthy, Kathleen D. 1989. Parallel Power Structures: Women and the Voluntary Sphere. New York: Center for the Study of Philanthropy, City University of New York. ———. 1990. Lady Bountiful Revisited: Women, Philanthropy and Power. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Newcomer, Mabel. 1959. A Century of Higher Education for Women. New York: Harper. Rudolph, Fredrick. 1969. The American College and University: A History. New York: Knopf. Schervish, Paul G. 1995. “Passing It On: The Transmission of Wealth and Financial Care.” In Care and Community in Modern Society: Passing on the Tradition of Service to Future Generations, 109–133. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schmidt, George P. 1957. The Liberal Arts College: A Chapter in American Cultural History. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Scott, Anne Firor. 1993. Natural Allies: Women’s Associations in American History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Sears, Jesse Brundage. 1990 [1922]. Philanthropy in the History of American Higher Education. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Solomon, Barbara. 1985. In the Company of Educated Women. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Steinberg, Ronnie J., and Jerry A. Jacobs. 1993. “Pay Equity in Nonprofit Organizations: Making Women’s Work Visible.” In Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Teresa Odendahl and Michael O’Neill, 79–120. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Stover, Webster Schultz.1930. Alumni Stimulation by the American College President. New York: AMS Press. Woody, Thomas. 1966 [1929]. A History of Women’s Education in the United States, vols. 1 and 2. New York: Octagon.

Women and Nonprofit Organizations Women are clients or consumers, donors, employees, fundraisers, trustees, and volunteers of nonprofit organizations. Therefore, gender is an inherent element of

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the U.S. nonprofit sector and women are essential to its operation. Scholars have even suggested that the sector is gendered female (Odendahl 1994, 208, 296; Steinberg and Jacobs 1994, 90). Activities may become gendered because of their close or predominant connection with one of the sexes and the associated power relations. Historically, the nonprofit system was created by women and a majority of nonprofit jobs were stereotyped as women’s occupations. Yet these activities, as well as the women who have undertaken them, were and are often invisible (Daniels 1988). In fact, more women than men continue to work in the sector, both as paid employees and volunteers. As in the larger society, women hold less authority and prestige than men. Gender, as well as class, ethnicity, and race in the nonprofit world, have received surprisingly little attention and merit further research.

Women Philanthropists Substantially more has been written about wealthy women donors and philanthropists (Daniels 1988; Odendahl 1990, 100; Ostrander 1995, 69) than about other categories of female nonprofit activity, although not necessarily in the context of a class analysis. American women philanthropists are both privileged and subordinate. They have less power than the men of their class, yet they have more authority and status than most people because of their connections to influential men and money, as well as to philanthropy and volunteerism. Women family members frequently serve as the staff for private or family foundations. Women donors and philanthropists organize the rituals and social functions of their culture and the nonprofit world, including charity balls and other fundraising activities. They may also personally visit the “worthy needy” in classes below theirs. Unlike women of lesser means, rich, white philanthropists concentrate their activities in the art galleries, museums, symphony halls, and traditional charities to which they give and volunteer. The wives of the newly rich often bring their families into the “culture of philanthropy.” Elite women are trained to assume their cultural duties early in adulthood and remain active donors and volunteers throughout their lives. Whether they are the daughters, granddaughters, or sisters of mil-

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lionaires, whether they have married “up” or “down,” their lives follow similar patterns because they are structured by gender, class, and culture. As more women make substantial money in business and professional endeavors, or gain greater control of resources, they may make larger philanthropic gifts, and their authority and power in nonprofit organizations are likely to expand (Shaw and Taylor 1995).

Women Nonprofit Workers Nonprofit organizations have always been important employers of women, but the pay is low for most workers, including men (Preston 1994). Nonprofit jobs are widely believed to be compatible with the nurturing work women have traditionally done in the home. Whether women choose such jobs or are tracked into them because of discrimination is open to debate. Although employment opportunities for women in nonprofit organizations are growing, there is a trend toward larger numbers of lower-paying positions in all occupations in the nonprofit sector, especially child care and education, health care, social services, and other female-intensive jobs (Burbridge 1994, 142–145). Women in traditional nonprofit occupations are thus often dissatisfied with their jobs and pay (ibid., 133–136). Even as more women assume leadership roles in the nonprofit sector, they carry their traditionally subservient family status with them. In the 1990s, male and female wages were approximately equal within nonprofit organizations. However, there were fewer women in managerial positions than men, and when women did become bosses, they earned less than their male counterparts (Preston 1994, 42). The most recent data from U.S. nonprofit organization tax forms continue to support this finding: “In most instances, female compensation lags behind that of males. Also, females are more prevalent in top positions at small organizations, whereas males dominate medium and large organizations” (GuideStar 2003). A Canadian study found that when women are chief executive officers (CEOs) of nonprofits, organizational effectiveness, using several measures, was not affected. Nonprofits headed by women tended to have higher percentages of women as trustees, however (Bradshaw et al. 1996, 242–248).


Women as Volunteers In the 1990s, women were more likely than men to volunteer for nonprofit organizations. Yet men tended to be the policy-making board members or trustees, whereas women tended to do the more routine and often undervalued work. Women are more likely to be board members of community-based nonprofit groups with small budgets and of boards that are less connected and less powerful. Men are trustees of the big-budget, high-profile, prestigious organizations. Limited numbers of professional and wealthy women serve on elite boards, but often with the understood role of planning and producing charity balls (Odendahl and Youmans 1994). Statistical analysis of women on nonprofit boards in Canada reported no relationship between women’s presence as trustees and organizational performance. CEOs who work for Canadian nonprofit groups with a proportion of women as trustees were satisfied with their board’s performance. Yet, researchers found that a higher percentage of women as trustees was associated with lower board prestige (Bradshaw et al. 250). Women of Color in Nonprofits During the era of segregation in the United States, women of color founded mutual aid and social service organizations to benefit their communities and established specialized forms of philanthropy. Although the commitment and contributions of African American and Latina women have been documented, the literature is sparse on other ethnic and racial communities (see Burbridge 1994, 123–124). Fortunately, historical work on the development of African American women’s approaches to social welfare appear to be increasing (Carlton-LaNey et al., 2001); the social science literature in this area is sparse, however. Summary Women of all classes and ethnic and racial backgrounds created the early charities, settlement houses, and important foundations that led to the formation of the modern nonprofit sector, yet that accomplishment is still largely unrecognized. Women also do the bulk of the work—as employees and volunteers—in the sector, but on the whole with less authority, pay, benefits, and status than men. Women are increasingly be-

coming CEOs or managers and serving as trustees of nonprofit boards, but they tend to be concentrated at smaller, community-based organizations with modest budgets. A dichotomy therefore exists within the nonprofit sector wherein those who have contributed the most are least visible and least rewarded. Teresa Jean Odendahl References and further reading Bradshaw, Pat, Vic Murray, and Jacob Wolpin. 1996. “Women on Boards of Nonprofits: What Difference Do They Make?” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 6, no. 3 (Spring): 241–254. Burbridge, Lynn C. 1994. “The Occupational Structure of Nonprofit Industries: Implications for Women.” In Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Teresa Odendahl and Michael O’Neill, 121–154. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Carlton-LaNey, Jill Hamilton, Dorothy Ruiz, and Sandra Carlton Alexander. 2001. “‘Sitting with the Sick’: African American Women’s Philanthropy.” Affilia 16, no. 4 (Winter): 447–466. Daniels, Arlene Kaplan. 1988. Invisible Careers: Women Civic Leaders from the Volunteer World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. GuideStar. “2002 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report,” http://www.guidestar.com/services/ compstudy2.stm (cited January 17, 2003). Odendahl, Teresa. 1990. Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and Self-Interest among the Philanthropic Elite. New York: Basic Books. ———. 1994. “Women’s Power, Nonprofits, and the Future.” In Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Teresa Odendahl and Michael O’Neill, 295–312. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Odendahl, Teresa, and Michael O’Neill, eds. 1994. Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Odendahl, Teresa, and Sabrina Youmans. 1994. “Women on Nonprofit Boards.” In Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Teresa Odendahl and Michael O’Neill, 183–221. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ostrander, Susan A. 1995. Money for Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Ostrower, Francie. 1995. Why the Wealthy Give: The Culture of Elite Philanthropy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Preston, Anne E. 1994. “Women in the Nonprofit Labor Market.” In Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Teresa Odendahl and Michael O’Neill, 39–78. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Shaw, Sondra C., and Martha A. Taylor. 1995. Reinventing Fundraising: Realizing the Potential of Women’s Philanthropy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Women’s Impact on Philanthropy

Steinberg, Ronnie J., and Jerry A. Jacobs. 1994. “Pay Equity in Nonprofit Organizations: Making Women’s Work Visible.” In Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Teresa Odendahl and Michael O’Neill, 79–120. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Women’s Impact on Philanthropy With a long tradition of voluntary giving and increasing economic clout, women are emerging as a powerful force in philanthropy. Research indicates that today’s women bring a unique approach to charitable giving that is helping to transform the way philanthropy and fundraising are carried out. As early as the thirteenth century, religious women of wealth founded hospitals and homes to assist the poor in cities across Europe. More than a century ago in the United States, Emma Willard and Mary Lyon applied their fortunes and talents to pioneer education for girls and women equal to that offered to boys and men. In 1889, Jane Addams established Hull-House in Chicago to assist needy families and immigrants in Chicago. Her legacy continues through the Jane Addams Hull House Association. Madam C. J. Walker, the daughter of emancipated slaves who became an influential entrepreneur and philanthropist, uplifted her gender and her race through her gifts to such organizations as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) (Bundles 2001, 16). In the United States and elsewhere, women’s philanthropic action often enabled them to create “parallel power structures” by which they could participate in social and political action long before they had the legal right to own property or vote (McCarthy 2001, 3). What has changed is that today, more women have more control over much more money than ever before, and more women view strategic philanthropic giving as an opportunity to help shape the future of society. This awareness of women’s economic status and philanthropic might was heightened by studies finding that women’s issues were underfunded by the nation’s largest foundations, corporations, and workplace giving programs (Odendahl 1995).

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The 1980s saw rapid growth of the women’s funding movement. Women’s funds are organizations that raise money for programs serving the needs of women and girls. There are now more than ninety women’s funds across the United States, up from the “original eleven” created in the 1970s. The Women’s Funding Network, a membership organization that serves women’s funds, asserts that the funds are “changing the face of philanthropy” by funding undersupported and emerging programs and partnering with their grantees to promote social change. Fundraising professionals also began to recognize the philanthropic potential of women in the 1980s, as well as the fact that women had different giving patterns than did men. This led to the formation of women’s philanthropy councils and programs based in the development offices of a handful of universities and colleges—the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of California at Los Angeles, Cornell, Oklahoma State, Purdue, and Indiana. The councils differed from traditional auxiliaries in that they emphasized donor education and encouraged major gifts and leadership development. The number of women’s councils and programs in educational institutions has continued to grow, and other nonprofits have begun to establish women’s philanthropy programs. Notably, the United Way of America has responded to the success of women’s philanthropy programs established in local chapters by creating a national initiative to encourage more local chapters to launch women’s programs. Realizing the need for further education about women’s philanthropy and for further advances in this area, donors and development professionals in 1992 founded the National Network for Women as Philanthropists as an outreach program of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1997, the National Network expanded its programming and became the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, a separate nonprofit. In the late 1990s, groups of women in communities across the continent began to form new collective philanthropy ventures called “women’s giving circles.” In a women’s giving circle, members contribute equal shares to a pooled fund and decide democratically on the distribution of the funds (Shaw-Hardy 2000, 4–5). Some women’s giving circles are created by


groups of individual women acting on their own desire to invest in the future health of their community. Others are organized under the sponsorship, and in support of, a particular nonprofit. For example, the Seven Generations Circle of Women, in Columbus, Ohio, was founded in 1997 to celebrate the twentyfifth anniversary of Action for Children, a local childcare resource center. The Women’s Philanthropic Healthcare Fund in Boise, Idaho, supports programs of interest to the members of the Saint Alphonsus (Hospital) Foundation. There are also women’s giving circles benefiting Oklahoma State University, California State University at Long Beach, and other institutions of higher education. Members of a giving circle contribute an amount annually that is significant for most donors, and the members are actively involved in grantmaking. There is usually a grants committee that researches and recommends specific projects to the membership, which makes the final decision by vote. Like other women’s philanthropy programs in nonprofits, women’s giving circles generally provide education for women in financial issues and philanthropic leadership. With their new ways of giving, women are transforming the way philanthropy and fundraising are carried out. The women’s philanthropy movement is marked by a sense of partnership that embraces fundraisers, donors, and grantees. Most of the women’s funds, women’s philanthropy councils, and women’s giving circles have been created by a coalition of donors and fundraisers. Because women seek a close sense of personal connection with the programs they fund, the donors are generally very knowledgeable about their grantees and the work they carry out. In addition, most women’s philanthropy initiatives promote a sense of collegiality and a democratization of philanthropy. For example, women’s giving circles introduce new individuals to major gift philanthropy and provide an opportunity for many of the members to be involved in directing a much larger gift than they could make by themselves.

Women as Philanthropists A number of qualitative studies have examined women’s giving patterns through focus groups and personal interviews with hundreds of women nation-

ally. Most of these studies attempted to document women’s giving patterns but did not test men for a comparison. More recent studies have produced a more quantitative measure of women’s giving as well as comparisons with men’s giving patterns (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 2001). The findings indicate that women have the same core motivations for giving as men—for example, altruism, gratitude, the desire to make a better world. However, women approach giving in a different way, just as they have different styles of communication and management. This is a result of women’s socialization in a society that has long had a double standard in its economic, social, and power structures. The culture of women’s giving is described in the book Reinventing Fundraising: Realizing the Potential of Women’s Philanthropy, by Sondra C. Shaw and Martha A. Taylor, cofounders of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute. These authors summarized the recurring themes in their discussions with women philanthropists in six words beginning with the letter “C” (Shaw and Taylor 1995, 86–96): 1. Create: Women often give to establish a new institution or organization, as did Sophia Smith, who funded Smith College, and Jane Addams, who funded Hull-House in Chicago, or to create a new program within an existing nonprofit. When asked about their most rewarding philanthropic contribution, women often talk about opportunities to help make possible an innovative venture. 2. Change: Women give to bring about social change. Mary Elizabeth Garrett did this in 1881 when she gave $350,000 to Johns Hopkins University to establish a medical school on the condition that the school open its doors to women (Fisher 1993, 18). In 1997, Marjorie Alfus, attorney and retired Kmart executive, gave a gift to the Harvard Business School that will make it possible for graduate business students nationwide to think of women as role models in the corporate world. Her gift will be used to prepare case studies of women in senior

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management for Harvard’s MBA program, which are used by many other universities. 3. Connect: Women seek a sense of personal connection with the programs and projects they fund. They often are motivated to give because of a personal experience, such as an illness in their family. Certainly they give for concern for future generations—funding health care, the environment, the arts, education, and social services. Because women feel personally connected with the programs they fund, they often want to know how money will be used, how the project is progressing, and how it is helping people. This is consistent with the findings of a study by Deloitte and Touche, Inc., which found that women seek to build a close, working relationship with their financial advisers (She Said, 1998, 21). The women in this study expressed a desire for ongoing guidance and information from their financial advisers, and women seek the same type of partnership with people connected to the projects they fund. 4. Collaborate: Women like to collaborate and work together as a group. In part, this is why they often do not respond positively to competitive fundraising appeals. The women’s funds, women’s giving circles, and women’s philanthropy councils are examples of collaborative philanthropy. The high value women place on collaboration and connection is consistent with what we have learned about women’s management styles in business settings. Women managers in general foster cooperation, consensus, and networking. 5. Commit: Women are committed to the causes they support; they want to give not only their money but also their time. In a 2001 national study of giving and volunteering conducted by INDEPENDENT SECTOR, 46 percent of women and 42 percent of men reported that they had volunteered in the past year (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 2001). Although many longtime

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community volunteers express concern that increased participation by women in the paid labor force will result in a diminished volunteer labor supply, these fears appear to be unfounded. To the contrary, rates of volunteering for nonprofits among younger women are higher than they were among women of the previous generation at the same age (Wilson and Musick 2000). 6. Celebrate: Finally, women like to celebrate their accomplishments and have fun with philanthropy. This principle is grounded in the women’s tradition of raising money through events. Although women now are capable of having greater philanthropic impact through major gifts, events are still an important way to celebrate accomplishments and recognize the contributions of major donors and volunteers.

Barriers to Women’s Giving Just as there are unique motivations and patterns for women’s giving, there are also some unique reasons why women do not give that arise from their socialization with regard to money and decision making. For older women in particular, there are barriers to giving such as the “bag lady syndrome”—the fear of outliving one’s resources. Other barriers include a lack of a sense of ownership of the family’s resources, resulting in a need for permission to give. Many women have been raised to believe it is impolite to talk about money or to draw attention to one’s wealth in any way. This is often reinforced by a fear of attracting the attention of unscrupulous individuals who might wish to take advantage of the donor. A most pernicious barrier is that women do not believe they are being asked to give at the same level as men. More than half of the high-achieving businesswomen in a 1999 study donated $25,000 or more annually, yet one out of four said they did not think they were taken as seriously as men by the fundraising community (National Foundation for Women Business Owners 1999). Women’s philanthropy educational programs seek to help women and development officers overcome these barriers to reach their full potential as a power-


ful force for positive change in society. The Women’s Philanthropy Institute is a typical organization that provides such training and education. Andrea R. Kaminski and Martha A. Taylor References and further reading Bundles, A’Lelia. 2001. On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker. New York: Scribner. Fisher, J. M. 1993. “Celebrating the Heroines of Philanthropy.” In Women and Philanthropy: A National Agenda, edited by Anne I. Thompson and Andrea Kaminski, 13–25. Madison: Center for Women and Philanthropy, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Gilligan, C. 1993. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. INDEPENDENT SECTOR. “Giving and Volunteering in the United States: Findings from a National Survey,” http:// www.independentsector.org/programs/research/gandv. html (cited January 2001). McCarthy, Kathleen D., ed. 2001. Women, Philanthropy, and Civil Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

National Foundation for Women Business Owners. 1994. Styles of Success: The Thinking and Management Styles of Women and Men Business Owners. Washington, DC: National Foundation for Women Business Owners. ———. 1999. Philanthropy among Business Women of Achievement: A Summary of Key Findings. Washington, DC: National Foundation for Women Business Owners. Odendahl, Teresa, and Michael O’Neill, eds. 1994. Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Shaw, Sondra C., and Martha A. Taylor. 1995. Reinventing Fundraising: Realizing the Potential of Women’s Philanthropy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Shaw-Hardy, Sondra C. 2000. Creating a Women’s Giving Circle. Rochester, MN: Women’s Philanthropy Institute. She Said: A Study of Affluent Women and Personal Finances. 1998. Washington, DC: Deloitte and Touche. Wilson, John, and Marc Musick. “Women’s Labor Force Participation and Volunteer Work.” Nonprofit Sector Research Fund of the Aspen Institute, http://www .nonprofitresearch.org/newsletter1525/newsletter_show .htm?doc_id=27560 (cited April 5, 2000).

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Y YMCA

YMCA hired its first railroad secretary, thirty-twoyear-old Robert Weidensall, to travel the country to promote YMCA work along the Union Pacific Railroad lines. In 1872, Henry Stager, a train dispatcher, organized the first railroad YMCA in the Cleveland Passenger Station. Stager decided to do something after he witnessed a body being carried from the station. When a bystander asked who it was, he was stunned at the reply: It was “only a railroad man.” The railroad companies believed so strongly that the YMCA’s work improved employees’ performance that they gave thousands of dollars so YMCAs could continue and expand the work. New York financier Cornelius Vanderbilt gave funds and led Bible classes at Grand Central Terminal. By the end of the twentieth century, transportation, economy, and society had all conspired to end the era of railroad YMCA as the last of them merged into community YMCAs. Emerging in response to the social and demographic changes of the industrial revolution—including strong evangelical expansionism—the YMCA was one of a number of similar movements that though never formally affiliated have often closely parallel histories. The Young Women’s Christian Association is one such organization. Founded in England in 1855 and appearing in the United States in 1858, the two organizations have at times and in some places even shared facilities while always maintaining corporate autonomy and independence.

The mission of YMCAs in the United States is to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind, and body for all. YMCAs are the nation’s largest community-based charitable service membership organization. Celebrating more than 150 years of service, YMCAs build strong kids, strong families, and strong communities. YMCAs collectively are the largest providers of childcare nationwide, serving 500,000 children daily. Volunteer-founded and locally led, the YMCA movement today accepts those of all faiths at all levels of the organization. Founded in England in 1844 and arriving in Boston in 1851, the YMCA has developed into 2,493 associations serving 18.3 million men, women, and children through 600,000 volunteers in every type of community nationwide. In 1853, the first YMCA designed to serve African Americans was founded in Washington, D.C., by former slave Anthony Bowen; and in 1879, the first Native American YMCA was founded by Dakota Indians in Flandreau, South Dakota. YMCAs have emerged at different times to serve a wide variety of special constituencies over time, including railroad workers, college and university students, and armed services personnel and their families. The story of the railroad YMCA is exemplary of the dynamic of YMCA evolution. In 1868, the national

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YMCA

The YMCA historically played a major role in developing fundraising methods in the United States. In 1855, delegates to the YMCA national convention proposed the first fundraising methods: asking “the ladies” and “the more wealthy members” for money and using anniversaries to solicit funds. In 1907, banker George Foster Peabody gave money for a YMCA building for black men and boys in Columbus, Georgia; shortly afterward, John D. Rockefeller gave a similar gift; and Julius Rosenwald pledged $25,000 for a black YMCA in each community that raised $75,000. Rosenwald donated $612,000 toward construction, while the black communities themselves raised $4.4 million. Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the mechanical grain reaper, matched Rosenwald’s gift to build the Wabash Avenue YMCA in Chicago (Hopkins 1951). Through local campaigns, YMCAs raised $777 million in 2001 for scholarships, subsidies, and capital plans, collectively ranking the YMCA as one of the top five fundraising institutions in the United States. On behalf of the U.S. movement, Y-USA captures governmental and corporate resources for redistribution to local associations. In 1918, the United War Work Campaign, led by Nobel Prize–winner and YMCA executive John R. Mott, raised approximately $200 million for World War I relief efforts, the equivalent of $4.3 billion in year 2000 dollars. In 1958 U.S. and Canadian YMCAs launched Buildings for Brotherhood, a campaign that raised $19 million to build 112 YMCA buildings in 35 countries around the world. The YMCAs in the United States support international work through programming, resources, and Y-to-Y relationships with YMCAs overseas. Contributions to the YMCA World Service annual campaign provide more than $1 million annually in unrestricted funds toward six strategic international areas: youth leadership and service learning; health education; youth and technology; employment and vocational training; recreation and camping; and healthy YMCA movements. Over $12 million in government and private foundation funds have been negotiated with support of the YMCA of the USA’s International Group for work in YMCAs around the world.

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Although exceedingly prominent in its own community, few Americans know that the Jerusalem International YMCA ( JIY ) operates as the only branch of the National Council of YMCAs in the United States (YMCA of the USA). Now more than 125 years after its founding in 1878, the JIY is an “oasis of peace” bringing together Christians, Jews, and Muslims through programs and leadership development activities for youth and parents. A $1 million gift from industrialist James N. Jarvie funded construction of the JIY’s monumental property. Gifts from John D. Rockefeller and other major philanthropists placed what is a world-renowned architectural treasure on King George Street, across from the Kind David Hotel in Jerusalem, Israel. From the 180-foot-tall carillon tower, the view in to the old city is both dramatic and symbolic (Shedd 1955). Accomplishments of the YMCA over the past 150 years reveal a mission to constantly search for innovative ways to meet community needs. At its sesquicentennial, the YMCA, founded to address problems in America’s communities, looks to cities and towns, leading new initiatives to help meet the critical needs of youth and families. YMCAs currently serve one in ten teenagers and pledge to double that number by 2006. Collaboration is viewed by corporate leadership as a hallmark of all YMCA programs. YMCAs boast more than 400 partnerships with juvenile courts, 300 collaborations with public housing authorities, and nearly 3,000 collaborations with elementary and middle schools. To meet the many varied needs of their communities, YMCAs often partner with women’s shelters, welfare-to-work service agencies, job training organizations, health and wellness programs, police departments, hospitals, federal government agencies, and countless corporate supporters of the YMCA movement. In the twenty-first century, the YMCA in the United States has the potential to be a leading and growing force for positive change in the achievement of health and strength in the lives of children, families, and communities. YMCAs develop missiondriven programs, including a priority of a developmental assets framework as advanced in the Abundant Assets Alliance; celebrate the values of plu-

Youth and Philanthropy

ralism in economy and society as expressed in the YMCA National Diversity Initiative; and search for wellness and well-being for all through a Total Health Initiative. Mark C. Johnson See also: Youth and Philanthropy References and further reading Hinding, Andrea. 2001. Proud Heritage: A History in Pictures of the YMCA in the United States. Norfolk, VA: Donning. Hopkins, C. Howard. 1951. History of the Y.M.C.A. in North America. New York: Association Press. ———. 1979. John R. Mott 1865–1955. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Shedd, Clarence Prouty. 1955. History of the World Alliance of Yound Men’s Christian Associations. London: SPCK.

Youth and Philanthropy Since the late 1980s, there has been a rapid development in programs involving youth in grantmaking. Youth have traditionally been asked to volunteer their time and talent through school, religious, or service club activities. However, their involvement in raising and contributing financial resources to help meet youth and community needs through community foundations, schools, nonprofit agencies, and local governments is relatively new. As syndicated columnist Neal Pierce wrote in 1999, “Philanthropy is no longer the exclusive province of the grey-haired. Teenagers are moving into the nonprofit world’s boardrooms as grantmakers, making difficult decisions, often asking tougher questions than their adult counterparts” (Pierce 1999). Youth leaders in philanthropy were included in the first ever White House Conference on Philanthropy in October 1999. More than 250 youth philanthropy programs are now known to exist in more than thirty states and eight countries. Community foundations, local United Way organizations, schools, local governments, and nonprofit youth-serving agencies are creating different models for involving youth, especially teenagers, in grantmaking. Although financial support may be provided by foundations, corporations, and other organizations, youth often are involved in raising and donating their own funds. Fundraising activities range from holding meetings with individual wealthy citizens to sponsor-

ing traditional fundraising events or simply collecting pennies. Activities engaged in by youth grantmakers include: (1) identifying high-priority youth needs and existing community resources for youth; (2) developing and implementing requests for proposals; (3) reviewing and rating proposals; (4) interviewing potential grantees; (5) developing recommendations for projects to fund; (6) conducting evaluation site visits to grantees and evaluating grantmaking effectiveness; (7) funding and participating in service projects; and (8) serving in leadership roles on community task forces and boards, organizing youth summits, speaking to community groups, and advocating for increased youth involvement in civic life. Although many initiatives serve youth who are “known leaders,” increasingly diverse groups of young people are involved. Evaluation of these programs indicates that youth with leadership potential, regardless of their socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic background, student status, and geographic representation, can be grantmakers. Descriptions of youth philanthropy efforts and initiatives by community foundations, nonprofit organizations, schools, and local governments follow.

Community Foundations Community foundations have become leaders in engaging youth as philanthropic partners by establishing youth advisory committees (YACs), either within the foundation or in collaboration with a nonprofit partner. Youth advisory committees are youth-led and typically have two adult advisers as facilitators to staff the committee. Community foundations either host and staff the committee themselves or have a community partner operate the committee. Based on the lessons learned from the eighty-six endowed youth funds in Michigan’s Community Foundations’ Youth Project (http://www.mcfyp.org), funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, more community foundations are creating permanent, endowed funds to support youth philanthropy. Statewide or regional community foundation initiatives have been established or are developing in many areas of the United States, including Arkansas, California, Indiana, the Greater Washington, D.C., region, Kansas, New York State, and Michigan. Community foundations in Australia,

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Canada, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Czech Republic, and New Zealand have also developed similar youth philanthropy committees.

Nonprofit Organizations A range of nonprofit organizations, from Youth As Resources (YAR) and the National 4-H to local Boys and Girls Clubs, are engaging youth in philanthropy. With eighty program sites in twenty-two states, Canada, New Zealand, and Poland, YAR has involved an estimated 300,000 young people serving on grantmaking boards and/or designing and conducting volunteer projects. YAR programs are governed by a board of youth and adults and provide grants to young people to design and carry out service projects. The youth and adult board members work in partnership to solicit and evaluate project proposals from local youth (http://www.yar.org). Schools Service learning in schools has become a popular method of introducing youth to philanthropy concepts and practices. According to one report, “By 1999 . . . nearly one-third of all public schools were organizing service learning as part of their curriculum, including nearly half of all high schools” (National Commission on Service Learning 2002, 6). In addition, public policy efforts at the national level, such as the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 and other national and local initiatives, have made it possible for more youth than ever before to volunteer their time and know how to become involved in community efforts (http://www.service-learningpartnership.org). Although service learning has become a common part of many public and private school curriculums, a growing number of schools are adding youth philanthropy programs with the help of outside funding sources. For example, the El-Pomar Foundation of Colorado Springs, through its Youth in Community Service, has established youth grantmaking boards in 121 high schools across Colorado by providing $9,500 challenge grants that the schools receive after students raise $500. Partly in response to the questions being raised by youth grantmakers in Michigan about the nonprofit

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sector and philanthropy, the Learning To Give initiative was started in 1997 to teach children in grades K– 12 about philanthropy. The Web site (http://www. learningtogive.org) offers more than 500 free lesson plans, developed and tested by teachers, that can be integrated into existing curricula. Teachers across the country are now downloading these plans for use in their classrooms and communities.

Government Some local governments and their departments are beginning to recognize the value of supporting youth in a grantmaking role. Cheshire Youth Services in Connecticut; the City of Hampton, Virginia; and the Butte County Department of Behavioral Health in California all involve youth in making small grants for community needs. Although there are initiatives, such as in Oakland, California, where youth are overseeing the distribution of municipal funds allocated for youth programs, other examples have the youth doing fundraising as well as service and advocacy work. There are many examples where two if not all four types of organizations mentioned above are working in partnership to implement youth philanthropy. For example, the Chicago Housing Authority established a Youth As Resources grantmaking program in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing complex. The Youth Initiated Projects of the San Francisco–based Youth Leadership Institute is a partnership funded by public and private sources with the Volunteer Center and the San Francisco Youth Commission (http://www.yli.org). Impact on Youth and Community Although youth philanthropy is a new movement, a ten-year evaluation of the Michigan Community Foundations’ Youth Project has confirmed the following: • Given appropriate training, youth are effective stewards of financial resources. Whether granting $5,000 or $100,000 a year, depending on the size of the endowment, youth grantmakers do their homework. • Youth philanthropy is an effective means of youth development. Participants develop


skills, knowledge, confidence, and leadership abilities. • Youth continue to volunteer their time, donate money to charitable causes, and serve in leadership positions long after they have stopped serving on a youth grantmaking committee. In fact, some alumni are now serving as staff for policymakers, directing nonprofit organizations, and pursuing careers in philanthropy. • Youth-serving nonprofit organizations may change the way youth are involved in their work by engaging them in the planning and implementation, and not just on the receiving end, of services. As Chayo Long-Mendez, youth grantmaker, stated at the October 22, 1999, White House Conference on Philanthropy, “Being a youth grantmaker has allowed me to come into contact with dynamic youth who are determined to make a positive impact on their community.” As youth philanthropy continues to grow and evolve, challenges and opportunities need to be faced, ranging from a weak economy affecting funding sources to the need to increase the diversity of youth grantmakers. The documented and tested practices recommended in the publication Best Practices in Youth Philanthropy from the Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth are a helpful starting point (Garza and Stevens 2002). Robert S. Collier and Karin E. Tice

See also Community Foundations References and further reading Cretsinger, Molly. 1999. Youth Philanthropy: A Framework of Best Practice. Battle Creek, MI: W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Garza, Pam, and Pam Stevens. 2002. Best Practices in Youth Philanthropy. Basehor, KS: Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth. National Commission on Service-Learning. Learning in Deed the Power of Service Learning for American Schools— Executive Summary. Orosz, J., Karin E. Tice, and Sarah Van Eck. 2002. “Crossing the Generational Divide: Community Foundations Engaging Youth in Grantmaking, Volunteerism and Leadership.” In Handbook of Applied Developmental Science: Promoting Positive Child, Adolescent, and Family Development through Research Policies and Programs. Vol. 3, Promoting Positive Youth and Family Development: Community Systems, Citizenship, and Civil Society, edited by Donald Wertlieb, Francince Jacobs, and Richard M. Lerner, 425–440. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pierce, Neal. 1999. “Kids Know Best What Other Kids Need.” Sunday Gazette, Schenectady, NY, August 29. Tice, Karin E. 1998. Empowering Youth: Lessons Learned from the Michigan Community Foundations’ Youth Project, 1991–1996. Grand Haven, MI: Council of Michigan Foundations. ———. 2003. Youth Grantmakers with Community Foundations: More than a Decade of Outcomes and Lessons Learned. Grand Haven, MI: Council of Michigan Foundations. The White House Conference on Philanthropy. 1999. Video. South Carolina ETV, http://www.scetv.org. Youth Leadership Institute. 2001. Changing the Face of Giving: An Assessment of Youth Philanthropy. San Francisco: The James Irvine Foundation.

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Appendix to Part I: Glossary of Terms in Philanthropy foundation or corporate contributions secure a Section 501(c)(3) classification from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Note: The tax code sets forth a list of sections 501(c)(4–26) to identify other nonprofit organizations whose function is not solely charitable (e.g., professional or veterans organizations, chambers of commerce, fraternal societies, etc.). 509(a) Section of the tax code that defines public charities (as opposed to private foundations). A 501(c)(3) organization also must have a 509(a) designation to further define the agency as a public charity. (See Public Support Test.) Affinity Group A separate and independent coalition of grantmaking institutions, or individuals associated with such institutions, that shares information or provides professional development and networking opportunities to individual grantmakers with a shared interest in a particular subject or funding area. AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) AGI includes income from salary and wages, investments, and capital gains. Annual Report A voluntary report published by a foundation or corporation describing its grant activities. Annual reports range from simple, typed documents listing the year’s grants to

Perhaps because the work of the philanthropic sector touches on a broad and varied scope of human activity, those who work in philanthropy seek to unify in part under a common language. Culled from the halls of academia and government, or invented along the way, many of the terms used in philanthropy are meant to convey succinct ideas or actions, but can seem like babble to the uninitiated. One of the goals of the Donors Forum of Chicago is to educate about philanthropy, and this mission extends to the words we use in doing our jobs. In publishing this glossary, the Donors Forum presents definitions for common terms used within our field. These terms and definitions were gathered from a variety of sources in philanthropy and in the nonprofit sector. We hope, in doing so, to make philanthropy a little more familiar to all who engage in it. 501(c)(3) Section of the Internal Revenue Code that designates an organization as charitable and tax-exempt. Organizations qualifying under this section include religious, educational, charitable, amateur athletic, scientific or literary groups, organizations testing for public safety or organizations involved in prevention of cruelty to children or animals. Most organizations seeking 533

Glossary of Terms in Philanthropy

elaborately detailed publications. A growing number of foundations and corporations use an annual report as an effective means of informing the community about their contributions activities, policies and guidelines. (The annual contributions report is not to be confused with a corporation’s annual report to the stockholders.) Articles of Incorporation A document filed with the secretary of state or other appropriate state office by persons establishing a corporation. This is the first legal step in forming a nonprofit corporation. Asset Based Community Development Different from “needs-based” assessment, ABCD aims to identify existing community strengths and build upon them. Assets Cash, stocks, bonds, real estate or other holdings of a foundation. Generally, assets are invested and the income is used to make grants. (See Payout Requirement.) Beneficiary In philanthropic terms, the donee or grantee receiving funds from a foundation or corporate giving program is the beneficiary, although society benefits as well. Bequest A sum of money made available upon the donor’s death. “Bricks and Mortar” An informal term indicating grants for buildings or construction projects. Bylaws Rules governing the operation of a nonprofit corporation. Bylaws often provide the methods for the selection of directors, the creation of committees and the conduct of meetings. Capital Campaign Also referred to as a Capital Development Campaign, a capital campaign is an organized drive to collect and accumulate substantial funds to finance major needs of an organization such as a building or major repair project. Challenge Grant A grant that is made on the condition that other monies must be secured, either on a matching basis or via some other formula, usually within a specified period of time, with the objective of stimulating giving from additional sources.

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Charity In its traditional legal meaning, the word “charity” encompasses religion, education, assistance to the government, promotion of health, relief of poverty or distress and other purposes that benefit the community. Nonprofit organizations that are organized and operated to further one of these purposes generally will be recognized as exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (see 501(c)(3)) and will be eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable gifts. Committed Funds A portion of a donor’s budget that has already been pledged for future allocation. Community Foundation A community foundation is a tax-exempt, nonprofit, autonomous, publicly supported, philanthropic institution composed primarily of permanent funds established by many separate donors for the long-term diverse, charitable benefit of the residents of a defined geographic area. Typically, a community foundation serves an area no larger than a state. Community foundations provide an array of services to donors who wish to establish endowed funds without incurring the administrative and legal costs of starting independent foundations. There are more than 500 community foundations across the United States today. The Cleveland Foundation is the oldest; the New York Community Trust is the largest. Community Fund An organized community program that makes annual appeals to the general public for funds that are usually not retained in an endowment but are instead used for the ongoing operational support of local agencies. (See also Federated Fund.) Contributions Committee A corporate group organized to make grant decisions usually with the guidance of a corporate foundation or contributions administrator. Typical responsibilities include setting and interpreting policy, approving an annual budget and reviewing grant requests.


Cooperative Venture A joint effort between or among two or more grantmakers. Cooperative venture partners may share in funding responsibilities or contribute information and technical resources. Corporate Contributions A general term referring to charitable contributions by a corporation. Usually this term is used to describe cash contributions only, but may also include other items, such as the value of loaned executives, products and services. Corporate Foundation A corporate (companysponsored) foundation is a private foundation that derives its grantmaking funds primarily from the contributions of a profit-making business. The companysponsored foundation often maintains close ties with the donor company, but it is a legally separate organization, sometimes with its own endowment, and is subject to the same rules and regulations as other private foundations. There are more than 2,000 corporate foundations in the United States holding some $11 billion in assets. (See also Corporate Giving Program.) Corporate Giving Program A corporate giving (direct giving) program is a grantmaking program established and administered within a profit-making company. Gifts or grants go directly to charitable organizations from the corporation. Corporate giving programs do not have a separate endowment; their expense is planned as part of the company’s annual budgeting process and usually is funded with pretax income. The Foundation Center has identified more than 700 corporate giving programs in the United States; however, it is believed that several thousand are in operation. Declining Grant A multiyear grant that becomes smaller each year, in the expectation that the recipient organization will increase its fundraising from other sources. Demonstration Grant A grant made to establish an innovative project or program, which if successful, will serve as a model and may be duplicated by others.

Designated Funds A type of restricted fund in which the fund beneficiaries are specified by the grantors. Discretionary Funds Grant funds distributed at the discretion of one or more trustees, which usually do not require prior approval by the Donors Forum of Chicago full board of directors. The governing board can delegate discretionary authority to staff. Disqualified Person (Private Foundation) Substantial contributors to a private foundation, foundation managers, certain public officials, family members of disqualified persons and corporations and partnerships in which disqualified persons hold significant interests. The law bars most financial transactions between disqualified persons and foundations. (See also Self-Dealing.) Disqualified Person (Public Charity) As applied to public charities, the term disqualified person includes (1) organization managers, (2) any other person who, within the past five years, was in a position to exercise substantial influence over the affairs of the organization, (3) family members of the above, and (4) businesses they control. Paying excessive benefits to a disqualified person will result in the imposition of penalty excise taxes on that person, and, under some circumstances, on the charity’s board of directors. Distribution Committee The committee responsible for making grant decisions. For community foundations, the distribution committee is intended to be broadly representative of the community served by the foundation. Donee See Grantee. Donor See Grantor. Donors Advised Fund A fund held by a community foundation, public charity or other entity, where the donor or a committee appointed by the donor recommends eligible charitable recipients from the fund. Donor Designated Fund A fund held by a community foundation where the donor has specified that the fund’s income or assets be

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used for the benefit of one or more specific public charities. These funds are sometimes established by a transfer of assets by a public charity to a fund designated for its own benefit, in which case they may be known as grantee endowments. The community foundation’s governing body must have the power to redirect resources in the fund if it determines that the donor’s restriction is unnecessary, incapable of fulfillment or inconsistent with the charitable needs of the community or area served. Employee Matching Grant A contribution to a charitable organization by an employee that is matched by a similar contribution from his or her employer. (See also Matching Gifts Program.) Endowment The principal amount of gifts and bequests that are accepted subject to a requirement that the principal be maintained intact and invested to create a source of income for a foundation. Donors may require that the principal remain intact in perpetuity, or for a defined period of time or until sufficient assets have accumulated to achieve a designated purpose. E-Philanthropy This term describes the variety of methods of giving using the internet. Many sites have been developed that accept donations in addition to providing information regarding nonprofit groups. Many e-commerce sites (e.g., charity malls) incorporate fundraising efforts by donating a percentage of their proceeds to charity. Such sites can serve as a clearinghouse for large numbers of organizations and for information that would otherwise be difficult to access. Excise Tax The annual tax of 1 or 2 percent of net investment income that must be paid to the IRS by private foundations. Expenditure Responsibility When a private foundation makes a grant to an organization that is not classified by the IRS as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) and as a public charity according to Section 509(a), it is required by law to ensure that the funds are spent for

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charitable purposes and not for private gain or political activities. Such grants require a pregrant inquiry and a detailed, written agreement. Special reports on the status of the grant must be filed with the IRS, and the grantees must be listed on the foundation’s IRS Form 990-PF. Family Foundation “Family foundation” is not a legal term, and therefore it has no precise definition. Yet approximately two-thirds of the estimated 44,000 private foundations in this country are believed to be family managed. The Council on Foundations defines a family foundation as a foundation whose funds are derived from members of a single family. At least one family member must continue to serve as an officer or board member of the foundation, and as the donor, they or their relatives play a significant role in governing and/or managing the foundation throughout its life. Most family foundations are run by family members who serve as trustees or directors on a voluntary basis, receiving no compensation. In many cases, second- and third-generation descendants of the original donors manage the foundation. Family foundations tend to concentrate their giving locally. Federated Fund A centralized campaign whereby one organization raises money for its member agencies. The United Way campaign is an example. (See also Community Fund.) Flow-through Funds Contributions to a foundation that are used primarily for direct grantmaking, rather than for endowing the foundation permanently. Most corporate foundations depend on these funds each year rather than on income produced from endowment funds. Form 990/Form 990-PF The IRS forms filed annually by public charities and private foundations respectively. (The letters PF stand for private foundation.) The IRS uses these forms to assess compliance with the Internal Revenue Code. Both forms list organization assets, receipts, expenditures and compensation of officers. Form 990-PF includes a list of


grants made during the year by private foundations. Funding Cycle A chronological pattern of proposal review, decision making and applicant notification. Some donor organizations make grants at set intervals (quarterly, semiannually, etc.), while others operate under an annual cycle. General Operating Support A grant made to further the general purpose or work of an organization, rather than for a specific purpose or project; also called an unrestricted grant (sometimes also referred to as operating support). General Purpose Foundation An independent private foundation that awards grants in many different fields of interest. Giving Circle Also called philanthropic social clubs, these autonomous groups come together to give as a group, meeting regularly, sharing information, and making joint giving decisions. A guide to starting a giving circle can be found at http://www.newenglandgiving.org. Grant An award of funds to an organization or individual to undertake charitable activities. Grantee Also referred to as a grantseeker, the individual or organization that receives a grant. Grantor Also referred to as a grantmaker, the individual or organization that makes a grant. Grantee Financial Report A report detailing how grant funds were used by an organization. Many grantmakers require this kind of report from grantees. A financial report generally includes a listing of all expenditures from grant funds as well as an overall organizational financial report covering revenue and expenses, assets and liabilities. Grassroots Fundraising Efforts to raise money from individuals or groups from the local community on a broad basis. Usually an organization’s own constituents—people who live in the neighborhood served or clients of the agency’s services—are the sources of these funds. Grassroots fundraising activities include membership drives, raffles, auctions, benefits and a range of other activities.

Guidelines A statement of a foundation’s goals, priorities, criteria and procedures for applying for a grant. In-Kind Contribution A donation of goods or services rather than cash or appreciated property. Independent Foundation These private foundations are usually founded by one individual, often by bequest. They are occasionally termed “nonoperating” because they do not run their own programs. Sometimes individuals or groups of people, such as family members, form a foundation while the donors are still living. Many large independent foundations, such as the Ford Foundation, are no longer governed by members of the original donor’s family but are run by boards made up of community, business and academic leaders. Private foundations make grants to other tax-exempt organizations to carry out their charitable purposes. The Rockefeller Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation are two examples of well-known “independent” private foundations. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) The federal agency responsible for regulating foundations and their activities (on-line at www.irs.gov). Joint Funding A grant project supported by more than one donor, each of whom may provide monies for a specific component of the overall project or who may contribute to a common pool of funds. Letter of Inquiry Also referred to as a Letter of Intent, this is a brief letter outlining an organization’s activities and a request for funding sent to a prospective donor to determine if there is sufficient interest to warrant submitting a full proposal. This saves the time of the prospective donor and the time and resources of the prospective applicant. (See also Preliminary Proposal.) Leverage A method of grantmaking practiced by some foundations. Leverage occurs when a small amount of money is given with the express purpose of attracting funding from

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other sources or of providing the organization with the tools it needs to raise other kinds of funds. (Sometimes known as the “multiplier effect.”) Limited-Purpose Foundation A type of foundation that restricts its giving to one or very few areas of interest, such as higher education or medical care. Matching Gifts Program/Matching Grant A grant or contributions program that will match employees’ or directors’ gifts made to qualifying educational, arts and cultural, health or other organizations. Specific guidelines are established by each employer or foundation. (Some foundations also use this program for their staff and trustees.) Operating Foundation Also called private operating foundations, operating foundations are endowed private foundations that use the bulk of their income to provide charitable services or to run charitable programs of their own (such as a school or camp). They make few, if any, grants to outside organizations. To qualify as an operating foundation, specific rules, in addition to the applicable rules for private foundations, must be followed. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Getty Trust are examples of operating foundations. Payout Requirement The minimum amount that a private foundation is required to expend for charitable purposes (includes grants and necessary and reasonable administrative expenses). In general, a private foundation must pay out annually approximately five percent of the average market value of its assets. Philanthropy Philanthropy can be defined in different ways. The origin of the word philanthropy is Greek and means love for mankind. Today, philanthropy includes the concept of voluntary giving by an individual or group to promote the common good. Philanthropy also commonly refers to grants of money given by foundations and corporate giving programs to nonprofit organizations. Philanthropy addresses the contribution of an

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individual or group to other organizations that in turn work for the causes of poverty or social problems, improving the quality of life for all citizens. Philanthropic giving supports a variety of activities, including research, health, education, arts and culture, as well as alleviating poverty. Pledge A promise to make future contributions to an organization. For example, some donors make multiyear pledges promising to grant a specific amount of money each year. Post-Grant Evaluation A review of the results of a grant, with the emphasis upon whether or not the grant achieved its desired objective. Preliminary Proposal Sometimes referred to as a concept paper, a brief draft of a grant proposal used to learn if there is sufficient interest to warrant submitting a proposal. (See also Letter of Intent.) Pretax Net Income A corporation’s annual net income before it has paid taxes. The Internal Revenue Service currently allows corporations to deduct charitable contributions as much as 10 percent of their pretax net income. Private Foundation A nongovernmental, nonprofit organization with funds (usually from a single source, such as an individual, family or corporation) and programs managed by its own trustees or directors, established to maintain or aid social, educational, religious or other charitable activities serving the common welfare, primarily through grantmaking. U.S. private foundations are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and are classified by the IRS as a private foundation as defined in the code. Program Officer A staff member of a foundation who reviews grant proposals and processes applications for the board of trustees. Only a small percentage of foundations have program officers. Program-Related Investment A loan or other investment made by a private foundation to a profitmaking or nonprofit organization for a project related to the foundation’s stated purpose and interests. Program-related


investments are an exception to the general rule barring jeopardy investments. Often, programrelated investments are made from a revolving fund; the foundation generally expects to receive its money back with limited, or belowmarket, interest, which then will provide additional funds for loans to other organizations. A program-related investment may involve loan guarantees, purchases of stock or other kinds of financial support. Proposal A written application, often accompanied by supporting documents, submitted to a foundation or corporate giving program in requesting a grant. Most foundations and corporations do not use printed application forms but instead require written proposals; others prefer preliminary letters of inquiry prior to a formal proposal. Consult a grantor’s published guidelines for specific details. Public Charity A nonprofit organization that is exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and that receives its financial support from a broad segment of the general public. Religious, educational and medical institutions are deemed to be public charities. Other organizations exempt under Section 501(c)(3) must pass a public support test to be considered public charities, or must be formed to benefit an organization that is a public charity (see Supporting Organization). Charitable organizations that are not public charities are private foundations and are subject to more stringent regulatory and reporting requirements (see Private Foundation). Public Foundation A nonprofit organization that receives at least one-third of its annual income from the general public (including government agencies and foundations). Public foundations may make grants or engage in charitable activities. Public foundations, along with community foundations, are recognized as public charities by the IRS. Although they may provide direct charitable services to the public as other nonprofits do, their primary focus is on grantmaking.

Public Support Test There are two public support tests, both of which are designed to ensure that a charitable organization is responsive to the general public rather than a limited number of persons. One test, sometimes referred to as 509(a)(1) or 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) for the sections of the Internal Revenue Code where it is found, is for charities like community foundations that mainly rely on gifts, grants and contributions. To be automatically classed as a public charity under this test, organizations must show that they normally receive at least one-third of their support from the general public (including government agencies and foundations). However, an organization that fails the automatic test may still qualify as a public charity if its public support equals at least 10 percent of all support and it also has a variety of other characteristics, such as a broad-based board, that make it sufficiently “public.” The second test, sometimes referred to as the section 509(a)(2) test, applies to charities, such as symphony orchestras or theater groups, that get a substantial part of their income from the sale of services that further their mission, such as the sale of tickets to performances. These charities must pass a one-third/one-third test. That is, they must demonstrate that their sales and contributions normally add up to at least onethird of their financial support, but their income from investments and unrelated business activities does not exceed one-third of support. Qualifying Distributions Expenditures of a private foundation made to satisfy its annual payout requirement. These can include grants, reasonable administrative expenses, set asides, loans, program-related investments and amounts paid to acquire assets used directly in carrying out tax-exempt purposes. Restricted Funds Income or assets that are restricted in their use, in the types of organizations that may receive grants from these funds, or in the procedures used to make grants from such funds. RFP An acronym for Request For Proposal. When grantmakers create new program areas or

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initiatives, an RFP is occasionally used to solicit applications from nonprofit organizations working within the project specifications. Seed Money A grant or contribution used to start a new project or organization. Self-Dealing A private foundation is generally prohibited from entering into any financial transaction with disqualified persons (see Disqualified Person). The few exceptions to this rule include paying reasonable compensation to a disqualified person for services that are necessary to fulfilling the foundation’s charitable purposes. Violations results in an initial penalty tax equal to five percent of the amount involved, payable by the selfdealer. Set-Asides Funds set aside by a foundation for a specific purpose or project that are counted as qualifying distributions toward the foundation’s annual payout requirement. Amounts for the project must be paid within five years of the first set-aside. Site Visit Visiting a donee organization at its office location or area of operation and/or meeting with its staff or directors or with recipients of its services. Social Enterprise A nonprofit venture that combines the passion of a social mission with the discipline, innovation and determination commonly associated with for-profit businesses. This includes, but is not limited to, new revenue generating ventures, for-profit subsidiaries and other alternatives to traditional funding sources. Social Entrepreneurs Individuals who engage in social enterprise and draw upon the best thinking in both the business and nonprofit worlds in order to advance their social agenda. Social Venture Fund Charitable funds whose donors invest their expertise as well as their money, providing support and requiring accountability of nonprofit organizations just as venture capitalists do in business enterprises. (See also Venture Philanthropy.)

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Socially Responsible Investing Also referred to as ethical investing, this is the practice of aligning a foundation’s investment policies with its mission. This may include making programrelated investments and refraining from investing in corporations with products or policies inconsistent with the foundation’s values. Sponsorship Affiliation with an existing nonprofit organization for the purpose of receiving grants. Grantseekers may either apply for federal tax-exempt status or affiliate with a nonprofit sponsor. Supporting Organization A supporting organization is a charity that is not required to meet the public support test because it supports a public charity. To be a supporting organization, a charity must meet one of three complex legal tests that assure, at a minimum, that the organization being supported has some influence over the actions of the supporting organization. Although a supporting organization may be formed to benefit any type of public charity, the use of this form is particularly common in connection with community foundations. Supporting organizations are distinguishable from donoradvised funds because they are distinct legal entities. Tax-Exempt Organizations Organizations that do not have to pay state and/or federal income taxes. Organizations other than churches seeking recognition of their tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code must apply to the Internal Revenue Service. These organizations may also be exempt from sales and local property taxes. Technical Assistance Operational or management assistance given to a nonprofit organization. It can include fundraising assistance, budgeting and financial planning, program planning, legal advice, marketing and other aids to management. Assistance may be offered directly by a foundation or corporate staff member or in the form of a grant to pay for the services of an outside consultant.


Tipping The situation that occurs when a gift or grant is made that is large enough to significantly alter the grantee’s funding base and cause it to fail the public support test. Such a gift or grant results in “tipping” or conversion from public charity to private foundation status. Trust A legal device used to set aside money or property of one person for the benefit of one or more persons or organizations. Trustee The person(s) or institutions responsible for the administration of a trust. Unrestricted Funds Normally found at community foundations, an unrestricted fund is one that is not specifically designated to particular uses by the donor, or for which restrictions have expired or been removed. Venture Philanthropy The philanthropic application of venture capital principles and

practices. Venture Philanthropy assists nonprofit organizations in the planning, launch and management of new programs or social purpose enterprises. In addition to grants, Venture Philanthropists provide networking, management advice and an array of other supports to organizations within a given portfolio of charitable investments. (See also Social Venture Fund.) Virtual Foundation Refers to the transition from grantmaking through mail and face-to-face meetings to grantmaking by email and internet transfers. Such a foundation may exist only on the internet and be capable of transferring money from philanthropists to organizations globally. Source: Donors Forum of Chicago, www.donorsforum.org

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Part II Documents in Philanthropy

Documents in Philanthropy: Contents Nicomachean Ethics, 549 Aristotle

The Federalist No. 10 (1787), 583 James Madison

Laws Concerning Gifts to the Poor: “The Book of Seeds,” 553 Maimonides

First Amendment (1787), 588 Preamble and Rules of the Philadelphia Free African Society (1787), 588

The Summa Theologica, 553 St. Thomas Aquinas

The Codicil of the Will of Benjamin Franklin (1789), 589 Benjamin Franklin

The Elizabethan Poor Laws (1601), 561 Queen and Parliament of Great Britain the Statute of Charitable Uses an Act to Redress the Misemployment of Lands, Goods, Stocks, and Money Heretofore Given to Charitable Uses (1601), 563

Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (Excerpted from 4 Wheaton, 518, 1819), 591

A Modell of Christian Charity (1630), 564 John Winthrop

The American Anti-Slavery Society: Constitution (December 4, 1833), 597

New England’s First Fruits (1643), 568

Of the Use Which the Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life, 597 Alexis de Tocqueville

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia 5 Peters, 1 (1831), 594

A Minute against Slavery Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting (1688), 569

The Constitution of the Brook Farm Association (1841), 600

Bonifacius, or Essays to Do Good, 570 Cotton Mather

Man the Reformer (1841), 601 Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Practice Makes Perfect?, 574 Benjamin Franklin

Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature (1843), 604 Dorothea Dix

The Use of Money (1744), 577 John Wesley

Girard Will Case, 605

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Documents in Philanthropy: Contents

True and False Philanthropy, 612 William Holmes McGuffey

Tainted Money, 668 Washington Gladden

Responsibility in the Management of Societies (1847), 614 Leonard Bacon

Great Riches, 671 Charles Eliot

Women’s Rights: The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions ( July 19, 1848), 623 Message from the President of the United States Returning to the Senate the Bill Entitled “an Act Making a Grant of Public Lands to the Several States for the Benefit of Indigent Insane Persons,” with a Statement of the Objections Which Have Required Him to Withhold from It His Approval, 625 Plan of Organization of the Sanitary Commission, with Approval of Secretary Cameron, 629 An Act to Incorporate Seton Hall College, 631 The Civil Rights Act (April 9, 1866), 632 Peabody Education Fund, 633 George Peabody The Ku Klux Klan: Organization and Principles, 635 Little Women, 636 Louisa May Alcott Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop (1883), 641 Bernice Pauahi Bishop Chapter 2, Public Relief and Private Charity, “Principles and Rules,” 643 Josephine Shaw Lowell

Co-operation among Negro Americans (1907), 674 W. E. B. Du Bois Russell Sage Foundation, 682 Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage The Difficult Art of Giving, 684 John D. Rockefeller The Chair of Philanthromathmatics, 689 O. Henry The Social Creed of the Churches, 692 Constitution of the General Assembly and for State, National Trade District and Local Assemblies of the Order of the Knights of Labor, 693 An Act to Incorporate the Rockefeller Foundation (May 1913), 694 The Concentration of Wealth: Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations (1915), 695 Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime, Chapter 5 (1916), 698 Scott Nearing Only Jews Solicited, 705 Islamic Laws Concerning Charity, 706 Pierce v. Society of the Sisters 268 U.S. 510 (1925), 708

The Gospel of Wealth, 645 Andrew Carnegie

The Mind of the Millionaire (1926), 709 Albert W. Atwood, M.A.

A Modern Lear, 654 Jane Addams

Thoughts on the Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions, 717 Frederick T. Gates

Raising Money, 658 Booker T. Washington Charitable Effort, 664 Jane Addams The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (New York, April 18, 1905), 667 Andrew Carnegie

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Principles of Public Giving, 721 Julius Rosenwald Looking Backward and Forward, 726 Florence Spearing Randolph Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947), 730

Documents in Philanthropy: Contents

Articles of Incorporation of the George Gund Foundation, 732

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Titles I and V, 813

First Unitarian Church v. Los Angeles County 357 U.S. 513 at 529 (1958), 733

Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response: A Pastoral Letter on Stewardship from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, November 1992, 814

Civil Rights Act of 1964 ( July 2, 1964), 734 The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life (April 9, 1967), 735 Martin Luther King Jr. The Role of Philanthropy in a Changing Society, 737 The Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, 742 Global Sullivan Principles, 774 The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere (1890–1930), 774 Barry D. Karl and Stanley N. Katz

The Common Good: Old Idea, New Urgency ( June 1993), 816 Walter and Elise Haas Fund, 822 On the Meaning and Usage of the Word “Philanthropia,” 824 S. Tromp De Ruiter (translated and edited by Marty Sulek, 2002) Sec. 170.—Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts, 839 Madigan (Ryan) v. Telemarketing Associates, 855

Giving and Getting: Philanthropy as a Social Relation, 798 Susan A. Ostrander and Paul G. Schervish

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Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle In the West, the work of Aristotle is fundamental in understanding early thinking about philanthropy through the concepts of moral virtue and generosity. In these two selections from the treaties in Nichomachean Ethics, we gain an understanding of Aristotle’s argument for a natural way to discover the good for a community or individual. His writings continue to resonate for the modern reader. I. General Characterstics of Virtue i. That Virtue is a permanent state of mind produced by our own Actions (a) Different Origin of Moral and Intellectual Virtue There is, then, a two-fold excellence of the soul: there is “moral” and “intellectual” virtue. The excellence of our intellectual nature takes its earliest rise and its aftergrowth for the most part from instruction, and hence requires experience and length of time to mature it. On the other hand the excellence of our moral nature is a result brought about by constant practice of moral acts . . . (b) Proofs that Moral Virtue is not a Gift of Nature, but a Creation of Habit 1. From this consideration it is further clear that no form of moral excellence is developed in us spontaneously, by a fixed constitution of nature. What belongs to the order of Nature can never be brought to act contrary to its law. A stone, naturally gravitating to the earth, could never be brought of its own accord to soar heavenwards: though one were to try to form such a habit in it by hurling it into the air ten thousand times, it could never be forced to change its own law. Conversely, fire could never be habituated to move downwards. In fact, when things have a fixed tendency in obedience to a law of nature, they can never be made by practice to act contrary to that tendency. 2. It is not, therefore, through an irresistible law, nor yet in violation of any such law, that the various forms of moral excellence are developed in man: nay, rather we are born with a nature capable of virtue, but the realization of those capabilities can only be attained by means of habit.

3. Again, where qualities attach to us by nature, we are first put in possession of latent powers, and then proceed to put our powers into outward effect. This truth is obvious in the case of the sense. We did not obtain the senses of seeing and hearing from the fact of our having constantly seen and heard. On the contrary, we used our faculties because we were possessed of them: we did not come into possession of those faculties through having used them. It is the exact reverse with our moral faculties: we acquire them by having put ourselves to the test of action, as we do in acquiring artistic skill. What we have to learn in order to perform, we learn by the very process of performing. Men become builders by building houses, and harpists by practicing the harp. After the same analogy, men grow to be righteous by performing right actions, and self-controlled by performing acts of self-control, and brave by performing acts of bravery. 4. This truth if further illustrated by the tradition which prevails in the Greek States regarding the discipline of the citizens. Our law-givers try to make the citizens virtuous by making virtuous actions habitual to them, regarding it as chief aim and intention of legislation – to create and foster morality. When they do not successfully achieve this result, they fail in their whole purpose, as upon their success herein it depends whether a constitution be a good or a bad one. 5. Moreover, every kind of moral, like ever artistic excellence, is either acquired or lost according to the character of the acts performed: the faculties by which the acts are originated and the processes by which they are developed are the same. It is by practicing upon the lute that men become lute-players; but their excellence varies according as they have practiced well or ill. Builders and artists generally show the same differences: if they execute their various works well, they will become good workmen; if they execute them badly, they will become bad workmen. Otherwise, had this not been the case, there would have been no need of men to teach, but all would have been born good or bad artists. The case is precisely similar in the sphere of the virtues. According to the actions which we perform in our business-relations with our fellows, we grow to be either just or unjust. By our conduct, again, in

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Documents in Philanthropy

circumstances of danger, and by the habit we form of showing terror or courage, we grow some of us to be heroes and others cowards. This truth is applicable also to the regulation of the feelings and desires: men become temperate and gentle, or intemperate and passionate, according to the demeanour which they are in the habit of assuming under provocation or excitement. (c) Summary: The Importance of Moral Education To sum up the argument: the moral nature assumes certain permanent tendencies, or “habits” as the result of the various lines of conduct in which it has been exercised; and the character of these various tendencies corresponds to the character of the various acts out of which they have sprung. Wherefore it is our duty to give to our every act a definite character of moral worth, seeing that it is from the qualities of these separate acts, through all the incidents of daily life, that our “habits” (i.e., the permanent tendencies of our moral being,) take their tone and colour. It is a matter of no light consequence, then, upon what principles and amid what influences we are trained from childhood; nay, rather, it is a matter of vast and even sovereign importance. C. LIBERALITY i. Characteristics of Liberality explained (a) The Sphere of Liberality Defined Continuing our examination of the social virtues, let us now discuss the virtue of liberality, which is commonly regarded as the perfect attitude of mind in regard to questions of property. The praise which is bestowed upon the liberal man is not for his exploits in war, not for his behaviour under circumstances where self-control is tested, nor yet for the justice of his decisions, but has regard simply to the disposal or acquisition of property and more particularly to its disposal (“property” being here used to denote anything which has a value which can be estimated in current coin). (b) Modes in which the Principle of Liberality is violated The states of excess and defect in money-matters are prodigality on the one hand, and avarice on the other. We apply the epithet “avaricious” uniformly to those who are more eager than they ought to be in regard to money. On the other hand we sometimes use

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the term ‘prodigality’ with complex associations. We call men ‘prodigals’ when they are weakly self-indulgent and spend their property upon vicious indulgences; and consequently men of this stamp are accounted the most dissolute of their kind, as having many vices combined in one. But they are not called prodigals in the strict and natural sense of the word: the word “prodigal” is intended to mean one who has a single thought, that of wasting or ruining his property, the prodigal being one who is ruined through his own fault: i.e., the wasting of his property seems to be a form of “self-destruction,” since his very life and livelihood depend upon the possession of means. It is in this strict sense, therefore, that I now employ the term “prodigality.” (c) The Virtue or Vice of a Thing Dependent upon its Uses Now whatever admits of use may be put to a good or a bad use; and as wealth is one of those things which are capable of use, and a man puts a thing to its best use when he has the virtue related thereto, it follows that a man will put wealth to its best possible use when he has the virtue related to money: when, that is, he is liberal-minded. (d) The Special Use of Money is in Spending Rather than in Receiving Now the use of money seems to consist in spending and giving, while the acquisition of money lies rather in the receiving and safe keeping thereof; consequently it is more distinctly characteristic of the liberal-minded man that he gives to proper persons than that he receives from proper persons, or than that he refrains from taking whence he ought not. 1. It is a greater proof of moral worth that a man confers benefits upon others, than that he receives them himself, and that he himself performs noble actions, than that he refrains from disgraceful ones. It is obvious that the effect consequent upon giving is that a man does a kindness to another, and is thus an instrument for noble deeds; whereas the effect consequent upon his receiving is that he is himself the recipient of favours, or at most that he takes no unfair advantage. 2. Thanks are accorded to one who makes a gift, not to one who abstains from unlawful gains; and of course praise is greater in proportion.

Nicomachean Ethics

3. It is easier to abstain from taking than it is to give: men are far less disposed to give away what is their own than to forbear taking what is another’s. 4. Again, it is only those who give who have the name of “charitable”: those who forbear taking are not praised on the score of their charitableness, but, if at all, with special reference to their justice; while those who simply receive what is their due are absolutely not praised at all. 5. Again, charitable men are, as a rule, more personally beloved than any other class who are esteemed for their own worth, inasmuch as they are serviceable to their fellows; but their service depends upon the gifts they make. (e) General Conditions Requisite in Charitable Giving Now all actions that are conformable to virtue have in themselves a noble effect and are inspired by a noble motive. If, therefore, a man has the virtue of charity, he will give from a noble motive, and his gifts will have a noble effect. Those to whom he gives will be deserving recipients of his bounty; and both the amount and the occasion of his bounty will be equally suitable and appropriate. He will invariably observe the conditions requisite to rightful giving. Moreover, whatever he does he will do cheerfully, or at any rate without pain, inasmuch as every act that is comformable to virtue is pleasurable to the agent, or at any rate devoid of pain—least of all can it be positively painful. If a man fail to meet these tests—if he gives to unworthy objects, or if he gives without any reference to a virtuous ideal, but to satisfy some lower aim, he is not a charitable man, but must be styled by some other name. Nor again is he charitable if he gives with reluctance or pain, since such an one would fain choose money in preference to noble acting, and that is very unlike the liberal-minded man. (f ) General Conditions Requisite in Charitable Receiving The charitable man will never receive from sources whence he ought not, since such an acceptance of money is inconsistant with the character of one who regards not money as of high importance. Nor will he be importunate for money, since it is not like the character of one who is himself a bene-

factor to have benefits confered upon him lightly and without reserve. Still he will receive from proper and legitimate sources, e.g., the revenues of his own estates,—not as through it were meritorious so to do, but as a thing inevitable in order that he may have the means wherewith to make gifts to others; and he will not be indifferent to the care of his own property, desiring as he does by the help thereof to assist the needs of others. (g) Some Further Characteristics of the Charitable Man But he will not give to all alike indiscriminately, that so he may keep enough wherewith to give to deserving persons at fitting times, and where his bounty is meritorious. It is, again, quite characteristic of the charitable man that his generosity in giving is so extreme that he leaves insufficient for himself: it is a sign of his perfect charity that he does not look to his own interests but to the good of others. But charity is to be measured by relation to the means of the individual, not by an absolute standard: the quality of charitableness does not consist in the multitude of the things that are given, but in the formed character of the giver, which leads him to give to the extent of the means at his command. There is therefore nothing to prevent a man whose gifts are less than another’s from being, for all that, the more liberal of the two – provided, that is, that the store from which he has to draw his gifts be less . . . In virtue of his charity he will most assuredly never give to unworthy objects, nor at unseasonable times, nor violate the proprieties in other ways: otherwise he would cease to act according to the law of charity: exhausting his resources upon umproper objects, he would have nothing left to spend upon objects that really deserved his sympathy. As has been shown, a man only has the virtue of charity when his expenditure is not only proportioned to his means but is also confined to worthy objects . . . (h) Résumé: Charity the Moral Ideal in Regard to Wealth Since, therefore, charity is an ideal frame of mind in regard to the giving or receiving of money, the charitable man will give his money, or expend his money, only upon proper occasions and to proper

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amounts, alike in small as in great concerns; and he will feel pleasure in so acting . . . But if it should happen that he has spent his money contrary to what is right and appropriate, he will feel regret, but his regret will be temperate and seasonable. For it is a mark of virtue for a man to have feelings of pleasure or of pain in a suitable degree, and on fitting occasions. Again, the charitable man is courteous and affable in his dealings, and is a man capable of being overreached, since of course he sets no store on money, and is more likely to be distressed if he has omitted to spend what he ought to have spent, than to be pained at having spent upon that which was not worthy of his charity. ii. – Contrast between Liberality and Prodigality (a) Description of Prodigality as a Vice per se Now we have already shown that there are states of excess and of defect in regard to money, in prodigality on the one hand and avarice on the other, in the relations both of giving and of receiving (and here we put expenditure generally in the category of “giving”). Prodigality is a state of excess in regard to giving without equivalent, and is a state of defect in regard to receiving; while, contrariwise, avarice is a state of defect in regard to giving, and of excess in regard to receiving – only on a small scale. But these opposing characteristics are rarely found united, since it is not easy for a man to give to every object if there be no source from which he himself receives . . . though of course this type of extreme generosity would seem to be vastly superior to that of the avaricious man, as being more easily reformed under the influence of advancing age and personal exigencies, and being thus capable of attaining to a perfect state. Such an one has, in fact, some of the attributes of the charitable man: he gives and is not fond of receiving, though he does neither the one nor the other rightly, nor in a becoming manner. If only he could be habituated to self-restraint, or were in some other way to reform, he would be a man of real charity. He would give to none but deserving objects, nor receive from any but legitimate sources. Hence the prodigal does not seem to be really depraved in disposition: it is not proof either of a wicked or ignoble disposition to exceed in giving and not re-

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ceiving, but rather of a foolish one. A man who is prodigal after this fashion seems to be much better than a sordid man, as well for the reasons referred to above as also because the prodigal benefits many, but the sordid man no one, not even himself. (b) Prodigality Associated with Other Vices But, as has already been shown, the greater number of those who are prodigal not only spend their money improperly, but also acquire their money from unlawful sources, and are on that score as well as others, void of charity. They grow to be grasping after money, prompted by the desire to spend, and by their inability to spend as lavishly as they would without money. The means of spending soon fail them; hence they are forced to provide funds from new sources. At the same time, from the indifference which they feel for what is noble and honourable, they make their gains with little scruple from any source whatever. In the passion they have for giving, it is a thing quite indifferent to them how they give or whence the funds are drawn. Hence the gifts of such men are not really charitable gifts: they are not nobly conceived, nor have they a noble motive, nor are they bestowed in a proper manner; at times they make men rich whom it were fitting to be poor, and while they will give nothing to men of sober and respectable lives, they lavish favours freely upon those who flatter them or in some way afford them amusement. Hence, prodigals are for the most part sensualists: reckless in their expenditure, they lavish their wealth upon their own lusts, and inasmuch as they do not live with any noble aim in view, they are diverted to the pursuit of selfish indulgences. However, though the prodigal swerves into vicious practices like these, if he be unchecked in his course, yet, on the other hand, if he meet with guidance and control, he may, for all his extravagance, still attain to a perfect ideal of what is fitting and right. iii. – Contrast between Liberality and Avarice On the other hand, avarice is incurable. It is old age and the varied forms of helplessness, which are thought to make men avaricious. It is, moreover, more thoroughly innate in men than prodigality is, the mass of men being more fond of saving than of giving. It is also a fault of widest range, and assumes many shapes, there being apparently many forms which

The Summa Theologica

avarice may take. Consisting, as it may, of two conditions, defect of giving and excess of receiving . . . Fittingly, then, is avarice called the opposite of charity, as well because it is a greater evil than prodigality, as because men fall into worse error in respect thereof, than in respect of the prodigality which is described above. Let this analysis suffice to describe charity and the vices which are opposed thereto. Reference: Hatch, Walter M. 1879. The Moral Philosophy of Aristotle. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 72–76, 188–199.

Below this, the poor person knows from whom he takes, and the giver does not know: as per example of the greatest of the sages who would bundle small change in their sheets, and throw them over their shoulders, in sight of the poor, who took, so they would have no shame. Below this, one puts into another’s hand before [the latter] asks. Below this, one gives another after [the latter] asks. Below this, one gives another less than is appropriate, in a pleasant manner. Below this, one gives sorrowfully. Reference: Frisch, Ephraim. 1924. An Historical Survey of Jewish Philanthropy. New York: Macmillan, 62–63.

Laws Concerning Gifts to the Poor: “The Book of Seeds”


Maimonides

St. Thomas Aquinas

The best known of medieval writers on giving was Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. A Jewish scholar and philosopher, Maimonides published numerous works throughout his life including massive scholarship on the Talmud. He attempted to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Jewish philosophy and in 1201 codified the Eight Degrees of Charity reprinted here.

Hailed as one of the most brilliant scholars and theologians of all time, St. Thomas Aquinas’s works continue to influence both the secular and sacred worlds. His conceptions of charity were officially accepted in Roman Catholicism during the Middle Ages. In Summa Theologica— written between 1265 and 1272—he adopted Aristotelianism into his synthesis. Thomas extends the Aristotelian notion of friendship to the idea that charity is embodied in the friendship of man for God. His formulation of charity was significant for European immigrants to America, from precolonial times to the late nineteenth century.

There are eight levels of tzedakah, one better than the next. A high level, of which none is higher, is where one takes the hand of an Israelite and gives him a gift or loan, or makes a partnership with him, or finds him employment, in order to strengthen him until he needs to ask help of no one. Concerning this it says, “And you will give strength to the resident alien, so he may live among you,” as if to say, strengthen him until he will not falter or need. Below this is one who gives tzedakah to the poor, not knowing to whom he gives, while the poor person does not know from whom he takes. For this is [fulfillment of a] commandment for its own sake. . . . Below this, the giver knows to whom he gives, and the poor person does not know from whom he takes. For example: the rabbinic sages who went in secret, tossing coins in the door openings of the poor. In this case, it is proper and good if the alms officers do not behave precisely.

Question XXIII Of Charity, Considered in Itself (In Eight Articles.) In proper sequence, we must consider charity; and (1) charity itself; (2) the corresponding gift of wisdom. The first consideration will be fivefold: (1) Charity itself; (2) The object of charity; (3) Its acts; (4) The opposite vices; (5) The precepts relating thereto. The first of these considerations will be twofold: (1) Charity, considered as regards itself; (2) Charity, considered in its relation to its subject. Under the first head there are eight points of inquiry: (1) Whether

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charity is friendship? (2) Whether it is something created in the soul? (3) Whether it is a virtue? (4) Whether it is a special virtue? (5) Whether it is one virtue? (6) Whether it is the greatest of the virtues? (7) Whether any true virtue is possible without it? (8) Whether it is the form of the virtues?

First Article. Whether charity is friendship? We proceed thus to the First Article:— Objection 1. It would seem that charity is not friendship. For nothing is so appropriate to friendship as to dwell with one’s friend, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii. 5). Now charity is of man towards God and the angels, whose dwelling (Douay,— conversation) is not with men (Dan. ii. II). Therefore charity is not friendship. Obj. 2. Further, There is no friendship without return of love (Ethic. viii. 2). But charity extends even to one’s enemies, according to Matth. v. 44: Love your enemies. Therefore charity is not friendship. Obj. 3. Further, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii. 3) there are three kinds of friendship, directed respectively towards the delightful, the useful, or the virtuous. Now charity is not friendship for the useful or delightful; for Jerome says in his letter to Paulinus which is to be found at the beginning of the Bible: True friendship cemented by Christ, is where men are drawn together, not by household interests, not by mere bodily presence, not by crafty and cajoling flattery, but by the fear of God, and the study of the Divine Scriptures. No more is it friendship for the virtuous, since by charity we love even sinners, whereas friendship based on the virtuous is only for virtuous men (Ethic. viii.). Therefore charity is not friendship. On the contrary, It is written ( Jo. xv. 15): I will not now call you servants . . . but My friends. Now this was said to them by reason of nothing else than charity. Therefore charity is friendship. I answer that, According to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii. 2, 3), not every love has the character of friendship, but that love which is together with benevolence, when, to wit, we love someone so as to wish good to him. If, however, we do not wish good to what we love, but wish its good for ourselves, (thus we are said to love wine, or a horse, or the like), it is love not of

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friendship, but of a kind of concupiscence. For it would be absurd to speak of having friendship for wine or for a horse. Yet neither does well-wishing suffice for friendship, for a certain mutual love is requisite, since friendship is between friend and friend: and this wellwishing is founded on some kind of communication. Accordingly, since there is a communication between man and God, inasmuch as He communicates His happiness to us, some kind of friendship must needs be based on this same communication, of which it is written (I Cor. i. 9): God is faithful: by Whom you are called unto the fellowship of His Son. The love which is based on this communication, is charity: wherefore it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God. Reply Obj. 1. Man’s life is twofold. There is his outward life in respect of his sensitive and corporeal nature: and with regard to this life there is no communication or fellowship between us and God or the angels. The other is man’s spiritual life in respect of his mind, and with regard to this life there is fellowship between us and both God and the angels, imperfectly indeed in this present state of life, wherefore it is written (Phil. iii. 20): Our conversation is in heaven. But this conversation will be perfected in heaven, when His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face (Apoc. xxii. 3, 4). Therefore charity is imperfect here, but will be perfected in heaven. Reply Obj. 2. Friendship extends to a person in two ways: first in respect of himself, and in this way friendship never extends but to one’s friends: secondly, it extends to someone in respect of another, as, when a man has friendship for a certain person, for his sake he loves all belonging to him, be they children, servants, or connected with him in any way. Indeed, so much do we love our friends, that for their sake we love all who belong to them, even if they hurt or hate us; so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom we love out of charity in relation to God, to Whom the friendship of charity is chiefly directed. Reply Obj. 3. The friendship that is based on the virtuous is directed to none but a virtuous man as the principal person, but for his sake we love those who belong to him, even though they be not virtuous: in


this way charity, which above all is friendship based on the virtuous, extends to sinners, whom, out of charity, we love for God’s sake.

Second Article. Whether charity is something created in the soul? We proceed thus to the Second Article:– Objection 1. It would seem that charity is not something created in the soul. For Augustine says (De Trin. viii. 7): He that loveth his neighbor, consequently, loveth love itself. Now God is love. Therefore it follows that he loves God in the first place. Again he says (De Trin. xv. 17): It was said: God is Charity, even as it was said: God is a Spirit. Therefore charity is not something created in the soul, but is God Himself. Obj. 2. Further, God is the life of the soul spiritually just as the soul is the life of the body, according to Deut. xxx. 20: He is thy life. Now the soul by itself quickens the body. Therefore God quickens the soul by Himself. But He quickens it by charity, according to 1 Jo. iii. 14: We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. Therefore God is charity itself. Obj. 3. Further, no created thing is of infinite power; on the contrary every creature is vanity. But charity is not vanity, indeed it is opposed to vanity; and it is of infinite power, since it brings the human soul to the infinite good. Therefore charity is not something created in the soul. On the charity, Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. iii. 10): By charity I mean the movement of the soul towards the enjoyment of God for His own sake. But a movement of the soul is something created in the soul. Therefore charity is something created in the soul. I answer that, The Master looks thoroughly into this question in Q. XVII. of the First Book, and concludes that charity is not something created in the soul, but is the Holy Ghost Himself dwelling in the mind. Nor does he mean to say that this movement of love whereby we love God is the Holy Ghost Himself, but that this movement is from the Holy Ghost without any intermediary habit, whereas other virtuous acts are from the Holy Ghost by means of the habits of other virtues, for instance the habit of faith or hope or of some other virtue: and this he said on account of the excellence of charity.

But if we consider the matter aright, this would be, on the contrary, detrimental to charity. For when the Holy Ghost moves the human mind the movement of charity does not proceed from this motion in such a way that the human mind be merely moved, without being the principle of this movement, as when a body is moved by some extrinsic motive power. For this is contrary to the nature of a voluntary act, whose principle needs to be in itself, as stated above (I.-II., Q. VI., A. 1): so that it would follow that to love is not a voluntary act, which involves a contradiction, since love, of its very nature, implies an act of the will. Likewise, neither can it be said that the Holy Ghost moves the will in such a way to the act of loving, as though the will were an instrument, for an instrument, though it be a principle of action, nevertheless has not the power to act or not to act, for then again the act would cease to be voluntary and meritorious, whereas it has been stated above (I.-II., Q. CXIV., A. 4) that the love of charity is the root of merit: and, given that the will is moved by the Holy Ghost to the act of love, it is necessary that the will also should be the efficient cause of that act. Now no act is perfectly produced by an active power, unless it be connatural to that power of reason of some form which is the principle of that action. Wherefore God, Who moves all things to their due ends, bestowed on each thing the form whereby it is inclined to the end appointed to it by Him; and in this way He “ordereth all things sweetly” (Wis. viii. I). But it is evident that the act of charity surpasses the nature of the power of the will, so that, therefore, unless some form be superadded to the natural power, inclining it to the act of love, this same act would be less perfect than the natural acts and the acts of the other powers; nor would it be easy and pleasurable to perform. And this is evidently untrue, since no virtue has such a strong inclination to its act as charity has, nor does any virtue perform its act with so great pleasure. Therefore it is most necessary that, for us to perform the act of charity, there should be in us some habitual form superadded to the natural power, inclining that power to the act of charity, and causing it to act with ease and pleasure. Reply Obj. I. The Divine Essence Itself is charity, even as It is wisdom and goodness. Wherefore just as

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we are said to be good with the goodness which is God, and wise with the wisdom which is God (since the goodness whereby we are formally good is a participation of Divine goodness, and the wisdom whereby we are formally wise, is a share of Divine wisdom), so too, the charity whereby formally we love our neighbor is a participation of Divine charity. For this manner of speaking is common among the Platonists, with whose doctrines Augustine was imbued; and the lack of adverting to this has been to some an occasion of error. Reply Obj 2. God is effectively the life both of the soul by charity, and of the body by the soul: but formally charity is the life of the soul, even as the soul is the life of the body. Consequently we may conclude from this that just as the soul is immediately united to the body, so is charity to the soul. Reply Obj 3. Charity works formally. Now the efficacy of a form depends on the power of the agent, who instills the form, wherefore it is evident that charity is not vanity. But because it produces an infinite effect, since, by justifying the soul, it unites it to God, this proves the infinity of the Divine power, which is the author of charity.

Third Article. Whether Charity is a Virtue? We proceed thus to the Third Article:– Objection 1. It would seem that charity is not a virtue. For charity is a kind of friendship. Now philosophers do not reckon friendship a virtue, as may be gathered from Ethic. viii. I; nor is it numbered among the virtues whether moral or intellectual. Neither, therefore, is charity a virtue. Obj. 2. Further, Virtue is the ultimate limit of power (De Cœlo et Mundo i. II). But charity is not something ultimate, this applies rather to joy and peace. Therefore it seems that charity is not a virtue, and that this should be said rather of joy and peace. Obj. 3. Further, every virtue is an accidental habit. But charity is not an accidental habit, since it is a more excellent thing than the soul itself: whereas no accident is more excellent than its subject. Therefore charity is not a virtue. On the contrary, Augustine says (De Moribus Eccl. xi.): Charity is a virtue which, when our affections are perfectly ordered, unites us to God, for by it we love Him.

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I answer that, Human acts are good according as they are regulated by their due rule and measure. Wherefore human virtue which is the principle of all man’s good acts consists in following the rule of human acts, which is twofold, as stated above (Q. XVII., A. 1), viz. human reason and God. Consequently just as moral virtue is defined as being in accord with right reason, as stated in Ethic. ii. 6, so too, the nature of virtue consists in attaining God, as also stated above with regard to faith, (Q. IV., A. 5) and hope (Q. XVII., A. 1). Wherefore, it follows that charity is a virtue, for, since charity attains God, it unites us to God, as evidenced by the authority of Augustine quoted above. Reply Obj. 1. The Philosopher (Ethic. viii.) does not deny that friendship is a virtue, but affirms that it is either a virtue or with a virtue. For we might say that it is a moral virtue about works done in respect of another person, but under a different aspect from justice. For justice is about works done in respect of another person, under the aspect of the legal due, whereas friendship considers the aspect of a friendly and moral duty, or rather that of a gratuitous favor, as the Philosopher explains (Ethic. viii. 13). Nevertheless it may be admitted that it is not a virtue distinct of itself from the other virtues. For its praiseworthiness and virtuousness are derived merely from its object, in so far, to wit, as it is based on the moral goodness of the virtues. This is evident from the fact that not every friendship is praiseworthy and virtuous, as in the case of friendship based on pleasure or utility. Wherefore friendship for the virtuous is something consequent to virtue rather than a virtue. Moreover there is no comparison with charity since it is not founded principally on the virtue of a man, but on the goodness of God. Reply Obj. 2. It belongs to the same virtue to love a man and to rejoice about him, since joy results from love, as stated above (I.-II., Q. XXV., A. 2) in the treatise on the passions: wherefore love is reckoned a virtue, rather than joy, which is an effect of love. And when virtue is described as being something ultimate, we mean that it is last, not in the order of effect, but in the order of excess, just as one hundred pounds exceed sixty. Reply Obj. 3. Every accident is inferior to substance if we consider its being, since substance has being in


itself, while an accident has its being in another: but considered as to its species, an accident which results from the principles of its subject is inferior to its subject, even as an effect is inferior to its cause; whereas an accident that results from a participation of some higher nature is superior to its subject, in so far as it is a likeness of that higher nature, even as light is superior to the diaphanous body. In this way charity is superior to the soul, in as much as it is a participation of the Holy Ghost.

Fourth Article. Whether Charity is a Special Virtue? We proceed thus to the Fourth Article:– Objection 1. It would seem that charity is not a special virtue. For Jerome says: Let me briefly define all virtue as the charity whereby we love God [The reference should be to Augustine, Ep. clxvii.]: and Augustine says (De Moribus Eccl. xv) [De Civ. Dei xv, 22.] that virtue is the order of love. Now no special virtue is included in the definition of virtue in general. Therefore charity is not a special virtue. Obj. 2. Further, that which extends to all works of virtue, cannot be a special virtue. But charity extends to all works of virtue, according to I Cor. xiii. 4: Charity is patient, is kind, etc.; indeed it extends to all human actions, according to I Cor. xvi. 14: Let all your things be done in charity. Therefore charity is not a special virtue. Obj. 3. Further, the precepts of the Law refer to acts of virtue. Now Augustine says (De Perfect. Human. Justit. v) that, ‘Thou shalt love’ is a general commandment, and ‘Thou shalt not covet,’ a general prohibition. Therefore charity is a general virtue. On the contrary, Nothing general is enumerated together with what is special. But charity is enumerated together with special virtues, viz. hope and faith, according to I Cor. xiii. 13: And now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three. Therefore charity is a special virtue. I answer that, Acts and habits are specified by their objects, as shown above (I.-II., Q. XVIII., A. 2: Q. LIV., A. 2). Now the proper object of love is the good, as stated above (I.-II., Q. XXVII., A. 1), so that wherever there is a special aspect of good, there is a special kind of love. But the Divine good, inasmuch as it is the ob-

ject of happiness, has a special aspect of good, wherefore the love of charity, which is the love of that good, is a special kind of love. Therefore charity is a special virtue. Reply Obj. 1. Charity is included in the definition of every virtue, not as being essentially every virtue, but because every virtue depends on it in a way, as we shall state further on (AA. 7, 8). In this way prudence is included in the definition of the moral virtues, as explained in Ethic. ii., vi., from the fact that they depend on prudence. Reply Obj. 2. The virtue or art which is concerned about the last end, commands the virtues or arts which are concerned about other ends which are secondary, thus the military art commands the art of horse-riding (Ethic. i.). Accordingly since charity has for its object the last end of human life, viz. everlasting happiness, it follows that it extends to the acts of a man’s whole life, by commanding them, not by eliciting immediately all acts of virtue. Reply Obj. 3. The precept of love is said to be a general command, because all other precepts are reduced thereto as to their end, according to I Tim. i. 5: The end of the commandment is charity.

Fifth Article. Whether Charity is one Virtue? We proceed thus to the Fifth Article:– Objection 1. It would seem that charity is not one virtue. For habits are distinct according to their objects. Now there are two objects of charity,–God and our neighbor, which are infinitely distant from one another. Therefore charity is not one virtue. Obj. 2. Further, different aspects of the object diversify a habit, even though that object be one in reality, as shown above (Q. XVII., A. 6: I.-II., Q. LIV., A. 2 ad 1). Now there are many aspects under which God is an object of love, because we are debtors to His love by reason of each one of His favors. Therefore charity is not one virtue. Obj. 3. Further, charity comprises friendship for our neighbor. But the Philosopher reckons several species of friendship (Ethic. viii. 3, 11, 12). Therefore charity is not one virtue, but is divided into a number of various species. On the contrary, Just as God is the object of faith, so is He the object of charity. Now faith is one virtue by

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reason of the unity of the Divine truth, according to Eph. iv. 5: One faith. Therefore charity also is one virtue by reason of the unity of the Divine goodness. I answer that, Charity, as stated above (A. 1) is a kind of friendship of man for God. Now the different species of friendship are differentiated, first of all, in respect of a diversity of end, and in this way there are three species of friendship, namely friendship for the useful, for the delightful, and for the virtuous; secondly, in respect of the different kinds of communion on which friendships are based; thus there is one species of friendship between kinsmen, and another between fellow citizens or fellow travellers, the former being based on natural communion, the latter on civil communion or on the comradeship of the road, as the Philosopher explains (Ethic. viii. 12). Now charity cannot be differentiated in either of these ways: for its end is one, namely, the goodness of God; and the fellowship of everlasting happiness, on which this friendship is based, is also one. Hence it follows that charity is simply one virtue, and not divided into several species. Reply Obj. 1. This argument would hold, if God and our neighbor were equally objects of charity. But this is not true: for God is the principal object of charity, while our neighbor is loved out of charity for God’s sake. Reply Obj. 2. God is loved by charity for His own sake: wherefore charity regards principally but one aspect of lovableness, namely God’s goodness, which is His substance, according to Ps. cv. 1: Give glory to the Lord for He is good. Other reasons that inspire us with love for Him, or which make it our duty to love Him, are secondary and result from the first. Reply Obj. 3. Human friendship of which the Philosopher treats has various ends and various forms of fellowship. This does not apply to charity, as stated above: wherefore the comparison fails.

Sixth Article. Whether Charity is the Most Excellent of the Virtues? We proceed thus to the Sixth Article:– Objection 1. It would seem that charity is not the most excellent of the virtues. Because the higher power has the higher virtue even as it has a higher operation. Now the intellect is higher than the will, since

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it directs the will. Therefore, faith, which is in the intellect, is more excellent than charity which is in the will. Obj. 2. Further, the thing by which another works seems the less excellent of the two, even as a servant, by whom his master works, is beneath his master. Now faith . . . worketh by charity, according to Gal. v. 6. Therefore faith is more excellent than charity. Obj. 3. Further, that which is by way of addition to another seems to be the more perfect of the two. Now hope seems to be something additional to charity: for the object of charity is good, whereas the object of hope is an arduous good. Therefore hope is more excellent than charity. On the contrary, It is written (1 Cor. xiii. 13): The greater of these is charity. I answer that, Since good, in human acts, depends on their being regulated by the due rule, it must needs be that human virtue, which is a principle of good acts, consists in attaining the rule of human acts. Now the rule of human acts is twofold, as stated above (A. 3), namely, human reason and God: yet God is the first rule, whereby, even human reason must be regulated. Consequently the theological virtues, which consist in attaining this first rule, since their object is God, are more excellent than the moral, or the intellectual virtues, which consist in attaining human reason: and it follows that among the theological virtues themselves, the first place belongs to that which attains God most. Now that which is of itself always ranks before that which is by another. But faith and hope attain God indeed in so far as we derive from Him the knowledge of truth or the acquisition of good, whereas charity attains God Himself that it may rest in Him, but not that something may accrue to us from Him. Hence charity is more excellent than faith or hope, and, consequently, than all the other virtues, just as prudence, which by itself attains reason, is more excellent than the other moral virtues, which attain reason in so far as it appoints the mean in human operations or passions. Reply Obj. 1. The operation of the intellect is completed by the thing understood being in the intellectual subject, so that the excellence of the intellectual operation is assessed according to the measure of the


intellect. On the other hand, the operation of the will and of every appetitive power is completed in the tendency of the appetite towards a thing as its term, wherefore the excellence of the appetitive operation is gauged according to the thing which is the object of the operation. Now those things which are beneath the soul are more excellent in the soul than they are in themselves, because a thing is contained according to the mode of the container (De Causis xii.). On the other hand, things that are above the soul, are more excellent in themselves than they are in the soul. Consequently it is better to know than to love the things that are beneath us; for which reason the Philosopher gave the preference to the intellectual virtues over the moral virtues (Ethic. x. 7, 8): whereas the love of the things that are above us, especially of God, ranks before the knowledge of such things. Therefore charity is more excellent than faith. Reply Obj. 2. Faith works by love, not instrumentally, as a master by his servant, but as by its proper form: hence the argument does not prove. Reply Obj. 3. The same good is the object of charity and of hope: but charity implies union with that good, whereas hope implies distance therefrom. Hence charity does not regard that good as being arduous, as hope does, since what is already united has not the character of arduous: and this shows that charity is more perfect than hope.

Seventh Article. Whether Any True Virtue is Possible Without Charity? We proceed thus to the Seventh Article:– Objection 1: It would seem that there can be true virtue without charity. For it is proper to virtue to produce a good act. Now those who have not charity, do some good actions, as when they clothe the naked, or feed the hungry and so forth. Therefore true virtue is possible without charity. Obj. 2. Further, charity is not possible without faith, since it comes of “an unfeigned faith,” as the Apostle says (1 Tim. i. 5). Now, in unbelievers, there can be true chastity, if they curb their concupiscences, and true justice, if they judge rightly. Therefore true virtue is possible without charity. Obj. 3. Further, science and art are virtues, according to Ethic. vi. But they are to be found in sinners

who lack charity. Therefore true virtue can be without charity. On the contrary, The Apostle says (1 Cor. xiii. 3): If I should distribute all my goods to the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. And yet true virtue is very profitable, according to Wis. viii. 7: She teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in life. Therefore no true virtue is possible without charity. I answer that, Virtue is ordered to the good, as stated above (I.-II., Q. LV., A. 4). Now the good is chiefly an end, for things directed to the end are not said to be good except in relation to the end. Accordingly, just as the end is twofold, the last end, and the proximate end, so also, is good twofold, one, the ultimate and universal good, the other proximate and particular. The ultimate and principal good of man is the enjoyment of God, according to Ps. lxxii. 28: It is good for me to adhere to God, and to this good man is ordered by charity. Man’s secondary and, as it were, particular good may be twofold: one is truly good, because, considered in itself, it can be directed to the principal good, which is the last end; while the other is good apparently and not truly, because it leads us away from the final good. Accordingly it is evident that simply true virtue is that which is directed to man’s principal good; thus also the Philosopher says (Phys. vii., text. 17) that virtue is the disposition of a perfect thing to that which is best: and in this way no true virtue is possible without charity. If, however, we take virtue as being ordered to some particular end, then we speak of virtue being where there is no charity, in so far as it is directed to some particular good. But if this particular good is not a true, but an apparent good, it is not a true virtue that is ordered to such a good, but a counterfeit virtue. Even so, as Augustine says (Contra Julian. iv. 3), the prudence of the miser, whereby he devises various roads to gain, is no true virtue; nor the miser’s justice, whereby he scorns the property of another through fear of severe punishment; nor the miser’s temperance, whereby he curbs his desire for expensive pleasures; nor the miser’s fortitude, whereby as Horace, says, ‘he braves the sea, he crosses mountains, he goes through fire, in order to avoid poverty’

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(Epist. lib. i., Ep. i. 45). If, on the other hand, this particular good be a true good, for instance the welfare of the state, or the like, it will indeed be a true virtue, imperfect, however, unless it be referred to the final and perfect good. Accordingly no strictly true virtue is possible without charity. Reply Obj. 1. The act of one lacking charity may be of two kinds; one is in accordance with his lack of charity, as when he does something that is referred to that whereby he lacks charity. Such an act is always evil: thus Augustine says (Contra Julian. iv. 3) that the actions which an unbeliever performs as an unbeliever, are always sinful, even when he clothes the naked, or does any like thing, and directs it to his unbelief as end. There is, however, another act of one lacking charity, not in accordance with his lack of charity, but in accordance with his possession of some other gift of God, whether faith, or hope, or even his natural good, which is not completely taken away by sin, as stated above (Q. X., A. 4: I.-II., Q. LXXXV., A. 2). In this way it is possible for an act, without charity, to be generically good, but not perfectly good, because it lacks its due order to the last end. Reply Obj. 2. Since the end is in practical matters, what the principle is in speculative matters, just as there can be no strictly true science, if a right estimate of the first indemonstrable principle be lacking, so, there can be no strictly true justice, or chastity, without that due ordering to the end, which is effected by charity, however rightly a man may be affected about other matters. Reply Obj. 3. Science and art of their very nature imply a relation to some particular good, and not to the ultimate good of human life, as do the moral virtues, which make man good simply, as stated above (I.-II., Q. LVI., A. 3). Hence the comparison fails.

Eighth Article. Whether Charity is the Form of the Virtues? We proceed thus to the Eighth Article:– Objection 1: It would seem that charity is not the true form of the virtues. Because the form of a thing is either exemplar or essential. Now charity is not the exemplar form of the other virtues, since it would fol-

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low that the other virtues are of the same species as charity: nor is it the essential form of the other virtues, since then it would not be distinct from them. Therefore it is in no way the form of the virtues. Obj. 2. Further, charity is compared to the other virtues as their root and foundation, according to Eph. iii. 17: Rooted and founded in charity. Now a root or foundation is not the form, but rather the matter of a thing, since it is the first part in the making. Therefore charity is not the form of the virtues. Obj. 3. Further, formal, final, and efficient causes do not coincide with one another (Phys. ii. 7). Now charity is called the end and the mother of the virtues. Therefore it should not be called their form. On the contrary, Ambrose [Lombard, Seut. iii. D, 23.] says that charity is the form of the virtues. I answer that, In morals the form of an act is taken chiefly from the end. The reason of this is that the principal of moral acts is the will, whose object and form, so to speak, are the end. Now the form of an act always follows from a form of the agent. Consequently, in morals, that which gives an act its order to the end, must needs give the act its form. Now it is evident, in accordance with what has been said (A. 7), that it is charity which directs the acts of all other virtues to the last end, and which, consequently, also gives the form to all other acts of virtue: and it is precisely in this sense that charity is called the form of the virtues, for these are called virtues in relation to ‘informed’ acts. Reply Obj. 1. Charity is called the form of the other virtues not as being their exemplar or their essential form, but rather by way of efficient cause, in so far as it sets the form on all, in the aforesaid manner. Reply Obj. 2. Charity is compared to the foundation or root in so far as all other virtues draw their sustenance and nourishment therefrom, and not in the sense that the foundation and root have the character of a material cause. Reply Obj. 3. Charity is said to be the end of other virtues, because it directs all other virtues to its own end. And since a mother is one who conceives within herself and by another, charity is called the mother of the other virtues, because, by commanding them, it conceives the acts of the other virtues, by the desire of the last end.

The Elizabethan Poor Laws

Reference: Aquinas, St. Thomas. 1916. The “Summa Theologica,” Second Part of the Second Part. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne.

The Elizabethan Poor Laws (1601) The Elizabethan Poor Laws and the Statute of Charitable Uses were accepted by Queen Elizabeth and put into place the key elements of the new relationship between church and state. These laws not only defined the association between the state and charitable organizations in early America, but also paved the way for modern regulations on charity. Be it enacted by the authority of this present Parliament, that the churchwardens of every parish, and four, three or two substantial householders there, as shall be thought meet, having respect to the proportion and greatness of the same parish and parishes, to be nominated yearly in Easter week, or within one month after Easter, under the hand and sea of two or more justices of the peace in the same county, whereof one to be of the Quorum, dwelling in or near the same parish or division where the same parish cloth lie, shall be called overseers of the poor of the same parish: And they, or the greater part of them, shall take order from time to time, by, and with the consent of two or more such justices of peace as it aforesaid, for setting to work the children of all such whose parents shall not by the said churchwardens and overseers, or the greater part of them, be thought able to keep and maintain their children: And also for setting to work all such persons, married or unmarried, having no means to maintain them, and use no ordinary and daily trade of lift to get their living by: And also to raise weekly or otherwise (by taxation of every inhabitant, parson, vicar and other, and of every occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, propriations of tithes, coal-mines, of saleable underwoods in the said parish, in such competent sum and sum of money as they shall think fit) a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool thread, iron, and other necessary ware and stuff, to set the poor or work: And also competent sums of money for and towards the necessary relief of

the lame, impotent, old, blind, and such other among them being poor, and not able to work and also for the putting out of such children to be apprentices, to be gathered out of the same parish, according to the ability of the same parish, and to do and execute all other things as well for the disposing of the said stock, as otherwise concerning the premisses, as to them shall seem convenient. II. Which said churchwardens and overseers to be nominated, or such of them as shall not be let by sickness or other just excuse, to be allowed by two such justices of peace or more as is aforesaid, shall meet together at the least once every month in the church of the said parish upon the Sunday in the afternoon, after divine service, there to consider of some good course to be taken, and of some meet order to be set down in the premises; (2) and shall within four days after the end of their year, and after other overseers nominated as aforesaid, make and yield up to such two justices of peace, as is aforesaid, a true and perfect account of all sums of money by them received, or rated and assessed, and not received, and also of such stock as shall be in their hands, or in the hands of any of the poor to work, and of all other things concerning their said office, (3) and such sum or sums of money as shall be in their hands, shall pay and deliver over to the said churchwardens and overseers newly nominated and appointed as aforesaid; (4) upon pain that every one of them absenting themselves without lawful cause as aforesaid, from such monthly meeting for the purpose aforesaid, or being negligent in their office, or in the execution of the orders aforesaid, being made by and with the assent of the said justices of peace, or any two of them before-mentioned, to forefeit for every such default of absence or negligence twenty shillings. III. And be it also enacted, that if the said justices of peace do perceive, that the inhabitants of any parish are not able to levy among themselves sufficient sums of money for the purposes aforesaid; that then the said two justices shall and may tax, rate and assess, as aforesaid; any other of other parishes, or out of any parish, within the hundred where the said parish is, to pay such sum and sums of money to the churchwardens and overseers of the said poor parish, for the said purposes, as the said justices shall think fit, according

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to the intent of this law: (2) And it the said hundred shall not be thought to the said justices able and fit to relieve the said several parishes not able to provide for themselves as aforesaid; then the justices of peace, at their general quarter-sessions, or the greater number of them, shall rate, and assess as aforesaid, any other of other parishes, or out of any parish within the said County, for the purposes aforesaid, as in their discretion shall seem fit. IV. And that it shall be lawful, as well for the present as subsequent churchwardens and overseers, or any, of them, by warrant from any two such justices of peace as is aforesaid, to levy as well the said sums of money and all arrearages, of every one that shall refuse to contribute according as they shall be assessed, by distress and sale of the offenders goods, as the sums of money or stock which shall be behind upon any account to be made as aforesaid, rendering to the parties the overplus, (2) And in defect of such distress, it shall be lawful for any such two justices of the peace, to commit him or them to the common goal of the county, there to remain without bail or mainprize, until payment of the said sum, arrearages and stock: (3) And the said justices of peace or any one of them, to send to the house of correction or common goal, such as shall not employ themselves to work, being appointed thereunto as aforesaid: (4) And also any such two justices of peace to commit to the said prison every one of the said churchwardens and overseers, which shall refuse to account, there to remain without bail or mainprize, until he have made a true account, and satisfied and paid so much as upon the said account shall be remaining in his hands. V. And be it further enacted, that it shall be lawful for the said churchwardens and overseers, or the greater part of them, by the assent of any two justices of the peace aforesaid, to bind any such children, as aforesaid to be apprentices, where they shall see convenient, till such man-child shall come to the age of four and twenty years, and such woman-child to the age of one and twenty years, or the time of her marriage; the same to be as effectual to all purposes as if such child were of full age, and by indenture of covenant bound him or herself. (2) And to the intent that necessary places of habitation may more conveniently be provided for such poor impotent people; (3)

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Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that it shall and may be lawful for the said churchwardens and overseers, or the greater part of them, by the leave of the lord or lords of the manor, whereof any waste or common within their parish is or shall be parcel, and upon agreement before with him or them made in writing, under the hands and seals of the said lord or lords, or otherwise, according to any order to be set down by the justices of peace of the said county at their general quarter sessions, or the greater part of them, by like leave and agreement of the said lord or lords in writing under his or their hands and seals, to erect, build, and set up in fit and convenient places of habitation, in such waste or common, at the general charges of the parish, or otherwise of the hundred or county, as aforesaid, to be taxed, rated and gathered in manner before expressed, convenient houses of dwelling for the said impotent poor; (4) And also to place inmates, or more families than one in one cottage or house; one act made in the one and thirtieth year of her majesty’s reign, intitled, An Act against the erecting and maintaining of Cottages, or any thing therein contained, to the contrary not withstanding: (5) Which cottages and places for inmates shall not at anytime after be used or employed to or for any other habitation, but only for impotent and poor of the same parish, that shall be there placed from time to time by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the same parish, or the most part of them, upon the pains and forfeitures contained in the said former act made in the said one and thirtieth year of her majesty’s reign. VI. Provided always, that if any person or persons shall find themselves grieved with any sess or tax, or other act done by the said churchwardens, and other persons, or by the said justices of peace; that then it shall be lawful for the justices of peace at their general quarter sessions, or the greater number of them, to take such order therein as to them shall be thought convenient; and the same to conclude and bind all the said parties. VII. And be it further enacted, that the father and grandfather, and the mother and grandmother, and the children of every poor, old, blind, lame, and impotent person or other poor person not able to work, being of sufficient ability, shall, at their own charges, relieve and maintain every such person in that man-

Queen and Parliament of Great Britain the Statute of Charitable Uses an Act

ner, and according to that rate, as by the justices of peace of that county where such sufficient persons dwell, or the greater number of them, at their general quarter sessions shall be assessed; (2) upon pain that every one of them shall forfeit twenty shillings for every month, which they shall fail therein.

Queen and Parliament of Great Britain the Statute of Charitable Uses an Act to Redress the Misemployment of Lands, Goods, Stocks, and Money Heretofore Given to Charitable Uses (1601) Whereas lands, tenements, rents, annuities, profits, inheritances, goods, chattels, money, and stocks of money have been heretofore given limited appointed and assigned, as well by the Queen’s most excellent majesty and her most noble progenitors, as by sundry other well disposed persons. Some for relief of aged, impotent, and poor people, some for maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers and marines, schools of learning, free schools, and scholars in universities, some for repair of bridges, ports, havens, causeways, churches, seabanks, and highways, some for education and preferment of orphans, some for or towards relief stock or maintenance for houses of correction, some for marriages of poor maids, some for support, aid and help of young tradesmen, handicraftsmen, and persons decayed, and others for relief or redemption of prisoners or captives, and for aid or ease of any poor inhabitant concerning payment of Fifteens [a tax], setting out of soldiers and other taxes. Which land, tenements, rents, annuities, profits, inheritances, goods, chattels, money, and stocks of money nevertheless have not been employed according to the charitable intents of the givers and founders thereof, by reason of fraudulant breeches of trust and negligence in those that should pay, deliver, and employ the same. For redress and remedies whereof, be it enacted by authority of this present Parliament, that it shall and

may be lawful to and for the Lord Chancellor or keeper of the great seal of England for the time being, and for the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for the time being for lands within the county Palantine of Lancaster, from time to time to award commissions under the great seal of England, or the seal of the county, Palatine, as this case shall require, into all or any part or parts of this realm respectively, according to their several jurisdictions as aforeside, to the Bishop of every several Diocesse and his Chancellor, in case there shall be any bishop of that Diocesse at the time of awarding of the same commissions, and to other persons of good and sound behavior. Authorizes them thereby, or any fewer or more of them, to inquire, as well by the oathes of twelve lawful men or more of the counts as by all other good and lawful ways and means, of all and singular such gifts, limitations, assignments, and appointments aforeside, and of the abuses, breaches of trust, negligences, misemployments, not employing concealing, defrauding, misconverting, or misgovernments, of any land, tenements, rents, annuities, profits, inheritances, goods, chattels, money, stocks of money heretofore given limited appointed or assigned, to or for any the charitable and godly uses before rehearsed. And after the said commissioners or any fewer or more of them, upon calling the parties interested in any such lands, tenement, rents, annuities, profits, goods, chattels, money, and stocks of money, shall make inquiry by the oaths of twelve men or more of the said county, whereunto the said parties interested shall and may have and take their lawful challenge and challenges. And upon such inquiry hearing and exchanges thereof set down such orders, judgements, and decrees, as the said lands, tenements, rents, annuities, profits, goods, chattels, money, and stocks of money may be duly and faithfully employed, to and for such of the charitable uses and intents before rehearsed respectively, for which they were given limited assigned or appointed by the donors and founders thereof. Which orders, judgements, and decrees, not being contrary or repugnant to the orders, statutes, or decrees of the donors or founders, shall by the authority of this present Parliament stand firm and good according to the tenor and purport thereof, and shall be

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executed accordingly, until the same shall be undone or altered by the Lord Chancellor of England or lord keeper of the great seal of England, or the Chancellor of the county, Palatine of Lancaster, respectively within their several jurisdictions, upon complaint by any party grieved, to be made to them. Provided always, that neither this act, nor any thing therein contained, shall in any way extend to any land, tenements, rents, annuities, profits, goods, chattels, money, or stocks of money, given, limited, appointed, or assigned, or which shall be given, limited, appointed, or assigned, to any college hall or house of learning within the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, or to the College of Westminster, Eton, or Winchester, or any of them, or any cathedral collegiate church within this realm. And provided also, that neither this act nor anything therein shall extend to any city or town corporate, or to any of the land or tenements given to the uses aforesaid within any such city or town corporate, where there is a special governor or governors, appointed to govern or direct such land, tenements, or things disposed to any the uses aforesaid; neither to any college hospital or free school which special visitors or governors or overseer appointed them by their founders. Provided also and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that neither this act nor anything therein contained shall be anyway prejudicial or hurtful to the jurisdiction or power of the ordinary; but that may be lawful in every cause, execute, and perform the same as though this act had never been made.

A Modell of Christian Charity (1630) John Winthrop Having led Puritan settlers to the new world, Winthrop preached this famous sermon while en route to America. His words set forth a “covenant” of the proper relationship between the poor and the rich. Importantly, the covenant was based on brotherly love, not an obligation for the rich to take care of the poor. . . . First, to hold conformity with the rest of His works, being delighted to show forth the glory of His

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wisdom in the variety and difference of the creatures and the glory of His power, in ordering all these differences for the preservation and good of the whole, and the glory of His greatness: that as it is the glory of princes to have many officers, so this great King will have many stewards, counting Himself more honored in dispensing His gifts to man by man than if He did it by His own immediate hand. Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of His spirit: first, upon the wicked in moderating and restraining them, so that the rich and mighty should not eat up the poor, nor the poor and despised rise up against their superiors and shake off their yoke; secondly, in the regenerate, in exercising His graces in them—as in the great ones, their love, mercy, gentleness, temperance, etc., in the poor and inferior sort, their faith, patience, obedience, etc. Thirdly, that every man might have need of other, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bond of brotherly affection. From hence it appears plainly that no man is made more honorable than another or more wealthy, etc., out of any particular and singular respect to himself, but for the glory of his creator and the common good of the creature man. Therefore God still reserves the property of these gifts to Himself. . . . He claims their service as His due: “Honor the Lord with thy riches.” All men being thus (by divine providence) ranked into two sorts, rich and poor, under the first are comprehended all such as are able to live comfortably by their own means duly improved, and all others are poor. . . . There are two rules whereby we are to walk, one towards another: justice and mercy . . . . there may be an occasion of showing mercy to a rich man in some sudden danger of distress, and also doing of mere justice to a poor man in regard to some particular contract. There is likewise a double law by which we are regulated in our conversation, one towards another: . . . the law of nature and the law of grace, or the moral law or the law of the Gospel. . . . By the first of these laws [the moral law], man, as he was enabled so, [is] commanded to love his neighbor as himself; upon this ground stand all the precepts of the moral law, which concerns our dealings with

A Modell of Christian Charity

men. To apply this to the works of mercy, this law requires two things: first, that every man afford his help to another in every want or distress; secondly, that he perform this out of the same affection which makes him careful of his own good according to that of our savior . . . . The law of the Gospel propounds likewise a difference of seasons and occasions. There is a time when a Christian must sell all and give to the poor as they did in the Apostles’ times; there is a time also when a Christian, though they give not all yet, must give beyond their ability, as they of Macedonia. Likewise, community of perils calls for extraordinary liberality, and so does community in some special service for the church. Lastly, when there is no other means whereby our Christian brother may be relieved in this distress, we must help him beyond our ability, rather than tempt God in putting him upon help by miraculous or extraordinary means. This duty of mercy is exercised in the kinds, Giving, Lending, and Forgiving. Question: What rule shall a man observe in giving in respect of the measure? Answer: If the time and occasion be extraordinary he is to give out of his abundance—let him lay aside, as God has blessed him. If the time and occasion be extraordinary he must be ruled by them; taking this with all that then a man cannot likely do too much especially, if he may leave himself and his family under probable means of comfortable subsistance. Objection: A man must lay up for posterity, the fathers lay up for posterity and children, and he is worse than an infidel that provide not for his own. Answer: For the first, it is plain, that it being spoken by way of comparison it must be meant of the ordinary and usual course of fathers and cannot extend to times and occasions extraordinary; for . . . it is without question, that he is worse then an infidel who through his own sloth and voluptuousness shall neglect to provide for his family. Objection: The wise men’s eyes are in his head saith Salomon, and foresee the plague, therefore we must forecast and lay up against evil times when he or his may stand in need of all he can gather. Answer: This very argument Salomon uses to persuade to liberality. Ecclesiastes: “cast thy bread upon

the waters etc.: for you knowest not what evil may come upon the land.” Luke 16: “make you friends of the riches of iniquity.” You will ask how this shall be? Very well. For first he that gives to the poor lends to the lord, and he will repay him even in this life an life an hundred fold to him or his. The righteous is ever merciful and lends, and his seed enjoy the blessing. And besides we know what advantage it will be to us in the day of account, when many such witnesses shall stand forth for us to witness the improvement of our talent. And I would know of those who plead so much for laying up for time to come, whether they hold that to be Gospel— Matthew: 16.19. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth etc.” If they acknowledge it to what extent will they allow it? If only to those primitive times, let them consider the reason whereupon our Savior’s grounds it. The first is that they are subject to the moths, the rust, the thief. Secondly, they will steal away the heart, where the treasure is there will the heart be also. . . . Question: What rule must we observe in lending? Answer: You must observe whether your brother has present or probable, or possible means of repaying them, if there be none of these, you must give him according to his necessity, rather than lend him as he requires; if he has present means of repaying you, you are to look at him, not as an Act of mercy, but by way of Commerce, wherein you are to walk by the rule of Justice, but if his means of repaying you be only probable or possible then is he an object of your mercy you must lend him, though there be danger of losing it. . . . Question: What rule must we observe in forgiving? Answer: Whether you did lend by way of Commerce or in mercy. If he have nothing to pay you must forgive him (except in cause where you have a surety or a lawfull pleadge). Every seventh year the Creditor was to quit that he lent to his brother if he were poor. . . . in all these and like cases Christ was a general rule, Matthew 7:22: “Whatsoever you would that men should do to you do you the same to them also.”

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Question: What rule must we observe and walk by in cause of community of peril? Answer: The same as before, but with more enlargement towards others and less respect towards ourselves, and our own right. Hence it was that in the primitive Church they sold all, had all things in Common, neither did any man say that that which he possessed was his own. The definition which the Scripture gives us of love is that Love is the bond of perfection. First, it is a bond, or ligament. Secondly, it makes the work perfect. There is no body but consists of parts and that which knits these parts together gives the body its perfection, because it makes each part so contiguous to others as thereby they do mutually participate with each other, both in strength and infirmity in pleasure and pain, to instance in the most perfect of all bodies, Christ and his church make one body. So this definition is right: Love is the bond of perfection . . .. If any shall object that it is not possible that love should be bred or upheld without hope of requital, it is granted but that is not our cause, for this love is always under reward: it never gives, but it always receives with advantage. Firstly, . . . among the members of the same body, love and affection are reciprocal in a most equal and sweet kind of commerce. Secondly, in regard of the pleasure and content that the exercise of love carries with it, as we may see: in the natural body the mouth is at the pains to receive and mince the food which serves for the nourishment of all the other parts of the body, yet it has no cause to complain; for, First, the other parts send back by secret passages a due proportion of the same nourishment in a better form for the strengthening and comforting the mouth; Secondly, the labor of the mouth is accompanied with such pleasure and content as far exceeds the pains it takes: so is it in all the labor of love, among Christians, the party loving, reaps love again as was shewed before, which the soul covets more than all the wealth in the world. Thirdly, nothing yields more pleasure and content to the soul then when it finds that which it may love fervently, for to love and live beloved is the soul’s paradise, both here and in heaven: In the State of Wedlock there be many comforts to bear out the troubles

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of that Condition; but let such as have tried the most, say if there be any sweetness in that Condition comparable to the exercise of mutual love. From the former Considerations arises these Conclusions. 1. First, this love among Christians is a real thing not imaginary. 2. This love is as absolutely necessary to the being of the body of Christ, as the sinewes and other ligaments of a natural body are to the being of the body. 3. This love is a divine spiritual nature, free, active, strong, couragious, permanent, under valuing all things beneath its proper object, and of all the graces that makes us nearer to resemble the virtues of our heavenly father. 4. It rests in the love and welfare of its beloved, for the full and certain knowledge of these truths concerning the nature, use, and excellency of this grace, that which the holy ghost has left recorded may give full satisfaction which is needful for every true member of this lovely body of the Lord Jesus, to work upon their hearts, by prayer, meditation, continual exercise at least of the special power of this grace, till Christ be formed in them and they in him all in each other knit together by this bond of love. It rests now to make some application of this discourse by the present design which gave the occasion of writing of it. Herein are four things to be propounded: first the persons, secondly, the work, thirdly, the end, fourthly the means. 1. For the persons, we are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ, in which respect only, though we were absent from each other many miles, and had our employments as far distant, yet we ought to account ourselves knit together by this bond of love, and live in the exercise of it, if we would have comfort of our being in Christ.

A Modell of Christian Charity

2. For the work we have in hands, it is by mutual consent, through a special overruling providence and a more than an ordinary approbation of the churches of Christ, to seek out a place of cohabitation and consortship, under a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical. In such cases as this, the care of the public must oversway all private respects by which not only conscience but mere civil policy does bind us; for it is a true rule that particular estates cannot subsist in the ruin of the public. 3. The end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord, the comfort and increase of the body of Christ whereof we are members, that ourselves and posterity may be the better preserved from the common corruptions of this evil world, to serve the Lord and work out our salvation under the power and purity of His holy ordinances. 4. For the means whereby this must be effected, they are twofold: Conformity with the work and end we aim at, these we see are extraordinary, therefore we must not content ourselves with usual, ordinary means: whatsoever we did or ought to have done when we lived in England, the same must we do and more all so where we go . . . we must love one another with a pure heart; fervently we must bear one anothers burthens, we must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren, Neither must we think that the lord will bear with such failings at our hands as he does from those among whom we have lived, and that for three Reasons. i. In regard of the more near bond of marriage, between him and us, wherein he has taken us to be his after a most strict and peculiar manner which will make him the more jealous of our love and obedience so he tells the people of Israel, you only have I know of all the

families of the earth therefore will I punish you for your transgressions. ii. Because the lord will be sanctified in them that come near him. We know that there were many that corrupted the service of the Lord, some setting up altars before his own, others offering both strange fire and strange sacrifices also; yet there came no fire from heaven, or other sudden Judgement upon them as did upon Nadab and Abihu who yet we may think did not sin presumptuously. iii. When God gives a special Commission he looks to have it strictly observed in every Article, when he gave Saul a Commission to destroy Amaleck he failed in one of the least, and that upon a fair pretence, it lost him the kingdom, which should have been his reward, if he had observed his Commission. Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into covenant with Him for this work; we have taken out a commission, the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to enterprise these actions upon these and these ends; we have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this convenant and sealed our Commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it. But if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, be revenged of such a perjured people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a convenant. Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity is to follow the counsel of Micah: to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man. We must entertain each

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other in brotherly affection; we must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities; we must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together: always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body . . . . Therefore let us choose life, that we, and our seed, may live; by obeying his voice, and cleaving to him, or he is our life, and our prosperity. Written On Boarde the Arrabella, On the Atlantic Ocean. By the Honorable JOHN Winthrop Esquire. In his passage, (with the great Company of Religious people, of which Christian Tribes he was the Brave Leader and famous Governor;) from the Island of Great Brittaine, to New England in the North America. Anno 1630.

New England’s First Fruits (1643) The first systematic fund-raising appeal to raise money for an American institution was probably that for Harvard College. In 1641, the Massachusetts Bay Colony sent three clergy to England to solicit money so they could educate the “heathen Indian” among other things. Fund-raisers Well and Peter requested the best selling points and the New England’s First Fruits was the result.

The History of the Founding of Harvard College AFTER GOD HAD carried us safe to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and led the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this

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great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, there living among us) to give the one-half of his estate (it being in all about £700) toward the founding of a college, and all his library. After him, another gave £300; others after them cast in more; and the public hand of the state added the rest. The college was, by common consent, appointed to be at Cambridge (a place very pleasant and accommodate) and is called (according to the name of the first founder) Harvard College. The edifice is very fair and comely within and without, having in it a spacious hall where they daily meet at commons, lectures, and exercises; and a large library with some books to it, the gifts of diverse of our friends, their chambers and studies also fitted for and possessed by the students, and all other rooms of office necessary and convenient with all needful offices thereto belonging. And by the side of the college, a fair grammar school, for the training up of young scholars and fitting of them for academical learning, that still as they are judged ripe they may be received into the college of this school. Master Corlet is the master who has very well approved himself for his abilities, dexterity, and painfulness in teaching and education of the youths under him. Over the college is Master Dunster placed as president, a learned, a conscionable, and industrious man, who has so trained up his pupils in the tongues and arts, and so seasoned them with the principles of divinity and Christianity, that we have to our great comfort (and in truth) beyond our hopes, beheld their progress in learning and godliness also. The former of these has appeared in their public declamations in Latin and Greek, and disputations logic and philosophy which they have been wonted (besides their ordinary exercises in the college hall) in the audience of the magistrates, ministers, and other scholars for the probation of their growth in learning, upon set days, constantly once every month to make and uphold. The latter has been manifested in sundry of them by the savory things of their spirits in their godly versation; insomuch that we are confident, if these early blossoms may be cherished and warmed with the influence of the friends of learning and lovers of this pious work,

A Minute against Slavery Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting

they will, by the help of God, come to happy maturity in a short time. Over the college are twelve overseers chosen by the General Court, six of them are of the magistrates, the other six of the ministers, who are to promote the best good of it and (having a power of influence into all persons in it) are to see that everyone be diligent and proficient in his proper place. Reference: Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 1792. 1: 242–248.

A Minute against Slavery Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting (1688) The Mennonite faith dates back to 1520s; among its most important beliefs is the baptism of its members as adults. Firm Mennonite pacifism fuels a strong desire to separate church and state. Social issues such as slavery, however, drove the early church to unite in protest. The earliest known remonstration against slavery in colonial America was that of the Germantown Mennonites dated February 18, 1688. This is to ye Monthly Meeting held at Richard Worrell’s. These are the reasons why we are against the traffick of men-body, as foloweth. Is there any that would be done or handled at this manner? viz., to be sold or made a slave for all the time of his life? How fearful and faint-hearted are many on sea, when they see a strange vessel,—being afraid it should be a Turk, and they should be taken, and sold for slaves into Turkey. Now what is this better done, as Turks doe? Yea, rather it is worse for them, which say they are Christians; for we hear that ye most part of such negers are brought hither against their will and consent, and that many of them are stolen. Now, tho they are black, we can not conceive there is more liberty to have them slaves, as it is to have other white ones. There is a saying that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they are. And those who steal or robb men, and those who buy or purchase them, are

they not all alike? Here is liberty of conscience wch is right and reasonable; here ought to be liberty of ye body, except of evil-doers, wch is an other case. But to bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against. In Europe there are many oppressed for conscience sake; and here there are those oppressed whare of a black colour. And we who know than men must not comitt adultery,—some do committ adultery, in separating wives from their husbands and giving them to others; and some sell the children of these poor creatures to other men. Ah! doe consider will this thing, you who doe it, if you would be done at this manner? And if it is done according to Christianity? You surpass Holland and Germany in this thing. This makes an ill report in all those countries of Europe, where they hear of, that ye Quakers doe here handel men as they handel there ye cattle. And for that reason some have no mind or inclination to come hither. And who shall maintain this your cause, or pleid for it. Truly we can not do so, except you shall inform us better hereof, viz., that Christians have liberty to practise these things. Pray, what thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries; separating husbands from their wives and children. Being now that this is not done in the manner we would be done at therefore we contradict and are against this traffic of men-body. And we who profess that it is not lawful to steal, must, likewise, avoid to purchase such things as are stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing if possible. And such men ought to be delivered out of ye hands of ye robbers, and set free as well as in Europe. Then is Pennsylvania to have a good report, instead it hath now a bad one for this sake in other countries. Especially whereas ye Europeans are desirous to know in what manner ye Quakers doe rule in their province;—and most of them doe look upon us with an envious eye. But if this is done well, what shall we say is done evil? If once these slaves (wch they say are so wicked and stubbern men) should join themselves,—fight for their freedom,—and handel their masters and mastrisses as they did handel them before; will these masters and mastrisses take the sword at hand and warr against these poor slaves, licke, we are able to believe,

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some will not refuse to doe; or have these negers not as much right to fight for their freedom, as you have to keep them slaves? Now consider will this thing, if it is good or bad? And in case you find it to be good to handle these blacks at that manner, we desire and require you hereby lovingly, that you may inform us herein, which at this time never was done, viz., that Christians have such a liberty to do so. To the end we shall be be satisfied in this point, and satisfie likewise our good friends and acquaintances in our natif country, to whose it is a terror, or fairful thing, that men should be handeld so in Pennsylvania. This is from our meeting at Germantown, held ye 18 of the 2 month, 1688, to be delivered to the Monthly Meeting at Richard Worrell’s. Garret henderich derick up de graeff Francis daniell Pastorius Abraham up Den graef. Monthly Meeting Response: At our Monthly Meeting at Dublin, ye 30—2 mo., 1688, we have inspected ye matter, above mentioned, and considered of it, we find it so weighty that we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here, but do rather commit it to ye consideration of ye Quarterly Meeting; ye tenor of it being nearly related to ye Truth. On behalf of ye Monthly Meeting, Signed, P. Jo. Hart. Quarterly Meeting Response: This, above mentioned, was read in our Quarterly Meeting at Philadelphia, the 4 of ye 4th mo. ‘88, and was from thence recommended to the Yearly Meeting, and the above said Derick, and the other two mentioned therein, to present the same to ye above said meeting, it being a thing of too great a weight for this meeting to determine. Signed by order of ye meeting, Anthony Morris. Yearly Meeting Response: At a Yearly Meeting held at Burlington the 5th day of the 7th month, 1688. A Paper being here presented by some German Friends Concerning the Lawfulness and Unlawfulness of Buying and keeping Negroes, It was adjusted not to be so proper for this Meeting to give a Positive

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Judgment in the case, It having so General a Relation to many other Parts, and therefore at present they forbear It. Reference: Hartzler, J. S., and Kauffman, Daniel, eds. 1905. Mennonite Church History. Scottsdale, PA: Mennonite Book and Tract Society. Walton, Joseph, ed.1897. Incidentes Illustrating the Doctrines and History of the Society of Friends. Philadelphia: Friends’ Book Store.

Bonifacius, or Essays to Do Good Cotton Mather Bonifacius, or more commonly known as Essays to Do Good, sold the most copies of any book in colonial America for nearly a century. Author Cotton Mather was the son of a president of Harvard and a founder of Yale. He was the most prolific and learned writer of early America. His book of essays from 1710, excerpted here, influenced the development of a “caring community.” As historians have noted, his writing can be seen as among the most important founding documents for American nonprofit organizations. Neighbors! You stand related unto one another. And you should be full of devices that all the neighbors may have cause to be glad of your being in the neighborhood. We read: “The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor.” But we shall scarce own him so, except he be more excellent as a neighbor. He must excel in the duties of good neighborhood. Let that man be better than his neighbor who labors to be a better neighbor, to do most good unto his neighbor. And here first: the poor people that lie wounded must have wine and oil poured into their wounds. It was a charming stroke in the character which a modern prince had given to him: “To be in distress is to deserve his favor.” O good neighbor, put on that princely, that more than royal quality! See who in the neighborhood may deserve thy favor. We are told: “This is pure religion and undefiled” (a jewel that neither is counterfeit nor has any flaws in it), “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.” The orphans and widows, and so all the children of affliction in the

Bonifacius, or Essays to Do Good

neighborhood, must be visited and relieved with all agreeable kindness. Neighbors be concerned that the orphans and widows in your neighborhood may be well provided for. They meet with grievous difficulties, with unknown temptations. While their next relatives were yet living, they were, perhaps, but meanly provided for. What must they now be in their more solitary condition? Their condition should be considered, and the result of the consideration should be: “I delivered the orphan that had no helper, and I caused the heart of the widow to sing for joy.” By consequence, all the afflicted in the neighborhood are to be thought upon. Sits, would it be too much for you at least once in a week to think: “What neighbor is reduced into a pinching and painful poverty? Or in any degree impoverished with heavy losses?” Think: “What neighbor is languishing with sickness, especially if sick with sore maladies and of some continuance?” Think: “What neighbor is heartbroken with sad bereavements, bereaved of desirable relatives?” And think: “What neighbor has a soul buffeted and hurried with violent assaults of the wicked one?” But then think: “What shall be done for such neighbors?” First: you will pity them. . . . But this is not all. ‘Tis possible, ‘tis probable, you may do well to visit them: and when you visit them, comfort them. Carry them some good word which may raise a gladness in an heart stooping with heaviness. And lastly: give them all the assistances that may answer their occasions. Assist them with advice to them, assist them with address to others for them. And if it be needful, bestow your alms upon them: “Deal thy bread to the hungry; bring to thy house the poor that are cast out, when thou seest the naked, cover him.” At least Nazianzen’s charity, I pray: . . . If you have nothing else to bestow upon the miserable, bestow a tear or two upon their miseries.” This little is better than nothing . . . . In moving for the devices of good neighborhood, a principal motion which I have to make is that you consult the spiritual interests of your neighborhood as well as the temporal. Be concerned lest the deceitfulness of sin undo any of the neighbors. If there be any idle persons among them, I beseech you, cure them of

their idleness. Don’t nourish ’em and harden ’em in that, but find employment for them. Find ’em work; set ’em to work; keep ’em to work. Then, as much of your other bounty to them as you please. If any children in the neighborhood are under no education don’t allow ’em to continue so. Let care be taken that they may be better educated, and be taught to read, and be taught their catechism and the truths and ways of their only savior. Once more: if any in the neighborhood are taking to bad courses, lovingly and faithfully admonish them. If any in the neighborhood are enemies to their own welfare or families, prudently dispense your admonitions unto them. If there are any prayerless families, never leave off entreating and exhorting of them till you have persuaded them to set up the worship of God. If there be any service of God or of His people to which anyone may need to be excited, give him a tender excitation. Whatever snare you see anyone in, be so kind as to tell him of his danger to be ensnared, and save him from it. By putting of good books into the hands of your neighbors, and gaining of them a promise to read the books, who can tell what good you may do unto them. It is possible you may in this way, with ingenuity and with efficacy, administer those reproofs which you may owe unto such neighbors as are to be reproved for their miscarriages. The books will balk nothing that is to be said on the subjects that you would have the neighbors advised upon. Finally: if there be any base houses, which threaten to debauch and poison and confound the neighborhood, let your charity to your neighbors make you do all you can for the suppression of them. That my proposal to do good in the neighborhood and as a neighbor may be more fully formed and followed, I will conclude it with minding you that a world of self-denial is to be exercised in the execution of it. You must be armed against selfishness, all selfish and squinting intentions in your generous resolutions. You shall see how my demands will grow upon you. First: you must not think of making the good you do a pouring of water into a pump to draw out something for yourselves. This might be the meaning of our savior’s direction: “Lend, hoping for nothing again.” To lend a thing, property is to hope that we shall receive it again. But this probably refers to the . . . collation

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usual among the ancients, whereof we find many monuments and mentions in antiquity. If any man by burnings or shipwrecks or other disasters had lost his estate, his friends did use to lend him considerable sums of money, to be repaid not at a certain day but when he should find himself able to repay it without inconvenience. Now, they were so cunning that they would rarely lend upon such disasters unto any but such as they had hope would recover out of their present impoverishment, and not only repay them their money but also requite their kindness, if ever there should be need of it. The thing required by our savior is: “Do good unto such as you are never like to be the better for.” But then, there is yet an higher thing to be demanded. That is: “Do good unto those neighbors who have done hurt unto you.” So says our savior: “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” Yea, if an injury have been done you, improve it as a provocation to do a benefit unto him who did the injury. Time is noble! It will bring marvelous consolations! Another method might make you even with your forward neighbors: This will set you above them all. It were nobly done if, in the close of the day when you are alone before the Lord, you make a particular prayer for the pardon and prosperity of any person from whom you may have suffered any abuse in the day. And it would be nobly done if, at last combing over the catalogue of such as have been abusive to you, you may be able to say (the only intention that can justify your doing anything like to keeping a catalogue of them): “There is not one of these but I have done him, or watched to do him, a kindness.” Among the Jews themselves there were the Hasideans, one of whose institutions it was to make this daily prayer unto God: “Forgive all who trouble and harass us.” Christians—go beyond them! Yea, Justin Martyr tells us, in primitive times they did so: “Praying for their enemies.” But I won’t stop here. There is yet an higher thing to be demanded. That is: do good unto those neighbors who will speak ill of you after you have done it. So says our savior: “Ye shall be the children of the highest: he is kind unto the unthankful and unto the

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evil.” You will every day find, I can tell you, monsters of ingratitude. Yea, if you distinguish any person with doing for him something more than you have done for others, it will be well if that very person do not at some time or other hurt you wonderfully. Oh! the wisdom of divine providence in ordering this thing! Sirs, it is that you may do good on a divine principle: good merely for the sake of good! “Lord, increase our faith!” And God forbid that a Christian faith should not come up to a Jewish! There is a memorable passage in the Jewish records. There was a gentleman of whose bounty many people every day received reliefs and succors. One day he asked: “Well, what do our people say today?” They told him: “Why, the people partook of your kindnesses and services, and then they blessed you very fervently.” “Did they so?” said he, “Then I shall have no great reward for this day.” Another day he asked: “Well, and what say our people now?” They told him: “Alas, good sir, the people enjoyed your kindnesses today, and when all was done, they did nothing but rail at you.” “Indeed,” said he, “Now for this day I am sure that God will give me a good and great reward.” Though vile constructions and harsh invectives be never so much the present reward of doing the best offices for the neighborhood, yet, my dear Boniface, be victorious over all discouragements. “Thy work shall be well rewarded,” saith the Lord. If your opportunities to do good reach no further, yet I will offer you a consolation, which one has elegantly thus expressed: “He that praises God only on a ten-stringed instrument, with his authority extending but unto his face and his example but unto his neighborhood, may have as thankful an heart here, and as high a place in the celestial choir hereafter, as the greatest monarch that praiseth God upon a ten-thousand-stringed instrument, upon the loudsounding organ having as many millions of pipes as there be people under him.” Would it be amiss for you, to have always lying by you, a list of the poor in your neighborhood, or of those whose calamities may call for the assistances of the neighborhood? Such a list would often furnish you, with matter for a useful conversation, when you are talking with your friends, whom you may provoke to love and good works . . . .

Bonifacius, or Essays to Do Good

How can we leave the offices of good neighborhood, without interposing a proposal, to animate and regulate private meetings of religious people, for the exercises of religion? It is very certain, that where such private meetings under a good conduct, have been kept alive, the Christians which have composed them, have like so many coals of the altar kept one another alive, and kept up a lively Christianity in the neighborhood. Such societies have been tried and strong engines, to uphold the power of godliness. The throwing up of such societies, has been accomplished with a visible decay of godliness; the less love to them, the less there has been of, the kingdom of God . . .. I will get me unto the rich men. . . . and will speak unto them: for they will know the ways to do good, and will think, what they shall be able to say, when they come into the judgment of their God. An English person of quality, quoting that passage, The Desire of Man is his Kindness, invited me to read it, the only desireable thing in a man is his goodness. How happy would the world be if every person of quality would come into this persuasion! It is an article in my commission; charge them that are rich in this world, that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate. In pursuance thereof, I will put rich men in mind of the opportunities to do good, which with the God, who gives power to get wealth, has favored and obliged and enriched them. It was an account, and a very good one it was, that has been sometimes given of a good man; the wealth of this world, he knew no good in it, but the doing of good with it. Yea, those men who have had very little goodness in them, yet in describing, the manners of the age, in which they have had perhaps themselves too deep a share, have seen cause to subscribe and publish this prime dictate of reason; we are never the better for anything, barely for the propriety sake; but it is the application of it, that gives everything its value . . . . Indeed there is hardly any professor of Christianity, so vicious, but he will own, that all of his estate is to be used in honest uses; and part of it, in pious uses. If any plead their poverty, to excuse them, and exempt them, from doing anything this way, O poor widow with thy two mites, eternized in the history of the gospel, thou shalt rise up in the judgment with that

generation, and shalt condemn them. And let them also know, that they take a course, to condemn and confine themselves unto eternal poverty. But the main question is, about the quota parts; how much of man’s income is to be devoted unto pious uses? And now, let it not seem a hard saying, if I say unto you, that a tenth part is the least that you can bring under a more solemn dedication unto the Lord; for whom indeed, after some sort, we are to lay out our all. A farthing less, would make an enlightened and considerate Christian, suspicious, of his coming under the danger of a sacriledge. By the pious uses for which your tenth are thus challenged, I do not intend only the maintenance of the evangelical ministry, but also the relief of the miserable whom our merciful Savior has made the receivers of His rents, and all that is to be more directly done, for the preserving and promoting of piety in the world. Since there is a part of every man’s revenues due to the glorious Lord, and such pious uses, it is not fit that the determination of what part, it must be, should be left unto such hearts as ours. My friend thou hast, it may be, too high an opinion of thy own wisdom and goodness, it nothing but thy own carnal heart, shall determine still when, and what, thy revenues are to do, for Him, whom thou art ready to forget, when He has filled thee. But if the Lord Himself, to whom thou art but a steward, has fixed any part of our usual revenues, for Himself, as it is most reasonable that He should have the fixing of it, certainly a tenth wilt be found the least that He has called for. I will add in a consideration, wherein, methinks, common humanity should be sensible of a provocation. Let rich men who are not rich towards God, especially such as have no children of their own, to make the heirs of their hoarded riches, consider the vile ingratitude, which with the forks that come after them, will treat them, withal. Sirs, they will hardly allow you a tombstone; and, wallowing in the wealth which you have left, (but they complain, that you left it no sooner unto them) they will only play upon your memory, squib upon your husbandry, ridicule all your parsimony! How much more wisdom, would it be, for you to do good with your estates while you live; and at your death do that, which may embalm your name to posterity in this world, and be for your advantage in

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that which you are going unto! That your souls may dwell in all ease and good of the paradisian reflections, at the time, when others inherit what you leave unto them. I only now annex the complement of one to his friend, upon his accession to an estate; much good may it do you; that is, much good may you do with it. I hope, we are now ready for proposals. We shall set ourselves, to devise liberal things. Gentlemen, it is of old said, “res est sacra miser.” To relieve the necessities of the poor this is a thing acceptable to the compassionate God; who has given to you, what He might have given to them; and has given it unto you that you might have the honor and pleasure to impart it unto them: and who has told you, “he that has pity on the poor, lend unto the Lord.” The more you consider the command and image of glorious Christ in what you do this way, the more assurance you have that in the day of God, you shall joyfully hear Him saying, “You have done it unto me!” And the more humble, silent, reserved modesty, you express, concealing even from the left hand what is done with the right, the more you are assured of, “a great reward in the heavenly world.” Such liberal men it is observed, are usually long-lived men. Fructus liberat arborem. And at last, they pass from this unto everlasting life. When you dispense your alms, unto the poor, who know, what it is to pray, you may oblige them to pray for you by name every day. Tis an excellent thing to have, the blessing of them that have been ready to perish, thus coming upon you. Behold, a surprising sense in which you may be, praying always. You are so, even while you are sleeping, if those whom you have obliged are thus praying for you! And now, look for the accomplishment of that word; blessed is he that considers the poor; the Lord will preserve him and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed on, earth. Very often your alms are dispersed among such as very much need admonitions of piety to accompany them. Can’t you contrive, to intermix a spiritual charity, with your temporal? Perhaps you may discourse with them about the state of their souls, and obtain from them, which you now have a singular advantage to do, some declared relations to do what they ought

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to do. Or else you may convey little books unto them, which certainly they will promise to read, when you thus bespeak their doing so . . . . Reference: Mather, Cotton. 1710. Bonifacius. Boston: Printed by B. Green, for Samuel Gerrish at his shop in Corn Hill.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Practice Makes Perfect? Benjamin Franklin In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin chose to present a plan of “moral perfection” for the uninitiated reader. The plan consists of thirteen virtues placed in a specific order to maximize their accessibility. While not necessarily attainable, this plan nonetheless underscores the importance that philanthropic acts held for Franklin. It was about this time [c. 1728] that I conceiv’d the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection. I wish’d to live without committing any Fault at any time; I would conquer all that either Natural Inclination, Custom, or Company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a Task of more Difficulty than I had imagined. While my attention was taken up in guarding against one Fault, I was often surpriz’d by another. Habit took the Advantage of Inattention. Inclination was sometimes too strong for Reason. I concluded at length, that the mere speculative Conviction that it was our Interest to be compleatly virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our Slipping, and that the contrary Habits must be broken and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any Dependance on a steady uniform Rectitude of Conduct. For this purpose I therefore contriv’d the following Method. In the various Enumerations of the moral Virtues I had met with in my Reading, I found the Catalogue more or less numerous, as different Writers included more or fewer ideas under the same Name. Temperance, for Example, was by some confin’d to Eating and

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other Pleasure, Appetite, Inclination or Passion, bodily or mental, even to our Avarice and Ambition. I propos’d to myself, for the sake of Clearness, to use rather more Names with fewer Ideas annex’d to each, than a few Names with more Ideas; and I included under Thirteen Names of Virtues all that at that time occurr’d to me as necessary or desirable, and annex’d to each a short Precept, which fully express’d the Extent I gave to its Meaning. These Names of Virtues with their Precepts were 1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to Dulness. Drink not to Elevation. 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling Conversation. 3. ORDER. Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time. 4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve. 5. FRUGALITY. Make no Expence but to do good to others or yourself: i.e., Waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no Time. Be always employ’d in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions. 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty. 9. MODERATION. Avoid Extreams. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Cloaths or Habitation. 11. TRANQUILITY. Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable. 12. CHASTITY.

Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dulness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or Reputation. 13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates. My Intention being to acquire the Habitude of all these Virtues, I judg’d it would be well not to distract my Attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time, and when I should be Master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on till I should have gone thro’ the thirteen. And as the previous Acquisition of some might facilitate the Acquisition of certain others, I arrang’d them with that View as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that Coolness and Clearness of Head, which is so necessary where constant Vigilance was to be kept up, and Guard maintained, against the unremitting Attraction of ancient Habits, and the Force of perpetual Temptations. This being acquir’d and establish’d, Silence would be more easy, and my Desire being to gain Knowledge at the same time that I improv’d in Virtue, and considering that in Conversation it was obtain’d rather by the use of the Ears than of the Tongue, and therefore wishing to break a Habit I was getting into of Prattling, Punning and Joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling Company, I gave Silence the second Place. This, and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more Time for attending to my Project and my Studies; RESOLUTION, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my Endeavours to obtain all the subsequent Virtues; Frugality and Industry, by freeing me from my remaining Debt, and producing Affluence and Independence, would make more easy the Practice of Sincerity and Justice, &c. &c. Conceiving then that agreeable [sic] to the Advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses daily Examination would be necessary, I contriv’d the following Method for conducting that Examination. I made a little Book in which I allotted a Page for each of the Virtues. I rul’d each Page with red Ink, so as to have seven Columns, one for each Day of the Week, marking each Column with a Letter for the Day. I cross’d these Columns with thirteen red Lines, marking the Beginning of each Line with the first Letter of one of the Virtues, on which Line and in its

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proper Column I might mark by a little black Spot every Fault I found upon Examination to have been committed respecting that Virtue upon the Day . . . . . . Faults to make room for new Ones in a new Course, became full of Holes: I transferr’d my Tables and Precepts to the Ivory Leaves of a Memorandum Book, on which the Lines were drawn with red Ink that made a durable Stain, and on those Lines I mark’d my Faults with a black Lead Pencil, which Marks I could easily wipe out with a wet Sponge. After a while I went thro’ one Course only in a Year, and afterwards only one in several Years, till at length I omitted them entirely, being employ’d in Voyages and Business abroad with a Multiplicity of Affairs, that interfered, but I always carried my little Book with me. My Scheme of ORDER, gave me the most Trouble, and I found, that tho’ it might be practicable where a Man’s Business was such as to leave him the Disposition of his Time, that of a Journey-man Printer for instance, it was not possible to be exactly observ’d by a Master, who must mix with the World, and often receive People of Business at their own Hours. Order too, with regard to Places for Things, Papers, &c. I found extremely difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to Method, and having an exceeding good Memory, I was not so sensible of the Inconvenience attending Want of Method. This Article therefore cost me so much painful Attention and my Faults in it vex’ me so much, and I made so little Progress in Amendment, and had such frequent Relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the Attempt, and content my self with a faulty Character in that respect. Like the Man who in buying an Ax of a Smith my neighbour, desired to have the whole of its Surface as bright as the Edge; the Smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the Wheel. He turn’d while the Smith press’d the broad Face of the Ax. hard and heavily on the Stone, which made the Turning of it very fatiguing. The Man came every now and then from the Wheel to see how the Work went on; and at length would take his Ax as it was without farther Grinding. No, says the Smith, Turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by and by; as yet ’tis only speckled. Yes, says the Man; but I think I like a speckled Ax best. And I believe this may have been the

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Case with many who having for want of some such Means as I employ’d found the Difficulty of obtaining good, and breaking bad Habits, in other Points of Vice and Virtue, have given up the Struggle, and concluded that a speckled Ax was best. For something that pretended to be Reason was every now and then suggesting to me, that such extream Nicety as I exacted of my self might be a kind of Foppery in Morals, which if it were known would make me ridiculous; that a perfect Character might be attended with the Inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent Man should allow a few Faults in himself, to keep his Friends in Countenance. In Truth I found myself incorrigible with respect to Order; and now I am grown old, and my Memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But on the whole, tho’ I never arrived at the Perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was by the Endeavour a better and happier Man than I otherwise should have been, if I had not attempted it; As those who aim at perfect Writing by imitating the engraved Copies, tho’ they never reach the wish’d for Excellence of those Copies, their Hand is mended by the Endeavour, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible. And it may be well my Posterity should be informed, that to this little Artifice, with the Blessing of God, their Ancestor ow’d the constant Felicity of his Life down to his 79th Year in which this is written. What Reverses may attend the Remainder is in the Hand of Providence: But if they arrive the Reflection on past Happiness enjoy’d ought to help his bearing them with more Resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long-continu’d Health, and what is still left to him of a good Constitution. To Industry and Frugality the early Easiness of his Circumstances, and Acquisition of his Fortune, with all that Knowledge which enabled him to be an useful Citizen, and obtain’d for him some Degree of Reputation among the Learned. To Sincerity and Justice the Confidence of his Country, and the honourable Employs it conferr’d upon him. And to the joint Influence of the whole Mass of the Virtues, even in the imperfect State he was able to acquire them, all that Evenness of Temper, and that Cheerfulness in Conversation which makes his Company still sought for, and agreeable even to

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his younger Acquaintance. I hope therefore that some of my Descendants may follow the Example and reap the Benefit . . . . My List of Virtues contain’d at first but twelve: But a Quaker Friend having kindly inform’d me that I was generally thought proud; that my Pride show’d itself frequently in Conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any Point, but was overbearing and rather insolent; of which he convinc’d me by mentioning several Instances; I determined endeavouring to cure myself if I could of this Vice or Folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my List, giving an extensive Meaning to the Word. I cannot boast of much Success in acquiring the Reality of this Virtue; but I had a good deal with regard to the Appearance of it. I made it a Rule to forbear all direct Contradiction to the Sentiments of others, and all positive Assertion of my own. I even forbid myself agreeable to the old Laws of our Junto, the Use of every Word or Expression in the Language that imported a fix’d Opinion; such as certainly, undoubtedly, &c. and I adopted instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so, or it so appears to me at present. When another asserted something, that I thought an Error, I deny’d my self the Pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some Absurdity in his Proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain Cases or Circumstances his Opinion would be right, but that in the present case there appear’d or seem’d to me some Difference, &c. I soon found the Advantage of this change in my Manners. The Conversations I engag’d in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos’d my Opinions, procur’d them a readier Reception and less Contradiction; I had less Mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail’d with others to give up their Mistakes and join with me when I happen’d to be in the right. And this mode, which I at first put on, with some violence to natural Inclination, became at length so easy and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these Fifty Years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical Expression escape me. And to this Habit (after my Character of Integrity) I think it principally owing, that I had early so much Weight with my Fellow Citizens, when I proposed new Institutions, or Alter-

ations in the old; and so much Influence in public Councils when I became a Member. For I was but a bad Speaker, never eloquent, subject to much Hesitation in my choice of Words, hardly correct in Language, and yet I generally carried my Points. In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself. You will see it perhaps often in this History. For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably by [be] proud of my Humility. Reference: Eliot, Charles W., ed. 1909. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin; The Journal of John Woolman; Fruits of Solitude, William Penn. New York: P. F. Collier, 82–85, 88–90, 91–92.

The Use of Money (1744) John Wesley An English evangelical preacher and later, the founder of Methodism, John Wesley is remembered as a great scholar and writer, who brought religion to the poor through mass-produced volumes of his work. His formulation on charity is probably one of the most often referenced in the Christian sermons of nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. ”I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you unto everlasting habitations.” Luke 16:9 OUR Lord, having finished the beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son, which he had particularly addressed to those who murmured at his receiving publicans and sinners, adds another relation of a different kind, addressed rather to the children of God. “He said unto his disciples,” not so much to the Scribes and Pharisees to whom he had been speaking before,—“There was a certain rich man, who had a steward, and he was accused to him of wasting his goods. And calling him, he said, Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou

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canst be no longer steward.” (Verses 1, 2.) After reciting the method which the bad steward used to provide against the day of necessity, our Savior adds, “His Lord commended the unjust steward;” namely, in this respect, that he used timely precaution; and subjoins this weighty refection, “The children of this world are advised in their generation than the children of light:” (Verse 8:) Those who seek no other portion than this world “are wiser” (not absolutely; for they are, one and all, the veriest fools, the most egregious madmen under heaven; but, in their generation, in their own way; they are more consistent with themselves; they are truer to their acknowledged principles; they more steadily pursue their end) “than the children of light;”—than they who see “the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Then follow the words above recited: “and I,”—the only begotten Son of God, the Creator, Lord, and possessor of heaven and earth and all that is therein; the Judge of all, to whom ye are to “give an account of your stewardship,” when ye “can be no longer stewards,” “I say unto you,”—learn in this respect, even of the unjust steward,—“make yourselves friends,” by wise, timely precaution, “of the mammon of unrighteousness.” “Mammon” means riches, or money. It is termed “the mammon of unrighteousness,” because of the unrighteous manner wherein it is frequently procured, and wherein even that which was honestly procured is generally employed. “Make yourself friends” of this, by doing all possible good, particularly to the children of God; “that, when ye fail,”—when ye return to dust, when ye have no more place under the sun,—those of them who are gone before “may receive you,” may welcome you into the “everlasting habitations.” An excellent branch of Christian wisdom is here inculcated by our Lord on all his followers, namely, the right use of money;—a subject largely spoken of, after their manner, by men of the world; but not sufficiently considered by those whom God hath chosen out of the world. These, generally, do not consider, as the importance of the subject requires, the use of this excellent talent. Neither do they understand how to employ it to the greatest advantage; the introduction of which into the world is one admirable instance of the wise and gracious providence of God. It has, indeed, been the manner of poets, orators, and philoso-

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phers, in almost all ages and nations, to rail at this, as the grand corrupter of the world, the bane of virtue, the pest of human society. Hence nothing so commonly heard, as Nocens ferrum, ferroque nocentius aurum: And gold, more mischievous than keenest steel. Hence the lamentable complaint, Effodiuntur opes, irritamenta malorum. Wealth is dug up, incentive to all ill. Nay, one celebrated writer gravely exhorts his countrymen, in order to banish all vice at once, to “throw all their money into the sea:” In mare proximum, Summi materiem mali! But is not all this mere empty rant? Is there any solid reason wherein? By no means. For, let the world be as corrupt as it will, is gold or silver to blame? “The love of money,” we know, “is the root of all evil;” but not the thing itself. The fault does not lie in the money, but in them that use it. It may be used ill: And what may not? But it may likewise be used well: It is full as applicable to the best, as to the worst uses. It is of unspeakable service to all civilized nations, in all the common affairs of life: It is a most compendious instrument of transacting all manner of business, and (if we use it according to Christian wisdom) of doing all manner of good. It is true, were man in a state of innocence, or were all men “tilled with the Holy Ghost,” so that, like the infant Church at Jerusalem, “no man counted any thing he had his own,” but “distributing was made to every one as he had need,” the use of it would he superseded; as we cannot conceive there is any thing of the kind among the inhabitants of heaven. But, in the present state of mankind, it is an excellent gift of God, answering the noblest ends. In the hands of his children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked: It gives to the traveler and the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of an husband to the widow, and of a father to the fatherless. We may be a defense for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain; it may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame: yea, a lifter up from the gates of death! 3. It is, therefore, of the highest concern, that all who fear God know how to employ this valuable talent; that they be instructed how it may answer these

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glorious ends, and in the highest degree. And, perhaps, all the instructions which are necessary for this may be reduced to three plain rules, by the exact observance whereof we may approve ourselves faithful stewards of “the mammon of unrighteousness.”

I. Gain All You Can 1. The First of these is, (he that heareth, let him understand!) “Gain all you can.” Here we may speak like the children of the world: We meet them on their own ground And it’s our bounden duty to do this: We ought to gain all we can gain, without buying gold too dear, without paying more for it than it is worth. But this it is certain we ought not to do; we ought not to gain money at the expense of life, nor (which is in effect the same thing) at the expense of our health. Therefore, no gain whatsoever should induce us to enter into, or to continue in, any employ, which is of such a kind, or is attended with so hard or so long labor, as to impair our constitution. Neither should we begin or continue in any business which necessarily deprives us of proper seasons far food and sleep, in such a proportion as our nature requires. Indeed, there is a great difference here. Some employments are absolutely and totally unhealthy; as those which imply the dealing much with arsenic, or other equally hurtful minerals, or the breathing an air tainted with steams of melting lead, which must at length destroy the firmest constitution. Others may not be absolutely unhealthy, but only to persons of a weak constitution. Such are those which require many hours to be spent in writing; especially if a person write sitting, and lean upon his stomach, or remain long in an uneasy posture. But whatever it is which reason or experience shows to be destructive of health or strength, that we may not submit to; seeing; “the life is more” valuable “than meat, and the body than raiment:” And, if we are already engaged in such an employ, we should exchange it, as soon as possible, for some which, if it lessen our gain, will, however, not lessen our health. 2. We are, Secondly, to gain all we can without hurting our mind, any more than our body. For neither may we hurt this: We must preserve, at all events, the spirit of an healthful mind. Therefore, we may not engage or continue in any sinful trade; any that is contrary to the law of God, or of our country. Such are all

that necessarily imply our robbing or defrauding the king of his lawful customs. For it is, at least, as sinful to defraud the king of his right, as to rob our fellowsubjects: And the king has full as much right to his customs as we have to our houses and apparel. Other businesses there are which, however innocent in themselves, cannot be followed with innocence now; at least, not in England; such, for instance, as will not afford a competent maintenance without cheating or lying, or conformity to some custom which is not consistent with a good conscience: These, likewise, are sacredly to be avoided, whatever gain they may be attended with, provided we follow the custom of the trade; for, to gain money we must not lose our souls. There are yet others which many pursue with perfect innocence, without hurting either their body or mind; and yet, perhaps, you cannot: Either they may entangle you in that company which would destroy your soul; and by repeated experiments it may appear that you cannot separate the one from the other; or there may be an idiosyncrasy,—a peculiarity in your constitution of soul, (as there is in the bodily constitution of many,) by reason whereof that employment is deadly to you, which another may safely follow. So I am convinced, from many experiments, I could not study, to any degree of perfection, either mathematics, arithmetic, or algebra, without being a Deist, if not an Atheist: And yet others may study them all their lives without sustaining any inconvenience. None, therefore, can here determine for another; but every man must judge for himself, and abstain from whatever he in particular finds to be hurtful to his soul. 3. We are, Thirdly, to gain all we can, without hurting our neighbor. But this we may not, cannot do, if we love our neighbor as ourselves. We cannot, if we love every one as ourselves, hurt anyone in his substance. We cannot devour the increase of his lands, and perhaps the lands and houses themselves, by gaming, by over-grown bills, (whether on account of physic, or law, or anything else,) or by requiring or taking such interest as even the laws of our country forbid. Hereby all pawn-broking is excluded: Seeing, whatever good we might do thereby, all unprejudiced men see with grief to be abundantly over-balanced by the evil. And if it were otherwise, yet we are not allowed to “do evil that good may come. We cannot,

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consistent with brotherly love, sell our goods below the market-price; we cannot study to ruin our neighbor’s trade, in order to advance our own; much less can we entice away, or receive, any of his servants or workmen whom he has need of. None can gain by swallowing up his neighbor’s substance, without gaining the damnation of hell! 4. Neither may we gain by hurting our neighbor in his body. Therefore we may not sell anything which tends to impair health. Such is, eminently, all that liquid fire, commonly called drams, or spirituous liquors. It is true, these may have a place in medicine; they may be of use in some bodily disorders; although there would rarely be occasion for them, were it not for the unskillfullness of the practitioner. Therefore, such as prepare and sell them only for this end may keep their conscience clear. But who are they? Who prepare them only for this end? Do you know ten such distillers in England? Then excuse these. But all who sell them in the common ways to any that will buy, are poisoners in general. They murder His Majesty’s subjects by wholesale, neither does their eye pity or spare. They drive them to hell like sheep. And what is their gain? Is it not the blood of these men? Who then would envy their large estates and sumptuous palaces? A curse is in the midst of them: The curse of God cleaves to the stones, the timber, the furniture of them! The curse of God is in their gardens, their walks, their groves; a fire that burns to the nethermost hell! Blood, blood is there: The foundation, the floor, the walls, the roof, are stained with blood! And canst thou hope, O thou man of blood, though thou art “clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and farest sumptuously every clay;” canst thou hope to deliver down thy fields of blood to the third generation? Not so; for there is a God in heaven: Therefore, thy name shall soon be rooted out. Like as those whom thou hast destroyed, body and soul, “thy memorial shall perish with thee!” 5. And are not they partakers of the same guilt, though on a lower degree, whether Surgeons, Apothecaries, or Physicians, who play with the lives or health of men, to enlarge their own gain? who purposely lengthen the pain or disease, which they are able to remove speedily? who protract the cure of their patient’s body, in order to plunder his sub-

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stance? Can any man be clear before God, who does not shorten every disorder “as much as he can,” and remove all sickness and pain “as soon as he can?” He cannot: For nothing can be more clear, than that he does not “love his neighbor as himself;” than that he does not “do unto others, as he would they should do unto himself.” 6. This is dear-bought gain. And so is whatever is procured by hurting our neighbor in his soul; by ministering, suppose, either directly or indirectly, to his unchastity, or intemperance; which certainly none can do, who has any fear of God, or any real desire of pleasing Him. It nearly concerns all those to consider this, who have anything to do with taverns, victualling-houses, opera-houses, play-houses, or any other places of public, fashionable diversion. If these profit the souls of men, you are clear; your employment is good, and your gain innocence; hut if they are either sinful in themselves, or natural inlets to sin of various kinds, then, it is to be feared, you have a sad account to make. O beware, lest God say in that day, “These have perished in their iniquity, but their blood do I require at thy hands!” 7. These cautions and restrictions being observed, it is the bounden duty of all who are engaged in worldly business to observe that first and great rule of Christian wisdom, with respect to money, “Gain all you can.” Gain all you can by honest industry. Use all possible diligence in your calling. Lose no time. If you understand yourself, and your relation to God and man, you know you have none to spare. If you understand your particular calling, as you ought, you will have no time that hangs upon your hands. Every business will afford some employment sufficient for every day and every hour. That wherein you are placed, if you follow it in earnest, will leave you no leisure for silly, unprofitable diversions. You have always something better to do, something that will profit you, more or less. And “whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” Do it as soon as possible: No delay! No putting off from day to day, or from hour to hour! Never leave anything till tomorrow, which you can do today. And do it as well as possible. Do not sleep or yawn over it: Put your whole strength to the work. Spare no pains. Let nothing be done by halves, or in a slight and careless manner. Let nothing in your

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business be left undone, if it can he done by labor or patience. 8. Gain all you can, by common sense, by using in your business all the understanding which God has given you. It is amazing to observe, how few do this; how men run on in the same dull track with their forefathers. But whatever they do who know not God, this is no rule for you. It is a shame for a Christian not to improve upon them, in whatever he takes in hand. You should be continually learning, from the experience of others, or from your own experienced reading, and reflection, to do everything you have to do better today than you did yesterday. And see that you practice whatever you learn, that you may make the best of all that is in your hands.

II. Save All You Can 1. Having gained all you can, by honest wisdom, and unwearied diligence, the Second rule of Christian prudence is, “Save all you can.” Do not throw the precious talent into the sea: Leave that folly to heathen philosophers. Do not throw it away in idle expenses, which is just the same as throwing it into the sea. Expend no part of it merely to gratify the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life. 2. Do not waste any part of so precious a talent, merely in gratifying the desires of the flesh; in procuring the pleasures of sense, of whatever kind; particularly, in enlarging the pleasure of tasting. I do not mean, avoid gluttony and drunkenness only: An honest heathen would condemn these. But there is a regular, reputable kind of sensuality, an elegant epicurism, which does not immediately disorder the stomach, nor (sensibly at least) impair the understanding; and yet (to mention no other effects of it now) it cannot be maintained without considerable expense. Cut off all this expense! Despise delicacy and variety, and be content with what plain nature requires. 3. Do not waste any part of so precious a talent, merely in gratifying the desire of the eye, by superfluous or expensive apparel, or by needless ornaments. Waste no part of it in curiously adorning your houses; in superfluous or expensive furniture; in costly pictures, painting, gilding, books; in elegant rather than useful gardens. Let your neighbors, who know noth-

ing better, do this: “Let the dead bury their dead.” But “what is that to thee?” says our Lord: “Follow thou me.” Are you willing? Then you are able so to do! 4. Lay out nothing to gratify the pride of life, to gain the admiration or praise of men. This motive of expense is frequently interwoven with one or both of the former. Men are expensive in diet, or apparel, or furniture, not barely to please their appetite, or to gratify their eye, or their imagination, but their vanity too. “So long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak good of thee.” So long as thou art “clothed in purple and fine linen, and farest sumptuously every day,” no doubt many will applaud thy elegance of taste, thy generosity and hospitality. But do not buy their applause so dear. Rather be content with the honor that cometh from God. 5. Who would expend anything in gratifying these desires, if he considered, that to gratify them is to increase them? Nothing can be more certain than this: Daily experience shows, the more they are indulged, they increase the more. Whenever, therefore, you expend anything to please your taste or other senses, you pay so much for sensuality. When you lay out money to please your eye, you give so much for an increase of curiosity,—for a stronger attachment to these pleasures which perish in the using. While you are purchasing anything which men use to applaud, you are purchasing more vanity. Had you not then enough of vanity, sensuality, curiosity, before? Was there need of any addition? And would you pay for it too? What manner of wisdom is this? Would not the literally throwing your money into the sea be a less mischievous folly? 6. And why should you throw away money upon your children, any more than upon yourself, in delicate food, in gay or costly apparel, in superfluities of any kind? Why should you purchase for them more pride or lust, more vanity, or foolish and hurtful desires? They do not want anymore; they have enough already; nature has made ample provision for them: Why should you be at farther expense to increase their temptations and snares, and to pierce them through with more sorrows? 7. Do not leave it to them to throw away. If you have good reason to believe they would waste what is now in your possession, in gratifying, and thereby

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increasing, the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life; at the peril of theirs and your own soul, do not set these traps in their way. Do not offer your sons or your daughters unto Belial, any more than unto Moloch. Have pity upon them, and remove out of their way what you may easily foresee would increase their sins, and consequently plunge them deeper into everlasting perdition! How amazing then is the infatuation of those parents who think they can never leave their children enough! What! cannot you leave them enough of arrows, firebrands, and death? not enough of foolish and hurtful desires? not enough of pride, lust, ambition, vanity? not enough of everlasting burnings? Poor wretch! thou fearest where no fear is. Surely both thou and they, when ye are lifting up your eyes in hell, will have enough both of “the worm that never dieth,” and of “the fire that never shall be quenched!” 8. “What then would you do, if you was in my case? if you had a considerable fortune to leave?” Whether I would do it or no, I know what I ought to do: This will admit of no reasonable question. If I had one child, elder or younger, who knew the value of money, one who, I believed, would put it to the true use, I should think it my absolute, indispensable duty, to leave that child the bulk of my fortune; and to the rest just so much as would enable them to live in the manner they had been accustomed to do. “But what, if all your children were equally ignorant of the true use of money?” I ought then (hard saying! who can hear it?) to give each what would keep him above want; and to bestow all the rest in such a manner as I judged would be most for the glory of God.

III. Give All You Can 1. But let not any man imagine that he has done anything, barely by going thus far, by “gaining and saving all he can,” if he were to stop here. All this is nothing, if a man go not forward, if he does not point all this at a farther end. Nor, indeed, can a man properly be said to save anything, if he only lays it up. You may as well throw your money into the sea, as bury it in the earth. And you may as well bury it in the earth, as in your chest, or in the bank of England. Not to use, is effectually to throw it away. If, therefore, you would

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indeed “make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,” add the Third rule to the two preceding. Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly, saved all you can, Then “give all that you can.” 2. In order to see the ground and reason of this, consider, when the Possessor of heaven and earth brought you into being, and placed you in this world, he placed you here, not as a proprietor, but a steward: As such he entrusted you, for a season, with goods of various kinds; but the sole property of these still rests in him, nor can ever be alienated from him. As you yourself are not your own, but his, such is, likewise, all that you enjoy. Such is your soul and your body, not your own, but God’s. And so is your substance in particular. And he has told you, in the most clear and express terms, how you are to employ it for him, in such a manner, that it may be all an holy sacrifice, acceptable through Christ Jesus. And this light, easy service, he hath promised to reward with an eternal weight of glory. 3. The directions which God has given us, touching the use of our worldly substance, may be comprised in the following particulars. If you desire to be a faithful and a wise steward, out of that portion of your Lord’s goods which he has for the present lodged in your hands, but with the right of resuming whenever it pleases him, First, provide things needful for your self; food to eat, raiment to put on, whatever nature moderately requires for preserving the body in health and strength. Secondly, provide these for your wife, your children, your servants, or any others who pertain to your household. If, when this is done, there he an overplus left, then “do good to them that are of the household of faith.” If there be an overplus still, “as you have opportunity, do good unto all men.” In so doing, you give all you can; nay, in a sound sense, all you have: For all that is laid out in this manner is really given to God. You “render unto God the things that are God’s,” not only by what you give to the poor, but also by that which you expend in providing things needful for yourself and your household. 4. If, then, a doubt should at any time arise in your mind concerning what you are going to expend, either on yourself or any part of your family, you have an easy way to remove it. Calmly and seriously inquire,

The Federalist No. 10

“(1.) In expending this, am I acting according to my character? Am I acting herein, not as a proprietor, but as a steward of my Lord’s goods? (2.) Am I doing this in obedience to his word? In what scripture does he require me so to do? (3.) Can I offer up this action, this expense, as a sacrifice to God through Jesus Christ? (4.) Have I reason to believe, that for this very work I shall have a reward at the resurrection of the just? “You will seldom need anything more to remove any doubt which arises on this head; but, by this fourfold consideration, you will receive clear light as to the way wherein you should go.” 5. If any doubt still remain, you may farther examine yourself by prayer, according to those heads of inquiry. Try whether you can say to the Searcher of hearts, your conscience not condemning you, “Lord, thou seest I am going to expend this sum on that food, apparel, furniture. And thou knowest, I act therein with a single eye, as a steward of thy goods, expending this portion of them thus, in pursuance of the design thou hadst in entrusting me with them. Thou knowest I do this in obedience to thy word, as thou commandest, and because thou commandest it. Let this, I beseech thee, be an holy sacrifice, acceptable through Jesus Christ! And give me a witness in “myself, that for this labor of love I shall have a recompense when thou rewardest every man according to his works.” Now, if your conscience bear you witness in the Holy Ghost, that this prayer is well-pleasing to God, then have you no reason to doubt but that expense is right and good, and such as will never make you ashamed. 6. You see, then, what it is to “make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,” and by what means you may procure, “that when ye fail, they may receive you into the everlasting habitations.” You see the nature and extent of truly Christian prudence, so far as it relates to the use of that great talent, money. Gain all you can, without hurting either yourself or your neighbor, in soul or body, by applying hereto with unintermitted diligence, and with all the understanding which God has given you;—save all you can, by cutting off every expense which serves only to indulge foolish desire; to gratify either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life; waste nothing, living or dying, on sin or folly, whether for your-

self or your children;—and then, give all you can, or, in other works, give all you have to God. Do not stint yourself, like a Jew rather than a Christian, to this or that proportion. Render unto God, not a tenth, not a third, not half; but all that is God’s, be it more or less; by employing all on yourself, your household, the household of faith, and all mankind, in such a manner, that you may give a good account of your stewardship, when ye can be no longer stewards; in such a manner as the oracles of God direct, both by general and particular precepts; in such a manner, that whatever ye do may be “a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor to God,” and that every act may be rewarded in that day, when the Lord cometh with all his saints. 7. Brethren, can we be either wise or faithful stewards, unless we thus manage our Lord’s goods? We cannot, as not only the oracles of God, but our own conscience, beareth witness. Then why should we delay? Why should we confer any longer with flesh and blood, or men of the world? Our kingdom, our wisdom, is not of this world: Heathen custom is nothing to us. We follow no men any farther than they are followers of Christ. Hear ye him: Yea, today, while it is called today, hear and obey his voice! At this hour, and from this hour, do his will: Fulfill his words in this and in all things! I entreat you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, act up to the dignity of your calling! No more sloth! Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, do it with your might! No more waste! Cut off every expense which fashion, caprice, or flesh and blood demand! No more covetousness! But employ whatever God has entrusted you with, in doing good, all possible good, in every possible kind and degree, to the household of faith, to all men! This is no small part of “the wisdom of the just.” Give all ye have, as well as all ye are, a spiritual sacrifice to Him who withheld not from you his Son, his only Son: So “laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that ye may attain eternal life!”

The Federalist No. 10 (1787) James Madison The Federalist Papers were authored by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison under the

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pseudonym Publius as an effort to win support for a new national government. The result was a classic in the literature of political philosophy and continues to be one of the most important American civil society documents. In Number 10 from 1787 we read one of the most relevant and popular of the arguments for a strong federal government that would not oppress the interests of various organized interests that we know today as nonprofit organizations. In other words, allowing groups to form voluntarily for the public good was a fundamental “freedom of assembly” that would prevent any one interest or faction to dominate the interests of others. Individuals working in groups or through voluntary groups still account for most of American philanthropic action. To the People of the State of New York: AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but

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by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations. By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects. There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests. It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency. The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects


to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties. The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment,

and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets. It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole. The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS. If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the

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society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind. By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful. From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by re-

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ducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union. The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations: In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in the small republic,


it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice. In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters. It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representatives too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures. The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and extent of territory which may be brought within the compass of republican than of democratic government; and it is this circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded in the former than in the latter. The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be re-

marked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary. Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic,—is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage. The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State. In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists. Publius.

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First Amendment (1787) The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s provision for freedom of speech and of assembly guarantees the right for people to form groups in the public sphere. Such a provision paved the way for both informal and formal voluntary associations, the latter of which later codified to become known as the nonprofit sector during the twentieth century. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Preamble and Rules of the Philadelphia Free African Society (1787) Forming of voluntary associations for the public good or for mutual aid was not reserved to white America during the eighteenth century. Reverends Richard Allen and Absolom Jones’s efforts in starting the Philadephia Free African Soceity are illustrative of philanthropic action among blacks in early America. Whereas Absolom Jones and Richard Allen, two men of the African Race, who, for their religious life and conversation have obtained a good report among men, these persons, from a love to the people of their complexion whom they beheld with sorrow, because of their irreligious and uncivilized state, often communed together upon this painful and important subject in order to form some kind of religious society, but there being too few to be found under the like concern, and those who were, differed in their religious sentiments; with these circumstances they labored for some time, till it was proposed, after a serious communication of sentiments, that a society should be formed, without regard to religious tenants, provided, the persons lived an orderly and sober life, in order to support one another in sickness, and for the benefit of widows and fatherless children . . . .

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We, the Free Africans and their descendants of the City of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania or elsewhere do unanimously agree for the benefit of each other, to advance one shilling in silver, Pennsylvania currency, monthly and after one year’s subscription from the date hereof then to hand forth to the needy of this society; if it should require, the sum of three shillings and nine-pence per week of said money; provided this necessity is not brought on them by their own imprudence. And it is further agreed that no drunkard or disorderly person be admitted as a member, and if they should prove disorderly after being received, the said disorderly person shall be disjoined from us, if there is not an amendment, by being informed by two of the members, without having any of his subscription money returned to him. And if any should neglect paying his monthly subscription for three months and no sufficient appearing for such neglect, if he do not pay the whole at the next ensuing meeting, he shall be disjoined from us by being informed by two of the members as an offender, without having any of his subscription money returned. Also, if any persons neglect meeting every month, for every omission he shall pay 3 pence, except in case of sickness or other complaint that should require the assistance of the society, then, and in such case, he shall be exempt from the fines and subscriptions during said sickness. Also, we apprehend it to be just and reasonable that the surviving widow of a deceased member should enjoy the benefits of this society as long as she remains his widow, complying with the rules thereof, excepting the subscriptions. And we apprehend it to be necessary that the children of our deceased members be under the care of the society so far as to pay their schooling, if they cannot attend the free school; also to put them out as apprentices to suitable trades or places if required. Also that no member shall convene the society together but it shall be the sole business of the committee and that only, on special occasions and to dispose of money in hand to the best advantage and use of the society after they are granted the liberty as the Monthly Meeting and to transact all other business whatever except that of Clerk and Treasurer. And we unanimously agree to choose Joseph Clark to be our Clerk and Treasurer; and whenever another shall succeed him, it is always understood that one of the

The Codicil of the Will of Benjamin Franklin

people called Quakers, belonging to one of the three Monthly Meetings in Philadelphia is to be chosen to act as Clerk and Treasurer of this useful institution. The following persons met viz., Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Caesar Cranchell, and James Potter, also William White whose early assistance and useful remarks were found truly profitable.

The Codicil of the Will of Benjamin Franklin (1789) Benjamin Franklin Illustrative of wills of prominent persons of the period, Franklin articulates his interest beyond family. Most notable are his gifts to the cities of Philadelphia and to Boston. I, Benjamin Franklin, in the foregoing or annexed last Will and Testament named, having further considered the same, do think proper to make and publish the following Codicil or Addition thereto. It having long been a fixed political opinion of mine, that in a democratical State, there ought to be no Offices of Profit, for the reasons I had given in an Article of my drawing in our Constitution, it was my intention when I accepted the Office of President to devote the appointed Salary to some public Uses, accordingly I had already before I made my Will in July last, given large Sums of it to Colleges, Schools, Building of Churches &c and in that Will I bequeathed Two Thousand Pounds more to the State for the purpose of making Schuykill navigable: But understanding since, that such a Sum will do but little toward accomplishing such a Work and that the project is not likely to be undertaken for many Years to come; and having entertained another Idea, that I hope may be more extensively useful, I do hereby revoke and annul that Bequest, and direct that the (B. Franklin) certificates I have for what remains due to me of that Salary be sold towards raising the Sum of Two thousand Pounds Sterling, to be disposed of as I am now about to order. It has been an opinion that he who receives an Estate from his Ancestors, is under some kind of obliga-

tion to transmit the same to their Posterity: This Obligation does not lie on me, who never inherited a Shilling from any Ancestor or Relation: I shall however, if it is not diminished by some accident before my Death, leave a considerable Estate among my Descendants and Relations. The above observation is made merely as some apology to my Family, for my making Bequests that do not appear to have any immediate relation to their advantage. I was born in Boston, New England and owe my first instructions in Literature, to the free Grammar Schools established there: I have therefore already considered those Schools in my Will. But I am also under obligations to the State of the Massachusetts, for having unasked appointed me formerly their Agent in England with a handsome Salary: which continued some years: and altho’ I accidentally lost, in their service, by transmitting Governor Hutchinson’s Letter much more than the amount of what they gave me, I do not think that ought in the least to diminish my Gratitude. I have considered that among Artisans good Apprentices are most likely to make good Citizens, and having myself been bred to a manual Art Printing, in my native Town, and afterwards assisted to set up my business in Philadelphia by kind loan of Money from two Friends there, which was the foundation of my Fortune, and of all the utility in life that may be ascribed to me, I wish to be useful even after my Death, if possible, in forming and advancing other young men that may be serviceable to their Country in both those Towns. To this End I devote Two thousand Pounds Sterling, which I give, one thousand thereof to the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Massachusetts, and the other thousand to the Inhabitants of the City of Philadelphia, in Trust to and for the Uses, Interests and Purposes hereinafter mentioned and declared. The said sum of One thousand Pounds Sterling, if accepted by the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, shall be managed under the direction of the Select Men, united with the Ministers of the oldest Episcopalian, Congregational and Presbyterian Churches in that Town; who are to let out the same upon Interest at five per cent per Annum to such young married artificers, under the Age of twenty-five years, as have

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served an Aprenticeship in the said Town; and faithfully fulfilled the Duties required in their Indentures, so as to obtain a good moral Chracter from at least two respectable Citizens, who are willing to become their Sureties in a Bond with the Applicants for the Repayment of the Monies so lent with Interest according to the Terms herein (B. Franklin) after prescribed. All which Bonds are to be taken for Spanish milled Dollars or the value thereof in current Gold Coin. And the Managers shall keep a bound Book or Books wherein shall be entered the Names of those who shall apply and receive the benefit of this Institution and of their Sureties, together with the Sums lent, the Dates and other necessary and proper Records, respecting the Business and Concerns of this Institution. And as these Loans are intended to assist young married Artificers in setting up their Business, they are to be proportioned by the discretion of the Managers, so as not to exceed Sixty Pounds Sterling to one Person, not to be less than Fifteen Pounds. And if the number of Appliers so entitled shall be so large, as that the sum will not suffice to afford to each as much as might otherwise not be improper, the proportion to each shall be diminished so as to afford to every one some Assistance. These aids may therefore be small at first; but as the Capital increases by the accumulated Interest, they will be more ample. And in order to serve as many as possible in their Turn, as well as to make the Repayment of the principal borrowed more easy, each Borrower shall be obliged to pay with the yearly Interest, one tenth part of the principal, which Sums of Principal and Interest so paid in, shall be again let out to fresh Borrowers. And as it is presumed that there will always be found in Boston virtuous and benevolent Citizens willing to bestow a part of their Time in doing good to the rising Generation by Superintending and managing this Institution gratis, it is hoped that no part of the Money will at any time lie dead or be diverted to other purposes, but be continually augmenting by the Interest, in which case there may in time be more than the occasions in Boston shall require and then some may be spared to their Neighboring or other Towns in the said State of Massachusetts who may desire to have it, such Towns engaging to pay punctually the Interest and the Por-

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tions of the principal annually to the inhabitants of the Town of Boston. If this Plan is executed and succeeds as projected without interruption for one hundred Years, the Sum will then be one hundred and thirty-one thousand Pounds of which I would have the Managers of the Donation to the Town of Boston, then lay out at their discretion one hundred thousand Pounds in Public Works which may be judged of most general utility to the Inhabitants such as Fortifications, Bridges Aqueducts, Public Building, Baths, Pavements or whatever may make living in the Town more convenient to its People and render it more agreeable to strangers, resorting thither for Health or a temporary residence. The remaining thirty-one thousand Pounds, I would have continued to be let out on Interest in the manner above directed for another hundred Years, as I hope it will have been found that the Institution has had a good effect on the conduct of Youth, and been of Service to many worthy Characters and useful Citizens. At the end of this second Term, if no unfortunate accident has prevented the (B. Franklin) operation the sum will be Four Millions and Sixty one Thousand Pounds to the Disposition of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston and Three Millions to the disposition of the Government of the State, not presuming to carry my views farther. All the directions herein given respecting the Disposition and Management of the Donation to the inhabitants of Boston, I would have observed respecting that to the Inhabitants of Philadelphia: only as Philadelphia is incorporated, I request the Corporation of that City to undertake the Management agreeable to the said Directions and I do hereby vest them with full and ample Powers for that purpose; and having considered that the covering its Grand Plat with Buildings and Pavements, which carry off most of the Rain and prevent its soaking into the Earth and renewing and purefying the Springs, whence the Water of the Wells must gradually grow worse, and in time be unfit for use, as I find has happened in all old Cities, I recommend that at the end of the first hundred Years, if not done before, the Corporation of the City employ apart of the Hundred thousand Pounds in bringing by Pipes the Water of Wissahickon Creek into the Town, so as to supply the

Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward

Inhabitants which I apprehend may be done without great difficulty, the level of that Creek being much above that of the City and may be made higher, by a Dam, I also recommend making the Schuylkill compleately navigable. At the end of the Second Hundred Years, I would have the disposition of the Four Million and Sixty one thousand Pounds divided between the Inhabitants of the City of Philadelphia and the Government of Pennsylvania, in the same manner as herein directed with respect to that of the Inhabitants of Boston and the Government of Massachusetts. It is my desire that this Institution should take place and begin to operate within one year after my decease; for which purpose Notice should be publickly given previous to the expiration of that Year, that those for whose Benefit this establishment is intended may make their respective applications; And I hereby direct my Executors, the survivors or survivor of them, within six Months after my decease, to pay over the said Sum of Two thousand Pounds Sterling, to such Persons as shall be duly appointed by the Select Men of Boston and the Corporation of Philadelphia, to receive and take charge of their respective Sums of One thousand Pounds each, for the Purposes aforesaid. Considering the accidents to which all human Affairs and Projects are subject in such a length of Time, I have perhaps too much flattered myself with a vain Fancy, that these Dispositions, if carried into execution, will be continued without interruption, and have the Effects proposed: I hope, however, that if the Inhabitants of the two Cities should not think fit to undertake the execution they will at least accept the offer of these Donations as a Mark of my good-Will, a token of my Gratitude and a (B. Franklin) Testimony of my earnest desire to be useful to them even after my departure. I wish indeed that they may both undertake to endeavour the Execution of the Project: because I think that tho’ unforseen Difficulties may arise, expedience will be found to remove them, and the Scheme be found practicable: If one of them accepts the Money with the Conditions and the other refuses: my Will then is that both Sums be given to the Inhabitants of the City accepting the whole: to be applied to the same purposes and under the same Regulations directed for the separate Parts: and if

both refuse, the Money of course remains in the Mass of my Estate and is to be disposed of therewith according to my Will made the seventeenth day of July 1788. ****** And lastly, it is my desire, that this my present Codicil be annexed to and considered as part of my last Will and Testament to all Intents and Purposes. In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my Hand & Seal this twenty third day of June, Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred eighty nine. B. Franklin (seal) Signed, Sealed, published and declared by the above named Benjamin Franklin to be a Codicil to his last Will & Testament in the Presence of us. Francis Bailey, Aff ’d Thomas Lang, Aff ’d Abm. Shoemaker, Aff ’d

Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (Excerpted from 4 Wheaton, 518, 1819) This case and the majority court opinion written by Chief Justice John Marshall established the legal right of private organizations and their trustees to manage their affairs without undue interference by government. . . . . It can require no argument to prove that the circumstances of this case constitute a contract. An application is made to the crown for a charter to incorporate a religious and literary institution. In the application it is stated that large contributions have been made for the object, which will be conferred on the corporation as soon as it shall be created. The charter is granted, and on its faith the property is conveyed. . . . The parties in this case differ less on general principles, less on the true construction of the constitution in the abstract, than on the application of those principles to this case, and on the true construction of the charter of 1769. This is the point on which the cause essentially depends. If the act of incorporation be a grant of political power, if it create a civil institution

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to be employed in the administration of the government, or if the funds of the college be public property, or if the state of New Hampshire, as a government, be alone interested in its transactions, the subject is one in which the legislature of the state may act according to its own judgment, unrestrained by any limitation of its power imposed by the constitution of the United States. But if this be a private eleemosynary institution, endowed with a capacity to take property for objects unconnected with government, whose funds are bestowed by individuals on the faith of the charter; if the donors have stipulated for the future disposition and management of those funds in the manner prescribed by themselves; there may be more difficulty in the case, although neither the persons who have made these stipulations, nor those for whose benefit they were made, should be parties to the cause. Those who are no longer interested in the property may yet retain such an interest in the preservation of their own arrangements as to have a right to insist that those arrangements shall be held sacred. Or, if they have themselves disappeared, it becomes a subject of serious and anxious inquiry whether those whom they have legally empowered to represent them forever may not assert all the rights which they possessed while in being; whether, if they be without personal representatives who may feel injured by a violation of the compact, the trustees be not so completely their representatives in the eye of the law as to stand in their place, not only as respects the government of the college, but also as respects the maintenance of the college charter. It becomes then the duty of the court most seriously to examine this charter, and to ascertain its true character . . . Whence, then, can be derived the idea that Dartmouth College has become a public institution, and its trustees public officers . . . Not from the source whence its funds were drawn; for its foundation is purely private and eleemosynary—not from the application of those funds, for money may be given for education and the persons receiving it do not, by being employed in the education of youth, become members of the civil government. Is it from the act of incorporation? Let this subject be considered. A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being

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the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly or as incidental to its very existence. These are such as are supposed best calculated to effect the object for which it was created. Among the most important are immortality, and, if the expression may be allowed, individuality; properties, by which a perpetual succession of many persons are considered as the same, and may act as a single individual. They enable a corporation to manage its own affairs, and to hold property without the perplexing intricacies, the hazardous and endless necessity, of perpetual conveyances for the purpose of transmitting it from hand to hand. It is chiefly for the purpose of clothing bodies of men in succession with these qualities and capacities that corporations were invented and are in use. By these means, a perpetual succession of individuals are capable of acting for the promotion of the particular object, like one immortal being . . . Dartmouth College is an eleemosynary institution, incorporated for the purpose of perpetuating the application of the bounty of the donors to the specified objects of that bounty; that its trustees or governors were originally named by the founder, and invested with the power of perpetuating themselves; that they are not public officers, nor is it a civil institution, participating in the administration of government; but a charity school, or a seminary of education, incorporated for the preservation of its property, and the perpetual application of that property to the objects of its creation . . . This is plainly a contract to which the donors, the trustees, and the crown (to whose rights and obligations New Hampshire succeeds) were the original parties. It is a contract made on a valuable consideration. It is a contract for the security and disposition of property. It is a contract on the faith of which real and personal estate has been conveyed to the corporation. It is then a contract within the letter of the constitution, and within its spirit also, unless the fact that the property is invested by the donors in trustees for the promotion of religion and education, for the benefit of persons who are perpetually changing, though the objects remain the same, shall create a particular exception, taking this case out of the prohibition contained in the constitution.

Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward

It is more than possible that the preservation of rights of this description was not particularly in the view of the framers of the constitution when the clause under consideration was introduced into that instrument. It is probably that interferences of more frequent recurrence, to which the temptation was stronger and of which the mischief was more extensive, constituted the great motive for imposing this restriction on the state legislatures. But although a particular and a rare case may not in itself be of sufficient magnitude to induce a rule, yet it must be governed by the rule, when established, unless some plain and strong reason for excluding it can be given. It is not enough to say that this particular case was not in the mind of the convention when the article was framed, nor of the American people when it was adopted. It is necessary to go farther, and to say that, had this particular been suggested, the language would have been so varied as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exception. The case, being within the words of the rule, must be within its operation likewise, unless there be something in the literal construction so obviously absurd, or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument as to justify those who expound the constitution in making it an exception. On what safe and intelligible ground can this exception stand? There is no expression in the constitution, no sentiment delivered by its contemporaneous expounders, which would justify us in making it . . . Almost all eleemosynary corporations, those which are created for the promotion of religion, of charity, or of education, are of the same character. The law of this case is the law of it all . . . The opinion of the court, after mature deliberation, is, that this is a contract, the obligation of which cannot be impaired without violating the constitution of the United States. This opinion appears to us to be equally supported by reason and by the former decision of this court . . .. The obligations, then, which were created by the charter to Dartmouth College were the same in the new that they had been in the old government. The power of the government was also the same. A repeal of this charter at any time prior to the adoption of the present constitution of the United States would have been an extraordinary and unprecedented act of

power, but one which could have been contested only by the restrictions upon the legislature to be found in the constitution of the state. But the constitution of the United States has imposed this additional limitation, that the legislature of a state shall pass no act “impairing the obligation of contracts.” It has been already stated that the act “to amend the charter and enlarge and improve the corporation of Dartmouth College” increases the number of trustees to twenty-one, gives the appointment of the additional members to the executive of the state, and creates a board of overseers, to consist of twenty-five persons, of whom twenty-one are also appointed by the executive of New Hampshire, who have power to inspect and control the most important acts of the trustees. On the effect of this law two opinions cannot be entertained. Between acting directly and acting through the agency of trustees and overseers no essential difference is perceived. The whole power of governing the college is transformed from trustees appointed according to the will of the founder, expressed in the charter, to the executive of New Hampshire. The management and application of the funds of this eleemosynary institution, which are placed by the donors in the hands of trustees named in the charter, and empowered to perpetuate themselves, are placed by this act under the control of the government of the state. The will of the state is substituted for the will of the donors in every essential operation of the college. This is not an immaterial change . . .This system is totally changed. The charter of 1769 exists no longer. It is reorganized; and reorganized in such a manner as to convert a literary institution, molded according to the will of its founders and placed under the control of private literary men, into a machine entirely subservient to the will of government. This may be for the advantage of this college in particular, and may be for the advantage of literature in general; but it is not according to the will of the donors, and is subversive of that contract on the faith of which their property was given . . . It results from this opinion, that the acts of the legislature of New Hampshire, which are stated in the special verdict found in this cause, are repugnant to the constitution of the United States; and that the

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judgment on this special verdict ought to have been for the plaintiffs. The judgment of the state court, must, therefore, be reversed. (Mr. Justice Washington and Mr. Justice Story rendered separate concurring opinions. Mr. Justice Duvall dissented.)

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia 5 Peters, 1 (1831) American Indian philanthropy has been persistent in its teaching that sharing one’s goods with others was a desirable behavior. The cultural arrogance of the American dominant white culture and the federal and state governments had for most of the first 200 years of the founding of the United States been one of creating policy that tried to eradicate Indian culture and societies, including their approach to philanthropic action. The opinion of Justice Marshall, excerpted here, is notable for refining the relationship between Indian tribes and the U.S. federal government—Indians were not to be viewed as independent “foreign” nations but as “domestic” dependent nations. Thus the federal government could not intercede over the state government. Marshall, C.J. This bill is brought by the Cherokee nation, praying an injunction to restrain the state of Georgia from the execution of certain laws of that state, which, as is alleged, go directly to annihilate the Cherokee as a political society, and to seize for the use of Georgia, the lands of the nation which have been assured to them by the United States, in solemn treaties repeatedly made and still in force. If courts were permitted to indulge their sympathies, a case better calculated to excite them can scarcely be imagined. A people, once numerous, powerful, and truly independent, found by our ancestors in quiet and uncontrolled possession of an ample domain, gradually sinking beneath our superior policy, our arts and our arms, have yielded their lands, by successive treaties, each of which contains a solemn guarantee of the residue, until they retain no more of their formerly extensive territory than is deemed necessary to their comfortable subsistence. To preserve this remnant, the present application is made.

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Before we can look into the merits of the case, a preliminary inquiry presents itself. Has this court jurisdiction of the cause? The third article of the constitution describes the extent of the judicial power. The second section closes an enumeration of the cases to which it is extended, with “controversies between a state or citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.” A subsequent clause of the same section gives the supreme court original jurisdiction, in all cases in which a state shall be a party. The party defendant may then unquestionably be sued in this court. May the plaintiff sue in it? Is the Cherokee nation a foreign state, in the sense in which that term is used in the constitution? The counsel for the plaintiffs have maintained the affirmative of this proposition with great earnestness and ability. So much of the argument as was intended to prove the character of the Cherokees as a state, as a distinct political society, separated from others, capable of managing its own affairs and governing itself, has in the opinion of a majority of the judges, been completely successful. They have been uniformly treated as a state, from the settlement of our country. The numerous treaties made with them by the United States, recognize them as a people capable of maintaining the relations of peace and war, of being responsible in their political character for any violation of their engagements, or for any aggression committed on the citizens of the United States, by any individual of their community. Laws have been enacted in the spirit of these treaties. The acts of our government plainly recognise the Cherokee nation as a state, and the courts are bound by those acts. A question of much more difficulty remains. Do the Cherokees constitute a foreign state in the sense of the constitution? The counsel have shown conclusively, that they are not a state of the Union, and have insisted that, individually, they are aliens, not owing allegiance to the Unites States. An aggregate of aliens composing a state must, they say, be a foreign state; each individual being foreign, the whole must be foreign. This argument is imposing, but we must examine it more closely, before we yield to it. The condition of the Indians in relation to the United States is, perhaps, unlike that of any other two people in existence.

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia

In general, nations not owing a common allegiance, are foreign to each other. The term foreign nation is, with strict propriety, applicable by either to the other. But the relation of the Indians to the United States is marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions which exist nowhere else. The Indian territory is admitted to compose a part of the United States. In all our maps, geographical treaties, histories and laws, it is so considered. In all our intercourse with foreign nations, in our commercial regulations, in any attempt at intercourse between Indians and foreign nations, they are considered as within the jurisdictional limits of the United States, subject to many of those restraints which are imposed upon our own citizens. They acknowledge themselves, in their treaties, to be under the protection of the Unites States; they admit, that the United States shall have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade with them, and managing all their affairs as they think proper; and the Cherokees in particular were allowed by the treaty of Hopewell, which preceded the constitution, “to send a deputy of their choice, whenever they think fit, to congress.” Treaties were made with some tribes, by the state of New York, under a then unsettled construction of the confederation, by which they ceded all their lands to that state, taking back a limited grant to themselves, in which they admit their dependence. Though the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and heretofore unquestioned, right to the lands they occupy, until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to our government; yet it may well be doubted, whether those tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States can, with accuracy, be denominated foreign nations. They may, more correctly, perhaps, be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession, when their right of possession ceases. Meanwhile, they are in a state of pupilage; their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian. They look to our government for protection; rely upon its kindness and its power; appeal to it for relief to their wants; and address the president as their great father. They and their country are considered by foreign nations, as well as by ourselves, as

being so completely under the sovereignty and dominion of the United States, that any attempt to acquire their lands, or to form a political connection with them would be considered by all as an invasion of our territory and an act of hostility. These considerations go far to support the opinion, that the framers of our constitution had not the Indian tribes in view, when they opened the courts of the Union to controversies between a state or the citizens thereof and foreign states. In considering this subject, the habits and usages of the Indians, in their intercourse with their white neighbors, ought not to be entirely disregarded. At the time the constitution was framed, the idea of appealing to an American court of justice for an assertion of right or a redress of wrong, had perhaps never entered the mind of an Indian or of his tribe. Their appeal was to the tomahawk, or to the government. This was well understood by the statesmen who framed the constitution of the United States, and might furnish some reason for omitting to enumerate them among the parties who might sue in the courts of the Union. Be this as it may, the peculiar relations between the United States and the Indians occupying our territory are such, that we should feel much difficulty in considering them as designated by the term foreign state, were there no other part of the constitution which might shed light on the meaning of these words. But we think that in construing them, considerable aid is furnished by that clause in the eighth section of the third article, which empowers congress to “regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” In this clause, they are as clearly contradistinguished, by a name appropriate to themselves, from foreign nations, as from the several states composing the Union. They are designated by a distinct appellation; and as this appellation can be applied to neither of the others, neither can the application distinguishing either of the others be, in fair construction, applied to them. The objects to which the power of regulating commerce might be directed, are divided into three distinct classes—foreign nations, the several states, and Indian tribes. When forming this article, the convention considered them as entirely distinct. We cannot assume that the distinction was lost, in

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framing a subsequent article, unless there be something to its language to authorize the assumption. The counsel for the plaintiffs contend, that the words “Indian tribes” were introduced into the article, empowering congress to regulate commerce, for the purpose of removing those doubts in which the management of Indian affairs was involved by the language of the ninth article of the confederation. Intending to give the whole of managing those affairs to the government about to be instituted, the convention conferred it explicitly; and omitted those qualifications which embarrassed the exercise of it, as granted in the confederation. This may be admitted, without weakening the construction which has been intimated. Had the Indian tribes been foreign nations, in the view of the convention, this exclusive power of regulating intercourse with them might have been, and, most probably, would have been, specifically given, in language indicating that idea, not in language contradistinguishing them from foreign nations. Congress might have been empowered “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, including the Indian tribes, and among the several states.” This language would have suggested itself to statesmen who considered the Indian tribes as foreign nations, and were yet desirous of mentioning them particularly. It has been also said, that the same words have not necessarily the same meaning attached to them, when found in different parts of the same instrument; their meaning is controlled by the context. This is undoubtedly true. In common language, the same word has various meanings, and the peculiar sense in which it is used in any sentence, is to be determined by the context. This may not be equally true with respect to proper names. “Foreign nations” is a general term, the application of which to Indian tribes, when used in the American constitution, is, at best, extremely questionable. In one article, in which a power is given to be exercised in regard to foreign nations generally, and to the Indian tribes particularly, they are mentioned as separate, in terms clearly contradistinguishing them from each other. We perceive plainly, that the constitution, in this article, does not comprehend Indian tribes in the general term “foreign nations;” not, we presume, because a tribe may not be a nation,

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but because it is not foreign to the United States. When, afterwards, the term “foreign state” is introduced, we cannot impute to the convention, the intention to desert its former meaning, and to comprehend Indian tribes within it, unless the context force that construction on us. We find nothing in the context, and nothing in the subject of the article, which leads to it. The court has bestowed its best attention on this question, and after mature deliberation, the majority is of opinion, that an Indian tribe or nation within the United States is not a foreign state, in the sense of the constitution, and cannot maintain an action in the courts of the United States. A serious additional objection exists to the jurisdiction of the court. Is the matter of the bill the proper subject for judicial inquiry and decision? It seeks to restrain a state from the forcible exercise of legislative power over a neighboring people, asserting their independence; their right to which the state denies. On several of the matters alleged in the bill, for example, on the laws making it criminal to exercise the usual powers of self-government in their own country, by the Cherokee nation, this court cannot interpose; at least, in the form in which those matters are presented. That part of the bill which respects the land occupied by the Indians, and prays the aid of the court to protect their possession, may be more doubtful. The mere question of right might, perhaps, be decided by this court, in a proper case, with proper parties. But the court is asked to do more than decide on the title. The bill requires us to control the legislature of Georgia, and to restrain the exertion of its physical force. The propriety of such an interposition by the court may be well questioned; it savors too much of the exercise of political power, to be within the proper province of the judicial department. But the opinion on the point respecting parties makes it unnecessary to decide this question. If it be true, that the Cherokee nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted. If it be true, that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future. The motion for an injunction is denied.

Of the Use Which the Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life

The American Anti-Slavery Society: Constitution (December 4, 1833) The American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in 1833 primarily by William Lloyd Garrison, a Boston reformer who became one of the country’s most noted white abolitionist reformers. He published the Liberator, which was an important voice against slavery. The excerpts here are from the platform for the society published in New York in 1860. Whereas the Most High God “hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,” and hath commanded them to love their neighbors as themselves, and whereas, our National Existence is based upon this principle, as recognized in the Declaration of Independence, “that all mankind are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and whereas, after the lapse of nearly sixty years, since the faith and honor of the American people were pledged to this avowal, before Almighty God and the World, nearly one-sixth part of the nation are held in bondage by their fellow-citizens; and whereas, Slavery is contrary to the principles of natural justice, of our republican form of government, and of the Christian religion, and is destructive of the prosperity of the country, while it is endangering the peace, union, and liberties of the States; and whereas, we believe it the duty and interest of the masters immediately to emancipate their slaves, and that no scheme of expatriation, either voluntary or by compulsion, can remove this great and increasing evil; and whereas, we believe that it is practicable, by appeals to the consciences, hearts, and interests of the people, to awaken a public sentiment throughout the nation that will be opposed to the continuance of Slavery in any part of the Republic, and by effecting the speedy abolition of Slavery, prevent a general convulsion; and whereas, we believe we owe it to the oppressed, to our fellow-citizens who hold slaves, to our whole country, to posterity, and to God, to do all that is lawfully in our power to bring about the extinction of Slavery, we do hereby agree, with a prayerful reliance on the Divine aid, to form ourselves into a society, to be governed by the following Constitution:—

Art. I.—This Society shall be called the American Anti-Slavery Society. Art. II.—The object of this Society is the entire abolition of Slavery in the United States. While it admits that each State, in which Slavery exists, has, by the Constitution of the United States, the exclusive right to legislate in regard to its abolition in said State, it shall aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by arguments addressed to their understandings and consciences, that Slaveholding is a heinous crime in the sight of God, and that the duty, safety, and best interest of all concerned, require its immediate abandonment, without expatriation. The Society will also endeavor, in a constitutional way to influence Congress to put an end to the domestic Slave trade, and to abolish Slavery in all those portions of our common country which come under its control, especially in the District of Columbia,—and likewise to prevent the extension of it to any State that may be hereafter admitted to the Union. Art. III.—This Society shall aim to elevate the character and condition of the people of color, by encouraging their intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice, that thus they may, according to their intellectual and moral worth, share an equality with the whites, of civil and religious privileges; but this Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force. Art. IV.—Any person who consents to the principles of this Constitution, who contributes to the funds of this Society, and is not a Slaveholder, may be a member of this Society, and shall be entitled to vote at the meetings . . . Reference: Platform of the American Anti-Slavery Society and Its Auxiliaries. 1860. New York: N.p., 3–4.

Of the Use Which the Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life Alexis de Tocqueville Perhaps the definitive historical-political voice on the development of “democracy in America,” Tocqueville toured

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America in 1831 for about nine months. Upon his return to France he published Democracy in America, volume 1 in 1835 and volume 2 in 1840. These works made him famous, and the excerpt below on the role of voluntary groups in America is probably cited by contemporary writers more often than any other piece. I do not propose to speak of those political associations by the aid of which men endeavor to defend themselves against the despotic action of a majority or against the aggressions of regal power. That subject I have already treated. If each citizen did not learn, in proportion as he individually becomes more feeble and consequently more incapable preserving his freedom single-handed, to combine with his fellow citizens for the purpose of defending it, it is clear that tyranny would unavoidably increase together with equality. Only those associations that are formed in civil life without reference to political objects are here referred to. The political associations that exist in the United States are only a single feature in the midst of the immense assemblage of associations in that country. Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association. I met with several kinds of associations in America which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object for the exertions of a great many men and inducing them voluntarily to pursue it. I have since traveled over England, from which the Americans have taken some of their laws and

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many of their customs, and it seemed to me that the principle of association was by no means so constantly or adroitly used in that country. The English often perform great things singly, whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest undertakings. It is evident that the former people consider association as a powerful means of action, but the latter seem to regard it as the only means they have of acting. Thus the most democratic country on the face of the earth is that in which men have, in our time, carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their common desires and have applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes. Is this the result of accident, or is there in reality any necessary connection between the principle of association and that of equality? Aristocratic communities always contain, among a multitude of persons who by themselves are powerless, a small number of powerful and wealthy citizens, each of whom can achieve great undertakings singlehanded. In aristocratic societies men do not need to combine in order to act, because they are strongly held together. Every wealthy and powerful citizen constitutes the head of a permanent and compulsory association, composed of all those who are dependent upon him or whom he makes subservient to the execution of his designs. Among democratic nations, on the contrary, all the citizens are independent and feeble; they can do hardly anything by themselves, and none of them can oblige his fellow men to lend him their assistance. They all, therefore, become powerless if they do not learn voluntarily to help one another. If men living in democratic countries had no right and no inclination to associate for political purposes, their independence would be in great jeopardy, but they might long preserve their wealth and their cultivation: whereas if they never acquired the habit of forming associations in ordinary life, civilization itself would be endangered. A people among whom individuals lost the power of achieving great things single-handed, without acquiring the means of producing them by united exertions, would soon relapse into barbarism. Unhappily, the same social condition that renders associations so necessary to democratic nations ren-

Of the Use Which the Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life

ders their formation more difficult among those nations than among all others. When several members of an aristocracy agree to combine, they easily succeed in doing so; as each of them brings great strength to the partnership, the number of its members may be very limited; and when the members of an association are limited in number, they may easily become mutually acquainted, understand each other, and establish fixed regulations. The same opportunities do not occur among democratic nations, where the associated members must always be very numerous for their association to have any power. I am aware that many of my countrymen are not in the least embarrassed by this difficulty. They contend that the more enfeebled and incompetent the citizens become, the more able and active the government ought to be rendered in order that society at large may execute what individuals can no longer accomplish. They believe this answers the whole difficulty, but I think they are mistaken. A government might perform the part of some of the largest American companies, and several states, members of the Union, have already attempted it; but what political power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings which the American citizens perform every day, with the assistance of the principle of association? It is easy to foresee that the time is drawing near when man will be less and less able to produce, by himself alone, the commonest necessaries of life. The task of the governing power will therefore perpetually increase, and its very efforts will extend it every day. The more it stands in the place of associations, the more will individuals, losing the notion of combining together, require its assistance: these are causes and effects that unceasingly create each other. Will the administration of the country ultimately assume the management of all the manufactures which no single citizen is able to carry on? And if a time at length arrives when, in consequence of the extreme subdivision of landed property, the soil is split into an infinite number of parcels, so that it can be cultivated only by companies of tillers, will it be necessary that the head of the government should leave the helm of state to follow the plow? The morals and the intelligence of a democratic people would be as much endangered as its business and

manufactures if the government ever wholly usurped the place of private companies. Feelings and opinions are recruited, the heart is enlarged, and the human mind is developed only by the reciprocal influence of men upon one another. I have shown that these influences are almost null in democratic countries; they must therefore be artificially created, and this can only be accomplished by associations. When the members of an aristocratic community adopt a new opinion or conceive a new sentiment, they give it a station, as it were, beside themselves, upon the lofty platform where they stand; and opinions or sentiments so conspicuous to the eyes of the multitude are easily introduced into the minds or hearts of all around. In democratic countries the governing power alone is naturally in a condition to act in this manner, but it is easy to see that its action is always inadequate, and often dangerous. A government can no more be competent to keep alive and to renew the circulation of opinions and feelings among a great people than to manage all the speculations of productive industry. No sooner does a government attempt to go beyond its political sphere and to enter upon this new track than it exercises, even unintentionally, an insupportable tyranny; for a government can only dictate strict rules, the opinions which it favors are rigidly enforced, and it is never easy to discriminate between its advice and its commands. Worse still will be the case if the government really believes itself interested in preventing all circulation of ideas; it will then stand motionless and oppressed by the heaviness of voluntary torpor. Governments, therefore, should not be the only active powers; associations ought, in democratic nations, to stand in lieu of those powerful private individuals whom the equality of conditions has swept away. As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote in the world, they look out for mutual assistance; and as soon as they have found one another out, they combine. From that moment they are no longer isolated men, but a power seen from afar, whose actions serve for an example and whose language is listened to. The first time I heard in the United States that a hundred thousand men had bound themselves publicly to abstain from spirituous

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liquors, it appeared to me more like a joke than a serious engagement, and I did not at once perceive why these temperate citizens could not content themselves with drinking water by their own firesides. I at last understood that these hundred thousand Americans, alarmed by the progress of drunkenness around them, had made up their minds to patronize temperance. They acted in just the same way as a man of high rank who should dress very plainly in order to inspire the humbler orders with a contempt of luxury. It is probable that if these hundred thousand men had lived in France, each of them would singly have memorialized the government to watch the public houses all over the kingdom. Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations of America. The political and industrial associations of that country strike us forcibly; but the others elude our observation, or if we discover them, we understand them imperfectly because we have hardly ever seen anything of the kind. It must be acknowledged, however, that they are as necessary to the American people as the former, and perhaps more so. In democratic countries the science of association is the mother of science; the progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it has made. Among the laws that rule human societies there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased. Reference: de Tocqueville, Alexis. 1873. Democracy in America. Translated by Henry Reeve; edited, with notes, the translation, revised and in great part rewritten, and the additions made to the recent Paris editions, now first translated, by Francis Bowen. Boston: John Allyn, chapter 5.

The Constitution of the Brook Farm Association (1841) This constitution is from one of the most famous of the utopian experiments, those attempts to form the perfect social organization, preceding the Civil War.

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In order more effectually to promote the great purposes of human culture; to establish the external relations of life on a basis of wisdom and purity; to apply the principles of justice and love to our social organization in accordance with the laws of Divine Providence; to substitute a system of brotherly cooperation for one of selfish competition; to secure to our children and those who may be entrusted to our care, the benefits of the highest physical, intellectual and moral education, which in the progress of knowledge the resources at our command will permit; to institute an attractive, efficient, and productive system of industry, to prevent the exercise of worldly anxiety, by the competent supply of our necessary wants; to diminish the desire of excessive accumulation, by making the acquisition of individual property subservient to upright and disinterested uses; to guarantee to each other forever the means of physical support, and of spiritual progress; and thus to impart a greater freedom, simplicity, truthfulness, refinement, and moral dignity, to our mode of life; —we the undersigned do unite in a voluntary Association, and adopt and ordain the following articles of agreement, to wit:

Article I Sec. 1. The name of this Association shall be “The Brook-Farm Association for Industry and Education.” All persons who shall hold one or more shares in its stock, or whose labor and skill shall be considered an equivalent for capital, may be admitted by the vote of two-thirds of the Association, as members thereof. Sec. 2. No member of the Association shall ever be subjected to any religious test; nor shall any authority be assumed over individual freedom of opinion by the Association, nor by any one member over another; nor shall any one be held accountable to the Association, except for such overt acts, omissions of duty, as violate the principles of justices, purity, and love, on which it is founded; and in such cases the relation of any member may be suspended, or discontinued, at the pleasure of the Association.

Article II Sec. 1. The members of this Association shall own and manage such real and personal estate in joint stock

Man the Reformer

proprietorship, divided into shares of one hundred dollars, each, as may from time to time be agreed on . . . Sec. 4. The shareholders on their part, for themselves, their heirs and assigns, do renounce all claim on any profits accruing to the Association for the use of their capital invested in the stock of the Association, except five per cent, interest on the amount of stock held by them, payable in the manner described in the preceding section.

Article III Sec. 1. The Association shall provide such employment for all its members as shall be adapted to their capacities, habits, and tastes; and each member shall select and perform such operations of labor, whether corporal or mental, as shall be deemed best suited to his own endowments, and the benefit of the Association. Sec. 2. The Association guarantees to all its members, their children, and family dependents, houserent, fuel, food, and clothing, and the other necessaries of life, without charge, not exceeding a certain fixed amount to be decided annually by the Association; no charge shall ever be made for support during inability to labor from sickness or old age, or for medical or nursing attendance, except in case of shareholders, who shall be charged therefore . . . but no charge shall be made to any members for education or the use of library and public rooms . . .

Article V Sec. 1. The government of the Association shall be vested in a board of Directors, divided into four departments as follows; 1st., General Direction; 2d, Direction of Education; 3d., Direction of Industry; 4th, Direction of Finance; consisting of three persons each . . . Sec. 5. The departments of Education and Finance shall be under the control each of its own Direction, which shall select, and in concurrence with the General Direction, shall appoint such teachers, officers, and agents, as shall be necessary to the complete and systematic organization of the department. No Directors or other officers shall be deemed to possess any rank superior to the other members of the Association, nor shall they receive any extra remuneration for their official services.

Sec. 6. The department of Industry shall be arranged in groups and series, as far as practicable, and shall consist of three primary series; to wit, Agricultural, Mechanical, and Domestic Industry. The chief of each series shall be elected every two months by the members thereof.

Man the Reformer (1841) Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of America’s foremost essayists and philosophers. He also commentated on voluntary action and philanthropy. In this excerpt from an 1841 public lecture to the Boston Mechanics’ Apprentices’ Library Association, he calls on the people to reaffirm their belief in humankind by the pursuit of reform. . . .What is a man born for but to be a Reformer, a Re-maker of what man has made; a renouncer of lies; a restorer of truth and good, imitating that great Nature which embosoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, and with every pulsation a new life? Let him renounce everything which is not true to him, and put all his practices back on their first thoughts, and do nothing for which he has not the whole world for his reason. If there are inconveniences, and what is called ruin in the way, because we have so enervated and maimed ourselves, yet it would be like dying of perfumes to sink in the effort to reattach the deeds of every day to the holy and mysterious recesses of life. The power, which is at once spring and regulator in all efforts of reform, is faith in Man, the conviction that there is an infinite worthiness in him which will appear at the call of worth, and that all particular reforms are the removing of some impediment. Is it not the highest duty that man should be honored in us? I ought not to allow any man, because he has broad lands, to feel that he is rich in my presence. I ought to make him feel that I can do without his riches, that I cannot be bought,—neither by comfort, neither by pride,—and though I be utterly penniless, and receiving bread from him, that he is the poor man beside

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me. And if, at the same time, a woman or a child discovers a sentiment of piety, or a juster way of thinking than mine, I ought to confess it by my respect and obedience, though it go to alter my whole way of life. The Americans have many virtues, but they have not Faith and Hope. I know no two words whose meaning is more lost sight of. We use these words as if they were as obsolete as Selah and Amen. And yet they have the broadest meaning and the most cogent application to Boston in this year. The Americans have no faith. They rely on the power of a dollar; they are deaf to sentiment. They think you may talk the north wind down as easily as raise society; and no class more faithless than the scholars or intellectual men. Now if I talk with a sincere wise man and my friend, with a poet, with a conscientious youth who is still under the dominion of his own wild thoughts, and not yet harnessed in the team of society to drag with us all the ruts of custom, I see at once how paltry is all this generation of unbelievers, and what a house of cards their institutions are, and I see what one brave man, what one great thought executed might effect. I see that the reason of the distrust of the practical man in all theory, is his inability to perceive the means whereby we work. Look, he says, at the tools with which this world of yours is to be built. As we cannot make a planet, with atmosphere, rivers, and forests, by means of the best carpenters’ or engineers’ tools, with chemist’s laboratory and smith’s forge to boot,—so neither can we ever construct that heavenly society you prate of, out of foolish, sick, selfish men and women, such as we know them to be. But the believer not only beholds his heaven to be possible, but already to begin to exist,—not by the men or materials the statesman uses, but by men transfigured and raised above themselves by the power of principles. To principles something else is possible that transcends all the power of expedients. Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm. The victories of the Arabs after Mahomet, who, in a few years, from a small and mean beginning, established a larger empire than that of Rome, is an example. They did they knew not what. The naked Derar, horsed on an idea, was found an overmatch for a troop of Roman cavalry. The women fought like men, and

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conquered the Roman men. They were miserably equipped, miserably fed. They were Temperance troops. There was neither brandy nor flesh needed to feed them. They conquered Asia, and Africa, and Spain, on barley. The Caliph Omar’s walking stick struck more terror into those who saw it, than another man’s sword. His diet was barley bread; his sauce was salt; and oftentimes by way of abstinence he ate his bread without salt. His drink was water. His palace was built of mud; and when he left Medina to go to the conquest of Jerusalem, he rode on a red camel, with a wooden platter banging at his saddle with a bottle of water and two sacks, one holding barley, and the other dried fruits. But there will dawn ere long on our modes of living, a nobler morning than that Arabian faith, in the sentiment of love. This is the one remedy for all ills, the panacea of nature. We must be lovers, and instantly the impossible becomes possible. Our age and history, for these thousand years, has not been the history of kindness, but of selfishness. Our distrust is very expensive. The money we spend for courts and prisons is very ill laid out. We make by distrust the thief, and burglar, and incendiary, and by our court and jail we keep him so. An acceptance of the sentiment of love throughout Christendom for a season, would bring the felon and the outcast to our side in tears, with the devotion of his faculties to our service. See this wide society of laboring men and women. We allow ourselves to be served by them, we live apart from them, and meet them without a salute in the streets. We do not greet their talents, nor rejoice in their good fortune, nor foster their hopes, nor in the assembly of the people vote for what is dear to them. Thus we enact the part of the selfish noble and king from the foundation of the world. See, this tree always bears one fruit. In every household, the peace of a pair is poisoned by the malice, slyness, indolence, and alienation of domestics. Let any two matrons meet, and observe how soon their conversation turns on the troubles from their “help,” as our phrase is. In every knot of laborers, the rich man does not feel himself among his friends,—and at the polls he finds them arrayed in a mass in distinct opposition to him. We complain that the politics of masses of the people

Man the Reformer

are so often controlled by designing men, and led in opposition to manifest justice and the common weal, and to their own interest. But the people do not wish to be represented or ruled by the ignorant and base. They only vote for these because they were asked with the voice and semblance of kindness. They will not vote for them long. They inevitably prefer wit and probity. To use an Egyptian metaphor, it is not their will for any long time “to raise the nails of wild beasts, and to depress the heads of the sacred birds.” Let our affection flow out to our fellows; it would operate in a day the greatest of all revolutions. It is better to work on institutions by the sun than by the wind. The state must consider the poor man, and all voices must speak for him. Every child that is born must have a just chance for his bread. Let the amelioration of our laws of property proceed from the concession of the rich, not from the grasping of the poor. Let us begin by habitual imparting. Let us understand that the equitable rule is, that no one should take more than his share, let him be ever so rich. Let me feel that I am to be a lover I am to see to it that the world is the better for me, and to find my reward in the act. Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long, and it would warm the heart to see how fast the vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence of armies, and navies, and lines of defence, would be superseded by this unarmed child. Love will creep where it cannot go, will accomplish that by imperceptible methods—being its own lever, fulcrum, and power,—which force could never achieve. Have you not seen in the woods, in a late autumn morning, a poor fungus or mushroom,—a plant without any solidity, nay, that seemed nothing but a soft mush or jelly,—by its constant, total, and inconceivably gentle pushing, manage to break its way up through the frosty ground, and actually to lift a hard crust on its head? It is the symbol of the power of kindness. The virtue of this principle in human society in application to great interests is obsolete and forgotten. Once or twice in history it has been tried in illustrious instances, with signal success. This great, overgrown, dead Christendom of ours still keeps alive at least the name of a lover of mankind. But one day all men will be lovers; and every calamity will be dissolved in the universal sunshine.

Will you suffer me to add one trait more to this portrait of man the reformer? The finished man should have a great prospective prudence, that he may perform the high office of mediator between the spiritual and the actual world. An Arabian poet describes his hero by saving, ”Sunshine was he In the winter day; And in the midsummer Coolness and shade.” He who would help himself and others, should not be a subject of irregular and interrupted impulses of virtue, but a continent, persisting, immovable person,—such as we have seen a few scattered up and down in time for the blessing of the world; men who have in the gravity of their nature a quality which answers to the fly-wheel in a mill, which distributes the motion equably over all the wheels, and hinders it from falling unequally and suddenly in destructive shocks. It is better that joy should be spread over all the day in the form of strength, than that it should be concentrated into ecstasies, full of danger and followed by reactions. There is a sublime prudence which is tire very highest that we know of man, which, believing in a vast future,—sure of more to come than is yet seen,— postpones always the present hour to the whole life; postpones always talent to genius, and special results to character. As the merchant gladly takes money from his income to add to his capital, so is the great man very willing to lose particular powers and talents, so that he gain in the elevation of his life. The opening of the spiritual senses disposes men ever to greater sacrifices, to leave their signal talents, their best means and skill of procuring a present success, their power and their fame,—to cast all things behind, in the insatiable thirst for divine communications. A purer fame, a greater power rewards the sacrifice. It is the conversion of our harvest into seed. Is there not somewhat sublime in the act of the farmer, who casts into the ground the finest ears of his grain? The time will come when we too shall hold nothing back, but shall eagerly convert more than we now possess into means and powers, when we shall be willing to sow the sun and the moon for seeds.

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Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature (1843) Dorothea Dix Dorothea Dix was one of nineteenth century’s greatest philanthropists. A champion for the rights of the “insane,” her remarks captured here created a sensation, lending credence to federal legislation being passed that would improve the living conditions of the “insane.” Gentlemen,—I respectfully ask to present this Memorial, believing that the cause, which actuates to and sanctions so unusual a movement, presents no equivocal claim to public consideration and sympathy . . . About two years since leisure afforded opportunity and duty prompted me to visit several prisons and almshouses in the vicinity of this metropolis, I found, near Boston, in the jails and asylums for the poor, a numerous class brought into unsuitable connection with criminals and the general mass of paupers. I refer to idiots and insane persons, dwelling in circumstances not only adverse to their own physical and moral improvement, but productive of extreme disadvantages to all other persons brought into association with them. I applied myself diligently to trace the causes of these evils, and sought to supply remedies. As one obstacle was surmounted, fresh difficulties appeared. Every new investigation has given depth to the conviction that it is only by decided, prompt, and vigorous legislation the evils to which I refer, and which I shall proceed more fully to illustrate, can be remedied. I shall be obliged to speak with great plainness, and to reveal many things revolting to the taste, and from which my woman’s nature shrinks with peculiar sensitiveness. But truth is the highest consideration. I tell what I have seen—painful and shocking as the details often are—that from them you may feel more deeply the imperative obligation which lies upon you to prevent the possibility of a repetition or continuance of such outrages upon humanity. . . . I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane, and idiotic men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the most un-

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concerned would start with real horror; of beings wretched in our prisons, and more wretched in our almshouses. . . . I must confine myself to few examples, but am ready to furnish other and more complete details, if required. If my pictures are displeasing, coarse, and severe, my subjects, it must be recollected, offer no tranquil, refined, or composing features. The condition of human beings, reduced to the extremest states of degradation and misery cannot be exhibited in softened language, or adorn a polished page. I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience. . . . It is the Commonwealth, not its integral parts, that is accountable for most of the abuses which have lately and do still exist. I repeat it, it is defective legislation which perpetuates and multiplies these abuses. In illustration of my subject, I offer the following extracts from my Note-book and Journal:— Springfield. In the jail, one lunatic woman, furiously mad, a State pauper, improperly situated, both in regard to the prisoners, the keepers, and herself. It is a case of extreme self-forgetfulness and oblivion to all the decencies of life, to describe which would be to repeat only the grossest scenes. She is much worse since leaving Worcester. In the almshouse of the same town is a woman apparently only needing judicious care, and some well-chosen employment, to make it unnecessary to confine her in solitude, in a dreary unfurnished room. . . . Lincoln. A woman in a cage. Medford. One idiotic subject chained, and one in a close stall for seventeen years. Pepperell. One often doubly chained, hand and foot; another violent; several peaceable now. Brookfield. One man caged, comfortable. Granville. One often closely confined; now losing the use of his limbs from want of exercise. Charlemont. One man caged. Savoy. One man caged . . . . Dedham. The insane disadvantageously placed in the jail. In the almshouse, two females in stalls, situated in the main building; lie in wooden bunks filled with straw; always shut up. One of these subjects is

Girard Will Case

supposed curable. The overseers of the poor have declined giving her a trial at the hospital, as I was informed, on account of expense . . . Besides the above, I have seen many who, part of the year, are chained or caged. The use of cages all but universal. Hardly a town but can refer to some not distant period of using them; chains are less common; negligences frequent; wilful abuse less frequent than sufferings proceeding from ignorance, or want of consideration. I encountered during the last three months many poor creatures wandering reckless and unprotected through the country. . . . But I cannot particularize. In traversing the State, I have found hundreds of insane persons in every variety of circumstance and condition, many whose situation could not and need not be improved; a less number, but that very large, whose lives are the saddest pictures of human suffering and degradation. I give a few illustrations; but description fades before reality. Danvers. November. Visited the almshouse. A large building, much out of repair. Understand a new one is in contemplation. Here are from fifty-six to sixty inmates, one idiotic, three insane; one of the latter in close confinement at all times. Long before reaching the house, wild shouts, snatches of rude songs, imprecations and obscene language, fell upon the ear, proceeding from the occupant of a low building, rather remote from the principal building to which my course was directed. Found the mistress, and was conducted to the place which was called “the home” of the forlorn maniac, a young woman, exhibiting a condition of neglect and misery blotting out the faintest idea of comfort, and outraging every sentiment of decency. She had been, I learnt, “a respectable person, industrious and worthy. Disappointments and trials shook her mind, and, finally, laid prostrate reason and self-control. She became a maniac for life. She had been at Worcester Hospital for a considerable time, and had been returned as incurable.” . . .. Men of Massachusetts, I beg, I implore, I demand pity and protection for these of my suffering, outraged sex. Fathers, husbands, brothers, I would supplicate you for this boon; but what do I say? I dishonor you, divest you at once of Christianity and humanity, does

this appeal imply distrust. If it comes burdened with a doubt of your righteousness in this legislation, then blot it out; while I declare confidence in your honor, not less than your humanity. Here you will put away the cold, calculating spirit of selfishness and self-seeking; lay off the armor of local strife and political opposition; here and now, for once, forgetful of the earthly and perishable, come up to these halls and consecrate them with one heart and one mind to works of righteousness and just judgment. Become the benefactors of your race, the just guardians of the solemn rights you hold in trust. Raise up the fallen, succor the desolate, restore the outcast, defend the helpless, and for your eternal and great reward receive the benediction, “Well done, good and faithful servants, become rulers over many things!” Injustice is also done to the convicts: it is certainly very wrong that they should be doomed day after day and night after night to listen to the ravings of madmen and madwomen. This is a kind of punishment that is not recognized by our statutes, and is what the criminal ought not to be called upon to undergo. The confinement of the criminal and of the insane in the same building is subversive of that good order and discipline which should be observed in every wellregulated prison. I do most sincerely hope that more permanent provision will be made for the pauper insane by the State, either to restore Worcester Insane Asylum to what it was originally designed to be or else make some just appropriation for the benefit of this very unfortunate class of our “fellow-beings.” Gentlemen, I commit to you this sacred cause. Your action upon this subject will affect the present and future condition of hundreds and of thousands. In this legislation, as in all things, may you exercise that “wisdom which is the breath of the power of God.” Respectfully Submitted, D. L. Dix

Girard Will Case The ruling from this court case affirmed an individual’s right to use his or her trust to establish a charity, instead of giving an inheritance to one’s heirs or having it go back to the government. The case reinforced the influence of Elizabethan Common Law on the American system.

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Mr. Justice STORY delivered the opinion of the court: This cause has been argued with great learning and ability . . . The late Stephen Girard, by his will dated the 25th day of December, A. D. 1830, after making sundry bequests to his relatives and friends, to the city of New Orleans, and to certain specified charities, proceeded in the 20th clause of that will to make the following bequest, on which the present controversy mainly hinges. . . .The testator then proceeded to give a minute detail of the plan and structure of the college, and certain rules and regulations for the due management and government thereof, and the studies to be pursued therein, ‘comprehending reading, writing, grammar, arithmetic, geography, navigation, surveying, practical mathematics, astronomy, natural, chemical, and experimental philosophy, the French and Spanish languages,’ (not forbidding but not recommending the Greek and Latin languages,) ‘and such other learning and science as the capacities of the several scholars may merit or warrant.’ He then added, ‘I would have them taught facts and things rather than words or signs; and especially I desire that by every proper means a pure attachment to our republican institutions, and to the sacred rights of conscience as guaranteed by our happy constitutions shall be formed and fostered in the minds of the scholars.’ The persons who are to receive the benefits of the institution he declared to be, ‘poor white male orphans between the ages of six and ten years; and no orphan should be admitted until the guardians or directors of the poor, or other proper guardian, or other competent authority, have given by indenture, relinquishment or otherwise, adequate power to the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, or to directors or others by them appointed, to enforce in relation to each orphan every proper restraint, and to prevent relatives or others from interfering with, or withdrawing such orphan from the institution.’ . . . The testator then, after suggesting that in relation to the organization of the college and its appendages, he leaves necessarily many details to the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, and their successors, proceeded to say: ‘there are, however, some restrictions which I consider it my duty to prescribe, and

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to be, amongst others, conditions on which my bequest for said college is made and to be enjoyed, namely: . . .This second injunction and requirement is that which has been so elaborately commented on at the bar, as derogatory to the Christian religion, and upon which something will be hereafter suggested in the course of this opinion . . . . These are the material clauses of the will which seem necessary to be brought under our review in the present controversy. By a codicil dated the 20th of June, A. D. 1831, the testator made the following provision: ‘Whereas I, Stephen Girard, the testator named in the foregoing will and testament, dated February 16th, 1830, have since the execution thereof, purchased several parcels and pieces of land and real estate, and have built sundry messuages, all of which, as well as any real estate that I may hereafter purchase, it is my intention to pass by said will; and whereas, in particular, I have recently purchased from Mr. William Parker, the mansion-house, outbuildings, and fortyfive acres and some perches of land, called Peel Hall, on the Ridge road, in Penn Township: Now, I declare it to be my intention, and I direct, that the orphan establishment, provided for in my said will, instead of being built as therein directed upon my square of ground between High and Chestnut and Eleventh and Twelfth streets, in the city of Philadelphia, shall be built upon the estate so purchased from Mr. W. Parker, and I hereby devote the said estate to that purpose, exclusively, in the same manner as I had devoted the said square, hereby directing that all the improvements and arrangements for the said orphan establishment, prescribed by my said will, as to said square, shall be made and executed upon the said estate, just as if I had in my will devoted the said estate to said purpose—consequently, the said square of ground is to constitute, and I declare it to be a part of the residue and remainder of my real and personal estate, and given and devised for the same uses and purposes as are declared in section twenty of my will, it being my intention, that the said square of ground shall be built upon, and improved in such a manner as to secure a safe and permanent income for the purposes stated in said twentieth section.’ The testator died in the same year; and his will and codicil were duly admitted to probate on the 31st of December of the same year.

Girard Will Case

The legislature of Pennsylvania passed the requisite laws to carry into effect the will, so far as respected the bequests of the $500,000 for the Delaware Avenue and the $300,000 for internal improvement by canal navigation, according to the request of the testator. The present bill is brought by the heirs at law of the testator, to have the devise of the residue and remainder of the real estate to the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia in trust as aforesaid to be declared void, for the want of capacity of the supposed devisees, to take land by devise, or if capable of taking generally by devise for their own use and benefit, for want of capacity to take such lands as devisees in trust; and because the objects of the charity for which the lands are so devised in trust are altogether vague, indefinite, and uncertain, and so no trust is created by the said will which is capable of being executed or of being cognizable at law or in equity, nor any trust-estate devised that can vest at law or in equity in any existing or possible cestui que trust; and therefore the bill insists that as the trust is void, there is a resulting trust thereof for the heirs at law of the testator; and the bill accordingly seeks a declaration to that effect and the relief consequent thereon, and for a discovery and account, and for other relief. The principal questions, to which the arguments at the bar have been mainly addressed are; First, whether the corporation of the city of Philadelphia is capable of taking the bequest of the real and personal estate for the erection and support of a college upon the trusts and for the uses designated in the will: Secondly, whether these uses are charitable uses valid in their nature and capable of being carried into effect consistently with the laws of Pennsylvania: Thirdly, if not, whether, being void, the fund falls into the residue of the testator’s estate, and belongs to the corporation of the city, in virtue of the residuary clause in the will; or it belongs, as a resulting or implied trust, to the heirs and next of kin of the testator. As to the first question, so far as it respects the capacity of the corporation to take the real and personal estate, independently of the trusts and uses connected therewith, there would not seem to be any reasonable ground for doubt. The act of 32 and 34 Henry 8, respecting wills, excepts corporations from taking by devise; but this provision has never been adopted into

the laws of Pennsylvania or in force there. The act of the 11th of March, 1789, incorporating the city of Philadelphia, expressly provides that the corporation, thereby constituted by the name and style of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of Philadelphia, shall have perpetual succession, . . . But without doing more at present than merely to glance at this consideration, let us proceed to the inquiry whether the corporation of the city can take real and personal property in trust. Now, although it was in early times held that a corporation could not take and hold real or personal estate in trust upon the ground that there was a defect of one of the requisites to create a good trustee, viz., the want of confidence in the person; yet that doctrine has been long since exploded as unsound, and too artificial; and it is now held, that where the corporation has a legal capacity to take real or personal estate, there it may take and hold it upon trust, in the same manner and to the same extent as a private person may do. It is true that, if the trust be repugnant to, or inconsistent with the proper purposes for which the corporation was created, that may furnish a ground why it may not be compellable to execute it. But that will furnish no ground to declare the trust itself void, if otherwise unexceptionable; but it will simply require a new trustee to be substituted by the proper court, possessing equity jurisdiction, to enforce and prefect the objects of the trust. . . .. But if the purposes of the trust be germane to the objects of the incorporation; if they relate to matters which will promote, and aid, and perfect those objects; if they tend (as the charter of the city of Philadelphia expresses it) ‘to the suppression of vice and immorality, to the advancement of the public health and order, and to the promotion of trade, industry and happiness,’ where is the law to be found which prohibits the corporation from taking the devise upon such trusts, in a state where the statutes of mortmain do not exist, (as they do not in Pennsylvania,) the corporation itself having a legal capacity to take the estate as well be devise as otherwise? We know of no authorities which inculcate such a doctrine or prohibit the execution of such trusts, even though the act of incorporation may have for its main objects mere civil and municipal government and

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regulations and powers. If, for example, the testator by his present will had devised certain estate of the value of $1,000,000 for the purpose of applying the income thereof to supplying the city of Philadelphia with good and wholesome water for the use of the citizens, from the river Schuykill, (an object which some thirty or forty years ago would have been thought of transcendant benefit,) why, although not specifically enumerated among the objects of the charter, would not such a devise upon such a trust have been valid, and within the scope of the legitimate purposes of the corporation, and the corporation capable of executing it as trustees? We profess ourselves unable to perceive any sound objection to the validity of such a trust; and we know of no authority to sustain any objection to it. Yet, in substance, the trust would be as remote from the express provisions of the charter as are the objects (supposing them otherwise maintainable) now under our consideration. In short, it appears to us that any attempt to narrow down the powers given to the corporation so as to exclude it from taking property upon trusts for purposes confessedly charitable and beneficial to the city or the public, would be to introduce a doctrine inconsistent with sound principles, and defeat instead of promoting the true policy of the state. We think, then, that the charter of the city does invest the corporation with powers and rights to take property upon trust for charitable purposes, which are not otherwise obnoxious to legal animadversion; and, therefore, the objection that it is incompetent to take or administer a trust is unfounded in principle or authority, under the law of Pennsylvania. It is manifest that the legislature of Pennsylvania acted upon this interpretation of the charter of the city, in passing the acts of the 24th of March, and the 4th of April, 1832, to carry into effect certain improvements and execute certain trusts, under the will of Mr. Girard. The preamble to the trust act, expressly states that it is passed ‘to effect the improvements contemplated by the said testator, and to execute, in all other respects, the trusts created by his will,’ as to which, the testator had desired the legislature to pass the necessary laws. The tenth section of the same act, provides ‘That is shall be lawful for the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, to exercise all such

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jurisdiction, enact all such ordinances, and to do and execute all such acts and things whatsoever, as may be necessary and convenient for the full and entire acceptance, execution, and prosecution of any and all the devises, bequests, trusts, and provisions contained in said will, &c., &c.; to carry which into effect,’ the testator had desired the legislature to enact the necessary laws. But what is more direct to the present purpose, because it imports a full recognition of the validity of the devise for the erection of the college, is the provision of the 11th section of the same act, which declares ‘That no road or street shall be laid out, or passed through the land in the county of Philadelphia, bequeathed by the late Stephen Girard for the erection of a college, unless the same shall be recommended by the trustees or directors of the said college, and approved by a majority of the select and common councils of the city of Philadelphia.’ The other act is also full and direct to the same purpose, and provides ‘That the select and common councils of the city of Philadelphia, shall be and they are hereby authorized to provide, by ordinance or otherwise, for the election or appointment of such officers and agents as they may deem essential to the due execution of the duties and trusts enjoined and created by the will of the late Stephen Girard.’ Here then, there is a positive authority conferred upon the city authorities to act upon the trusts under will, and to administer the same through the instrumentality of agents appointed by them. No doubt can then be entertained, that the legislature meant to affirm the entire validity of those trusts, and the entire competency of the corporation to take and hold the property devised upon the trusts named in the will. It is true that this is not a judicial decision, and entitled to full weight and confidence as such. But it is a legislative exposition and confirmation of the competency of the corporation to take the property and execute the trusts; and if those trusts were valid in point of law, the legislature would be estopped thereafter to contest the competency of the corporation to take the property and execute the trusts, either upon a quo warranto or any other proceeding, by which it should seek to devest the property, and invest other trustees with the execution of the trusts, upon the ground of any supposed incompetency of the corporation. And

Girard Will Case

if the trusts were in themselves valid in point of law, it is plain that neither the heirs of the testator, nor any other private persons, could have any right to inquire into, or contest the right of the corporation to take the property, or to execute the trusts; but this right would exclusively belong to the state in its sovereign capacity, and in its sole discretion, to inquire into and contest the same by a quo warranto, or other proper judicial proceeding. In this view of the matter, the recognition and confirmation of the devises and trusts of the will by the legislature, are of the highest importance and potency. We are, then, led directly to the consideration of the question which has been so elaborately argued at the bar, as to the validity of the trusts for the erection of the college, according to the requirements and regulations of the will of the testator. That the trusts are of an eleemosynary nature, and charitable uses in a judicial sense, we entertain no doubt. Not only are charities for the maintenance and relief of the poor, sick, and impotent, charities in the sense of the common law, but also donations given for the establishment of colleges, schools, and seminaries of learning, and especially such as are for the education of orphans and poor scholars. The statute of the 43 of Elizabeth, ch. 4, has been adjudged by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania not to be in force in that state. But then it has been solemnly and recently adjudged by the same court, in the case of Zimmerman v. Andres, ( January term, 1844,) that ‘it is so considered rather on account of the inapplicability of its regulations as to the modes of proceeding, than in reference to its conservative provisions.’ ‘These have been in force here by common usage and constitutional recognition; and not only these, but the more extensive range of charitable uses which chancery supported before that statute and beyond it.’ Nor is this any new doctrine in that court; for it was formally promulgated in the case of Witman v. Lex, 17 Serg. & R. (Pa.), 88, at a much earlier period, (1827.) Several objections have been taken to the present bequest to extract it from the reach of these decisions. In the first place, that the corporation of the city is incapable by law of taking the donation of such trusts. This objection has been already sufficiently consid-

ered. In the next place, it is said, that the beneficiaries who are to receive the benefit of the charity are too uncertain and indefinite to allow the bequest to have any legal effect, and hence the donation is void, and the property results to the heirs. And in support of this argument we are pressed by the argument that charities of such an indefinite nature are not good at the common law, (which is admitted on all sides to be the law of Pennsylvania, so far as it is applicable to its institutions and constitutional organization and civil rights and privileges) and hence the charity fails; and the decision of this court in the case of the Trustees of the Philadelphia Baptist Association v. Hart’s Executors, 4 Wheat., 1, is strongly relied on as fully in point. There are two circumstances which materially distinguish that case from the one now before the court. The first is, that that case arose under the law of Virginia, in which state the statute of 43 Elizabeth, ch. 4, had been expressly and entirely abolished by the legislature, so that no aid whatsoever could be derived from its provisions to sustain the bequest. The second is, that the donees (the trustees) were an unincorporated association, which had no legal capacity to take and hold the donation in succession for the purposes of the trust, and the beneficiaries also were uncertain and indefinite. Both circumstances, therefore, concurred; a donation to trustees incapable of taking, and beneficiaries uncertain and indefinite. The court, upon that occasion, went into an elaborate examination of the doctrine of the common law on the subject of charities, antecedent to and independent of the statute of 43 Elizabeth, ch. 4, for that was still the common law of Virginia. Upon a thorough examination of all the authorities and all the lights, (certainly in no small degree shadowy, obscure, and flickering,) the court came to the conclusion that, at the common law, no donation to charity could be enforced in chancery, where both of these circumstances, or rather, where both of these defects occurred. The court said: ‘We find no dictum that charities could be established on such an information (by the attorneygeneral) where the conveyance was defective or the donation was so vaguely expressed that the donee, if not a charity, would be incapable of taking.’ In reviewing the authorities upon that occasion, much reliance was placed upon Collison’s case, Hob., 136; (s. c.,

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cited Duke on Charities, by Bridgman, 368, Moo., 888,) and Platt v. St. John’s College, Cambridge, Finch., 221; (s. c., 1 Cas. in Chan., 267, Duke on Charities, by Bridgman, 379,) and the case reported in 1 Ch. Cas., 134. But these cases, as also Flood’s case, Hob., 136, (S. C., 1 Eq. Abr., 95, pl. 6,) turned upon peculiar circumstances. Collison’s case was upon a devise in 15 Henry 8, and was before the statute of wills. The other cases were cases where the donees could not take at law, not being properly described, or not having a competent capacity to take, so that there was no legal trustee; and yet the devises were held good as valid appointments under the statute of 43 Elizabeth. The dictum of Lord Loughborough in Attorney-General v. Bowyer, 3 Ves., 714, 726, was greatly relied on, where he says: ‘It does not appear that this court at that period (that is before the statute of wills) had cognizance upon information for the establishment of charities. Prior to the time of Lord Ellesmere, as far as tradition in times immediately following goes, there were no such informations as this on which I am now sitting, (an information to establish a college under a devise before the statute of mortmain of 9 Geo. 2, ch. 36;) but they made out their case as well as they could at law.’ In this suggestion Lord Loughborough had under his consideration Porter’s case, 1 Co., 16. But there a devise was made in 32 Henry 8, to the testator’s wife, upon condition for her to grant the lands, &c., in all convenient speed after his decease for the maintenance and continuance of a certain free-school, and almsmen and almswomen for ever. The heir entered for and after condition broken, and then conveyed the same lands to Queen Elizabeth in 34 of her reign; and the queen brought an information of intrusion against Porter for the land in the same year. One question was, whether the devise was not to a superstitious, and therefore void under the act of 23 Henry 8, ch. 2, or whether it was good as a charitable use. And it was resolved by the court that the use was a good charitable use, and that the statute did not extend to it. So that here we have a plain case of a charity held good, before the statute of Elizabeth, upon the ground of the common law, there being a good devisee originally, although the condition was broken and the use was for charitable purposes in some respects indefinite. Now if there was a good devisee to

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take as trustee, and the charity was good at the common law, it seems somewhat difficult to say, why, if no legal remedy was adequate to redress it, the Court of Chancery might not enforce the trust, since trusts for other specific purposes, were then, at least when there were designated trustees, within the jurisdiction of chancery. There are, however, dicta of eminent judges, (some of which were commented upon in the case of 4 Wheat., 1,) which do certainly support the doctrine that charitable uses might be enforced in chancery upon the general jurisdiction of the court, independently of the statute of 43 of Elizabeth; and that the jurisdiction had been acted upon not only subsequent but antecedent to that statute. Such was the opinion of Sir Joseph Jekyll in Eyre v. Countess of Shaftsbury, 2 (2 P. Wms., 102; 2 Eq. Abr., 710, pl. 2,) and that of Lord Northington in Attorney-General v. Tancred, 1 Eden, 10, (s. c. Amb., 351, 1 W. Bl., 90,) and that of Lord Chief Justice Wilmot in his elaborate judgment in Attorney-General v. Lady Downing, Wilmot’s Notes, p. 1, 26, given after an examination of all the leading authorities. Lord Eldon, in the Attorney-General v. The Skinner’s Company, 2 Russ., 407, intimates in clear terms his doubts whether the jurisdiction of chancery over charities arose solely under the statute of Elizabeth; suggesting that the statute has perhaps been construed with reference to a supposed antecedent jurisdiction of the court, by which void devises to charitable purposes were sustained. Sir John Leach, in the case of a charitable use before the statute of Elizabeth, (Attorney-General v. The Master of Brentwood School, 1 Myl. & K., 376,) said: ‘Although at his time no legal devise could be made to a corporation for a charitable use, yet lands so devised were in equity bound by a trust for the charity, which a court of equity would then execute.’ In point of fact the charity was so decreed in that very case, in the 12th year of Elizabeth. But what is still more important is the declaration of Lord Redesdale, a great judge in equity, in the Attorney-General v. The Mayor of Dublin, 1 Bligh, 312, 347, (1827,) where he says: ‘We are referred to the statute of Elizabeth with respect to charitable uses, as creating a new law upon the subject of charitable uses. That statute only created a new jurisdiction; it created no new law. It created a new and an-

Girard Will Case

cillary jurisdiction, a jurisdiction created by commission, &c.; but the proceedings of that commission were made subject to appeal to the Lord Chancellor, and he might reverse or affirm what they had done, or make such order as he might think fit for reserving the controlling jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery as it existed before the passing of that statute; and there can be no doubt that by information by the attorney general the same thing might be done.’ He then adds, ‘the right which the attorney-general has to file an information, is a right of prerogative. The king, as parens patriae, has a right, by his proper officer, to call upon the several courts of justice, according to the nature of their several jurisdictions, to see that right is done to his subjects who are incompetent to act for themselves, as in the case of charities and other cases.’ So that Lord Redesdale maintains the jurisdiction in the broadest terms, as founded in the inherent jurisdiction of chancery independently of the statute of 43 Elizabeth. In addition to these dicta and doctrines, there is the very recent case of the Incorporated Society v. Richards, 1 Dru. & W., 258, where Lord Chancellor Sugden, in a very masterly judgment, upon a full survey of all the authorities, and where the point was directly before him, held the same doctrine as Lord Redesdale, and expressly decided that there is an inherent jurisdiction in equity in cases of charity, and that charity is one of those objects for which a court of equity has at all times interfered to make good that, which at law was an illegal or informal gift; and that cases of charity in courts of equity in England were valid independently of and previous to the statute of Elizabeth. Mr. Justice Baldwin, in the case of the will of Sarah Zane, which was cited at the bar and pronounced at April term of the Circuit Court, in 1833, after very extensive and learned researches into the ancient English authorities and statutes, arrived at the same conclusion in which the district judge, the late lamented Judge Hopkinson, concurred; and that opinion has a more pointed bearing upon the present case, since it included a full review of the Pennsylvania laws and doctrines on the subject of charities. But very strong additional light has been thrown upon this subject by the recent publications of

the Commissioners on the public Records in England, which contain a very curious and interesting collection of the chancery records in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and in the earlier reigns. Among these are found many cases in which the Court of Chancery entertained jurisdiction over charities long before the statute of 43 Elizabeth; and some fifty of these cases, extracted from the printed calendars, have been laid before us. They establish in the most satisfactory and conclusive manner that cases of charities where there were trustees appointed for general and indefinite charities, as well as for specific charities, were familiarly known to, and acted upon, and enforced in the Court of Chancery. In some of these cases the charities were not only of an uncertain and indefinite nature, but, as far as we can gather from the imperfect statement in the printed records, they were also cases where there were either no trustees appointed, or the trustees were not competent to take. . . . If, then, this be the true state of the common law on the subject of charities, it would, upon the general principle already suggested, be a part of the common law of Pennsylvania. It would be no answer to say, that if so it was dormant, and that no court possessing equity powers now exists, or has existed in Pennsylvania, capable of enforcing such trusts. The trusts would nevertheless be valid in point of law; and remedies may from time to time be applied by the legislature to supply the defects. It is no proof of the nonexistence of equitable rights, that there exists no adequate legal remedy to enforce them. They may during the time slumber, but they are not dead. But the very point of the positive existence of the law of charities in Pennsylvania, has been (as already stated) fully recognized and enforced in the state courts of Pennsylvania, as far as their remedial process would enable these courts to act. This is abundantly established in the cases cited at the bar, and especially by the case of Witman v. Lex, 17 Serg. & R. (Pa.), 88, and that of Sarah Zane’s will, before Mr. Justice Baldwin and Judge Hopkinson. In the former case, the court said ‘that it is immaterial whether the person to take be in esse or not, or whether the legatee were at

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the time of the bequest a corporation capable of taking or not, or how uncertain the objects may be, provided there be a discretionary power vested anywhere over the application of the testator’s bounty to those objects; or whether their corporate designation be mistaken. If the intention sufficiently appears in the bequest, it would be valid.’ In the latter case certain bequests given by the will of Mrs. Zane to the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Philadelphia, an unincorporated association, for purposes of general and indefinite charity, were, as well as other bequests of a kindred nature, held to be good and valid; and were enforced accordingly. The case then, according to our judgment, is completely closed in by the principles and authorities already mentioned, and is that of a valid charity in Pennsylvania, unless it is rendered void by the remaining objection which has been taken to it. This objection is that the foundation of the college upon the principles and exclusions prescribed by the testator, is derogatory and hostile to the Christian religion, and so is void, as being against the common law and public policy of Pennsylvania; and this for two reasons: First, because of the exclusion of all ecclesiastics, missionaries, and ministers of any sect from holding or exercising any station or duty in the college, or even visiting the same: and Secondly, because it limits the instruction to be given to the scholars to pure morality, and general benevolence, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, thereby excluding, by implication, all instruction in the Christian religion. In considering this objection, the courts are not at liberty to travel out of the record in order to ascertain what were the private religious opinions of the testator, (of which indeed we can know nothing,) nor to consider whether the scheme of education by him prescribed, is such as we ourselves should approve, or as is best adapted to accomplish the great aims and ends of education. Nor are we at liberty to look at general considerations of the supposed public interests and policy of Pennsylvania upon this subject, beyond what its constitution and laws and judicial decisions make known to us. The question, what is the public policy of a state, and what is contrary to it, if inquired into beyond these limits, will be found to be one of great vagueness and uncertainty, and to involve

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discussion which scarcely come within the range of judicial duty and functions, and upon which men may and will complexionally differ; above all, when that topic is connected with religious polity, in a country composed of such a variety of religious sects as our country, it is impossible not to feel that it would be attended with almost insuperable difficulties, and involve differences of opinion almost endless in their variety. We disclaim any right to enter upon such examinations, beyond what the state constitutions, and laws, and decisions necessarily bring before us.

True and False Philanthropy William Holmes McGuffey William Holmes McGuffey, a preacher and educator, was very popular in the nineteenth century as well as the early part of the twentieth century. His writing linked education to love of one’s country. This 1844 essay expresses McGuffey’s preference for local philanthropic acts as opposed to those on a global scale. The ultimate decision between “false” and “true” philanthropy, however, lies with the reader. Mr. Fantom: I despise a narrow field. O for the reign of universal benevolence! I want to make all mankind good and happy. Mr. Goodman: Dear me! Sure that must be a wholesale sort of a job: had you not better try your hand at a town or neighborhood first? Mr. Fantom: Sir, I have a plan in my head for relieving the miseries of the whole world. Every thing is bad as it now stands. I would alter all the laws, and put an end to all the wars in the world. I would put an end to all punishments; I would not leave a single prisoner on the face of the globe. This is what I call doing things on a grand scale. Mr. Goodman: A scale with a vengeance! As to releasing the prisoners, however, I do not much like that, as it would be liberating a few rogues at the expense of all honest men; but as to the rest of your plan, if all countries would be so good as to turn Christians, it might be helped on a good deal. There would be still misery enough left indeed; because God intended

True and False Philanthropy

this world should be earth and not heaven. But, sir, among all your changes, you must destroy human corruption, before you can make the world quite as perfect as you pretend. Mr. Fantom: Your project would rivet the chains which mine is designed to break. Mr. Goodman: Sir, I have no projects. Projects are, in general, the offspring of restlessness, vanity, and idleness. I am too busy for projects, too contented for theories, and I hope, have too much honesty and humility for a philosopher. The utmost extent of my ambition at present is, to redress the wrongs of a poor apprentice, who has been cruelly used by his master: indeed, I have another little scheme, which is to prosecute a fellow, who has suffered a poor wretch in the poorhouse, of which he has the care, to perish through neglect, and you must assist me. Mr. Fantom: Let the town do that. You must not apply to me for the redress of such petty grievances. I own that the wrongs of the Poles and South Americans so fill my mind, as to leave me no time to attend to the petty sorrows of poorhouses, and apprentices. It is provinces, empires, continents, that the benevolence of the philosopher embraces; every one can do a little paltry good to his next neighbor. Mr. Goodman: Every one can, but I do not see that every one does. If they would indeed, your business would be ready done to your hands, and your grand ocean of benevolence would be filled with the drops, which private charity would throw into it. I am glad, however, you are such a friend to the prisoners, because I am just now getting a little subscription, to set free your poor old friend Tom Saunders, a very honest brother mechanic, who first got into debt, and then into jail, through no fault of his own, but merely through the pressure of the times. A number of us have given a trifle every week towards maintaining his young family since he has been in prison; but we think we shall do much more service to Saunders, and indeed in the end, lighten our own expense, by paying down, at once, a little sum, to release him, and put him in the way of maintaining his family again. We have made up all the money except five dollars. I am already promised four, and you have nothing to do but to give me the fifth. And so, for a single dollar, without any of the trouble we have had in arranging the

matter, you will, at once, have the pleasure of helping to save a worthy family from starving, of redeeming an old friend from jail, and of putting a little of your boasted benevolence into action. Realize! Mr. Fantom: There is nothing like realizing. Mr. Fantom: Why, hark ye, Mr. Goodman, do not think I value a dollar; no sir, I despise money; it is trash, it is dirt, and beneath the regard of a wise man. It is one of the unfeeling inventions of artificial society. Sir, I could talk to you half a day on the abuse of riches, and my own contempt of money. Mr. Goodman: O pray do not give yourself that trouble. It will be a much easier way of proving your sincerity, just to put your hand in your pocket, and give me a dollar without saving a word about it; and then to you, who value time so much, and money so little, it will cut the matter short. But come now, (for I see you will give nothing), I should be mighty glad to know what is the sort of good you do yourselves, since you always object to what is done by others. Mr. Fantom: Sir, the object of a true philosopher is, to diffuse light and knowledge. I wish to see the whole world enlightened. Mr. Goodman: Well, Mr. Fantom, you are a wonderful man, to keep up such a stock of benevolence, at so small an expense; to love mankind so dearly, and yet avoid all opportunities of doing them good; to have such a noble zeal for the millions, and to feel so little compassion for the units; to long to free empires and enlighten kingdoms, and deny instruction to your own village and comfort to your own family. Surely, none but a philosopher could indulge so much philanthropy and so much frugality at the same time. But come, do assist me in a partition I am making in our poorhouse, between the old, whom I want to have better fed, and the young, whom I want to have more worked. Mr. Fantom: Sir, my mind is so engrossed with the partition of Poland, that I cannot bring it down to an object of such insignificance. I despise the man, whose benevolence is swallowed up in the narrow concerns of his own family, or village, or country. Mr. Goodman: Well, now I have a notion, that it is as well to do one’s own duty, as the duty of another man; and that to do good at home, is as well as to do good abroad. For my part, I had as lief help Tom Saunders to freedom, as a Pole or a South American, though

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I should be very glad to help them too. But one must begin to love somewhere; and I think it is as natural to love one’s own family, and to do good in one’s own neighborhood, as to any body else. And if every man in every family, village, and county did the same, why then all the schemes would be met, and the end of one village or town where I was doing good, would be the beginning of another village where somebody else was doing good; so my schemes would jut into my neighbor’s; his projects would unite with those of some other local reformer; and all would fit with a sort of dovetail exactness. Mr. Fantom: Sir, a man of large views will be on the watch for great occasions to prove his benevolence. Mr. Goodman: Yes, Sir; but if they are so distant that he cannot reach them, or so vast that he cannot grasp them, he may let a thousand little, snug, kind, good actions slip through his fingers in the meanwhile: and so, between the great thing that he cannot do, and the little ones that he will not do, life passes, and nothing will be done. Reference: McGuffey, William H. 1844. Newly Revised Eclectic Reader: 50–53.

Responsibility in the Management of Societies (1847) Leonard Bacon As one of the leading Congregationalist ministers in the United States during the nineteenth century, Leonard Bacon influenced everyone from laymen to Lincoln with his antislavery—though not abolitionist—views. His work, excerpted here from the 1847 New Englander, represents one of the first treatises on charitable trusteeship in the United States by a man who strongly believed that Christians should use benevolent societies as a means to combat sin in the world and prepare for the second coming of Christ. Our associated enterprises for the propagation of Christianity, at home and abroad, have become almost the greatest of the material and visible interests of the Christian commonwealth. So the world changes.

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When the London Missionary Society and the Baptist Missionary Society were formed, it was little imagined, even by the most enthusiastic, that in those movements there was the first indication, the first visible stage—we will not say the cause or source—of a new order of things, which in half a century would affect all Christendom, and which would act irresistibly on all the relations of churches to each other, on the development and culture of piety, on the administration of the gospel in the pulpit, and even on theological dogmas. But so it is. The Church Missionary Society in England is the manifestation and the organ of a movement in the Church of England, which Canterbury can not control, and against which Oxford, in her counter-movement, struggles with only a limited success. We are far from regretting this new order of things in the Christian republic. We have no sighs to breathe for the good old days, as some esteem them, when the spirit of aggression against the empire of darkness, slumbered in the church. There are dangers, no doubt, in an age of activity and of religious enterprises. There is danger, especially, that important truths may be forgotten or undervalued in the zeal and hurry of the movement. But in our view there is more danger on the whole—more danger even to theology, in an age of stagnation. The church awakened to an active sympathy with the design of the gospel, and entering earnestly into the work of the world’s conversion, is not more likely to fall into error, than the church inactive and guided by doctors who can only dogmatize and argue. We would have it understood then that then we speak of the change which has come upon Christendom within the last half century, and which is still in progress—the change which has made our great voluntary associations for propagating the gospel so important, we speak no regret that it is so. God grant that the churches may never go back to their “old ways” in respect to effort for the diffusion of the gospel around them, and its extension through the world. Not only is the magnitude to which some of our leading benevolent societies have attained, far beyond what could have been anticipated by the most sagacious or the most sanguine when the system was originated; but the relations which they hold to churches

Responsibility in the Management of Societies

and pastors by their agencies and publications, and the multiplicity of the interests which they indirectly but powerfully affect, are of such moment as to require constant vigilance against that tendency to perversion which is inseparable from all things human. A vague feeling of the importance of guarding against such perversion—a half suppressed uneasiness about the power which is supposed to be accumulating in the hands of secretaries and executive committees— exists to an extent which makes some inquiry and discussion necessary. In the progress of new enterprises and movements, it is a thing of course that new problems will present themselves for solution—questions that must be settled in the light of new experience. The trust committed to the executive department of a great benevolent society is a trust in many respects peculiar. Though in most cases it is chiefly in the hands of ministers of the gospel, it is altogether distinct from the appropriate and higher work of the ministry. It is for the most part that “service of tables” from which the apostles, as ministers of the word of God, desired to be relieved. It requires therefore different gifts from those which are employed in the work of proclaiming and teaching the gospel. This we say not by any means in disparagement of the office, or as desiring to detract from its dignity. On the contrary we hold that it requires, for the full discharge of its duties, not merely the ordinary capacity and integrity of upright business men, but the highest degree of diligence, wisdom, disinterestedness and devotedness. The men who in the providence of God are called to exercise such a “ministry,” not of the word but of tables, in the Christian community, and who in that service “disburse with simplicity,” “ rule with diligence,” and “perform their ministry of beneficence with cheerfulness,” are to be esteemed very highly in love for their work’s sake; not less than those who being called to serve the church in the way of preaching perform that functions each in the proportion of his gifts, the teacher earnestly intent upon his teaching, and he who has the high faculty of persuasion and excitement employing that faculty to the utmost. It is with a view not of producing controversy but of forestalling it by timely and amicable discussion, that we have determined to utter, in all Christian freedom, a few thoughts on a question to which the fore-

going considerations naturally conduct us. Our question is none other than this,—Ought the executive department of a great voluntary society, for missions or for any similar enterprise, to be really and formally responsible to anybody . . . if so, to whom, and how? What we have to say on this subject is not unconsidered; nor is it inconsiderately uttered. We have observed, within a few years past, that when questions arise in regard to the action or policy of this or that great society, discussion is apt to grow confused because another question underlying the whole debate, has not been duly and clearly adjusted. That other question is, Who are the society—where is the control? Shall the officers in the executive department govern the whole movement, responsible only to God? Or shall they be under the government of some constituency? And this is the question which we propose for consideration. For the sake of convenience, and that we may have to do with tangible instances, we will speak of two societies in particular,—the American Board of Foreign Missions, and the American Tract Society. We speak of these two rather than of some others, because these are perhaps the most conspicuous of all our voluntary societies; because they are entirely unlike in the form of their constitutions, and because by the very great diligence and skill with which their affairs have been conducted the “Prudential Committee” and secretaries of the one, and the “Executive Committee” and secretaries of the other, have earned, and have obtained, to an indefinite extent, the confidence of the religious public. Our question divides itself into two. First, Ought the executive administration of these and other like societies to be responsible to anybody? And the responsibility which we are inquiring about, is, in the one hand, not virtual only but formal, and on the other hand, not nominal only but real. As the groundwork of an answer to this branch of the question, let us recollect a few dry but comprehensive facts. The revenue passing through the treasury of the American Board of Foreign Missions during the last financial year (ending July 31) was $264,807.93, including the interest of $73,098.40 of permanent funds, and not including the rent of

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$22,613.61 of the same funds vested in the house occupied by the Board for the transaction of its business at Boston. The revenues of the American Tract Society for the financial year ending April 15, 1846, were $153,916.16, including $82,784.00 for publications sold, and excluding the rents of the very valuable property owned by the Society at the corner of Nassau and Spruce streets, New York. The question relates to the responsibility of those to whom all this money is entrusted, and under whose immediate direction it is collected and expended. But the office of those who expend this money by their votes of appropriation, would be entirely dishonored if it were considered in no higher view than as merely pecuniary trust. It is important then to recollect for what uses these funds are appropriated and to what extent the operations which they sustain affect the welfare of our country and of the world. The Prudential Committee of the American Board has under its control, a mission in South Africa, one in West Africa, one in Greece, one in Turkey, one in Syria, one in Persia, five in British India, one in Siam, two in China, one in Borneo and one in the Sandwich Islands; besides nine planted among the Indians of this continent from the Abenaquis of Canada to the new homes of the Cherokees and Choctaws beyond the Mississippi, and from the remnants of the Six Nations in New York, to the intractable and nameless tribes of Oregon. At the ninety-three stations included in these twenty-six missions, there are employed one hundred and thirty-four ordained missionaries, ten of whom are also physicians; five physicians not ordained; twenty-eight assistant missionaries, laboring as schoolmasters or printers, or in other more secular works connected with the missions; and, including the wives of the missionaries, who are all considered as in the service of the Board and under the direction of the committee, one hundred and seventy-five “female assistant missionaries.” All these are Americans; but these are not the only laborers in the missionary field. Twenty-five native preachers, in the various countries occupied by the missions and one hundred and thirty-two other native helpers (not counting an indefinite number of native teachers of free schools) swell the aggregate of the laborers at the missions, who are principally and directly

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dependent on the Board for support, to four hundred and ninety-four. These statements, without repeating the details of the number of churches and church members,—the number of schools and seminaries and colleges with their pupils,—The number of printing establishments, the presses and fonts of type, and the type and stereotype foundries,— and the number of languages in which printing is executed at the various missions—will sufficiently refresh the reader’s recollections in regard to the extent of the foreign operations of the Board. At the same time, it should be remembered that the domestic operations of the Board must needs be in some proportion to the extent of its operations abroad. During the last year, the expenses in the home department, including agencies for the collection of funds,—publications designed to diffuse missionary intelligence, and to guide the public mind,—the support of three secretaries and a treasurer, all of whom devote their whole time to the business of the institution,—and a variety of miscellaneous expenditures incidental to the work— amounted to $25,798.84, without including the rent of the Missionary House at Boston. The Executive Committee of the American Tract Society expend a portion of their revenues in foreign countries; though as yet they have sent abroad no missionaries, “colporteurs,” or other agents, from this country. Thus their report for the last year, shows appropriations to various evangelical missions in heathen and Mohammedan countries, and to various kindred societies and committees in Europe, amounting in all to $15,000. But to the Tract Society, the great field for its beneficence and power is in our own country. According to the Report before us, one hundred and seventy-five men were in the service of the committee, as “colporteurs,” “superintendents of colportage,” and “volume agents,” for the whole or for various portions of the last year. Some of these men are ministers of the gospel; others are theological students or candidates for the ministry; others are laymen, represented as men of good sense, good information and active religious zeal. But though these men are called by the undignified name of colporteurs, or pedlers—a name redolent of apostolicity only to those who know not what it means—the itinerant vending of books is by no means their exclusive or their highest function. They might


rather be called lay evangelists; for it is their business to preach not only conversationally and from house to house, but in the way of continuous discourse wherever they can gather an assembly. It appears from the treasurer’s report, that the expenditures in the “colportage” department, for the last year, including the compensation of one of the secretaries and a clerk, and excluding the cost of books given away,—amounted to $31,043.50. The same report shows that the aggregate expenditure of the year for the manufacture of books and other publications, including what was paid to authors and translators and for revision, was $90,603.91. Another comprehensive charge is for “services and expenses of general agents,” the amount of which is $5,709.45. These general agents, seven in number, devote themselves, each in his own field, “to the work of bringing the various objects, plans and operations of the society before the churches and securing their cooperation; “—in a word, their business is to collect money by preaching and personal solicitation. The extent of the Society’s business is indicated by the fact that aside from all that is done in the department of “colportage,” which, as we have already seen, gives full employment to one secretary assisted by a clerk, the charge for the services of two other corresponding secretaries, an assistant secretary and assistant treasurer, a depositary, and seven clerks and assistants in the various offices of the Society’s house in Nassau street, amounts to $7,884.61; and no man who knows those secretaries can doubt either that they are hard-working men, giving their strength to their business in a selfsacrificing spirit,—or that the assistants and clerks that work under them, are obliged to earn their wages. There then we see a yearly revenue of $264,000 controlled by one committee at Boston, and a yearly revenue of $154,000 controlled by another committee at New York; and, in connection with the pecuniary trust, we see under the control of each committee a great system of arrangements for acting on public opinion,—secretaries, agents, anniversaries, presses, and the affection and enthusiasm connected with a great evangelical movement. Our question is, Ought these committees to be, formally and really, responsible to some constituency? We can not doubt that our readers are prepared, nay were quite ready at the outset, to answer our ques-

tion in the affirmative. But we would have them distinctly conscious of the reasons why the men that hold such trusts ought to be thus responsible. We do not find those reasons, and we presume our readers will not find them, in any distrust of the individuals who at the present time happen to hold this power; for we have all the confidence in their integrity, their devotedness, and their experience, that can be demanded. Our reasons, on the contrary, are such as these: 1. A true responsibility of the executive to some superior or constituent power, is a security against mismanagement and the gradual perversion of the trust. Security against fraudulent mismanagement is not what we speak of. So far as strict business fidelity is concerned, we do not think that any thing would be lost if the Prudential Committee of the American Board, and the Executive Committee of the American Tract Society, as now existing, were formally authorized to fill all their own vacancies henceforward, and to manage matters at their own discretion, giving only such reports to the public, through the press, and at anniversary meetings, as shall to them seem expedient. As to mere honesty, the members of each committee—seven in one instance and fifteen in the other—may safely enough be left to watch one another as well as their secretaries and the other agents under their control. The danger against which we would guard, is altogether of a different sort. Men acting in any great executive trust, if they are required at stated periods to give a full account of their proceedings, and if they know that their policy is not merely to commend itself to mankind at large by the eclat of its success, but is to be continually reviewed in its details by other minds, will be more likely to act wisely than if they act simply at their own discretion. And should they err, as they easily may, in consequence of devoting their minds too engrossingly to the one particular interest which they have in hand, their errors are more likely to be immediately discovered and corrected. Great perversions of trusts like these, whenever they occur, are made for the most part unconsciously, gradually, and with the best intentions. 2. We come then to another reason for making the executive administration of these societies, truly and formally responsible to some definite constituency. Such responsibility is a security against the dangerous

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accumulation of power in a few hands. The grand palladium of political liberty is that there shall be no power, and especially no administrative power, without responsibility. Power, and especially executive power, if placed in irresponsible hands, grows and accumulates till nothing but the violence of revolution can resist it. For the same reason the power which is necessarily involved in the administration of these great societies, and of others like them, and which must necessarily be entrusted to a few hands, should be carefully guarded and bounded by corresponding responsibility. But we need not spend time in the illustration of this point. 3. There is another argument, more pressing if not more important. An irresponsible executive at the head of one of these great movements, is constantly liable to suspicion and assault, and has no legitimate protection. There are men, and in this country of ours they are not insignificant in numbers or in the faculty of making themselves felt, whose instinctive jealousies are kindled at the sight of power, and who can not rest till they have ascertained that there is some adequate security against the possible abuse of it. But it is not from these men only that jealousies may spring up, against an irresponsible executive at the head of an institution like those of which we are speaking. Suppose for example, that some missionary, VOL. V. deeming himself unjustly treated by the committee at Boston, could find no “Board” properly constituted for such business, to hear his complaint or appeal and to decide between him and the committee. Or suppose that when dissatisfaction arises in any quarter respecting the policy pursued by the committee at the Tract House in New York, the dissatisfied party could find no constituent body before which the grounds of its discontent could be fairly and freely discussed, and by which the errors of the committee could be overruled and corrected. How plain is it that in such a case the committee is placed in a most disadvantageous position. It is exposed to jealousy and misrepresentation on every side; but it has no opportunity of meeting its accusers face to face, and defending itself openly and manfully against their erroneous constructions or their unfriendly imputations. it is sensitive to every attack; but it can not reply without some compromise of dignity. And yet that official silence operates at once

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to irritate the jealousy that ought to be conciliated, and to put new weapons into the hands of opposition. How strong is the temptation in such circumstances—and how unconsciously may it operate—to form a harsh judgment of the motives from which opposition proceeds, and then to act accordingly. How gradually, and in a sense unintentionally, may the whole apparatus of an extended organization, be employed to counteract the efforts, by destroying the influence and reputation, of the refractory individuals who in their self-conceit, or for some bye ends, have dared to embarrass the great and blessed cause. That these secretaries, then, and these administrative committees, ought to be responsible to somebody, is plain; and the reasons are plain. But to whom, and how? What is the best arrangement for effecting and maintaining the responsibility that is so desirable? This is the second branch of our inquiry. And here our first position is, that a responsibility to the public at large, or to that portion of the public to which the enterprise looks for support, is not sufficient. Such a responsibility undoubtedly exists in every instance, and undoubtedly its influence is highly salutary. No society can go along any faster, or any further, than it is sustained by public confidence in the quarters to which it looks for pecuniary contributions. In this view, the Board of Missions and the Tract Society, and all similar organizations, are responsible to the Christian community, and it is well in every respect that they are so. Such responsibility, however, is a responsibility of the society itself, as a whole; it is a responsibility which exists in the necessity which the society is under, of commending its object and its methods to the largest possible number of individuals, in order to enlist the largest possible number of supporters and friends. But what we are inquiring after is not the responsibility of the society as a whole, to the public. Our inquiry is rather, who shall be the society? Shall the executive administration, to wit, the secretaries and the committee, be the society, and be responsible in that capacity, directly and solely, to the public? Or shall there be a constituent body between the committee and the public, to whom the committee shall be responsible, and who shall therefore be, within certain limits, responsible for the committee? To make the committee responsible only to the pub-


lic, is as much as to require that all the proceedings of the committee shall be publicly discussed, and that every man who feels himself in any manner aggrieved by their action in any case, or whose judgment differs from theirs on any serious question, shall appeal at once to the tribunal of the public, and shall prosecute his appeal by popular agitation. But in this idea of responsibility to the public, there is something of a fallacy which it may be worth the while to expose. Doubtless the Executive Committee of the American Tract Society are responsible to the public; that is, whenever the public shall refuse to buy their books or to give them money, the committee will be obliged to abdicate. So is the emperor of Austria responsible to the people whom he governs. Whenever the people in all the provinces and kingdoms of that empire shall take it into their heads to overturn the government, and to run all the risks and make all the sacrifices involved in such a revolution, they can do it. And the emperor, or rather Metternich in his behalf, must needs conduct his administration with that possibility in view, and must consider well what the people will bear and what they will not bear. But he knows very well, and every body knows, that the people will bear a great deal before they will run all the hazards involved in a revolution. And besides all that, he has the means of influencing public opinion, to an unlimited degree, in favor of submission to his measures; and he has the means of making the people submit to many things which they would soon reform if they could utter their thoughts freely and peacefully in a properly constituted representative assembly. Not altogether unlike to this, is the sense in which the executive administration of a great and popular institution, is responsible to the public. The object for which that institution exists is a great object; one which thousands of intelligent men, and tens of thousands of good people less intelligent, are not willing to give up because of any slight dissatisfaction with the manner in which the institution is conducted. The withholding of contributions is a desperate remedy and will not be employed in respect to so great an enterprise, save in extreme cases. And not only so, but the administration of a great and popular society, instead of being passively governed by public opinion, is itself, to an indefinite ex-

tent, the creator of public opinion in respect to its own policy; or more exactly, the creator of that public opinion on which it depends for its supplies. The entire system of agencies, correspondence, publications, and anniversary meetings, is a mighty machinery for forming and guiding public opinion. And many a man there is, not particularly deficient in moral courage, nor deficient in wisdom and conscientiousness, who, in any other than an absolutely desperate case, would not dare resist that machinery, for the reason that in so doing he would only throw away his efforts and sacrifice himself to no purpose. But are not these societies responsible to the churches?—to individual churches, and to those ecclesiastical bodies which may be considered as, in one sense or another, representing the churches? Undoubtedly they are, and undoubtedly this relation between them and the churches is greatly for the welfare of both. But churches and ecclesiastical bodies, considered in reference to any control which they exert over our great societies, are only organs through which public opinion may manifest itself. Responsibility to the churches, then, is only one form of that responsibility to the public, of which we have already spoken; just as responsibility to the press is another form of the same thing. The man who would bring the administrative committee of some great society to account, may write what he would say, and publish it in the newspapers, or in a pamphlet; or, he may set forth his views in a church meeting, or a presbytery, in a consociation or a synod, in a general association or a general assembly; and the struggle which will ensue may serve at least to show whether his personal influence, or the official influence of the committee is the greater in that quarter. There are those who would make this responsibility to the churches more explicit, more methodical, and more complete. Instead of voluntary societies as we call them, they would have ecclesiastical boards to manage all benevolent enterprises. This is the system of the Methodists, and it has been adopted by the Episcopalians, and by the Presbyterians of the Annual Assembly. We have no admiration for such arrangements, and no confidence in them. Some of our “Old School” Presbyterian friends, we believe, are already beginning to suspect that the executive committee of

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an ecclesiastical board is in no ‘vise better than the executive committee of a voluntary society; and, indeed, that under the new arrangements by which the church, “as such,” and “in its distinctive character,” was to be a missionary society, and an education society, and a society for publishing books and tracts,—the “church, as such,” instead of governing the various executive committees is itself, even “in its ecclesiastical capacity,” likely to be governed by them. That the executive committee of the Assembly’s Board of Publication is any more really under the control of their churches than the Executive Committee of the American Tract Society, may be doubted without incurring the guilt of temerity; and that it is much more likely to make itself felt as a power in the General Assembly, and in subordinate judicatures, is too plain to be argued. When the churches of New England, having grown weary of Congregationalism, shall desire to establish a strong central government, let them set up at Boston a complete system of ecclesiastical boards for the conduct of all benevolent enterprises; Responsibility in the Management of Societies and they will be as well provided for as the nature of the case will admit . . . . One other form of responsibility remains to be considered so the executive of any such institution may be made responsible to a board of managers. Such an arrangement, properly carried into effect, would leave nothing to be desired which the imperfection of all things human will permit. But in order that it may be properly carried into effect, several things are necessary, which are often disregarded. 1. The board must be the representative body of the society, and must be constituted for that end. The society itself, considered as consisting of all who contribute to the enterprise, can not deliberate—cannot be assembled for the transaction of any business, otherwise than in the fictitious manner of an anniversary meeting. The society, thus considered, cannot be appealed to or argued with, otherwise than through the press. And its approbation or disapprobation of particular measures, can in no way be fairly and indisputably ascertained. The society is the public, and its opinion is public opinion. We say then, that the proper function of a board is that of trustees for the contributors, the living and the dead.

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2. The board, then, should be a deliberative body. Its function should not begin and end with electing an executive committee. The annual reports of the administration should be examined by them, and should go forth to the public with their intelligent and deliberate approval. Plainly, then, the board should be so constituted, and its meetings should be so arranged, as to facilitate deliberation and discussion. 3. It must be a select body; not too numerous for the transaction of business, not so numerous as to diminish the sense of individual responsibility in the members, not so numerous, nor so scattered, as to make it likely that those who are present at one meeting will all, or nearly all, be absent from the next, and that there will be no corporate identity from one meeting to another. 4. Its business must be supervision, not administration. Its relation to the executive department of the institution should be not unlike that of the corporation to the faculty in a well constituted and well conducted college. Its meetings therefore should be unfrequent, ordinarily not more than one in a year; and each annual meeting should be long enough for a deliberate and faithful review of the administration of the year, and for the expression of a careful opinion on whatever questions may legitimately come before it. 5. From these principles it follows that the members of such a board should not be appointed by a mere show of hands, or a sound of “aye,” in a great promiscuous assembly where nobody knows who votes or who has a right to vote. On the contrary they should be deliberately selected, and called to participate in the trust, by those who are most likely to act wisely and disinterestedly. Above all they should not be appointed directly or indirectly by the executive officers whom it is their duty to supervise. Let the board of managers be thus constituted; let the executive committee be their committee appointed by them and giving account to them; and a real and effective responsibility is secured. Such an arrangement is manifestly safer in respect to the great interests concerned, pecuniary and moral, ecclesiastical and religious, than any other that we can conceive. Such an arrangement, we doubt not, will be more effectual than any other in obtaining public confidence, and in retaining it through all agitations and changes.


An arrangement of this kind is provided for theoretically, in all the great societies. Yet practically, in most cases, the provision amounts to little, for the reason that some or all of the obvious principles of the case are disregarded. The tendency of the trust to slide into the hands of the executive, and to rest there without any real responsibility, seems almost irresistible. We will illustrate this by referring once more to the two great institutions which we have already named so often, and then our word will have been spoken. The theory of the Tract Society is plain enough. There is an “Executive Committee,” elected by a “Board of Directors,” and therefore immediately responsible to that board. The Directors are a deliberative body with powers to “direct” the system and policy of the institution, part of them annually appointed to that trust by the members of the society, the others constituted for life by the payment of fifty dollar subscriptions. The Society itself includes all donors of not less than twenty dollars at one time. And what is the practice? Such a thing as a deliberate election of thirty-six Directors by the members of the society, was never heard of. At the appointed stage in the celebration of the anniversary solemnities, when all other ceremonies have been duly performed, some one, generally a member of the Executive Committee, moves that certain persons whom he names, or whom without naming he designates as the officers of the last year, be elected officers for the year ensuing. The motion is immediately put to the confused assembly, and declared to be a vote. In a word, the thirty-six elective Directors are practically appointed by the Executive Committee. The anniversary celebration is then closed with the doxology and the benediction; and the meeting of the Directors, for the choice of an Executive Committee, follows on the spot. A dozen individuals, perhaps, are gathered in a huddle around the President’s chair on the platform, while the congregation is retiring; as many ballots prepared and printed beforehand at the Tract House are passed through their hands, and the business is finished. If the Board of Directors has ever held any other sort of a meeting in the twentyone years since the Society was formed,—except in one peculiar instance which has since been pronounced entirely out of order in the judgment of

some of the executive officers—the knowledge of such a meeting has never come to us. The whole story then is, the Executive Committee virtually appoint not only the Directors but themselves also, and are really responsible to nobody, while yet they control more than $150,000 annually. We have long regarded the constitution of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, as incomparably the wisest and safest of all constitutions for a great missionary organization. In theory, it is an incorporated board of “commissioners” or trustees, acting as almoners for all who are disposed to entrust them with funds to be expended in foreign missions. As incorporated by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1812, the commissioners, then eleven in number, were authorized at any annual meeting to “elect by ballot any suitable persons to be members of said Board, either to supply vacancies, or in addition to their present number,”—the only limitation of their discretion being that not less than one-third of the commissioners should always be “respectable laymen,” and not less than one third “respectable clergymen,” the remaining third to be “characters of the same description, whether clergymen or laymen.” The charter authorizes the commissioners to elect all necessary officers from among theirselves; it names particularly a “Prudential Committee,” and provides that the signatures of the chairman and clerk of that committee, together with the seal of the corporation, shall give validity to deeds and contracts in behalf of the Board. The system, in its original conception, is as wise and safe as it is simple. The self-perpetuating character of the corporation, which is its most obvious peculiarity, is its most obvious excellency, as an institution for an extended system of operations. And this peculiarity is most completely in accordance with Congregational Institutions. This board of trust for foreign missions, is constituted precisely like the board of trust for a Congregational college, or theological seminary—a board filling its own vacancies in the exercise of its own deliberate wisdom, and regarding that as one of the highest portions of its high trust. The unparalleled degree of public confidence which the American Board obtained so early, and has held so long, is a testimony in behalf of this arrangement, which can not well be disputed. What better arrangement than this,

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for the supervision of the Prudential Committee, could be contrived? Yet with all our confidence in this constitution, we see dangers arising at no very great distance. The great danger is that the secretaries and Prudential Committee, instead of being the mere executive, and as such strictly and continually responsible, will become themselves the Board, and that what ought to be the Board will become a mere appendage to the committee. Whenever such a change shall have come to pass, the institution will soon lose the strength of its hold upon the confidence of the public. We consider ourselves, therefore, as doing the very best of work for the great missionary cause, while we point out what we conceive to be the sources of this danger. 1. It seems to have been an oversight in the charter, that the Board was not definitely limited in regard to the increase of its members. The consequence is, that the number of members has been inadvertently increased, till the last report shows us a catalogue of one and hundred times as eighty-six,—full three many as there ought to be, and the number is still increasing every year. In this way the sense of individual responsibility on the part of the Commissioners is necessarily weakened. The individual who esteems others better than himself, and therefore esteems himself much less than the one-hundred-and-eighty-sixth part of the corporation, is not half so likely to feel an obligation to attend the meetings, and when attending is not half so likely to exercise his own free judgment, or to bend his powers earnestly to the business in hand, as he would be if the corporation were only half as numerous. Thus, the larger the number of individuals to whom this great trust is committed, the more is the responsibility divided, and the more probable is it that the body will be swayed by the opinions of the secretaries and the committee. We would have the number of Commissioners reduced as soon as practicable, to not more than sixty. Forty would be still better. 2. Simultaneously with this great increase in the number of Commissioners, has been another change, equally unfavorable to the character of the institution as a board of trust. Twenty-five years ago, a rule was established by which clergymen, on the payment of fifty dollars at

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one time, and laymen, on the payment of one hundred dollars, become “honorary members,” and as such, have a stipulated right to be present at all meetings, to participate in all debates, and, in a word, to do every thing but vote. Of these honorary members there are already some thousands, and every month increases the number. The Board of Cornmissioners, as it was contrived and instituted by its founders, as it was chartered by the state of Massachusetts, as it was endowed by the munificence of Norris, has well nigh lost its identity. Should the members of the corporation hold a meeting by themselves for the transaction of the business of their trust, every one of the thousands of honorary members might sue the corporation and recover the money which he paid for his membership flow entirely would the Corporation of Yale College, or that of the Andover Seminary, disqualify itself for its duties as a board of trust, and forfeit the confidence of the public, if it should place itself in a similar position. 3. As a matter of course, the character of the annual meetings has been greatly changed. Formerly, they were strictly meetings of trustees, coming together to attend to the business of their trust. According to the almost universal usage in the administration of public trusts, the traveling expenses of the Commissioners in going to the place of meeting, and returning to their homes, were a charge upon the treasury.* (* There is a reason for this usage, aside from its obvious fitness. The man who works for nothing and pays his own expenses, is not likely to do his work quite so well, be he ever so conscientious, as the man, equally conscientious, who feels that his expenses at least, are a charge upon those for whom he is working.) The business sessions of each annual meeting were distinguished from the public assemblies for popular addresses and religious services, and were held in some room adapted, in size and structure, to the transaction of business; and though spectators were not excluded from those sessions, they did not resort to them, for the reason that there were no performances there particularly designed for their enjoyment or for their edification. If there was debate, nobody spoke for display, or for popular effect, or for the reporters, or otherwise than in a business fashion; and if there were differences of opinion, they could be freely uttered,

Women’s Rights: The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

and nobody was wounded. But how great has been the change within the last ten years. Now, what ought to be business sessions, are held in a church, the largest that can be had. Seats and tables, on an elevated platform, are provided not only for the officers of the institution, hut for the reporters of newspapers, both religious and secular. From the galleries, bright eyes that are there not to pierce into the intricacies of business, but to glitter with emotion and to be suffused with pleasurable tears, look down upon the crowds below. The meeting is, in short, very much like an anniversary of three days’ duration, and is necessarily becoming more and more so. In such an assembly, a business discussion, and particularly a free examination of what has been done by the committee, as if the committee were amenable to that assembly, is felt to be out of place; it does not edify. The exercises of the meeting are necessarily conducted with reference to popular effect, and all the forms of business, therefore, must be despatched, as forms, without debate or difference of opinion. While this is so, the meeting must of course be an exceedingly difficult thing to manage; and yet it must he managed, and, to keep it from being a total failure, all the proceedings must be planned out beforehand, by the officers, like the proceedings of any other mass-meeting. But with all the skill employed from year to year in the getting up, and with all the new excitements attendant on the progress of the work, is there not danger that these protracted massmeetings will soon be less attractive than they have been; and that whenever they begin to decline, the effect on the public will be discouraging, and therefore disastrous to the cause . . . . L. B. Reference: Bacon, Leonard. 1847. “Responsibility in the Management of Societies.” New Englander 5, no. 17 ( January): 28–41.

Women’s Rights: The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (July 19, 1848) The women’s rights movement of the nineteenth century was in part also an antislavery crusade. Both causes be-

came important issues for reform-minded philanthropic organizations throughout the twentieth century. In 1840, a group of women found themselves excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. The Seneca Falls Convention represented a first of its kind.

I. Declaration of Sentiments When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled. The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward

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woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable rights to the elective franchise. He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice. He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners. Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides. He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead. He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns. He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement. He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes, and in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of the women—the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of a man, and giving all power into his hands. After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single, and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it. He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration. He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known. He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education, all colleges being closed against her.

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He allows her in Church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church. He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated, but deemed of little account in man. He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God. He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life. Now, in view of this entire disfranshisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States. In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our subject. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and National legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions embracing every part of the country.

2. Resolutions Whereas, The great precept of nature is conceded to be, that “man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness.” Blackstone in his Commentaries remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid, derive all their force, and all

Message from the President of the United States Returning to the Senate the Bill

their validity, and all their authority, mediately and immediately, from this original; therefore, Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority. Resolved, That woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such. Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want. Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does not accord to woman moral superiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies. Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman. Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very ill-grace from those who encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert, or in feats of the circus. Resolved , That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her. Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise. Resolved, That the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities. Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both

men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to women an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions, and commerce. Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a selfevident truth growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at war with mankind. Reference: Stanton, E. C., S. B. Anthony, and M. J. Gage, eds. 1881. The History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. 1. Rochester, NY: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Charles Mann, 70 ff.

Message from the President of the United States Returning to the Senate the Bill Entitled “an Act Making a Grant of Public Lands to the Several States for the Benefit of Indigent Insane Persons,” with a Statement of the Objections Which Have Required Him to Withhold from It His Approval Dorothea Dix had been successful in her campaign to get Congress to pass a bill that would provide support for the mentally insane. However, President Franklin Pierce vetoed the bill mainly on the grounds that the federal government should not intercede in affairs that are properly those of the state or local government or private philanthropy. May 3, 1854.—Read, ordered to lie on the table, and be printed.

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May 4, 1854.—Ordered that 10,000 additional copies be printed for the use of the Senate. To the Senate of the United States: The bill, entitled “An act making a grant of public lands to the several States for the benefit of indigent insane persons,” which was presented to me on the 27th ultimo, has been maturely considered, and is returned to the Senate, the house in which it originated, with a statement of the objections which have required me to withhold from it my approval . . . The bill provides in substance: First. That ten millions of acres of land be granted to the several States, to be apportioned among them in the compound ratio of the geographical area and representation of said States in the House of Representatives. Second. That wherever there are public lands in a State, subject to sale at the regular price of private entry, the proportion of said ten millions of acres falling to such State shall be selected from such lands within it; and that to the States in which there are no such public lands, land scrip shall be issued to the amount of their distributive shares, respectively, said scrip not to be entered by said States, but to be sold by them, and subject to entry by their assignees: Provided, That none of it shall be sold at less than one dollar per acre, under penalty of forfeiture of the same to the United States. Third. That the expenses of the management and superintendence of said lands, and of the moneys received there from, shall be paid by the States to which they may belong, out of the treasure of said States. Fourth. That the gross proceeds of the sales of such lands or land scrip, so granted, shall be invested by the several States in safe stocks, to constitute a perpetual fund, the principal of which shall remain forever undiminished, and the interest to be appropriated to the maintenance of the indigent insane within the several States. Fifth. That annual returns of lands or scrip sold shall be made by the States to the Secretary of the Interior, and the whole grant be subject to certain conditions and limitations prescribed in the bill, to be assented to by legislative acts of said States. This bill, therefore, proposes that the federal government shall make provision, to the amount of the

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value of ten millions of acres of land, for an eleemosynary object within the several States, to be administered by the political authority of the same; and it presents at the threshold the question whether any such act on the part of the federal government is warranted and sanctioned by the Constitution, the provisions and principles of which are to be protected and sustained as a first and paramount duty. It cannot be questioned, that if Congress have power to make provision for the indigent insane without the limits of this District, it has the same power to provide for the indigent who are not insane, and thus to transfer to the federal government the charge of all the poor in all the States. It has the same power to provide hospitals and other local establishments for the care and cure of every species of human infirmity, and thus to assume all that duty, of either public philanthropy or public necessity, to the depended, the orphan, the sick, or the needy, which is now discharged by the States themselves, or by corporate institutions, or private endowments, existing under the legislation of the States. The whole field of public beneficence is thrown open to the care and culture of the federal government. Generous impulses no longer encounter the limitations and control of our imperious fundamental law. For, however worthy may be the present object in itself, it is only one of a class. It is not exclusively worthy of benevolent regard. Whatever considerations dictate sympathy for this particular object, apply in like manner, if not in the same degree, to idiocy, to physical disease, to extreme destitution. If Congress may and ought to provide for any one of these objects, it may and ought to provide for them all. And if it be done in this case, what answer shall be given when Congress shall be called upon, as it doubtless will be, to pursue a similar course of legislation in the others? It will obviously be vain to reply that the object is worthy, but that the application has taken a wrong direction. The power will have been deliberately assumed, the general obligation will, by this act, have been acknowledged, and the question of means and expediency will alone be left for consideration. The decision upon the principle in any one case determines it for the whole class. The question presented, therefore, clearly is upon the constitutionality and propriety of the federal government assuming to

Message from the President of the United States Returning to the Senate the Bill

enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely—that of providing for the care and support of all those, among the people of the United States, who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. I readily, and, I trust, feelingly acknowledged the duty incumbent on us all, as men and citizens, and as among the highest and holiest of our duties, to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want, and to disease of body or mind; but I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the federal government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, and subversive of the whole theory upon which the union of these States is founded. And if it were admissible to contemplate the exercise of this power for any object whatever, I cannot avoid the belief that it would in the end be prejudicial, rather than beneficial, in the noble offices of charity to have the charge of them transferred from the States to the federal government. Are we not too prone to forget that the federal Union is the creature of the States, not they of the federal Union? We were the inhabitants of colonies, distinct in local government one from another; before the revolution. By that revolution, the colonies each became an independent State. They achieved that independence, and secured its recognition by the agency of a consulting body, which, from being an assembly of the ministers of distinct sovereignties, instructed to agree to no form of government which did not leave the domestic concerns of each State to itself, was appropriately denominated a Congress. When having tried the experiment of the confederation, they resolved to change that for the present federal Union, and thus to confer on the federal government more amply authority, they scrupulously measured such of the functions of their cherished sovereignty as they chose to delegate to the general government. With this aim, and to this end, the fathers of the republic framed the Constitution, in and by which the independent and sovereign States united themselves for certain specified objects and purposes, and for those only, leaving all powers not therein set forth as conferred on one or another of the three great departments—the legisla-

tive, the executive, and the judicial—indubitably with the States. And when the people of the several States had, in their State conventions, and thus alone, given effect and force to the Constitution, not content that any doubt should in future arise as to the scope and character of this act, they engrafted thereon the explicit declaration that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, controverted that the great mass of the business of government, that involved in the social relations the internal arrangements of the body politic, then mental and moral culture of men, the development of local resources of wealth, the punishment of crimes in general, the preservation of order, the relief of the needy or otherwise unfortunate members of society, did, in practice, remain with the States; that none of these objects of local concern are by the Constitution expressly or impliedly prohibited to the States; and that none of them are, by any express language of the Constitution, transferred to the United States” Can it be claimed that any of these functions of local administration and legislation are vested in the federal government by any implication? I have never found anything in the Constitution which is susceptible of such a construction. No one of the enumerated powers touches the subject, or has even a remote analogy to it. The powers conferred upon the United States have reference to federal relations, or to the means of accomplishing or executing things of federal relation. So, also of the same character are the powers taken away from the States by enumeration. In either case, the powers granted, and the powers restricted, were so granted or so restricted only where it was requisite for the maintenance of peace and harmony between the States, or for the purpose of protecting their common interests, and defending their common sovereignty against aggression from abroad or insurrection at home . . . Fortunately, we are not left in doubt as to the purpose of the Constitution, any more than as to its express language; for although the history of its formation, as recorded in the Madison papers, shows that the federal government, in its present form, emerged from the conflict of opposing influences, which have continued to divide statesmen from that day to this, yet the rule of clearly defined powers and of strict con-

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struction presided over the actual conclusion and subsequent adoption of the Constitution. President Madison, in the “Federalist,” says: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” “Its [the general government’s] jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.” In the same spirit, President Jefferson invokes “the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.” And President Jackson said that our true strength and wisdom are not promoted by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States, but that, on the contrary, they consist, if not binding the States more closely to the centre, but in leaving each more unobstructed in its proper orbit. The framers of the Constitution, in refusing to confer on the federal government any jurisdiction over these purely local objects, in my judgment, manifested a wise forecast and broad comprehension of the true interests of these objects themselves. It is clear that public charities within the States can be efficiently administered only by their authority. The bill before me efficiently administered only by their authority. The bill before me concedes this, for it does not commit the funds it provides to the administration of any other authority. I cannot but repeat what I have before expressed, that if the several States—many of which have already laid the foundation of munificent establishments of local beneficence, and nearly all of which are proceeding to establish them—shall be led to suppose, as should this bill become law they will be, that Congress is to make provision for such objects, the fountains of charity will be dried up at home; and the several States, instead of bestowing their own means on the social wants of their own people, may themselves, though the strong temptations which appeals to States as to individuals, become humble supplicants for the bounty of the federal government, reversing their true relations to this Union . . . I have been unable to discover any distinction, on constitutional grounds, or grounds of expediency, be-

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tween an appropriation of ten millions of dollars, directly from the money in the treasury, for the object contemplated, and the appropriation of lands presented for my sanction; and yet I cannot doubt, that if the bill proposed ten millions of dollars from the treasury of the United States, for the support of the indigent insane in the several States, that the constitutional question involved in the act would have attracted forcibly the attention of Congress. I respectfully submit that, in a constitutional point of view, it is wholly immaterial whether the appropriation be in money or in land. The public domain is the common property of the Union, just as mush as the surplus proceeds of that, and of duties on imports, remaining unexpended in the treasury. As such, it has been pledged, is now pledged, and may need to be so pledged again for public indebtedness . . . The conclusion, from the general survey of the whole subject, is to my mind irresistible, and closes the question both of right and of expediency, so far as regards the principle of the appropriation proposed in this bill. Would not the admission of such power in Congress, to dispose of the public domain, work the practical abrogation of some of the most important provisions of the Constitution? . . . After the most careful examination, I find but two examples in the same acts of Congress which furnish any precedent for the present bill; and those examples will, in my opinion, serve rather as a warning, than as an inducement to tread in the same path. The first is the act of March 3d, 1819, granting a township of land to the Connecticut asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb; the second that of April 5, 1826, making a similar grant of land to the Kentucky asylum for teaching the deaf and dumb— the first, more than thirty years after the adoption of the Constitution, and the second, more than a quarter of a century ago. These acts were unimportant as to the amount appropriated, and, so far as I can ascertain, were passed on two grounds: first, that the object was a charitable one; and, secondly, that it was national. To say that it was a charitable object, is only to say that it was an object of expenditure proper for the competent authority; but it no more tended to show that it was a proper object of expen-

Plan of Organization of the Sanitary Commission, with Approval of Secretary Cameron

diture by the United States, than is any other purely local object appealing to the best sympathies of the human heart in any of the States. And the suggestion that a school for the mental culture of the deaf and dumb in Connecticut, or Kentucky, is a national object, only shows how loosely this expression has been used, when the purpose was to procure appropriations by Congress. It is not perceived how a school of this character is otherwise national than is any establishment of religious or moral instruction. All the pursuits of industry, everything which promotes the material or intellectual well-being of the race, every ear of corn or boll of cotton which grows is national in the same sense, for each one of these things goes to swell the aggregate of national prosperity and happiness of the United States; but it confounds all meaning of language to say that these things are “national” as equivalent to “federal,” so as to come within any of the classes of appropriation for which Congress is authorized by the Constitution to legislate. It is a marked point of the history of the Constitution, that when it was proposed to empower Congress to establish a university, the proposition was confined to the district intended for the future seat of government of the United States, and that even that proposed clause was omitted in consideration of the exclusive powers conferred on Congress to legislate for that district. Could a more decisive indication of the true construction and the spirit of the Constitution, in regard to all matters of this nature, have been given? It proves that such objects were considered by the convention as appertaining to local legislation only, that they were not comprehended, either expressly or by implication, in the grant of general power to Congress, and that consequently they remained with the several States. The general result at which I have arrived, is the necessary consequence of those views of the relative rights, powers, and duties of the States and of the federal government, which I have long entertained, and often expressed, and in reference to which my convictions do but increase in force with time and experience. I have thus discharged the unwelcome duty of respectfully stating my objections to this bill, with

which I cheerfully submit the whole subject to the wisdom of Congress. Franklin Pierce Washington, May 3, 1854.

Plan of Organization of the Sanitary Commission, with Approval of Secretary Cameron Organized during the Civil War in order to facilitate orderly public health and medical treatment, the commission became a model federal governmental charitable organization. The organization was run primarily by female volunteers. It was also the forerunner of the Red Cross. The Commission naturally divides itself into two branches, one of Inquiry, the other of Advice, to be represented by two principal Committees, into which the Commission should divide . . . I. INQUIRY.—This branch of the Commission would again naturally subdivide itself into

Sub-Committees of Branch of Inquiry A. Under the first Committee’s care would come the suggestion of such immediate aid, and such obvious recommendations as an intelligent foresight and an ordinary acquaintance with received principles of sanitary science would enable the Board at once to urge upon public authorities. B. The second Sub-Committee would have in charge, directly or through agents, the actual exploration of recruiting posts, transports, camps, quarters, tents, forts, hospitals; and consultation with officers— Colonels, Captains, Surgeons, and Chaplains—at their posts, to collect from them needful testimony as to the condition and wants of the troops. C. The Third Sub-Committee would investigate, theoretically and practically, all questions of dirt, cooking, and cooks; of clothing, foot, head, and body gear; of quarters, tents, booths, huts; of hospitals, field, service, nurses and surgical dresses; of climate and its effects, malaria, and camp and hospital diseases and contagions; of ventilation, natural and artificial; of vaccination; anti-scorbutics; disinfectants; of

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sinks, drains, camp sites, and cleanliness in general; of best methods of economizing and preparing rations, of changing or exchanging them. Probably these Committees of Inquiry could convert to their use, without fee or reward, all our medical and scientific men now in the army, or elsewhere, especially by sending an efficient agent about among the regiments to establish active correspondence with the surgeons, chaplains, and others, as well as by a public advertisement and call for such help and information. II. ADVICE—This branch of the Commission would subdivide itself into three stems, represented by three Sub-Committees. The general object of this branch would be to get the opinions and conclusions of the Commission approved by the Medical Bureau, ordered by the War Department, carried out by the officers and men, and encouraged, aided, and supported by the benevolence of the public at large, and by the State governments. It would subdivide itself naturally into three parts. 1. A Sub-Committee, in direct relation with the Government, the Medical Bureau, and the War Department; having for its object the communication of the counsels of the Commission, and the procuring of their approval and ordering by the U. S. Government. 2. A Sub-Committee in direct relation with the army officers, medical men, the camps and hospitals, whose duty it should be to look after the actual carrying out of the orders of the War Department and the Medical Bureau, and make sure, by inspection, urgency, and explanation, by influence, and all proper methods, of their actual accomplishment. 3. A Sub-Committee in direct relation with the State governments, and with the public associations of benevolence. First, to secure uniformity of plans, and then proportion and harmony of action; and finally, abundance of supplies in moneys and goods, for such extra purposes as the laws do not and cannot provide for.

Sub-Committee of Branch of Advice. D. The Sub-Committee in direct relation with the Government, would immediately urge the most obvious measures, favored by the Commission on the War Department and secure their emphatic reiteration of the orders now neglected. It would establish confidential relations with the Medical Bureau. A Secre-

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tary, hereafter to be named, would be the head and hand of this Sub-Committee—always near the Government, and always urging the wishes and aims of the Commission upon its attention. E. This Sub-Committee, in direct relation with the army officers, medical men, the camps, forts, and hospitals, would have it for its duty to explain and enforce upon inexperienced, careless, or ignorant officials, the regulations of a sanitary kind ordered by the Department of disobedience, sloth, or defect, and of seeing to the general carrying out of the objects of the Commission in their practical details. F. This Sub-Committee, in direct relation with State authorities and benevolent associations, would have for its duties to look after three chief objects. First: How far the difficulties in the sanitary condition and prospects of the troops are due to original defects in the laws of the States or the inspection usages, or in the manner in which officers, military or medical, have been appointed in the several States, with a view to the adoption of a general system, by which the State laws may all be assimilated to the United States regulations. This could probably only be brought about by calling a convention of delegates from the several loyal States, to agree upon some uniform system; or, that failing, by agreeing upon a model State arrangement, and sending a suitable agent to the Governors and Legislatures, with a prayer for harmonious action and cooperation. Second: To call in New York a convention of delegates from all the benevolent associations throughout the country, to agree upon a plan of common action in respect of supplies, depots, and methods of feeding the extra demands of the Medical Bureau of Commissariat, without embarrassment to the usual machinery. This, too, might, if a convention were deemed impossible, be effected by sending about an agent of special adaptation. Thus the organizing, methodizing, and reducing to serviceableness the vague, disproportioned, and hap-hazard benevolence of the public, might be successfully accomplished. Third: To look after the pecuniary ways and means necessary for accomplishing the various objects of the Commission, through solicitation of donation, either from State treasuries or private beneficence. The treasurer might be at the head of this Special Committee.

An Act to Incorporate Seton Hall College

Officers. If these general suggestions be adopted, the officers of the Commission might properly be a President, Vicepresident, Secretary, and Treasurer . . . . The publication of the final report of the Commission could be arranged by subscription or private enterprise. As the scheme of this Commission may appear impracticable from apprehended jealousies, either on the part of the Medical Bureau or the War Department, it may be proper to state, that the Medical Bureau itself asked for the appointment of the Commission, and that no ill-feeling exists or will exist between the Commission and the War Department, or the Government. The Commission grows out of no charges of negligence or incompetency in the War Department or the Medical Bureau. The sudden increase of volunteer forces has thrown unusual duties upon them. The Commission is chiefly concerned with the volunteers, and one of its highest ambitions is to bring the volunteers up to the regulars in respect of sanitary regulations and customs. To aid the Medical Bureau, without displacing it, or in any manner infringing upon its rights and duties, is the object of the Commission. The embarrassments anticipated from etiquette or official jealousy, have all been overcome in advance, by a frank and cordial understanding, met with large and generous feelings by the Medical Bureau and the Department of War . . . . Washington, June 13, 1861. WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, June 13, 1861 I hereby approve of the plan of organization proposed by the Sanitary Commission, as above given; and all persons in the employ of the United States Gevernment are directed and enjoined to respect and further the inquiries and objects of this Commission, to the utmost of their ability. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War.

An Act to Incorporate Seton Hall College Elizabeth Seton, a rich New York widow, started the Sisters of Charity, which made the education of poor children

their priority. Catholic sisters followed their example in large part over the nineteenth century. In recognition of her work, the founder of Seton Hall, Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, named the school in 1856 after his aunt, Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint. Seton Hall is the largest and oldest diocesan university in the United States.

Original College Charter (c. 1861) Be it Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey, that James Roosevelt Bayley, Patrick Moran, Bernard J. McQuaid, John Mackin, Michael Madden, Henry James Anderson, Orestes A. Brownson, Edward Thebaud, Jr., Daniel Coghlan, William Dunn, Dominic Eggert, Michael J. Ledwith and John B. Richmond, and their successors, being members of the Roman Catholic Church, shall be and they are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate by the name of “Seton Hall College,” and by that name shall have perpetual succession, and may sue, and be sued, implead and be impleaded, and may purchase and hold property, whether acquired by purchase, gift or devise, and whether real, personal or mixed, and may make and have a corporate seal, and the same break and alter at their pleasure, and shall have all other rights belonging to similar corporations by the law of this State. And be it Enacted that the object of said Association be the advancement of education. And be it Enacted that the entire management of the affairs and concerns of the said corporation and all the corporate powers granted, shall be and are hereby vested in a board of thirteen trustees, a majority of whom shall always be citizens of this State, and a majority of the trustees shall constitute the necessary quorum for the transaction of all business matters connected with the said institution; the persons named in the first section to be the first trustees; the Roman Catholic Bishop of Newark for the time being to be also a trustee ex-officio and the President of the board. And be it Enacted that the trustees shall have power from time to time to enact by-laws, not repugnant to the constitution or laws of the United States, or of this State, or to this act, for the regulation and management of the said corporation or college; to fill

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up vacancies in the board, and to prescribe the number and description, the duties and powers of the officers, the manner of their appointment, and the term of their office: and special meetings of said trustees may be called by the President, or any six or more of said trustees, upon ten days’ notice in writing of the time and place thereof being given or sent to each of said trustees. And be it Enacted that for the purpose of carrying out of the object declared in the second section of this Act, the said corporation shall have power from time to time to purchase, have and hold real and personal estate, and to sell, lease or dispose of the same. And be it Enacted that the said corporation shall have and possess the right and power of conferring the usual academic and other degrees granted by any other college in state. And be it Enacted that this act shall take effect immediately. Approved by the Governor of the State; March 8, 1861.

The Civil Rights Act (April 9, 1866) The civil rights movement has been one of the most important philanthropic movements in America. Organized movements by volunteers have propelled the government to respond. This act was passed to protect freedmen from the discrimination of the Black Codes passed by Southern states. It was vetoed by President Johnson, which Congress overrode. It represents much of what was to become the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication. Be it enacted, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous conditions of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to

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inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding. Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of nay right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court. Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the district courts of the United States, . . .shall have, exclusively of the courts of the several States, cognizance of all crimes and offences committed against the provisions of this act, and also, concurrently with the circuit courts of the United States, of all causes, civil and criminal, affecting persons who are denied or cannot enforce in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State or locality where they may be any of the rights secured to them by the first section of this act . . . Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the district attorneys, marshals, and deputy marshals of the United States, the commissioners appointed by the circuit and territorial courts of the United States, with powers of arresting, imprisoning, or bailing offenders against the laws of the United States, the officers and agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and every other officer who may be specially empowered by the President of the United States, shall be, and they are hereby, specially authorized and required, at the expense of the Untied States, to institute proceedings against all and every person who shall violate the provisions of this act, and cause him or them to be arrested and imprisoned, or bailed,

Peabody Education Fund

as the case may be, for trial before such court of the United States or territorial court as by this act has cognizance of the offence . . . Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That whenever the President of the United States shall have reason to believe that offences have been or are likely to be committed against the provisions of this act within any judicial district, it shall be lawful for him, in his discretion, to direct the judge, marshal, and district attorney of such district to attend at such place within the district, and for such time as he may designate, for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial of persons charged with a violation of this act; and it shall be the duty of every judge or other office, when any such requisition shall be received by him, to attend at the place and for the time therein designated. Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, or such person as he may empower for that purpose, to employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent the violation and enforce the due execution of this act. Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That upon all questions of law arising in any cause under the provisions of this act a final appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States. Reference: U.S. Statutes of Large 14:27 ff.

Peabody Education Fund George Peabody Known as a generous philanthropist both in the United States and in England, George Peabody valued education for the masses throughout his life. His Education Fund was the first significant multimillion-dollar foundation in the United States; even after its end, the fund’s trustees continued to influence charitable institutions in numerous ways. Most importantly, the principles set forth in this document became the standard by which future large funds operated. To Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts; Hon. Hamilton Fish, of New York; Right Rev.

Charles P. McIlvaine, of Ohio; General U. S. Grant, of the United States Army; Hon. William C. Rives, of Virginia; Hon. John H. Clifford, of Massachusetts; Hon. William Aiken, of South Carolina; William M. Evarts, Esq., of New York; Hon. William A. Graham, of North Carolina; Charles Macalester, Esq., of Pennsylvania; George W. Riggs, Esq., of Washington: Samuel Wetmore, Esq., of New York; Edward A. Bradford, Esq., of Louisiana; George N. Eaton, Esq., of Maryland; and George Peabody Russell, Esq., of Massachusetts. Gentlemen: I beg to address you on a subject which occupied my mind long before I left England, and in regard to which one at least of you (the Hon. Mr. Winthrop, the distinguished and valued friend to whom I am so much indebted for cordial sympathy, careful consideration, and wise counsel in this matter) will remember that I consulted him immediately upon my arrival in May last. I refer to the educational needs of those portions of our beloved and common country which have suffered from the destructive ravages, and the not less disastrous consequences, of civil war. With my advancing years, my attachment to my native land has but become more devoted. My hope and faith in its successful and glorious future have grown brighter and stronger; and now, looking forward beyond my stay on earth, as may be permitted to one who has passed the limit of threescore and ten years, I see our country, united and prosperous, emerging from the clouds which still surround her, taking a higher rank among the nations, and becoming richer and more powerful than ever before. But to make her prosperity more than superficial, her moral and intellectual development should keep pace with her material growth, and, in those portions of our nation to which I have referred, the urgent pressing physical needs of an almost impoverished people must for some years preclude them from making, by unaided effort, such advances in education, and such progress in the diffusion of knowledge, among all classes, as every lover of his country must earnestly desire. I feel most deeply, therefore, that it is the duty and privilege of the more favored and wealthy portions of our nation to assist those who are less fortunate; and,

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with the wish to discharge so far as I may be able my own responsibility in this matter, as well as to gratify my desire to aid those to whom I am bound by so many ties of attachment and regard, I give to you, gentlemen, most of whom have been my personal and especial friends, the sum of one million dollars, to be by you and your successors held in trust, and the income thereof used and applied in your discretion for the promotion and encouragement of intellectual, moral, or industrial education among the young of the more destitute portions of the Southern and Southwestern States of our Union; my purpose being that the benefits intended shall be distributed among the entire population, without other distinction than their needs and the opportunities of usefulness to them. Besides the income thus derived, I give to you permission to use from the principal sum, within the next two years, an amount not exceeding forty per cent. In addition to this gift, I place in your hands bonds of the State of Mississippi, issued to the Planters’ Bank, and commonly known as Planters’ Bank bonds, amounting, with interest, to about eleven hundred thousand dollars, the amount realized by you from which is to be added to and used for the purposes of this Trust. These bonds were originally issued in payment for stock in that Bank held by the State, and amounted in all to only two millions of dollars. For many years, the State received large dividends from that Bank over and above the interest on these bonds. The State paid the interest without interruption till 1840, since which no interest has been paid, except a payment of about one hundred thousand dollars, which was found in the treasury applicable to the payment of the coupons, and paid by a mandamus of the Supreme Court. The validity of these bonds has never been questioned, and they must not be confounded with another issue of bonds made by the State to the Union Bank, the recognition of which has been a subject of controversy with a portion of the population of Mississippi. Various acts of the Legislature—viz., of February 28, 1842; February 23, 1844; February 16, 1846; February 28, 1846; March 4, 1848—and the highest judicial tribunal of the State have confirmed their validity;

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and I have no doubt that at an early day such legislation will be had as to make these bonds available in increasing the usefulness of the present Trust. Mississippi, though now depressed, is rich in agricultural resources, and cannot long disregard the moral obligation resting upon her to make provision for their payment. In confirmation of what I have said, in regard to the legislative and judicial action concerning the State bonds issued to the Planters’ Bank, I herewith place in your hands the documents marked A. The details and organization of the Trust I leave with you, only requesting that Mr. Winthrop may be chairman, and Governor Fish and Bishop McIlvaine Vice-Chairmen, of your body: and I give to you power to make all necessary by-laws and regulations; to obtain an Act of Incorporation, if any shall be found expedient; to provide for the expenses of the Trustees and of any agents appointed by them; and, generally, to do all such acts as may be necessary for carrying out the provisions of this Trust. All vacancies occurring in your number by death, resignation, or otherwise, shall be filled by your election as soon as conveniently may be, and having in view an equality of representation so far as regards the Northern and Southern States. I furthermore give to you the power, in case twothirds the Trustees shall at any time, after the lapse of thirty years, deem it expedient, to close this Trust, and, of the funds which at that time shall be in the hands of yourselves and your successors, to distribute not less than two-thirds among such educational or literary institutions, or for such educational purposes, as they may determine, in the States for whose benefit the income is now appointed to be used. The remainder may be distributed by the Trustees for educational or literary purposes, wherever they may deem it expedient. In making this gift, I am aware that the fund derived from it can but aid the States which I wish to benefit in their own exertions to diffuse the blessings of education and morality. But if this endowment shall encourage those now anxious for the light of knowledge, and stimulate to new efforts the many good and noble men who cherish the high purpose of

The Ku Klux Klan

placing our great country foremost, not only in power, but in the intelligence and virtue of her citizens, it will have accomplished all that I can hope. With reverent recognition of the need of the blessing of Almighty God upon this gift, and with the fervent prayer that under His guidance your counsels may be directed for the highest good of present and future generations in our beloved country, I am, gentlemen, with great respect, Your humble servant, George Peabody Washington, Feb. 7, 1867 Reference: Curry, J. L. M. 1898. A Brief Sketch of George Peabody, and a History of the Peabody Education Fund through Thirty Years. Cambridge, MA: John Wilson.

The Ku Klux Klan: Organization and Principles Guaranteed the right to assemble by the First Amendment, one of the more notorious secret organizations in the nonprofit sector was founded in 1865 at Pulaski, Tennessee. Although viewed by many to be the antithesis of philanthropic activity, the behavior of the Ku Klux Klan is nonetheless similar to that of other charitable organizations in its use of a mission statement, chain of command, and system of beliefs. Organization and Principles of the Ku Klux Klan Appellation This Organization shall be styled and denominated, the Order of the * * * Creed We, the Order of the * * *, reverentially acknowledge the majesty and supremacy of the Divine Being, and recognize the goodness and providence of the same. And we recognize our relation to the United States Government, the supremacy of the Constitution, the Constitutional Laws thereof, and the Union of States thereunder. Character and objects of the Order This is an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism; embodying in its genius and

its principles all that is chivalric in conduct, noble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose; its peculiar objects being First: To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless, from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, the brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers. Second: To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and all laws passed in conformity thereto, and to protect the States and the people thereof from all invasion from any source whatsoever. Third: To aid and assist in the execution of all constitutional laws, and to protect the people from unlawful seizure, and from trial except by their peers in conformity to the laws of the land. Titles Sec. 1. The officers of this Order shall consist of a Grand Wizard of the Empire, and his ten Genii; a Grand Dragon of the Realm, and his eight Hydras; a Grand Titan of the Dominion, and his six Furies; a Grand Giant of the Province, and his four Goblins; a Grand Cyclops of the Den, and his two Night Hawks; a Grand Magi, a Grand Monk, a Grand Scribe, a Grand Exchequer, a Grand Turk, and a Grand Sentinel. Sec. 2. The body politic of this Order shall be known and designated as “Ghouls.” Territory and its Divisions Sec. 1. The territory embraced within the jurisdiction of this Order shall be coterminous with the States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee; all combined constituting the Empire. Sec. 2. The Empire shall be divided into four departments, the first to be styled the Realm, and coterminous with the boundaries of the several States; the second to be styled the Dominion and to be coterminous with such counties as the Grand Dragons of the several Realms may assign to the charge of the Grand Titan. The third to be styled the Province, and to be coterminous with the several counties; provided the Grand Titan may, when he deems it necessary, assign two Grand Giants to one Province, prescribing, at the

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same time, the jurisdiction of each. The fourth department to be styled the Den, and shall embrace such part of a Province as the Grand Giant shall assign to the charge of a Grand Cyclops . . . Interrogations to be asked 1st. Have you ever been rejected, upon application for membership in the * * *, or have you ever been expelled from the same? 2d. Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Radial Republican party, or either of the organizations known as the “Loyal League” and the “Grand Army of the Republic?” 3d. Are you opposed to the principles and policy of the Radical party, and to the Loyal League, and the Grand Army of the Republic, so far as you are informed of the character and purposes of those organizations? 4th. Did you belong to the Federal army during the late war, and fight against the South during the existence of the same? 5th. Are you opposed to negro equality, both social and political? 6th. Are you in favor of a white man’s government in this country? 7th. Are you in favor of Constitutional liberty, and a Government of equitable laws instead of a Government of violence and oppression? 8th. Are you in favor of maintaining the Constitutional rights of the South? 9th. Are you in favor of the re-enfranchisement and emancipation of the white men of the South, and the restitution of the Southern people to all their rights, alike propriety, civil, and political? 10th. Do you believe in the inalienable rights of self-preservation of the people against the exercise of arbitrary and unlicensed power? . . . . . .9. The most profound and rigid secrecy concerning any and everything that relates to the Order, shall at times be maintained. 10. Any member who shall reveal or betray the secrets of this Order, shall suffer the extreme penalty of the law. Reference: Lester, J. C., and D. L. Wilson. 1905. The Ku Klux Klan, Its Origin, Growth, & Disbandment. New York: Neale, 154 ff.

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Little Women Louisa May Alcott Little Women, first published in 1868, is Louisa May Alcott’s most famous novel. In the first chapter alone, the March sisters tackle issues of charity, poverty, and benevolence. Stripped of their wealth due to the Civil War, the girls are forced to reconsider their Christmas celebration.

Chapter One “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,” said Beth contentedly from her corner. The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, “We haven’t got Father, and shall not have him for a long time.” She didn’t say “perhaps never,” but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was. Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone, “You know the reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was because it is going to be a hard winter for everyone; and she thinks we ought not to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in the army. We can’t do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and ought to do it gladly. But I am afraid I don’t.” And Meg shook her head, as she thought regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted. “But I don’t think the little we should spend would do any good. We’ve each got a dollar, and the army wouldn’t be much helped by our giving that. I agree not to expect anything from Mother or you, but I do want to buy Undine and Sintram for myself. I’ve wanted it so long,” said Jo, who was a bookworm. “I planned to spend mine on new music,” said Beth, with a little sigh, which no one heard but the hearth brush and kettle holder. “I shall get a nice box of Faber’s drawing pencils. I really need them,” said Amy decidedly.

Little Women

“Mother didn’t say anything about our money, and she won’t wish us to give up everything. Let’s each buy what we want, and have a little fun. I’m sure we work hard enough to earn it,” cried Jo, examining the heels of her shoes in a gentlemanly manner. “I know I do—teaching those tiresome children nearly all day, when I’m longing to enjoy myself at home,” began Meg, in the complaining tone again. “You don’t have half such a hard time as I do,” said Jo. “How would you like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you you’re ready to fly out the window or cry?” “It’s naughty to fret, but I do think washing dishes and keeping things tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross, and my hands get so stiff, I can’t practice well at all.” And Beth looked at her rough hands with a sigh that any one could hear that time. “I don’t believe any of you suffer as I do,” cried Amy, “for you don’t have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don’t know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn’t rich, and insult you when your nose isn’t nice.” “If you mean libel, I’d say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa was a pickle bottle,” advised Jo, laughing. “I know what I mean, and you needn’t be statirical about it. It’s proper to use good words, and improve your vocabilary,” returned Amy, with dignity. “Don’t peck at one another, children. Don’t you wish we had the money Papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! How happy and good we’d be, if we had no worries!” said Meg, who could remember better times. “You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the King children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in spite of their money.” “So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are. For though we do have to work, we make fun of ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say.” . . . As young readers like to know ‘how people look’, we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a com-

fortable room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain, for a good picture or two hung on the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded it. Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn’t like it. Elizabeth, or Beth, as everyone called her, was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression which was seldom disturbed. Her father called her ‘Little Miss Tranquility’, and the name suited her excellently, for she seemed to live in a happy world of her own, only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and loved. Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person, in her own opinion at least. A regular snow maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair curling on her shoulders, pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful of her manners. What the characters of the four sisters were we will leave to be found out. The clock struck six and, having swept up the hearth, Beth put a pair of slippers down to warm. Somehow the sight of the old shoes had a good effect upon the girls, for Mother was coming, and everyone brightened to welcome her. Meg stopped lecturing, and lighted the lamp, Amy got out of the easy chair without being asked, and Jo forgot how tired she was as she sat up to hold the slippers nearer to the blaze. “They are quite worn out. Marmee must have a new pair.” “I thought I’d get her some with my dollar,” said Beth.

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“No, I shall!” cried Amy. “I’m the oldest,” began Meg, but Jo cut in with a decided, “I’m the man of the family now Papa is away, and I shall provide the slippers, for he told me to take special care of Mother while he was gone.” “I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Beth, “let’s each get her something for Christmas, and not get anything for ourselves.” “That’s like you, dear! What will we get?” exclaimed Jo. Everyone thought soberly for a minute, then Meg announced, as if the idea was suggested by the sight of her own pretty hands, “I shall give her a nice pair of gloves.” “Army shoes, best to be had,” cried Jo. “Some handkerchiefs, all hemmed,” said Beth. “I’ll get a little bottle of cologne. She likes it, and it won’t cost much, so I’ll have some left to buy my pencils,” added Amy. “How will we give the things?” asked Meg. “Put them on the table, and bring her in and see her open the bundles. Don’t you remember how we used to do on our birthdays?” answered Jo. “I used to be so frightened when it was my turn to sit in the chair with the crown on, and see you all come marching round to give the presents, with a kiss. I liked the things and the kisses, but it was dreadful to have you sit looking at me while I opened the bundles,” said Beth, who was toasting her face and the bread for tea at the same time. “Let Marmee think we are getting things for ourselves, and then surprise her. We must go shopping tomorrow afternoon, Meg. There is so much to do about the play for Christmas night,” said Jo, marching up and down, with her hands behind her back, and her nose in the air . . . . “Glad to find you so merry, my girls,” said a cheery voice at the door, and actors and audience turned to welcome a tall, motherly lady with a ‘can I help you’ look about her which was truly delightful. She was not elegantly dressed, but a noble-looking woman, and the girls thought the gray cloak and unfashionable bonnet covered the most splendid mother in the world. “Well, dearies, how have you got on today? There was so much to do, getting the boxes ready to go to-

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morrow, that I didn’t come home to dinner. Has anyone called, Beth? How is your cold, Meg? Jo, you look tired to death. Come and kiss me, baby.” While making these maternal inquiries Mrs. March got her wet things off, her warm slippers on, and sitting down in the easy chair, drew Amy to her lap, preparing to enjoy the happiest hour of her busy day. The girls flew about, trying to make things comfortable, each in her own way. Meg arranged the tea table, Jo brought wood and set chairs, dropping, overturning, and clattering everything she touched. Beth trotted to and fro between parlor kitchen, quiet and busy, while Amy gave directions to everyone, as she sat with her hands folded. As they gathered about the table, Mrs. March said, with a particularly happy face, “I’ve got a treat for you after supper.” A quick, bright smile went round like a streak of sunshine. Beth clapped her hands, regardless of the biscuit she held, and Jo tossed up her napkin, crying, “A letter! A letter! Three cheers for Father!” “Yes, a nice long letter. He is well, and thinks he shall get through the cold season better than we feared. He sends all sorts of loving wishes for Christmas, and an especial message to you girls,” said Mrs. March, patting her pocket as if she had got a treasure there. “Hurry and get done! Don’t stop to quirk your little finger and simper over your plate, Amy,” cried Jo, choking on her tea and dropping her bread, butter side down, on the carpet in her haste to get at the treat. Beth ate no more, but crept away to sit in her shadowy corner and brood over the delight to come, till the others were ready. “I think it was so splendid in Father to go as chaplain when he was too old to be drafted, and not strong enough for a soldier,” said Meg warmly. “Don’t I wish I could go as a drummer, a vivan— what’s its name? Or a nurse, so I could be near him and help him,” exclaimed Jo, with a groan. “It must be very disagreeable to sleep in a tent, and eat all sorts of bad-tasting things, and drink out of a tin mug,” sighed Amy. “When will he come home, Marmee?” asked Beth, with a little quiver in her voice.

Little Women

“Not for many months, dear, unless he is sick. He will stay and do his work faithfully as long as he can, and we won’t ask for him back a minute sooner than he can be spared. Now come and hear the letter.” They all drew to the fire, Mother in the big chair with Beth at her feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm of the chair, and Jo leaning on the back, where no one would see any sign of emotion if the letter should happen to be touching. Very few letters were written in those hard times that were not touching, especially those which fathers sent home. In this one little was said of the hardships endured, the dangers faced, or the homesickness conquered. It was a cheerful, hopeful letter, full of lively descriptions of camp life, marches, and military news, and only at the end did the writer’s heart over-flow with fatherly love and longing for the little girls at home. “Give them all of my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of them by day, pray for them by night, and find my best comfort in their affection at all times. A year seems very long to wait before I see them, but remind them that while we wait we may all work, so that these hard days need not be wasted. I know they will remember all I said to them, that they will be loving children to you, will do their duty faithfully, fight their bosom enemies bravely, and conquer themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them I may be fonder and prouder than ever of my little women.” Everybody sniffed when they came to that part. Jo wasn’t ashamed of the great tear that dropped off the end of her nose, and Amy never minded the rumpling of her curls as she hid her face on her mother’s shoulder and sobbed out, “I am a selfish girl! But I’ll truly try to be better, so he mayn’t be disappointed in me by-and-by.” “We all will,” cried Meg. “I think too much of my looks and hate to work, but won’t any more, if I can help it.” “I’ll try and be what he loves to call me, ‘a little woman’ and not be rough and wild, but do my duty here instead of wanting to be somewhere else,” said Jo, thinking that keeping her temper at home was a much harder task than facing a rebel or two down South. Beth said nothing, but wiped away her tears with the blue army sock and began to knit with all her

might, losing no time in doing the duty that lay nearest her, while she resolved in her quiet little soul to be all that Father hoped to find her when the year brought round the happy coming home.

Chapter Two Jo was the first to wake in the gray dawn of Christmas morning. No stockings hung at the fireplace, and for a moment she felt as much disappointed as she did long ago, when her little sock fell down because it was crammed so full of goodies. Then she remembered her mother’s promise and, slipping her hand under her pillow, drew out a little crimson-covered book. She knew it very well, for it was that beautiful old story of the best life ever lived, and Jo felt that it was a true guidebook for any pilgrim going on a long journey. She woke Meg with a “Merry Christmas,” and bade her see what was under her pillow. A green-covered book appeared, with the same picture inside, and a few words written by their mother, which made their one present very precious in their eyes. Presently Beth and Amy woke to rummage and find their little books also, one dove-colored, the other blue, and all sat looking at and talking about them, while the east grew rosy with the coming day. In spite of her small vanities, Margaret had a sweet and pious nature, which unconsciously influenced her sisters, especially Jo, who loved her very tenderly, and obeyed her because her advice was so gently given. “Girls,” said Meg seriously, looking from the tumbled head beside her to the two little night-capped ones in the room beyond, “Mother wants us to read and love and mind these books, and we must begin at once. We used to be faithful about it, but since Father went away and all this war trouble unsettled us, we have neglected many things. You can do as you please, but I shall keep my book on the table here and read a little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good and help me through the day.” Then she opened her new book and began to read. Jo put her arm round her and, leaning cheek to cheek, read also, with the quiet expression so seldom seen on her restless face. “How good Meg is! Come, Amy, let’s do as they do. I’ll help you with the hard words, and they’ll explain things if we don’t understand,” whispered Beth,

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very much impressed by the pretty books and her sisters’ example. “I’m glad mine is blue,” said Amy. And then the rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned, and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting. “Where is Mother?” asked Meg, as she and Jo ran down to thank her for their gifts, half an hour later. “Goodness only knows. Some poor creeter came abeggin’, and your ma went straight off to see what was needed. There never was such a woman for givin’ away vittles and drink, clothes and firin’,” replied Hannah, who had lived with the family since Meg was born, and was considered by them all more as a friend than a servant. “She will be back soon, I think, so fry your cakes, and have everything ready,” said Meg, looking over the presents which were collected in a basket and kept under the sofa, ready to be produced at the proper time. “Why, where is Amy’s bottle of cologne?” she added, as the little flask did not appear. “She took it out a minute ago, and went off with it to put a ribbon on it, or some such notion,” replied Jo, dancing about the room to take the first stiffness off the new army slippers. “How nice my handkerchiefs look, don’t they? Hannah washed and ironed them for me, and I marked them all myself,” said Beth, looking proudly at the somewhat uneven letters which had cost her such labor. “Bless the child! She’s gone and put ‘Mother’ on them instead of ‘M. March.’ How funny!” cried Jo, taking one up. “Isn’t that right? I thought it was better to do it so, because Meg’s initials are M.M., and I don’t want anyone to use these but Marmee,” said Beth, looking troubled. “It’s all right, dear, and a very pretty idea, quite sensible too, for no one can ever mistake now. It will please her very much, I know,” said Meg, with a frown for Jo and a smile for Beth. “There’s Mother. Hide the basket, quick!” cried Jo, as a door slammed and steps sounded in the hall. Amy came in hastily, and looked rather abashed when she saw her sisters all waiting for her.

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“Where have you been, and what are you hiding behind you?” asked Meg, surprised to see, by her hood and cloak, that lazy Amy had been out so early. “Don’t laugh at me, Jo! I didn’t mean anyone should know till the time came. I only meant to change the little bottle for a big one, and I gave all my money to get it, and I’m truly trying not to be selfish any more.” As she spoke, Amy showed the handsome flask which replaced the cheap one, and looked so earnest and humble in her little effort to forget herself that Meg hugged her on the spot, and Jo pronounced her ‘a trump’, while Beth ran to the window, and picked her finest rose to ornament the stately bottle. “You see I felt ashamed of my present, after reading and talking about being good this morning, so I ran round the corner and changed it the minute I was up, and I’m so glad, for mine is the handsomest now.” Another bang of the street door sent the basket under the sofa, and the girls to the table, eager for breakfast. “Merry Christmas, Marmee! Many of them! Thank you for our books. We read some, and mean to every day,” they all cried in chorus. “Merry Christmas, little daughters! I’m glad you began at once, and hope you will keep on. But I want to say one word before we sit down. Not far away from here lies a poor woman with a little newborn baby. Six children are huddled into one bed to keep from freezing, for they have no fire. There is nothing to eat over there, and the oldest boy came to tell me they were suffering hunger and cold. My girls, will you give them your breakfast as a Christmas present?” They were all unusually hungry, having waited nearly an hour, and for a minute no one spoke, only a minute, for Jo exclaimed impetuously, “I’m so glad you came before we began!” “May I go and help carry the things to the poor little children?” asked Beth eagerly. “I shall take the cream and the muffings,” added Amy, heroically giving up the article she most liked. Meg was already covering the buckwheats, and piling the bread into one big plate. “I thought you’d do it,” said Mrs. March, smiling as if satisfied. “You shall all go and help me, and when

Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop

we come back we will have bread and milk for breakfast, and make it up at dinnertime.” They were soon ready, and the procession set out. Fortunately it was early, and they went through back streets, so few people saw them, and no one laughed at the queer party. A poor, bare, miserable room it was, with broken windows, no fire, ragged bedclothes, a sick mother, wailing baby, and a group of pale, hungry children cuddled under one old quilt, trying to keep warm. How the big eyes stared and the blue lips smiled as the girls went in. “Ach, mein Gott! It is good angels come to us!” said the poor woman, crying for joy. “Funny angels in hoods and mittens,” said Jo, and set them to laughing. In a few minutes it really did seem as if kind spirits had been at work there. Hannah, who had carried wood, made a fire, and stopped up the broken panes with old hats and her own cloak. Mrs. March gave the mother tea and gruel, and comforted her with promises of help, while she dressed the little baby as tenderly as if it had been her own. The girls meantime spread the table, set the children round the fire, and fed them like so many hungry birds, laughing, talking, and trying to understand the funny broken English. “Das ist gut!” “Die Engel-kinder!” cried the poor things as they ate and warmed their purple hands at the comfortable blaze. The girls had never been called angel children before, and thought it very agreeable, especially Jo, who had been considered a ‘Sancho’ ever since she was born. That was a very happy breakfast, though they didn’t get any of it. And when they went away, leaving comfort behind, I think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts and contented themselves with bread and milk on Christmas morning. “That’s loving our neighbor better than ourselves, and I like it,” said Meg, as they set out their presents while their mother was upstairs collecting clothes for the poor Hummels . . . Reference: Alcott, Louisa May. 1915. Little Women; or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Boston: Little, Brown, 7–23.

Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop (1883) Bernice Pauahi Bishop Hawaiian Ali’i and founder of the Kamehameha schools, the legacy of Pauahi Bishop continues today. Since l887 the schools have graduated some 20,000 Hawaiian men and women. Know all Men by these Presents, That I, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the wife of Charles R. Bishop, of Honolulu, Island of Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, being of sound mind and memory, but conscious of the uncertainty of life, do make, publish and declare this my last Will and Testament in manner following, hereby revoking all former wills by me made: First. I give and bequeath unto my namesakes, E. Bernice Bishop Dunham, niece of my husband, now residing in San Joaquim County, California, Bernice Parke, daughter of W. C. Parke Esq., of Honolulu, Bernice Bishop Barnard, daughter of the late John E. Barnard Esq. of Honolulu, Bernice Bates, daughter of Mr. Dudley C. Bates, of San Francisco, California, Annie Pauahi Cleghorn of Honolulu, Lilah Bernice Wodehouse, daughter of Major J. H. Wodehouse, of Honolulu, and Pauahi Judd, the daughter of Col. Charles H. Judd of Honolulu, the sum of Two hundred Dollars ($200.) each. Second. I give and bequeath unto Mrs. William J. Allen, Mrs. Amoe Haalelea, Mrs. Antone Rosa, and Mrs. Nancy Ellis, the sum of Two Hundred Dollars ($200.) each. Third. I give and bequeath unto Mrs. Caroline Bush, widow of A .W. Bush, Mrs. Sarah Parmenter, wife of Gilbert Parmenter, Mrs. Keomailani Taylor, wife of Mr. Wray Taylor, to their sole and separate use free from the control of their husbands, and to Mrs. Emma Barnard, widow of the late John E. Barnard Esq. the sum of Five hundred dollars ($500.) each. Fourth. I give, devise and bequeath unto H. R. H. Liliuokalani, the wife of Gov. John O. Dominis, all of those tracts of land known as the “Ahupuaa of Lumahai,” situated on the Island of Kauai, and the “Ahupuaa of Kealia,” situated in South Kona Island of Hawaii; to have and to hold for and during the term

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of her natural life; and after her decease to my trustees upon the trusts below expressed. Fifth. I give and bequeath unto Kahakuakoi (w) and Kealohapauole, her husband, and to the survivor of them, the sum of Thirty Dollars ($30.) per month, (not $30. each) so long as either of them may live. And I also devise unto them and to their heirs of the body of either, the lot of land called “Mauna Kamala,” situated at Kapalama Honolulu; upon default of issue the same to go to my trustees upon the trusts below expressed. Sixth. I give and bequeath unto Mrs. Kapoli Kamakau, the sum of Forty Dollars ($40.) per month during her life; to my servant woman Kaia the sum of Thirty Dollars ($30.) per month during her life, and to Nakaahiki (w) the sum of Thirty Dollars ($30.) per month during her life. Seventh. I give, devise and bequeath unto Kapaa (k) the house-lot he now occupies, situated between Merchant and Queen Streets in Honolulu, to have and to hold for and during the term of his natural life; upon his decease to my trustees upon the trusts below expressed. Eighth. I give, devise and bequeath unto Auhea (w) the wife of Lokana (k) the house-lot situated in the corner of Richard and Queen Streets, now occupied by G. W. Macfarlane & Co; to have and to hold for and during the term of her natural life; upon her decease to my trustees upon the trusts below expressed. Ninth. I give, devise and bequeath unto my husband, Charles R. Bishop, all of the various tracts and parcels of land situated upon the Island of Molokai, comprising the “Molokai Ranch,” and all of the live-stock and personal property thereon; being the same premises now under the care of R. W. Myer Esq.; and also all of the real property wherever situated, inherited by me from my parents, and also all of that devised to me by my aunt Akahi, except the two lands above devised to H. R. H. Liliuokalani for her life; and also all of my lands at Waikiki, Oahu, situated makai of the government main road leading to Kapiolani Park; to have and to hold together with all tenements, hereditaments, rights, privileges and appurtenances to the same appertaining, for and during the term of his natural life; and upon his decease to my trustees upon the trusts below expressed.

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Tenth. I give, devise and bequeath unto Her Majesty Emma Kaleleonalani, Queen Dowager, as a token of my good will, all of the premises situated upon Emma Street in said Honolulu, known as “Kaakopua,” lately the residence of my cousin Keelikolani; to have and to hold with the appurtenances for and during the term of her natural life; and upon her decease to my trustees upon the trusts below expressed. Eleventh. I give and bequeath the sum of Five thousand Dollars ($5000.) to be expended by my executors in repairs upon Kawaiahao Church building in Honolulu, or in improvements upon the same. Twelfth. I give and bequeath the sum of Five thousand Dollars ($5000.) to be expended by my executors for the benefit of the Kawaiahao Family School for Girls (now under charge of Miss Norton) to be expended for additions either to the grounds, buildings or both. Thirteenth. I give, devise and bequeath all of the rest, residue and remainder of my estate real and personal, wherever situated unto the trustees below named, their heirs and assigns forever, to hold upon the following trusts, namely: to erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands two schools, each for boarding and day scholars, one for boys and one for girls, to be known as, and called the Kamehameha Schools. I direct my trustees to expend such amount as they may deem best, not to exceed however one-half of the fund which may come into their hands, in the purchase of suitable premises, the erection of school buildings, and in furnishing the same with the necessary and appropriate fixtures furniture and apparatus. I direct my trustees to invest the remainder of my estate in such manner as they may think best, and to expend the annual income in the maintenance of said schools; meaning thereby the salaries of teachers, the repairing of buildings and other incidental expenses; and to devote a portion of each years income to the support and education of orphans, and others in indigent circumstances, giving the preference to Hawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood; the proportion in which said annual income is to be divided among the various objects above mentioned to be determined solely by my said trustees they to have full discretion. I desire my trustees to provide first and chiefly a good education

Public Relief and Private Charity

in the common English branches, and also instruction in morals and in such useful knowledge as may tend to make good and industrious men and women; and I desire instruction in the higher branches to be subsidiary to the foregoing objects. For the purposes aforesaid I grant unto my said trustees full power to lease or sell any portion of my real estate, and to reinvest the proceeds and the balance of my estate in real estate, or in such other manner as to my said trustees may seem best. I also give unto my said trustees full power to make all such rules and regulations as they may deem necessary for the government of said schools and to regulate the admission of pupils, and the same to alter, amend and publish upon a vote of a majority of said trustees. I also direct that my said trustees shall annually make a full and complete report of all receipts and expenditures, and of the condition of said schools to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or other highest judicial officer in this country; and shall also file before him annually an inventory of the property in their hands and how invested, and to publish the same in some newspaper published in said Honolulu; I also direct my said trustees to keep said school buildings insured in good companies, and in case of loss to expend the amounts recovered in replacing or repairing said buildings. I also direct that the teachers of said schools shall forever be persons of the Protestant religion, but I do not intend that the choice should be restricted to persons of any particular sect of Protestants. Fourteenth. I appoint my husband Charles R. Bishop, Samuel M. Damon, Charles M. Hyde, Charles M. Cooke, and William O. Smith, all of Honolulu, to be my trustees to carry into effect the trusts above specified. I direct that a majority of my said trustees may act in all cases and may convey real estate and perform all of the duties and powers hereby conferred; but three of them at least must join in all acts. I further direct that the number of my said trustees shall be kept at five; and that vacancies shall be filled by the choice of a majority of the Justices of the Supreme Court, the selection to be made from persons of the Protestant religion. Fifteenth. In addition to the above devise to Queen Emma, I also give, devise and bequeath to her said Emma Kaleleonalani Queen Dowager (sic) the Fish-

pond in Kawaa, Honolulu near Oahu Prison, called “Kawa,” for and during the term of her natural life; and after her decease to my trustees upon the trusts aforesaid. Sixteenth. In addition to the above devise to my husband, I also give and bequeath to him, said Charles R. Bishop all of my personal property of every description, including cattle at Molokai; to have and to hold to him, his executors, administrators and assigns forever. Seventeenth. I hereby nominate and appoint my husband Charles R. Bishop and Samuel M. Damon, executors of this my will. In witness whereof I, said Bernice Pauahi Bishop, have hereunto set my hand and seal this thirty-first day of October A. D. Eighteen hundred and eighty-three. The foregoing instrument, written on eleven pages, was signed, sealed, published and declared by said Bernice Pauahi Bishop, as and for her last will and testament in our presence, who at her request, in her presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereunto set our names as witnesses thereto, this 31st day of October A. D. 1883.

Public Relief and Private Charity, Chapter 2, “Principles and Rules” Josephine Shaw Lowell Josephine Lowell was one of the most articulate spokespersons for the organized or scientific charity movement of the late nineteenth century. In l884 she published Public Relief and Private Charity, which was a clear rationale for organized charity. Before we can speak of Charity to the poor, we must find out what it is – that is, we must agree upon some definition of the word. 1st. It must be voluntary. No benefit conferred because it could not be avoided could be called charitable. Were the poor to take by force the possessions of the rich, although they might benefit by them, neither of the parties to the transaction would delude themselves with the idea that charity had been bestowed or received.

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2nd. It must be free in another sense. The person to whom we exercise charity cannot have an acknowledged personal claim upon us. The fulfilling of the duties of parent or child would not be spoken of as “charity” whatever might be the suffering on the one hand and the devotion on the other, nor can a master be charitable to his servants or work-people, unless he does for them more than it is his duty to do. He can be kind, just, fair, and considerate, but not charitable unless they fall into distress and he voluntarily helps them out of it, and even then the distress must not have arisen for his sake or in his service – if a man were killed in the service of his employer and the latter were to undertake to provide for his family, the act would scarcely be called charitable – it would be merely discharging a debt. 3rd.Charity must go further than kind feeling – it must be kind action – it must accomplish good to the object of it. No amount of good feeling could convert an injurious act into a charitable one. 4th. Charity must be exercised toward a person in inferior circumstances to those of his benefactor. We cannot be charitable to our equals – in the sense of the word with which we are dealing. Charity, then, as I define it, must be a voluntary, free, beneficent action performed toward those who are in more destitute circumstances and inferior in worldly position. By this definition, of course, all official and public relief is put outside the pale of charity, since it lacks the voluntary element. By this definition, moreover, I contend, that all indiscriminate almsgiving and all systematic dolegiving is proved not to be charitable. Charity must be a good – a good forever, to him who receives it – but however benevolent may be the motive, if the action be not beneficent, there is no charity. Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurtful – therefore they are not charitable. Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurtful even to those who do not receive them, because they help to keep down wages by enabling those who do receive them to work for less than fair pay. No greater wrong can be done, not only to those who receive the miserable pittance, but to all working people. Wages at the best are low enough, without being reduced by the action of the benevolent.

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Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurtful to those who receive them because they lead me to remit their own exertions and depend on others, upon whom they have no real claim, for the necessaries of life, which they do not receive after all. In this last fact lies one secret of the injury done – false hopes are excited, the unhappy recipients of alms become dependent, those their energy, are rendered incapable of self-support, and what they receive in return for their lost character is quite inadequate to supply their needs; thus they are kept on the verge almost of death by the very persons who think they are relieving them, by the kindly souls who are benevolent, but who will not take the trouble to be beneficent, too. The nature of doles is to be insufficient and to be uncertain. They would cease to be doles and would become pensions were they to assume a regular character and to be sufficient to meet the ascertained wants of the recipient, and in certain cases pensions are an excellent manner of bestowing charity. Indeed, where it is possible for charitable societies to support entirely such people as they decide to help, the effect on the latter individuals may not be any worse than if they had fallen heir to an adequate income in any other way, although it is of course a fact that sudden inheritances often do destroy good habits both among the rich and the poor; but even under these circumstances, the effect on others would have to be considered. The extraordinary and fearful result of assuring every family, however improvident and however vicious, a comfortable support, has been shown in the quotation from the Report of the English Poor Law Commission, given in Part First of this book. The terrifying decay of industry, temperance, providence and natural affection not only among what are technically called “the poor” in England during the fifty years preceding 1835 but also among a large proportion of all the men and women who labored for their daily bread, is a warning that must not be overlooked. The great point to be considered is what is possible. Could all men be made comfortable and happy by a charity so extended that it would amount to an equal division of the wealth of any given community, I should welcome the measure with my whole heart; but it has been proved, and surely it scarcely needed proving, that no amount of money scattered among

The Gospel of Wealth

people who are without character and virtue, will insure even physical comfort. It is for this reason that nothing should be done under the guise of charity, which tends to break down character. It is the greatest wrong that can be done to him to undermine the character of a poor man – for it is his all. The struggle is hard, he needs all his determination and strength of will to fight his way, and nothing that deprives him of these qualities can be “charitable.” The proof that dolegiving and almsgiving do break down independence, do destroy energy, do undermine character, may be found in the growing ranks of pauperism in every city, in the fact that the larger the funds given in relief in any community, the more pressing is the demand for them, and in the experience and testimony of all practical workers among the poor . . . . Therefore the problem before those who would be charitable, is not how to deal with a given number of poor; it is how to help those who are poor, without adding to their numbers and constantly increasing the evils they seek to cure. Whatever the circumstances, whether in a sparsely settled neighborhood or in a crowded city, the principle adopted must be the same, although the action will have to be different. The fundamental principle is that all charity must tend to raise the character and elevate the moral nature, and so improve the condition of those toward whom it is exercised, and must not tend to injure the character or condition of others. Clinging to this principle as a guide, there are several rules which it is well to follow in practical work. I will mention some of the most important only. The first is that each case is to be radically dealt with; that is, finding fellow beings in want and suffering, the cause of the want and suffering are to be removed if possible even if the process be as painful as plucking out an eye or cutting off a limb. The cause of distress is to be sought out and dealt with, or the distressed ones to be let alone, for only harm will result from unwise and ignorant meddling. Better leave people to the hard working of natural laws than to run the risk of interfering with those laws in a mischievous manner. This first rule, that each case

must be radically dealt with and finally deposed of, shows one fundamental difference in the mental attitude of those who believe and who disbelieve in “dolegiving.” The former regard it as a natural condition of things that a certain part of the community should not be self-supporting, they think it even desirable that there should be “the poor” to look after, they accept the degradation and suffering of other people with calmness, as inevitable facts, and to satisfy their own feelings of pity they offer their inadequate doles, never casting a thought beyond the present day, or even inquiring whether permanent and efficient help might not be almost as easy to give . . . . The dole-giving acts upon the receiver as insufficient watering in dry weather acts upon plants – they die because they are watered and are tempted to keep their roots near the surface, instead of plunging them deep down where they will find nourishment. With plants, you must either water thoroughly or not at all – with the human beings you must either care for them entirely or let them depend on themselves – to tempt them with a false hope that you will supply them with what they need, and then fail them, is cruelty. The second rule is, that the best help of all is to help people to help themselves. That is, that instead of receiving the means of living, men should receive from the benevolent the means of earning a living – that the poor man or woman should have the road cleared so that they may themselves march on to success – that their brains should be released from ignorance, their hands freed from the shackles of incompetence, their bodies saved from the pains of sickness, and their souls delivered from the bonds of sin. Reference: Lowell, Josephine Shaw. 1884. Public Relief and Private Charity. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 88–96.

The Gospel of Wealth Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie’s contributions to the world of philanthropy are many and varied. From public libraries to scientific institutions to projects for peace, he gave away 90

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percent of his wealth during his lifetime. This work, Carnegie’s major exposition on philanthropy, was originally published in the North American Review, June and December 1889. Many of his suggestions for the administration of wealth and its best uses are still debated today.

I. “The Problem of the Administration of Wealth” . . .The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still than its cost—for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. But, whether the law be benign or not, . . .we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential to the future progress of the race. Having accepted these, it follows that there must be great scope for the exercise of special ability in the merchant and in the manufacturer who has to conduct affairs upon a great scale. That this talent for organization and management is rare among men is proved by the fact that it invariably secures enormous rewards for its possessor, no matter where or under what laws or conditions. The experienced in affairs always rate the MAN whose services can be obtained as a partner as not only the first consideration, but such as render the question of his capital scarcely worth considering: for able men soon create capital; in the hands of those without the special talent required, capital soon takes wings. Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions; and, estimating only simple interest to be made upon the capital invested, it is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditure and that they must, therefore, accumulate wealth. Nor is there any middle ground which such men can

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occupy, because the great manufacturing or commercial concern which does not earn at least interest upon its capital soon becomes bankrupt. It must either go forward or fall behind; to stand still is impossible. It is a condition essential to its successful operation that it should be thus far profitable, and even that, in addition to interest on capital, it should make profit. It is a law, as certain as any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affairs, under the free play of economic forces must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves; and this law is as beneficial for the race as the others. Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with any other which has been tried. Of the effect of any new substitutes proposed we cannot be sure. The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for civilization took its start from the day when the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellow, “If thou dost not sow, thou shalt not reap,” and thus ended primitive Communism by separating the drones from the bees. One who studies this subject will soon be brought face to face with the conclusion that upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends—the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings-bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions. Every man must be allowed “to sit under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to make afraid,” if human society is to advance, or even to remain so far advanced as it is. To those who propose to substitute Communism for this intense Individualism, the answer therefore is: The race has tried that. All progress from that barbarous day to the present time has resulted from its displacement. Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who have had the ability and energy to produce it. But even if we admit for a moment that it might be better for the race to discard its present foundation, Individualism,—that it is a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for himself alone, but in and for a brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them all in common, . . .even admit all


this, and a sufficient answer is, This is not evolution, but revolution. It necessitates the changing of human nature itself—a work of eons, even if it were good to change it, which we cannot know. It is not practicable in our day or in our age. Even if desirable theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum. Our duty is with what is practicable now—with the next step possible in our day and generation . . . We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good. The question then arises, . . .What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few? And it is of this great question that I believe I offer the true solution. It will be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums saved by many years of effort, the returns from which are required for the comfortable maintenance and education of families. This is not wealth, but only competence, which it should be the aim of all to acquire, and which it is for the best interests of society should be acquired. There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered by its possessors during their lives. Under the first and second modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. Let us in turn consider each of these modes. The first is the most injudicious. In monarchical countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the first son, that the vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that his name and title are to descend unimpaired to succeeding generations. The condition of this class in Europe to-day teaches the failure of such hopes or ambitions. The successors have become impoverished through their follies, or from the fall in the value of land. Even in Great Britain the strict law of entail has been found inadequate to maintain an hereditary class. Its soil is rapidly passing into the hands of the stranger. Under republican institutions the division of property among the children is much

fairer; but the question which forces itself upon thoughtful men in all lands is, Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the State. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well hesitate; for it is no longer questionable that great sums bequeathed often work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients. Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of the members of their families, and of the State, such bequests are an improper use of their means. It is not suggested that men who have failed to educate their sons to earn a livelihood shall cast them adrift in poverty. If any man has seen fit to rear his sons with a view to their living idle lives, or, what is highly commendable, has instilled in them the sentiment that they are in a position to labor for public ends without reference to pecuniary considerations, then, of course, the duty of the parent is to see that such are provided for in moderation. There are instances of millionaires’ sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being rich, still perform great services to the community. Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare. It is not the exception, however, but the rule, that men must regard; and, looking at the usual result of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful man must shortly say, “I would as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar,” and admit to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, but family pride, which inspires these legacies. As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, it may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before he becomes of much good in the world. Knowledge of the results of legacies bequeathed is not calculated to inspire the brightest hopes of much posthumous good being accomplished by them. The cases are not few in which the real object sought by the testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted. In many cases the bequests are so used as to become

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only monuments of his folly. It is well to remember that it requires the exercise of not less ability than that which acquires it, to use wealth so as to be really beneficial to the community. Besides this, it may fairly be said that no man is to be extolled for doing what he cannot help doing, nor is he to be thanked by the community to which he only leaves wealth at death. Men who leave vast sums in this way may fairly be thought men who would not have left it at all had they been able to take it with them. The memories of such cannot be held in grateful remembrance, for there is no grace in their gifts. It is not to be wondered at that such bequests seem so generally to lack the blessing. The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion . . .Of all forms of taxation this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for public ends would work good to the community from which it chiefly came, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the State, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the State marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire’s unworthy life. It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction. Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man’s estate which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the State, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell, until of the millionaire’s hoard, as of Shylock’s, at least “ – The other half Comes to the privy coffer of the State.” This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being by far the most fruitful for the people. Nor need it be feared that this policy would sap the root of enterprise and render men less anxious to accumulate, for, to the class whose ambition it is to leave great fortunes and to be talked about after their

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death, it will attract even more attention, and, indeed, be a somewhat nobler ambition, to have enormous sums paid over the State from their fortunes. There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes; but in this we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor—a reign of harmony, another ideal, differing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded upon the present most intense Individualism, and the race is prepared to put it in practice by degrees whenever it pleases. Under its sway we shall have an ideal State, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for the common good; and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among themselves in trifling amounts through the course of many years. If we consider the results which flow from the Cooper Institute, for instance, to the best portion of the race in New York not possessed of means, and compare these with those which would have ensued for the good of the masses from an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the form of wages, which is the highest form of distribution, being for work done and not for charity, we can form some estimate of the possibilities for the improvement of the race which lie embedded in the present law of the accumulation of wealth. Much of this sum, if distributed in small quantities among the people, would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite, some of it in excess, and it may be doubted whether even the part put to the best use, that of adding to the comforts of the home, would have yielded results for the race, as a race, at all comparable to those which are flowing and are to flow from the Cooper Institute from generation to generation. Let the advocate of violent or radical change ponder well this thought.


We might even go so far as to take another instance—that of Mr. Tilden’s bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library in the city of New York; but in referring to this one cannot help saying involuntarily: How much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the last years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest no any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims. But let us assume that Mr. Tilden’s millions finally become the means of giving to this city a noble public library, where the treasures of the world contained in books will be open to all forever, without money and without price. Considering the good of that part of the race which congregates in and around Manhattan Island, would its permanent benefit have been better promoted had these millions been allowed to circulate in small sums through the hands of the masses? Even the most strenuous advocate of Communism must entertain a doubt upon this subject. Most of those who think will probably entertain no doubt whatever. Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life, narrow our horizon, our best work most imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon. They have it in their power during their lives to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ . . . but, while animated by Christ’s spirit, by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we live, still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but laboring in a different manner. This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the commu-

nity—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves. We are met here with the difficulty of determining what are moderate sums to leave to members of the family; what is modest, unostentatious living; what is the test of extravagance. There must be different standards for different conditions. The answer is that it is as impossible to name exact amounts or actions as it is to define good manners, good taste, or the rules of propriety; but, nevertheless, these are verities, well known, although indefinable. Public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these. So in the case of wealth. The rule in regard to good taste in dress of men or women applies here. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon. If any family be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in home, table, or equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself—if these be its chief distinctions, we have no difficulty in estimating its nature or culture. So likewise in regard to the use or abuse of its surplus wealth, or to generous, free-handed cooperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to accumulate and hoard to the last, or whether they administer or bequeath. The verdict rests with the best and most enlightened public sentiment. The community will surely judge, and its judgments will not often be wrong. The best uses to which surplus wealth can be put have already been indicated. Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise; for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown into the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in socalled charity to-day, it is probable that nine hundred and fifty dollars is unwisely spent—so spent, indeed, as to produce the very evils which it hopes to mitigate or cure. A well-known writer of philosophic books admitted the other day that he had given a quarter of a dollar to a man who approached him as he was coming to visit the house of his friend. He knew nothing of the habits of this beggar, knew not the use that

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would be made of this money, although he had every reason to suspect that it would be spent improperly. This man professed to be a disciple of Herbert Spencer; yet the quarter-dollar given that night will probably work more injury than all the money will do good which its thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true charity. He only gratified his own feelings, saved himself from annoyance—and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life, for in all respects he is most worthy. In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do, except in the case of accident or sudden change. Every one has, of course, cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can do genuine good, and these he will not overlook. But the amount which can be wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the only true reformer who is as careful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in almsgiving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue. The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of [those] . . . who know that the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise—free libraries, parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste; and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good. Thus is the problem of rich and poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free, the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the

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millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor, intrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows, save by using it year by year for the general good. This day already dawns. Men may die without incurring the pity of their fellows, still sharers in great business enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and which is left chiefly at death for public uses; yet the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free to him to administer during life, will pass away “unwept, unhonored, and unsung,” no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” Such, in my opinion is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor, and to bring “Peace on earth, among men good will.”

II. “The Best Fields for Philanthropy” . . . Bearing in mind these considerations, let us endeavor to present some of the best uses to which a millionaire can devote the surplus of which he should regard himself as only the trustee. First. Standing apart by itself there is the founding of a university by men enormously rich, such men as must necessarily be few in any country. Perhaps the greatest sum ever given by an individual for any purpose is the gift of Senator Stanford, who undertakes to establish a complete university upon the Pacific coast, where he amassed his enormous fortune, which is said to involve the expenditure of ten millions of dollars, and upon which he may be expected to bestow twenty millions of his surplus. He is to be envied. A thousand years hence some orator, speaking his praise upon the then crowded shores of the Pacific, may thus adapt Griffith’s eulogy of Wolsey, “In bestowing he was most princely: ever witness for him this seat of learning.” Here is a noble use of wealth.


We have many such institutions,—John Hopkins, Cornell, Packer, and others,—but most of these have only been bequeathed, and it is impossible to extol any man greatly for simply leaving what he cannot take with him. Cooper and Pratt and Stanford, and others of this class, deserve credit and admiration as much for the time and attention given during their lives as for their expenditure upon their respective monuments. . . . Second. The result of my own study of the question, What is the best gift which can be given to a community? Is that a free library occupies the first place, provided the community will accept and maintain it as a public institution, as much a part of the city property as its public schools, and, indeed, an adjunct to these. It is, no doubt, possible that my own personal experience may have led me to value a free library beyond all other forms of beneficence. When I was a working-boy in Pittsburgh, Colonel Anderson of Allegheny—a name I can never speak without feelings of devotional gratitude—opened his little library of four hundred books to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was in attendance at his house to exchange books. No one but he who has felt it can ever know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was awaited, that a new book might be had. My brother and Mr. Phipps, who have been my principal business partners through life, shared with me Colonel Anderson’s precious generosity, and it was when reveling in the treasures which he opened to us that I resolved, if ever wealth came to me, that it should be used to establish free libraries, that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to that noble man. . . . Third. We have another most important department in which great sums can be worthily used—the founding or extension of hospitals, medical colleges, laboratories, and other institutions connected with the alleviation of human suffering, and especially with the prevention rather than with the cure of human ills. There is no danger of pauperizing a community in giving for such purposes, because such institutions relieve temporary ailments or shelter only those who are hopeless invalids. What better gift than a hospital can be given to a community that is without one?—the gift being conditioned upon its proper maintenance

by the community in its corporate capacity. If hospital accommodation already exists, no better method for using surplus wealth can be found than in making additions to it. The late Mr. Vanderbilt’s gift of half a million dollars to the Medical Department of Columbia College for a chemical laboratory was one of the wisest possible uses of wealth. It strikes at the prevention of disease by penetrating into its causes. Several others have established such laboratories, but the need for them is still great. If there be a millionaire in the land who is at a loss what to do with the surplus that has been committed to him as trustee, let him investigate the good that is flowing from these chemical laboratories. No medical college is complete without its laboratory. As with universities, so with medical colleges: it is not new institutions that are required, but additional means for the more thorough equipment of those that exist. The forms that benefactions to these may wisely take are numerous, but probably none is more useful than that adopted by Mr. Osborne when he built a school for training female nurses at Bellevue College. If from all gifts there flows one half of the good that comes from this wise use of a millionaire’s surplus, the most exacting may well be satisfied. Only those who have passed through a lingering and dangerous illness can rate at their true value the care, skill, and attendance of trained female nurses. Their employment as nurses has enlarged the sphere and influence of woman. It is not to be wondered at that a senator of the United States, and a physician distinguished in this country for having received the highest distinctions abroad, should recently have found their wives in this class. Fourth. In the very front rank of benefactions public parks should be placed, always provided that the community undertakes to maintain, beautify, and preserve them inviolate. No more useful or more beautiful monument can be left by any man than a park for the city in which he was born or in which he has long lived, nor can the community pay a more graceful tribute to the citizen who presents it than to give his name to the gift. Mrs. Schenley’s gift last month of a large park to the city of Pittsburgh deserves to be noted. This lady, although born in Pittsburgh, married an English gentleman while yet in her teens. It is forty years more since she took up her residence in London

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among the titled and the wealthy of the world’s metropolis, but still she turns to the home of her childhood and by means of Schenley Park links her name with it forever. A noble use of this great wealth by one who thus becomes her own administrator. If a park be already provided, there is still room for many judicious gifts in connection with it. Mr. Phipps of Allegheny has given conservatories to the park there, which are visited by many every day of the week, and crowded by thousands of working-people every Sunday; for, with rare wisdom, he has stipulated as a condition of the gift that the conservatories shall be open on Sundays. The result of his experiment has been so gratifying that he finds himself justified in adding to them from his surplus, as he is doing largely this year. To lovers of flowers among the wealthy I commend a study of what is possible for them to do in the line of Mr. Phipp’s example; and may they please note that Mr. Phipps is a wise as well as a liberal giver, for he requires the city to maintain these conservatories, and thus secures for them forever the public ownership, the public interest, and the public criticism of their management. Had he undertaken to manage and maintain them, it is probable that popular interest in the gift would never have been awaken. . . . While the bestowal of a park upon a community will be universally approved as one of the best uses for surplus wealth, in embracing such additions to it as conservatories, or in advocating the building of memorial arches and works of adornment, it is probable that many will think I go too far, and consider these somewhat fanciful. The material good to flow from them may not be so directly visible; but let not any practical mind, intent only upon material good, depreciate the value of wealth given for these or for kindred esthetic purposes as being useless as far as the mass of the people and their needs are concerned. As with libraries and museums, so with these more distinctively artistic works: they perform their great use when they reach the best of the masses of the people. It is better to reach and touch the sentiment for beauty in the naturally bright minds of this class than to pander to those incapable of being so touched. For what the improver of the race must endeavor is to reach those who have the divine spark ever so feebly developed, that it may be strengthened and grow. For

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my part, I think Mr. Phipps put his money to better use in giving the working-men of Allegheny conservatories filled with beautiful flowers, orchids, and aquatic plants, which they, with their wives and children, can enjoy in their spare hours, and upon which they can feed their love for the beautiful, than if he had given his surplus money to furnish them with bread; for those in health who cannot earn their bread are scarcely worth considering by the individual giver, the care of such being the duty of the State. The man who erects in a city a conservatory or a truly artistic arch, statue, or fountain, makes a wise use of his surplus. “Man does not live by bread alone.” Fifth. We have another good use for surplus wealth in providing our cities with halls suitable for meetings of all kinds, and for concerts of elevating music. Our cities are rarely possessed of halls for these purposes, being in this respect also very far behind European cities. Springer Hall, in Cincinnati, a valuable addition to the city, was largely the gift of Mr. Springer, who was not content to bequeath funds from his estate at death, but gave during his life, and, in addition, gave—what was equally important—his time and business ability to insure the successful results which have been achieved. The gift of a hall to any city lacking one is an excellent use for surplus wealth for the good of a community. The reason why the people have only one instructive and elevating, or even amusing, entertainment when a dozen would be highly beneficial, is that the rent of a hall, even when a suitable hall exists, which is rare, is so great as to prevent managers from running the risk of financial failure. If every city in our land owned a hall which could be given or rented for a small sum for such gatherings as a committee or the mayor of the city judged advantageous, the people could be furnished with proper lectures, amusements, and concerts at an exceedingly small cost. The town halls of European cities, many of which have organs, are of inestimable value to the people, utilized as they are in the manner suggested. Let no one underrate the influence of entertainments of an elevating or even of an amusing character, for these do much to make the lives of the people happier and their natures better. If any millionaire born in a small village which has now become a great city is prompted in the day of his success to do something


for his birthplace with part of his surplus, his grateful remembrance cannot take a form more useful than that of a public hall with an organ, provided the city agrees to maintain and use it. Sixth. In another respect we are still much behind Europe. A form of benevolence which is not uncommon there is providing swimming-baths for the people. The donors of these have been wise enough to require the city benefited to maintain them at its own expense, and as proof of the contention that everything should never be done for any one or for any community, but that the recipients should invariably be called upon to do a part, it is significant that it is found essential for the popular success of these healthful establishments to exact a nominal charge for their use. In many cities, however, the school-children are admitted free at fixed hours upon certain days; different hours being fixed for the boys and the girls to use the great swimming-baths, hours or days being also fixed for the use of these baths by women. In addition to the highly beneficial effect of these institutions upon the public health in inland cities, the young of both sexes are thus taught to swim. Swimming clubs are organized, and matches are frequent, at which medals and prizes are given. The reports published by the various swimming-bath establishments throughout Great Britain are filled with instances of lives saved because those who fortunately escaped shipwreck had been taught to swim in the baths; and not a few instances are given in which the pupils of certain bathing establishments have saved the lives of others. If any disciple of the gospel of wealth gives his favorite city large swimming and private baths, provided the municipality undertakes their management as a city affair, he will never be called to account for an improper use of the funds intrusted to him. Seventh. Churches as fields for the use of surplus wealth have purposely been reserved for the last, because, these being sectarian, every man will be governed in his action in regard to them by his own attachments; therefore gifts to churches, it may be said, are not, in one sense, gifts to the community at large, but to special classes. Nevertheless, every millionaire may know of a district where the little cheap, uncomfortable, and altogether unworthy wooden structure stands at the cross-roads, in which the whole neighborhood gathers

on Sunday, and which, independently of the form of the doctrines taught, is the center of social life and source of neighborly feeling. The administrator of wealth makes a good use of a part of his surplus if he replaces that building with a permanent structure of brick, stone, or granite, up whose sides the honeysuckle and columbine may climb, and from whose tower the sweet-tolling bell may sound. The millionaire should not figure how cheaply this structure can be built, but how perfect it can be made. If he has the money, it should be made a gem, for the educating influence of a pure and noble specimen of architecture, built, as the pyramids were built, to stand for ages, is not to be measured by dollars. Every farmer’s home, heart, and mind in the district will be influenced by the beauty and grandeur of the church; and many a bright boy, gazing enraptured upon its richly colored windows and entranced by the celestial voice of the organ, will there receive his first message from and in spirit be carried away to the beautiful and enchanting realm which lies far from the material and prosaic conditions which surround him in this workaday world—a real world, this new realm, vague and undefined though its boundaries be. Once within its magic circle, its denizens live there an inner life more precious than the external, and all their days and all their ways, their triumphs and their trials, and all they see, and all they hear, and all they think, and all they do, are hallowed by the radiance which shines from afar upon this inner life, glorifying everything, and keeping all right within. But having given the building, the donor should stop there; the support of the church should be upon its own people. There is not much genuine religion in the congregation or much good to come from the church which is not supported at home. Many other avenues for the wise expenditure of surplus wealth might be indicated. I enumerate but a few— a very few—of the many fields which are open, and only those in which great or considerable sums can be judiciously used. It is not the privilege, however, of millionaires alone to work for or aid measures which are certain to benefit the community. Every one who has but a small surplus above his moderate wants may share this privilege with his richer brothers, and those without surplus can give at least a part of their time, which is usually as important as funds, and often more so.

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It is not expected, neither is it desirable, that there should be general concurrence as to the best possible use of surplus wealth. For different men and different localities there are different uses. What commends itself most highly to the judgment of the administrator is the best use for him, for his heart should be in the work. It is as important in administering wealth as it is in any other branch of a man’s work that he should be enthusiastically devoted to it and feel that in the field selected his work lies. Besides this, there is room and need for all kinds of wise benefactions for the common weal. The man who builds a university, library, or laboratory performs no more useful work than he who elects to devote himself and his surplus means to the adornment of a park, the gathering together of a collection of pictures for the public, or the building of a memorial arch. These are all true laborers in the vineyard. The only point required by the gospel of wealth is what the surplus means to the adornment of a park, the gathering together of a collection of pictures for the public, or the building of a memorial arch. These are all true laborers in the vineyard. The only point required by the gospel of wealth is that the surplus which accrues from time to time in the hands of a man should be administered by him in his own lifetime for that purpose which is seen by him, as trustee, to be best for the good of the people. To leave at death what he cannot take away, and place upon others the burden of the work which it was his own duty to perform, is to do nothing worthy. This requires no sacrifice, nor any sense of duty to his fellows. Time was when the words concerning the rich man entering the kingdom of heaven were regarded as a hard saying. To-day, when all questions are probed to the bottom and the standards of faith receive the most liberal interpretations, the startling verse has been relegated to the rear, to await the next kindly revision as one of those things which cannot be quite understood, but which, meanwhile, it is carefully to be noted, are not to be understood literally. But is it so very improbable that the next stage of thought is to restore the doctrine in all its pristine purity and force, as being in perfect harmony with sound ideas upon the subject of wealth and poverty, the rich and the poor, and the contrasts everywhere seen and deplored?

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In Christ’s day, it is evident, reformers were against the wealthy. It is none the less evident that we are fast recurring to that position to-day; and there will be nothing to surprise the student of sociological development if society should soon approve the text which has caused so much anxiety: “It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Even if the needle were the small casement at the gates, the words betoken serious difficulty for the rich. It will be but a step for the theologian from the doctrine that he who dies rich dies disgraced, to that which brings upon the man punishment or deprivation hereafter. The gospel of wealth but echoes Christ’s words. It calls upon the millionaire to sell all that he hath and give it in the highest and best form to the poor by administering his estate himself for the good of his fellows, before he is called upon to lie down and rest upon the bosom of Mother Earth. So doing, he will approach his end no longer the ignoble hoarder of useless millions; poor, very poor indeed, in money, but rich, very rich, twenty times a millionaire still, in the affection, gratitude, and admiration of his fellowmen, and—sweeter far—soothed and sustained by the still, small voice within, which, whispering, tells him that, because he has lived, perhaps one small part of the great world has been bettered just a little. This much is sure: against such riches as these no bar will be found at the gates of Paradise. References: “The Problem with the Administration of Wealth” originally appeared in and was excerpted from Carnegie, Andrew. 1889. “Wealth.” North American Review 148, no. 391 ( June): 655–665. “The Best Fields for Philanthropy” originally appeared in and was excerpted from Carnegie, Andrew. 1889. “The Best Fields for Philanthropy.” North American Review (December): 686–698.

A Modern Lear Jane Addams Jane Addams was an activist and writer who founded Hull-House in 1889. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 for her role with the Women’s International League

A Modern Lear

for Peace and Freedom. In this work, excerpted from a speech given at the Chicago Woman’s Club and the Twentieth Century Club of Boston in 1896, Addams illustrates the ill that a well-intended philanthropist can inflict. Those of us who lived in Chicago during the summer of 1894 were confronted by a drama which epitomized and, at the same time, challenged the code of social ethics under which we live. . . . During the discussions which followed the Pullman strike, the defenders of the situation were broadly divided between the people pleading for individual benevolence and those insisting upon social righteousness; between those who held that the philanthropy of the president of the Pullman company had been most ungratefully received and those who maintained that the situation was the inevitable outcome of the social consciousness developing among working people. In the midst of these discussions the writer found her mind dwelling upon a comparison which modified and softened all her judgments. Her attention was caught by the similarity of ingratitude suffered by an indulgent employer and an indulgent parent. King Lear came often to her mind. We have all shared the family relationship and our code of ethics concerning it is somewhat settled. We also bear a part in the industrial relationship, but our ethics concerning that are still uncertain. A comparative study of these two relationships presents an advantage, in that it enables us to consider the situation from the known experience toward the unknown. The minds of all of us reach back to our early struggles, as we emerged from the state of self-willed childhood to a recognition of the family claim. We have all had glimpses of what it might be to blaspheme against family ties; to ignore the elemental claim they make upon us, but on the whole we have recognized them, and it does not occur to us to throw them over. The industrial claim is so difficult; the ties are so intangible that we are constantly ignoring them and shirking the duties which they impose. It will probably be easier to treat of the tragedy of the Pullman strike as if it were already long past when we compare it to the family tragedy of Lear which has already become historic to our minds and which we discuss without personal feeling.

Historically considered, the relation of Lear to his children was archaic and barbaric, holding in it merely the beginnings of a family life, since developed. We may in later years learn to look back upon the industrial relationships in which we are now placed as quite as incomprehensible and selfish, quite as barbaric and undeveloped, as was the family relationship between Lear and his daughters. We may then take the relationship of this unusually generous employer at Pullman to his own townful of employes as at least a fair one, because so exceptionally liberal in many of its aspects. King Lear doubtless held the same notion of a father’s duty that was held by the other fathers of his time; but he alone was a king and had kingdoms to bestow upon his children. He was unique, therefore, in the magnitude of his indulgence, and in the magnitude of the disaster which followed it. The sense of duty held by the president of the Pullman company doubtless represents the ideal in the minds of the best of the present employers as to their obligations toward their employes, but he projected this ideal more magnificently than the others. He alone gave his men so model a town, such perfect surroundings. The magnitude of his indulgence and failure corresponded and we are forced to challenge the ideal itself: the same deal which, more or less clearly defined, is floating in the minds of all philanthropic employers. This older tragedy implied maladjustment between individuals; the forces of the tragedy were personal and passionate. This modern tragedy in its inception is a maladjustment between two large bodies of men, an employing company and a mass of employes. It deals not with personal relationships, but with industrial relationships. Owing, however, to the unusual part played in it by the will of one man, we find that it closely approaches Lear in motif. The relation of the British King to his family is very like the relation of the president of the Pullman company to his town; the denouement of a daughter’s break with her father suggests the break of the employes with their benefactor. If we call one an example of the domestic tragedy, the other of the industrial tragedy, it is possible to make them illuminate each other. . . . It is easy to see that although the heart of Lear was cut by ingratitude and by misfortune, it was cut deepest

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of all by the public pity of his people, in that they should remember him no longer as a king and benefactor, but as a defeated man who had blundered through oversoftness. So the heart of the Chicago man was cut by the unparalleled publicity which brought him to the minds of thousands as a type of oppression and injustice, and to many others as an example of the evil of an irregulated sympathy for the “lower classes.” He who had been dined and feted throughout Europe as the creator of a model town, as the friend and benefactor of workingmen, was now execrated by workingmen throughout the entire country. He had not only been good to those who were now basely ungrateful to him, but he felt himself deserted by the admiration of his people. In shops such as those at Pullman, indeed, in all manufacturing affairs since the industrial revolution, industry is organized into a vast social operation. The shops are managed, however, not for the development of the workman thus socialized, but for the interests of the company owning the capital. The divergence between the social form and the individual aim becomes greater as the employes are more highly socialized and dependent, just as the clash in a family is more vital in proportion to the development and closeness of the family tie. The president of the Pullman company went further than the usual employer does. He socialized not only the factory but the form in which his workmen were living. He built and, in a great measure, regulated an entire town. This again might have worked out into a successful associated effort, if he had had in view the sole good of the inhabitants thus socialized, if he had called upon them for self-expression and had made the town a growth and manifestation of their wants and needs, But, unfortunately, the end to be obtained became ultimately commercial and not social, having in view the payment to the company of at least 4 per cent on the money invested, so that with this rigid requirement there could be no adaptation of rent to wages, much less to needs. The rents became statical and the wages competitive, shifting inevitably with the demands of trade. The president assumed that he himself knew the needs of his men, and so far from wishing them to express their needs he denied to them the simple rights of trade organization, which would have been, of course, the merest preliminary to an attempt at associated expres-

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sion. If we may take the dictatorial relation of Lear to Cordelia as a typical and most dramatic example of the distinctively family tragedy, one will asserting its authority through all the entanglement of wounded affection, and insisting upon its selfish ends at all costs, may we not consider the absolute authority of this employer over his town as a typical and dramatic example of the industrial tragedy? One will directing the energies of many others, without regard to their desires, and having in view in the last analysis only commercial results? Lear ignored the common ancestry of Cordelia and himself. He forgot her royal inheritance of magnanimity, and also the power of obstinacy which he shared with her. So long had he thought of himself as the noble and indulgent father that he had lost the faculty by which be might perceive himself in the wrong. Even when his spirit was broken by the storm he declared himself more sinned against than sinning. He could believe any amount of kindness and goodness of himself, but could imagine no fidelity on the part of Cordelia unless she gave him the sign he demanded. The president of the Pullman company doubtless began to build his town from an honest desire to give his employes the best surroundings. As it developed it became a source of pride and an exponent of power, that he cared most for when it gave him a glow of benevolence. Gradually, what the outside world thought of it became of importance to him and he ceased to measure its usefulness by the standard of the men’s needs. . . . He and his employes had no mutual interest in a common cause. Was not the grotesque situation of the royal father and the philanthropic employer to perform so many good deeds that they lost the power of recognizing good in beneficiaries? Were not both so absorbed in carrying out a personal plan of improvement that they failed to catch the great moral lesson which their times offered them? This is the crucial point to the tragedies and may be further elucidated. . . . Without pressing the analogy too hard may we not compare the indulgent relation of this employer to his town to the relation which existed between Lear and Cordelia? He fostered his employes for many years, gave them sanitary houses and beautiful parks, but in

A Modern Lear

their extreme need, when they were struggling with the most difficult question which the times could present to them, when, if ever, they required the assistance of a trained mind and a comprehensive outlook, he lost his touch and had nothing wherewith to help them. He did not see the situation. He had been ignorant of their gropings toward justice. His conception of goodness for them had been cleanliness, decency of living, and above all, thrift and temperance. He had provided them means for all this; had gone further, and given them opportunities for enjoyment and comradeship. But he suddenly found his town in the sweep of a world-wide moral impulse. A movement had been going on about him and through the souls of his workingmen of which he had been unconscious. He had only heard of this movement by rumor. The men who consorted with him at his club and in his business had spoken but little of it, and when they had discussed it had contemptuously called it the “Labor Movement,” headed by deadbeats and agitators. Of the force and power of this movement, of all the vitality within it, of that conception of duty which induces men to go without food and to see their wives and children suffer for the sake of securing better wages for fellow-workmen whom they have never seen, this president had dreamed absolutely nothing. But his town had at last become swept into this larger movement, so that the giving up of comfortable homes, of beautiful surroundings, seemed as naught to the men within its grasp. Outside the ken of this philanthropist, the proletariat had learned to say in many languages that “the injury of one is the concern of all.” Their watchwords were brotherhood, sacrifice, the subordination of individual and trade interests to the good of the working class; and their persistent strivings were toward the ultimate freedom of that class from the conditions under which they now labor. Compared to these watchwords the old ones which the philanthropic employer had given his town were negative and inadequate. When this movement finally swept in his own town, or, to speak more fairly, when in their distress and perplexity his own employes appealed to the organized manifestation of this movement, they were quite sure that simply because they were workmen in

distress they would not be deserted by it. This loyalty on the part of a widely ramified and well organized union toward the workmen in a “scab shop,” who had contributed nothing to its cause, was certainly a manifestation of moral power. That the movement was ill-directed, that it was illtimed and disastrous in results, that it stirred up and became confused in the minds of the public with the elements of riot and bloodshed, can never touch the fact that it started from an unselfish impulse. In none of his utterances or correspondence did the president of the company for an instant recognize this touch of nobility, although one would imagine that he would gladly point out this bit of virtue, in what he must have considered the moral ruin about him. He stood throughout pleading for the individual virtues, those which had distinguished the model workman of his youth, those which had enabled him and so many of his contemporaries to rise in life, when “rising in life” was urged upon every promising boy as the goal of his efforts. Of the new code of ethics be had caught absolutely nothing. The morals he had taught his men did not fail them in their hour of confusion. They were self-controlled and destroyed no property. They were sober and exhibited no drunkenness, even though obliged to hold their meetings in the saloon hall of a neighboring town. They repaid their employer in kind, but he had given them no rule for the higher fellowship and life of association into which they were plunged. The virtues of one generation are not sufficient for the next, any more than the accumulations of knowledge possessed by one age are adequate to the needs of another. Of the virtues received from our fathers we can afford to lose none. We accept as a precious trust those principles and precepts which the race has worked out for its highest safeguard and protection. But merely to preserve those is not enough. A task is laid upon each generation to enlarge their application, to ennoble their conception, and, above all, to apply and adapt them to the peculiar problems presented to it for solution. The president of this company desired that his employes should possess the individual and family virtues, but did nothing to cherish in them those social virtues which his own age demanded. He rather

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substituted for that sense of responsibility to the community, a feeling of gratitude to himself, who had provided them with public buildings, and had laid out for them a simulacrum of public life. Is it strange that when the genuine feeling of the age struck his town this belated and almost feudal virtue of personal gratitude fell before it? . . . Lack of perception is the besetting danger of the egoist, from whatever cause his egoism arises and envelopes him. But, doubtless, philanthropists are more exposed to this danger than any other class of people within the community. Partly because their efforts are overestimated, as no standard of attainment has yet been established, and partly because they are the exponents of a large amount of altruistic feeling with which the community has become equipped and which has not yet found adequate expression, they are therefore easily idealized. Long ago Hawthorne called our attention to the fact that philanthropy ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin, the heart, “the rich juices of which God never meant should be pressed violently out, and distilled into alcoholic liquor by an unnatural process; but it should render life sweet, bland and gently beneficent.” One might add to this observation that the muscles of this same heart may be stretched and strained until they lose the rhythm of the common heartbeat of the rest of the world. Modern philanthropists need to remind themselves of the old definition of greatness: that it consists in the possession of the largest share of the common human qualities and experiences, not in the acquirements of peculiarities and excessive virtues. Popular opinion calls him the greatest of Americans who gathered to himself the largest amount of American experience, and who never forgot when he was in Washington how the “crackers” in Kentucky and the pioneers of Illinois thought and felt, striving to retain their thoughts and feelings, and to embody only the mighty will of the “common people.” The danger of professionally attaining to the power of the righteous man, of yielding to the ambition “for doing good,” compared to which the ambitious for political position, learning, or wealth are vulgar and commonplace, ramifies throughout our modern life, and is a constant and settled danger of philanthropy.

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In so far as philanthropists are cut off from the influence of the Zeit-Geist, from the code of ethics which rule the body of men, from the great moral life springing from our common experiences, so long as they are “good to people,” rather than “with them,” they are bound to accomplish a large amount of harm. They are outside of the influence of that great faith which perennially springs up in the hearts of the people, and re-creates the world. In spite of the danger of overloading the tragedies with moral reflections, a point ought to be made on the other side. It is the weakness in the relation of the employes to the employer, the fatal lack of generosity in the attitude of workmen toward the company under whose exactions they feel themselves wronged. . . .

Raising Money Booker T. Washington Booker T. Washington was a famous black educator and civil rights leader who founded the Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and served as its leader until his death in 1915. This excerpt from a 1901 publication illustrates his insight into fundraising. When we opened our boarding department, we provided rooms in the attic of Porter Hall, our first building, for a number of girls. But the number of students, of both sexes, continued to increase. We could find rooms outside the school grounds for many of the young men, but the girls we did not care to expose in this way. Very soon the problem of providing more rooms for the girls, as well as a larger boarding department for all the students, grew serious. As a result, we finally decided to undertake the construction of a still larger building—a building that would contain rooms for the girls and boarding accommodations for all. After having had a preliminary sketch of the needed building made, we found that it would cost about ten thousand dollars. We had no money whatever with which to begin; still we decided to give the needed building a name. We knew we could name it, even though we were in doubt about our ability to se-

Raising Money

cure the means for its construction. We decided to call the proposed building Alabama Hall, in honour of the state in which we were labouring. Again Miss Davidson began making efforts to enlist the interest and help of the coloured and white people in and near Tuskegee. They responded willingly, in proportion to their means. The students, as in the case of our first building, Porter Hall, began digging out the dirt in order to allow the laying of the foundations. When we seemed at the end of our resources, so far as securing money was concerned, something occurred which showed the greatness of General Armstrong—something which proved how far he was above the ordinary individual. When we were in the midst of great anxiety as to where and how we were to get funds for the new building, I received a telegram from General Armstrong asking me if I could spend a month travelling with him through the North, and asking me, if I could do so, to come to Hampton at once. Of course I accepted General Armstrong’s invitation, and went to Hampton immediately. On arriving there I found that the General had decided to take a quartette of singers through the North, and hold meetings for a month in important cities, at which meetings he and I were to speak. Imagine my surprise when the General told me, further, that these meetings were to be held, not in the interests of Hampton but in the interests of Tuskegee, and that the Hampton Institute was to be responsible for all the expenses. Although he never told me so in so many words, I found out that General Armstrong took this method of introducing me to the people of the North, as well as for the sake of securing some immediate funds to be used in the erection of Alabama Hall. A weak and narrow man would have reasoned that all the money which came to Tuskegee in this way would be just so much taken from the Hampton Institute; but none of these selfish or short-sighted feelings ever entered the breast of General Armstrong. He knew that the people in the North who gave money gave it for the purpose of helping the whole cause of Negro civilization, and not merely for the advancement of any one school. The General knew, too, that the way to strengthen Hampton was to make it a center of unselfish power in the working out of the whole Southern problem.

In regard to the addresses which I was to make in the North, I recall just one piece of advice which the General gave me. He said: “Give them an idea for every word.” I think it would be hard to improve upon this advice; and it might be made to apply to all public speaking. From that time to the present I have always tried to keep his advice in mind. Meetings were held in New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, and other large cities, and at all of these meetings General Armstrong pleaded, together with myself, for help, not for Hampton, but for Tuskegee. At these meetings an especial effort was made to secure help for the building of Alabama Hall, as well as to introduce the school to the attention of the general public. In both these respects the meetings proved successful. After that kindly introduction I began going North alone to secure funds. During the last fifteen years I have been compelled to spend a large proportion of my time away from the school, in an effort to secure money to provide for growing needs of the institution. In my efforts to get funds I have had some experiences that may be of interest to my readers. Time and time again I have been asked, by people who are trying to secure money for philanthropic purposes, what rule or rules I followed to secure the interest and help of people who were able to contribute money to worthy objects. As far as the science of what is called begging can be reduced to rules, I would say that I have had but two rules. First, always to do my whole duty regarding making our work known to individuals and organizations; and second, not to worry about the results. This second rule has been the hardest for me to live up to. When bills are on the eve of falling due, with not a dollar in hand with which to meet them, it is pretty difficult to learn not to worry, although I think I am learning more and more each year that all worry simply consumes, and to no purpose, just so much physical and mental strength that might otherwise be given to effective work. After considerable experience in coming into contact with wealthy and noted men, I have observed that those who have accomplished the greatest results are those who “keep under the body”; are those who never grow excited or lose self-control, but are always calm, self-possessed, patient, and polite. I think that President William

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McKinley is the best example of a man of this class that I have ever seen. In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work. My experience in getting money for Tuskegee has taught me to have no patience with those people who are always condemning the rich because they are rich, and because they do not give more to objects of charity. In the first place, those who are guilty of such sweeping criticisms do not know how many people would be made poor, and how much suffering would result, if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large proportion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great business enterprises. Then very few persons have any idea of the large number of applications for help that rich people are constantly being flooded with. I know wealthy people who receive as many as twenty calls a day for help. More than once, when I have gone into the offices of rich men, I have found half a dozen persons waiting to see them, and all come for the same purpose, that of securing money. And all these calls in person, to say nothing of the applications received through the mails. Very few people have any idea of the amount of money given away by persons who never permit their names to be known. I have often heard persons condemned for not giving away money, who, to my own knowledge, were giving away thousands of dollars every year so quietly that the world knew nothing about it. As an example of this, there are two ladies in New York, whose names rarely appear in print, but who, in a quiet way, have given us the means with which to erect three large and important buildings during the last eight years. Besides the gift of these buildings, they have made other generous donations to the school. And they not only help Tuskegee, but they are constantly seeking opportunities to help other worthy causes. Although it has been my privilege to be the medium through which a good many hundred thousand dollars have been received for the work at Tuskegee, I have always avoided what the world calls

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“begging.” I often tell people that I have never “begged” any money, and that I am not a “beggar.” My experience and observation have convinced me that persistent asking outright for money from the rich does not, as a rule, secure help. I have usually proceeded on the principle that persons who possess sense enough to earn money have sense enough to know how to give it away, and that the mere making known of the facts regarding Tuskegee, and especially the facts regarding the work of the graduates, has been more effective than outright begging. I think that the presentation of facts, on a high, dignified plane, is all the begging that most rich people care for. While the work of going from door to door and from office to office is hard, disagreeable, and costly in bodily strength, yet it has some compensations. Such work gives one a rare opportunity to study human nature. It also has its compensations in giving one an opportunity to meet some of the best people in the world—to be more correct, I think I should say the best people in the world. When one takes a broad survey of the country, he will find that the most useful and influential people in it are those who take the deepest interest in institutions that exist for the purpose of making the world better. At one time, when I was in Boston, I called at the door of a rather wealthy lady, and was admitted to the vestibule and sent up my card. While I was waiting for an answer, her husband came in, and asked me in the most abrupt manner what I wanted. When I tried to explain the object of my call, he became still more ungentlemanly in his words and manner; and finally grew so excited that I left the house without waiting for a reply from the lady. A few blocks from that house I called to see a gentleman who received me in the most cordial manner. He wrote me his check for a generous sum, and then, before I had had an opportunity to thank him, said: “I am so grateful to you, Mr. Washington, for giving me the opportunity to help a good cause. It is a privilege to have a share in it. We in Boston are constantly indebted to you for doing our work.” My experience in securing money convinces me that the first type of man is growing more rare all the time, and that the latter type is increasing; that is, that, more and more, rich people are coming to regard men and women who apply to them for help for wor-

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thy objects, not as beggars, but as agents for doing their work. In the city of Boston I have rarely called upon an individual for funds that I have not been thanked for calling, usually before I could get an opportunity to thank the donor for the money. In that city the donors seem to feel, in a large degree, that an honour is being conferred upon them in their being permitted to give. Nowhere else have I met with, in so large a measure, this fine and Christlike spirit as in the city of Boston, although there are many notable instances of it outside that city. I repeat my belief that the world is growing in the direction of giving. I repeat that the main rule by which I have been guided in collecting money is to do my full duty in regard to giving people who have money an opportunity to help. In the early years of the Tuskegee school I walked the streets or travelled country roads in the North for days and days without receiving a dollar. Often it has happened, when during the week I had been disappointed in not getting a cent from the very individuals from whom I most expected help, and when I was almost broken down and discouraged, that generous help has come from someone who I had had little idea would give at all. I recall that on one occasion I obtained information that led me to believe that a gentleman who lived about two miles out in the country from Stamford, Conn., might become interested in our efforts at Tuskegee if our conditions and needs were presented to him. On an unusually cold and stormy day I walked the two miles to see him. After some difficulty I succeeded in securing an interview with him. He listened with some degree of interest to what I had to say, but did not give me anything. I could not help having the feeling that, in a measure, the three hours that I had spent in seeing him had been thrown away. Still, I had followed my usual rule of doing my duty. If I had not seen him, I should have felt unhappy over neglect of duty. Two years after this visit a letter came to Tuskegee from this man, which read like this: “Enclosed I send you a New York draft for ten thousand dollars, to be used in furtherance of your work. I had placed this sum in my will for your school, but deem it wiser to give it to you while I live. I recall with pleasure your visit to me two years ago.”

I can hardly imagine any occurrence which could have given me more genuine satisfaction than the receipt of this draft. It was by far the largest single donation which up to that time the school had ever received. It came at a time when an unusually long period had passed since we had received any money. We were in great distress because of lack of funds, and the nervous strain was tremendous. It is difficult for me to think of any situation that is more trying on the nerves than that of conducting a large institution, with heavy financial obligations to meet, without knowing where the money is to come from to meet these obligations from month to month. In our case I felt a double responsibility, and this made the anxiety all the more intense. If the institution had been officered by white persons, and had failed, it would have injured the cause of Negro education; but I knew that the failure of our institution, officered by Negroes, would not only mean the loss of a school, but would cause people, in a large degree, to lose faith in the ability of the entire race. The receipt of this draft for ten thousand dollars, under all these circumstances, partially lifted a burden that had been pressing down upon me for days. From the beginning of our work to the present I have always had the feeling, and lose no opportunity to impress our teachers with the same idea, that the school will always be supported in proportion as the inside of the institution is kept clean and pure and wholesome. The first time I ever saw the late Collis P. Huntington, the great railroad man, he gave me two dollars for our school. The last time I saw him, which was a few months before he died, he gave me fifty thousand dollars toward our endowment fund. Between these two gifts there were others of generous proportions which came every year from both Mr. and Mrs. Huntington. Some people may say that it was Tuskegee’s good luck that brought to us this gift of fifty thousand dollars. No, it was not luck. It was hard work. Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work. When Mr. Huntington gave me the first two dollars, I did not blame him for not giving me more, but made up my mind that I was going to convince him by tangible results that we were worthy

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of larger gifts. For a dozen years I made a strong effort to convince Mr. Huntington of the value of our work. I noted that just in proportion as the usefulness of the school grew, his donations increased. Never did I meet an individual who took a more kindly and sympathetic interest in our school than did Mr. Huntington. He not only gave money to us, but took time in which to advise me, as a father would a son, about the general conduct of the school. More than once I have found myself in some pretty tight places while collecting money in the North. The following incident I have never related but once before, for the reason that I feared that people would not believe it. One morning I found myself in Providence, Rhode Island, without a cent of money with which to buy breakfast. In crossing the street to see a lady from whom I hoped to get some money, I found a bright new twenty-five-cent piece in the middle of the street-car track. I not only had this twenty-five cents for my breakfast, but within a few minutes I had a donation from the lady on whom I had started to call. At one of our Commencements I was bold enough to invite the Rev. E. Winchester Donald, D.D., rector of Trinity Church, Boston, to preach the Commencement sermon. As we then had no room large enough to accommodate all who would be present, the place of meeting was under a large, improvised arbour, built partly of brush and partly of rough boards. Soon after Dr. Donald had begun speaking, the rain came down in torrents, and he had to stop, while some one held an umbrella over him. The boldness of what I had done never dawned upon me until I saw the picture made by the rector of Trinity Church standing before that large audience under an old umbrella, waiting for the rain to cease so that he could go on with his address. It was not very long before the rain ceased and Dr. Donald finished his sermon; and an excellent sermon it was, too, in spite of the weather. After he had gone to his room, and had gotten the wet threads of his clothes dry, Dr. Donald ventured the remark that a large chapel at Tuskegee would not be out of place. The next day a letter came from two ladies who were then traveling in Italy, saying that they had decided to give us the money for such a chapel as we needed.

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A short time ago we received twenty thousand dollars from Mr. Andrew Carnegie, to be used for the purpose of erecting a new library building. Our first library and reading-room were in a corner of a shanty, and the whole thing occupied a space about five by twelve feet. It required ten years of work before I was able to secure Mr. Carnegie’s interest and help. The first time I saw him, ten years ago, he seemed to take but little interest in our school, but I was determined to show him that we were worthy of his help. After ten years of hard work I wrote him a letter reading as follows: December 15, 1900 Mr. Andrew Carnegie 5 W. Fifty-First St. New York. Dear Sir: Complying with the request which you made of me when I saw you at your residence a few days ago, I now submit in writing an appeal for a library building for our institution. We have 1100 students, 86 officers and instructors, together with their families, and about 200 coloured people living near the school, all of whom would make use of the library building. We have over 12,000 books, periodicals, etc., gifts from our friends, but we have no suitable place for them, and we have no suitable reading-room. Our graduates go to work in every section of the South, and whatever knowledge might be obtained in the library would serve to assist in the elevation of the whole Negro race. Such a building as we need could be erected for about $20,000. All of the work for the building, such as brickmaking, brick-masonry, carpentry, blacksmithing, etc., would be done by the students. The money which you would give would not only supply the building, but the erection of the building would give a large number of students an opportunity to learn the building trades, and the students would use the money paid to them to keep themselves in school. I do not believe that a similar amount of money often could be made to go so far in uplifting a whole race. If you wish further information, I shall be glad to furnish it.

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Yours truly, Booker T. Washington, Principal The next mail brought back the following reply: “I will be very glad to pay the bills for the library building as they are incurred, to the extent of twenty thousand dollars, and I am glad of this opportunity to show the interest I have in your noble work.” I have found that strict business methods go a long way in securing the interest of rich people. It has been my constant aim at Tuskegee to carry out, in our financial and other operations, such business methods as would be approved of by any New York banking house. I have spoken of several large gifts to the school; but by far the greater proportion of the money that has built up the institution has come in the form of small donations from persons of moderate means. It is upon these small gifts, which carry with them the interest of hundreds of donors, that any philanthropic work must depend largely for its support. In my efforts to get money I have often been surprised at the patience and deep interest of the ministers, who are besieged on every hand and at all hours of the day for help. If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christlike work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last thirty-five years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian. In a large degree it has been the pennies, the nickels, and the dimes which have come from the Sunday-schools, the Christian Endeavour societies, and the missionary societies, as well as from the Church proper that have helped to elevate the Negro at so rapid a rate. This speaking of small gifts reminds me to say that very few Tuskegee graduates fail to send us an annual contribution. These contributions range from twentyfive cents up to ten dollars. Soon after beginning our third year’s work we were surprised to receive money from three special sources, and up to the present time we have continued to receive help from them. First, the State Legislature of Alabama increased its annual appropriation from two thousand dollars to three thousand dollars; I might add that still later it increased this sum to four thousand five

hundred dollars a year. The effort to secure this increase was led by the Hon. M. F. Foster, the member of the Legislature from Tuskegee. Second, we received one thousand dollars from the John F. Slater Fund. Our work seemed to please the trustees of this Fund, as they soon began increasing their annual grant. This has been added to from time to time until at present we receive eleven thousand dollars annually from this Fund. The other help to which I have referred came in the shape of an allowance from the Peabody Fund. This was at first five hundred dollars, but it has since been increased to fifteen hundred dollars. The effort to secure help from the Slater and Peabody Funds brought me into contact with two rare men—men who have had much to do in shaping the policy for the education of the Negro. I refer to the Hon. J. L. M. Curry, of Washington, who is the general agent for these two funds, and Mr. Morris K. Jesup, of New York. Dr. Curry is a native of the South, an ex-Confederate soldier, yet I do not believe there is any man in the country who is more deeply interested in the highest welfare of the Negro than Dr. Curry, or one who is more free from race prejudice. He enjoys the unique distinction of possessing to an equal degree the confidence of the black man and the Southern white man. I shall never forget the first time I met him. It was in Richmond, Va., where he was then living. I had heard much about him. When I first went into his presence, trembling because of my youth and inexperience, he took me by the hand so cordially, and spoke such encouraging words, and gave me such helpful advice regarding the proper course to pursue, that I came to know him then, as I have known him ever since, as a high example of one who is constantly and unselfishly at work for the betterment of humanity. Mr. Morris K. Jesup, the treasurer of the Slater Fund, I refer to because I know of no man of wealth and large and complicated business responsibilities who gives not only money but his time and thought to the subject of the proper method of elevating the Negro to the extent that is true of Mr. Jesup. It is very largely through his effort and influence that during the last few years the subject of industrial education has assumed the importance that it has, and been placed on its present footing.

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Reference: Originally published in Washington, Booker T. 1901. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. New York: Doubleday, chapter 12.

Charitable Effort Jane Addams As a social reformer, Jane Addams championed the plights of immigrants and the poor. Her social settlement movement thrived on a small scale; thus, she became concerned that the growing organized charity movement would eventually disenfranchise some of the most marginalized in society. She pleads her case in this passage, which is excerpted from Democracy and Social Ethics, written in 1902. A very little familiarity with the poor districts of any city is sufficient to show how primitive and genuine are the neighborly relations. There is the greatest willingness to lend or borrow anything, and all the residents of the given tenement know the most intimate family affairs of all the others. The fact that the economic condition of all alike is on a most precarious level makes the ready outflow of sympathy and material assistance the most natural thing in the world. There are numberless instances of self-sacrifice quite unknown in the circles where greater economic advantages make that kind of intimate knowledge of one’s neighbors impossible. An Irish family in which the man has lost his place, and the woman is struggling to eke out the scanty savings by day’s work, will take in the widow and her five children who have been turned into the street, without a moment’s reflection upon the physical discomforts involved. The most maligned landlady who lives in the house with her tenants is usually ready to lend a scuttle full of coal to one of them who may be out of work, or to share her supper. A woman for whom the writer had long tried in vain to find work failed to appear at the appointed time when employment was secured at last. Upon investigation it transpired that a neighbor further down the street was taken ill, that the children ran for the family friend, who went of course, saying simply when reasons for her non-appearance were demanded, “It

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broke me heart to leave the place, but what could I do?” A woman whose husband was sent up to the city prison for the maximum term, just three months before the birth of her child, found herself penniless at the end of that time, having gradually sold her supply of household furniture. She took refuge with a friend whom she supposed to be living in three rooms in another part of town. When she arrived, however, she discovered that her friend’s husband had been out of work so long that they had been reduced to living in one room. The friend, however, took her in, and the friend’s husband was obliged to sleep upon a bench in the park every night for a week, which he did uncomplainingly if not cheerfully. Fortunately it was summer, “and it only rained one night.” The writer could not discover from the young mother that she had any special claim upon the “friend” beyond the fact that they had formerly worked together in the same factory. The husband she had never seen until the night of her arrival, when he at once went forth in search of a midwife who would consent to come upon his promise of future payment. The evolutionists tell us that the instinct to pity, the impulse to aid his fellow, served man at a very early period, as a rude rule of right and wrong. There is no doubt that this rude rule still holds among many people with whom charitable agencies are brought into contact, and that their ideas of right and wrong are quite honestly outraged by the methods of these agencies. When they see the delay and caution with which relief is given, it does not appear to them a conscientious scruple, but as the cold and calculating action of a selfish man. It is not the aid that they are accustomed to receive from their neighbors, and they do not understand why the impulse which drives people to “be good to the poor” should be so severely supervised. The feel, remotely, that the charity visitor is moved by motives that are alien and unreal. They may be superior motives, but they are different, and they are “agin nature.” . . . Even those of us who feel most sorely the need of more order in altruistic effort and see the end to be desired, find something distasteful in the juxtaposition of the words “organized” and “charity.” We say in defense that we are striving to turn this emotion into a motive, that pity is capricious, and not to be de-

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pended on; that we mean to give it the dignity of conscious duty. But at bottom we distrust a little a scheme which substitutes a theory of social conduct for the natural promptings of the heart, even although we appreciate the complexity of the situation. The poor man who has fallen into distress, when he first asks aid, instinctively expects tenderness, consideration, and forgiveness. If it is the first time, it has taken him long to make up his mind to take the step. He comes somewhat bruised and battered, and instead of being met with warmth of heart and sympathy, he is at once chilled by an investigation and an intimation that he ought to work. He does not recognize the disciplinary aspect of the situation . . . The first impulse of our charity visitor is to be somewhat severe with her shiftless family for spending money on pleasures and indulging their children out of all proportion to their means. The poor family which receives beans and coal from the county, and pays for a bicycle on the installment plan, is not unknown to any of us. But as the growth of juvenile crime becomes gradually understood, and as the danger of giving no legitimate and organized pleasure to the child becomes clearer, we remember that primitive man had games long before he cared for a house or regular meals. There are certain boys in many city neighborhoods who form themselves into little gangs with a leader who is somewhat more intrepid than the rest. Their favorite performance is to break into an untenanted house, to knock off the faucets, and cut the lead pipe, which they sell to the nearest junk dealer. With the money thus procured they buy beer and drink it in little free-booter’s groups sitting in the alley. From beginning to end they have the excitement of knowing that they may be seen and caught by the “coppers,” and are at times quite breathless with suspense. It is not the least unlike, in motive and execution, the practice of country boys who go forth in squads to set traps for rabbits or to round up a coon. It is characterized a pure spirit for adventure, and the vicious training really begins when they are arrested, or when an older boy undertakes to guide them into further excitements. From the very beginning the most enticing and exciting experiences which they have seen have been connected with crime. The po-

liceman embodies all the majesty of successful law and established government in his brass buttons and dazzlingly equipped patrol wagon. The boy who has been arrested comes back more or less a hero with a tale to tell of the interior recesses of the mysterious police station. The earliest public excitement the child remembers is divided between the rattling fire engines, “the time there was a fire in the next block,” and all the tense interest of the patrol wagon “the time the drunkest lady in our street was arrested.” In the first year of their settlement the Hull-House residents took fifty kindergarten children to Lincoln Park, only to be grieved by their apathetic interest in trees and flowers. As they came back with an omnibus full of tired and sleepy children, they were surprised to find them galvanized into sudden life because a patrol wagon rattled by. Their eager little heads popped out of the windows full of questioning: “Was it a man or a woman?” “How many policemen inside?” and eager little tongues began to tell experiences of arrests which baby eyes had witnessed. The excitement of a chase, the chances of competition, and the love of a fight are all centered in the outward display of crime. The parent who receives charitable aid and yet provides pleasure for his child, and is willing to indulge him in his play, is blindly doing one of the wisest things possible; and no one is more eager for playgrounds and vacation schools than the conscientious charity visitor . . . A certain charity visitor is peculiarly appealed to by the weakness and pathos of forlorn old age. She is responsible for the well-being of perhaps a dozen old women to whom she sustains a sincerely affectionate and almost filial relation. Some of them learn to take her benefactions quite as if they came from their own relatives, grumbling at all she does, and scolding her with a family freedom. One of these poor old women was injured in a fire years ago. She has but the fragment of a hand left, and is grievously crippled in her feet. Through years of pain she had become addicted to opium, and when she first came under the visitor’s care, was only held from the poorhouse by the awful thought that she would there perish without her drug. Five years of tender care have done wonders for her. She lives in two neat little rooms, where with her

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thumb and two fingers she makes innumerable quilts, which she sells and gives away with the greatest delight. Her opium is regulated to a set amount taken each day, and she has been drawn away from much drinking. She is a voracious reader, and has her head full of strange tales made up from books and her own imagination. At one time it seemed impossible to do anything for her in Chicago, and she was kept for two years in a suburb, where the family of the charity visitor lived, and where she was nursed through several hazardous illnesses. She now lives a better life than she did, but she is still far from being a model old woman. The neighbors are constantly shocked by the fact that she is supported and comforted by a “charity lady,” while at the same time she occasionally “rushes the growler,” scolding at the boys lest they jar her in her tottering walk. The care of her has broken through even that second standard, which the neighborhood had learned to recognize as the standard of charitable societies, that only the “worthy poor” are to be helped; that temperance and thrift are the virtues which receive the plums of benevolence. The old lady herself is conscious of this criticism. Indeed, irate neighbors tell her to her face that she doesn’t in the least deserve what she gets. In order to disarm them, and at the same time to explain what would otherwise seem loving-kindness so colossal as to be abnormal, she tells them that during her sojourn in the suburb she discovered an awful family secret—a horrible scandal connected with the long-suffering charity visitor; that it is in order to prevent the divulgence of this that she constantly receives her ministrations. Some of her perplexed neighbors accept this explanation as simple and offering a solution of this vexed problem. Doubtless many of them have a glimpse of the real state of affairs, of the love and patience which ministers to need irrespective of worth. But the standard is too high for most of them, and it sometimes seems unfortunate to break down the second standard, which holds that people who “rush the growler,” are not worthy of charity, and that there is a certain justice attained when they go to the poorhouse. It is certainly dangerous to break down the lower, unless the higher is made clear. Just when our affection becomes large enough to care for the unworthy among the poor as we would

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care for the unworthy among our own kin, is certainly a perplexing question. To say that it should never be so, is a comment upon our democratic relations to them which few of us would be willing to make. Of what use is all this striving perplexity? Has the experience any value? It is certainly genuine, for it induces an occasional charity visitor to live in a tenement house as simply as the other tenants do. It drives others to give up visiting the poor altogether, because, they claim, it is quite impossible unless the individual becomes a member of a sisterhood, which requires, as some of the Roman Catholic sisterhoods do, that the member first take the vows of obedience and poverty, so that she can have nothing to give save as it is first given to her, and thus she is not harassed by a constant attempt at adjustment. Both the tenement-house resident and the sister assume to have put themselves upon the industrial level of their neighbors, although they have left out the most awful element of poverty, that of imminent fear of starvation and a neglected old age. The young charity visitor who goes from a family living upon a most precarious industrial level to her own home in a prosperous part of the city, if she is sensitive at all, is never free from perplexities which our growing democracy forces upon her. We sometimes say that our charity is too scientific, but we would doubtless be much more correct in our estimate if we said that it is not scientific enough. We dislike the entire arrangement of cards alphabetically classified according to streets and names of families, with the unrelated and meaningless details attached to them. Our feeling of revolt is probably not unlike that which afflicted the students of botany and geology in the middle of the last century, when flowers were tabulated in alphabetical order, when geology was taught by colored charts and thin books. No doubt the students, wearied to death, many times said that it was all too scientific, and were much perplexed and worried when they found traces of structure and physiology which their so-called scientific principles were totally unable to account for. But all this happened before science had become evolutionary and scientific at all, before it had a principle of life from within. The very indications and discoveries which formerly perplexed, later illumined and made the study absorbing and vital . . .

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

. . . There is no doubt that our development of charity methods has reached this pseudo-scientific and stilted stage. We have learned to condemn unthinking, ill-regulated kind-heartedness, and we take great pride in mere repression much as the stern parent tells the visitor below how admirably he is rearing the child, who is hysterically crying upstairs and laying the foundation for future nervous disorders. The pseudo-scientific spirit, or rather, the undeveloped stage of our philanthropy, is perhaps most clearly revealed in our tendency to lay constant stress on negative action. “Don’t give;” “don’t break down self-respect,” we are constantly told. We distrust the human impulse as well as the teachings of our own experience, and in their stead substitute dogmatic rules for conduct. We forget that the accumulation of knowledge and the holding of convictions must finally result in the application of that knowledge and those convictions to life itself, that the necessity for activity and a pull upon the sympathies is so severe, that all the knowledge in the possession of the visitor is constantly applied, and she has a reasonable chance for an ultimate intellectual comprehension. Indeed, part of the perplexity in the administration of charity comes from the fact that the type of person drawn to it is the one who insists that her convictions shall not be unrelated to action. Her moral concepts constantly tend to float away from her, unless they have a basis in the concrete relation of life. She is confronted with the task of reducing her scruples to action, and of converging many wills so as to unite the strength of all of them into one accomplishment, the value of which no one can foresee. On the other hand, the young woman who has succeeded in expressing her social compunction through charitable effort finds that the wider social activity, and the contact with the larger experience, not only increases her sense of social obligation but at the same time recasts her social ideals. She is chagrined to discover that in the actual task of reducing her social scruples to action, her humble beneficiaries are far in advance of her, not in charity or singleness of purpose, but in self-sacrificing action. She reaches the old-time virtue of humility by a social process, not in the old way, as the man who sits by the side of the road and

puts dust upon his head, calling himself a contrite sinner, but she gets the dust upon her head because she has stumbled and fallen in the road through her efforts to push forward the mass, to march with her fellows. She has socialized her virtues not only through a social aim but by a social process. . . . Reference: Addams, Jane. 1905. Democracy and Social Ethics. New York: Macmillan, 19–23, 25, 51–54, 59–65, 67–69.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (New York, April 18, 1905) Andrew Carnegie In the letter below, Andrew Carnegie sets up a fund specifically for retiring pensions for teachers in institutions of higher education, but excludes tax-supported and sectarian colleges. He was concerned that teachers did not receive ample pay or enough money to retire so that new teachers could enter the profession. This effort developed into the current TIAA-CREF, which is a retirement plan which serves millions of educators today. Gentlemen: I have reached the conclusion that the least rewarded of all the professions is that of the teacher in our higher education institutions. New York City generously, and very wisely, provides retiring pensions for teachers in her public schools and also for her policemen. Very few indeed of our colleges are able to do so. The consequences are grievous. Able men hesitate to adopt teaching as a career, and many old professors whose places should be occupied by younger men, cannot be retired. I have, therefore, transferred to you and your successors, as Trustees, $10,000,000, 5% First Mortgage Bonds of the United States Steel Corporation, the revenue from which is to provide retiring pensions for the teachers of Universities, Colleges, and Technical Schools in our country, Canada and Newfoundland under such conditions as you may adopt from time to time. Expert calculation shows that the revenue will be ample for the purpose.

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The fund applies to the three classes of institutions named, without regard to race, sex, creed or color. We have, however, to recognize that State and Colonial Governments which have established or mainly supported Universities, Colleges or Schools may prefer that their relations shall remain exclusively with the State. I cannot, therefore presume to include them. There is another class which states do not aid, their constitution in some cases even forbidding it, viz., Sectarian Institutions. Many of these established long ago, were truly sectarian, but today are free to all men of all creeds or of none – such are not to be considered sectarian now. Only such as are under the control of a sect or require Trustees (or a majority thereof ), Officers, Faculty or Students, to belong to any specified sect, or which impose any theological tests, are to be excluded. Trustees shall hold office for five years and be eligible for re-election. The first Trustees shall draw lots for one, two, three, four, or five year terms, so that one-fifth shall retire each year. Each institution participating in the Fund shall cast one vote for Trustees. The Trustees are hereby given full powers to manage the Trust in every respect, to fill vacancies of nonex-officio members; appoint executive committees; employ agents; change securities, and, generally speaking, to do all things necessary, in their judgment, to secure the most beneficial administration of the Funds. By a two-thirds vote they may from time to time apply the revenue in a different manner and for a different, though similar purpose to that specified, should coming days bring such changes as to render this necessary in their judgment to produce the best results possible for the teachers and for education. No Trustee shall incur any legal liability flowing from his Trusteeship. All travelling and hotel expenses incurred by Trustees in the performance of their duties shall be paid from the Fund. The expenses of a wife or daughter accompanying the Trustees to the Annual meeting are included. I hope this Fund may do much for the cause of higher education and to remove a source of deep and constant anxiety to the poorest paid and yet one of the highest of all professions. Gratefully yours, (signed) Andrew Carnegie

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Tainted Money Washington Gladden Washington Gladden was one of the most popular and effective social activists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, first in Massachusetts and later for over thirty years in Columbus, Ohio. He challenged the social conservatism of the congregational churches and favored labor sharing in the profits of industry. His essay on tainted money still rings true today. The novelists have been dialing rather freely of late with the question respecting the kind of human beings which the present plutocratic regime is producing. What breed of men is coming out of our gigantic commercial operations? What manner of society does it all produce? What are the habits, sentiments, standards of judgment, forms of social enjoyment, which prevail in theses circles? Mrs. Burton Harrison has been trying to answer these questions for us; so has Mr. Marion Crawford, and Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, and so have others. One striking contribution to this discussion is Sir Walter Besant’s story, “Beyond the Dreams of Avarice.” It is the tale of an ill-gotten fortune and of its influence upon the lives of all who sought to gain possession of it. The old miser, the last proprietor, under whose sordid and infamous manipulations the estate had been twice or thrice doubled, and who had driven his own children from their home by his avarice, dies, apparently intestate, in one of the first chapters, and leaves a property of enormous proportions – enormous for England, only moderate for America – some twelve million pounds. The property, unless an heir appears, escheats to the State; but there is an heir – a grandson, a young physician and rising man of science – who knows himself to be the heir, though the knowledge is shared by no one except his young wife and his lawyer. His father, who had cut himself loose from a family whose traditions were all accursed, and had changed his name and made for himself an honourable reputation, had charged him on his death-bed not to touch that tainted wealth; and when he learns that there is no will, and that the property is legally his, his first inclination is to heed his father’s counsel and never reveal his identity. For a considerable time he maintains this resolution, supported

Tainted Money

therein by his wife, whose intuitions never waver. The whole history of the family becomes known to them; the steps by which the fortune has been amassed are shown them; and the record is one of appalling cruelty and perfidy. Evidently a curse has fallen on all who have had anything to do with the money, from the founder of the house to the last representative. And yet the knowledge that he can, by saying the word, step in and take all this fabulous wealth and make himself rich beyond the dreams of avarice, soon casts its spell over the life of this young physician. Everybody knows the infamy of all the previous possessors of this plunder – his grandfather included: for after the miser’s death the newspapers unearthed the family secrets and spread the whole sickening story before the gaze of the world. To take the fortune is to be the inheritor of that infamy. “But, after all,” he began to argue, “how am I to blame for the acts of my ancestors? And is it not true that this generation has ceased to be squeamish about the sources of wealth? Should I, after all, lose much social caste on account of the crimes of my forebears? Would not a man with so much money be likely to become an important personage in society, no matter how the money may have been gotten? And then, the good that could be done with it! The great college of science that it would build! The immense enterprises that could be endowed for the enlightenment of mankind!” So the dream wrought upon him, and the effect was melancholy. All his interest in his profession was lost; his nature grew hard and cynical; his moral sense was blunted; all his ideals were dethroned. Other claimants soon appeared – grandnephews and grandnieces, who, not knowing of the existence of the direct heir, began to gather like moths to a candle. To every one of them the attempt to secure this property brought harm and shame; the nearer they came to it the more sordid grew their natures and the more disturbed their thoughts; lives that had been peaceful and prosperous felt the blight of this Mountain of Mammon as soon as they came within its shadow. And the story makes it easy to see why this must have been; it was no result of superstition; it was a clear case of cause and effect. It is not necessary to tell the story, but the psychological study is full of suggestion. One is able to see that money secured by extortion or by crime must

carry a curse with it to all who, seeing the blood-stains upon it, covet it for themselves. The question of tainted money is a question that this generation must face. There are vast heaps of it on every side of us – accumulations that have been made by methods as heartless, as cynically iniquitous as any that were employed by Roman plunderers or robber barons of the Dark Ages. In the cool brutality with which properties are wrecked, securities destroyed, and people by the hundreds robbed of their little all to build up the fortunes of the multi-millionaires, we have an appalling revelation of the kind of monster that a human being may become. Much of this wealth has been gained by the most daring violations of the laws of the land; by tampering with courts of justice; by the bribery of city councils or legislators, and even of Congress itself; by practices which have introduced into the body politic a virulent and deadly poison that threatens the very life of the Nation. That many of the largest fortunes in this country have some such origin all intelligent men know. Is this clean money? Can any man, can any institution, knowing its origin, touch it without being defiled? We often hear it said that the money of Dives is just as good as any other man’s money; that if he will only make over some portion of his wealth to us we will find good uses for it and ask no questions about where he got it. Is this a safe principle? Suppose we know that the money was stolen, and from whom it was stolen; should we be justified in accepting it? Should we not be partakers of the crime? If we are morally certain that it was obtained by some kind of robbery, legalized or otherwise, yet do not know from whom it was wrested, is our complicity any less real? In truth, the gold and the silver that have been obtained by wrong are corroded with a rust which eats the flesh like fire. Every man who covets such gains passes under their curse. Money is not a mere material entity. Its character is symbolic and representative. It always stands for something. It is either the reward of productive labor, of honest commerce, or it is the sign of injustice and fraud. To separate the money from the history of the processes by which it was won is not practicable. To wish for ill-gotten gains is to condone the wrongs by which they were obtained.

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Even if this reasoning be thought fanciful, no man can eliminate the personal factor which always enters into the problem. To accept the reward of iniquity is to place upon our lips the seal of silence respecting its perpetrators. Those who recognize no responsibility for the maintenance of public virtue may wear such a muzzle without discomfort; but it would seem that public teachers, of all sorts, should be unwilling to put it on. Money that has been gained by nefarious methods is often brought to the door of the church and those who bring it seldom fail of a warm welcome. The liberal contribution can hardly be refused; will not such charity cover a multitude of sins? If this malefactor has done evil in the past, ought we not to be glad that he now seems to be of a better mind? And this money will go just as far in “supporting the gospel” as any other man’s money. Why should we hesitate about taking it? Think of the good that may be done by turning this wealth – which men say has been gotten by iniquity – into channels of mercy! If the liberal donor happen to conceive a special fondness for the parson, and there are handsome gifts now and then, and suggestions of European tours, all this reasoning gains cogency. Of course, under such circumstances, the pulpit of this church is not likely to discuss the kind of iniquity by which this money was gained, nor anything near akin to it. It would be extremely ungrateful – it would, indeed, be dishonourable – for this pulpit to touch upon such matter. Having sought and welcomed these liberal donations, it is simply the dictate of ordinary decency to refrain from criticising the financial methods of the donor. People might charge that this plutocrat had stipulated that nothing should be said in the church about his practices, but that is a crude conception; of course he has said nothing about it; nothing has been said by anybody; nothing needs to be said. This minister has never promised that he will be silent on themes of this character; it is not necessary for him to make any promise; the situation speaks for itself; if he has the instincts of a gentleman, he will not assail the man who has put him under such obligations. This pulpit, then, will have no message respecting wrongs of this particular kind. And, inasmuch as it would seem rather inconsistent to attack other closely

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related social wrongs and avoid these, this pulpit will probably abstain from all reference to public evils. It will confine itself to what is known as “the simple Gospel” – to a purely abstract religionism which has little or nothing to do with life in this world, but which confines itself to the preparation of men for the world to come. The kind of preaching which Isaiah and Jeremiah and Amos and Paul and James practised will not be heard form this pulpit. Its moral power will be paralysed. Its influence upon the social life of the community will be practically nil. Or, if it stands for anything at all, its silent testimony will support the iniquities by which the foundations of the social order are determined. Such is the effect of tainted money upon the life of a church. When it is coveted and sought, when those who bring it to the altars of the church are courted and made welcome, consequences like these are simply inevitable. Similar results must needs appear in the life of a college built on such foundations or largely dependent on resources of this character. Not a little of this tainted money has been turned into the channels of the higher education. It seems to have been assumed by many of those who have this work in charge that all money is pure and holy, and that just as much good can be done with the merchant or manufacturer. It seems even to have been regarded as a meritorious achievement to pave the highways of learning with the price of blood. It is passing strange that the implications and consequences of such an alliance should be ignored or disregarded. It is not plain that an institution which accepts subsidies from notoriously iniquitous sources, by this act virtually resigns the privilege of bearing testimony against such iniquities? When we enter into partnership with corruptionists and extortionists in the business of education, we must, in common decency, refrain from turning round and abusing our partners. Whatever public teaching may be needed, respecting the evil conditions out of which this fortune has sprung, this college, at least, can offer none. It is foolish to say that the donor has imposed no restrictions upon the teaching; certainly not; there is not the least need of it. Some things can be taken for granted, among gentlemen. It would be utterly dis-

Great Riches

honourable for an institution thus founded, or largely befriended, to enter into a thorough investigation of the methods by which its endowments were accumulated. The teaching might deal, in an abstract way, with social subjects; but it could not examine historically and scientifically certain burning question so fits own neighbourhood and generation. Its instructors will be constrained to say to themselves – perhaps to one another – “All this valuable and necessary work, but this is not the institution where such work can be done.” Think of a college – above all, a “Christian” college – putting itself in such an attitude as this before the world! But this is not all. An institution thus allied must needs pay honour to those whose benefactions it is sharing. There will be a place, and a high place, at its feasts for the men to whom it owes so much. Glowing words of eulogy will not be wanting. The young men of the institution who look and listen will thus be aided in forming their theories of life. The whole world will see who it is that these Christian scholars and leaders of the people delight to honour. So it is that public opinion is formed, and that men who are the pirates of industry and the spoilers of the state are advanced to the front rank in modern society. Is it true that one man’s money is worth as much as another’s to a church or a college? Is it not rather true that there is a great deal of money with which the hands that are seeking to do the will of God must never defile themselves? For much of this money, under all sound ethical standards, must be considered as stolen money. And do our churches and colleges need to be told that the partaker is as bad at the thief? But it may be said that a great deal of the money in circulation comes from questionable sources. Fraud and falsehood and extortion, we are told, play a large part in the building of many fortunes. Much of the money that comes into our hands has been tainted by methods of which we are not aware. This may be true; but so long as we are not aware of the evil sources, we are not contaminated. It is impossible for us to investigate the business of all our neighbors; it is our duty to assume that they are honest until there is good evidence to the contrary. But when their transactions are flagrant and notorious, we may at least decline to enter into partnership with them in the business of re-

ligion or of education. There is enough of clean money in the country – money that has been gained in honest trade or productive industry – to furnish the churches and the colleges with all necessary resources. Really – must it be said? – money is not the first requisite of a great church or a great college. Some things are more important. Is it not well for churches and colleges to ask themselves what these things are? What shall it profit a church or a college if it shall gain the whole world and lose its own life? Reference: Gladden, Washington. 1905. The New Idolatry and Other Discussions. New York: McClure Phillips.

Great Riches Charles Eliot Charles Eliot, president of Harvard in 1906, reflects a prevailing view at the time of how the rich should use their philanthropy. Since the Civil War a new kind of rich man has come into existence in the United States. He is very much richer than anybody ever was before. And his riches are, in the main, of a new kind. They are not great areas of land, or numerous palaces, or flocks and bonds of corporations, and bonds of states, counties, cities, and towns. These riches carry with them of necessity no visible or tangible responsibility, and bring upon their possessor no public or semipublic functions. The rich men are neither soldiers nor sailors; they are not magistrates, or legislators, or church dignitaries. They are not landlords in the old sense; and they never lead their tenants into battles as did the feudal chiefs. They are not subject to the orders and caprices of a sovereign, or forced to contend with the intrigues and vices of a court. Such occupations as they have, in addition to the making of more money, they have to invent themselves. The public admires and envies them, and sees that they are often serviceable, but also criticizes and blames them, and to some extent fears them. It is disposed to think them dangerous to the Republic and a blot on democratic soci-

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ety; but at the same time is curious about their doings and their mode of life, and is in rather a puzzle about their moral quality. I propose to consider briefly some of the advantages and disadvantages with great modern riches bring the owner and the community . . .

IV. The Higher Opportunities of Wealth In some exceptional cases a rich man uses his riches in pursuit of intellectual satisfactions of his own, for the full attainment of which riches are necessary, but which are in no way connected with his capacity for accumulating property. Such a fortunate rich man, having acquired great wealth, uses it to meet the costs of his own scientific investigations, or in acquiring a fine library on a subject to which he had devoted himself before he was rich; or he retires somewhat early in life from money making and gives himself to study and authorship with every aid or facility which money can produce. These are the most fortunate of rich men. They obtain congenial intellectual satisfactions. They make themselves serviceable, and they have a better chance than most rich men of bringing up serviceable children. It is obvious that very rich men have power to render services to the public which it is impossible for poor men or men of moderate incomes to render. They can endow churches, schools, universities, libraries, hospitals, museums, gardens, and parks with sums large enough to give these institutions stability and continuous usefulness. They can also come to the aid of private individuals who have suffered through illness, premature death of friends, or other disasters which justify helplessness. They can help widows and children bereft of their natural protectors and breadwinners. They can help young men and women to an education which will raise for the persons helped the whole level of their subsequent lives. All these things they can do on a scale impossible to men of moderate means. Great riches are constantly used in our country in all these ways to an extent which has never before been equaled, and which entitles the American very rich man to be recognized as a type by himself. The first question which arises about this beneficial use of great wealth is this: Does it give pleasure or satisfaction to the givers; and is this pleasure or satisfaction, if any, proportionate to the magnitude of the

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gifts? Does a man who gives $100,000 to a college or an academy get more pleasure from his gift than a man who gives $1,000, the first man being one hundred times richer than the second man? That there is real pleasure or satisfaction for the giver in his giving is altogether probable; and it is quite possible that the pleasure in large giving is proportionate to that largeness, although the pleasure of acquisition is not proportionate to the amount acquired. Experience seems to show that it is difficult for a very rich man to give away intelligently and with enjoyment as large a proportion of his income as a man in moderate circumstances can easily give away. The proportion of an income given away ought to mount rapidly with the increase of the income, but experience indicates that it does not. It is no easy task to select wisely objects for great benefactions and to give money to the selected object without doing injury. Thus, to endow a church, unless with its building and equipment only, is generally a mischief, not a benefit. The giving of thoroughly good things, like education and opportunities for travel or healthful exercise, to young people who are not bound to the giver by ties of kinship is accompanied by great difficulties. It is easy to pauperize the individuals helped. It is easy to destroy their self-reliance and their capacity for productive labor.

X. Giving by Men of Wealth Very rich men differ greatly with regard to their method of giving. Some give quickly, with slight investigation concerning the objects to which they give. Others make the most careful and thorough investigation before making gifts, employing experienced agents in their inquiries, and ascertaining the merits and demerits, the advantages and disadvantages, of the institution or society they think to aid. Some men of great wealth approach the whole subject of giving away money with conscientiousness and with a painful sense of responsibility for the use of wealth entrusted to them; and this sense of responsibility may greatly impair their comfort or satisfaction in the power to give. Other men, no richer, give away great sums without serous examination and without any oppressive sense that they hold their property in trust for the benefit of the community. One anxiety, which most conscientious givers on a large scale feel, is the

Great Riches

anxiety lest, by coming with large gifts to the support of an institution or association, they impair what may be called the natural or constitutional resources of the institution or association—such, for example, as the giving power of the alumni of a college or the yield of the annual taxes or subscriptions in a church. It is commonly dangerous for a school, or college, or library to get the reputation of being the special charge of a very rich individual or family. On this account givers of large sums often make it a condition of their gifts that some other sum shall be procured simultaneously from other friends of the institution. Every very rich man who is in the habit of making gifts to individuals and to institutions has met, in many instances, with a complete or partial defeat of his benevolent purpose; but most of these defeats or failures occur in attempts to aid individuals rather than institutions. The nineteenth century witnessed a considerable change in the destination of endowments. Endowments for palliating some of the evils that afflict society used to be the commonest, such as endowments for almshouses, doles, and hospitals; but now endowments for various sorts of education—such as academies, colleges, free-lecture courses, libraries, and museums supply—have become the commonest; and these last forms are far the wisest, because they are much more than palliations of evil. They are creators and diffusers of good. Through this change the chance of the very rich man to do perpetual good with his money has been greatly increased; and surely the hope of doing some perpetual good with the product of one’s intelligence, skill, and industry is one of the brightest of human hopes . . .

XII. Public Judgments of the Rich The judgments of the public concerning the means by which great riches have been acquired are fickle and uncertain, because, for the most part, made in the dark. In this respect the public has little confidence in its own impressions, unless legal proceedings have brought to light the course of conduct and events which profited the possessors of great wealth, or the habitual mode of conducting the business which yielded great wealth. In spite of the fact that monopolies have for centuries been hateful to the main body of the consumers in every nation, the judgment of the public is ordinarily a

lenient one toward the creators of successful monopolies, because every one recognizes in himself a longing to secure some sort of monopoly—to become the possessor, for example, of some little skill which nobody else possesses, to raise a vegetable or a flower which nobody else can raise, to write a book or paint a picture which nobody else can produce, to practice a trade or a profession without any effective competitors, or to invent or manufacture a patented article which nobody else can make. The manufacture of a patented article affords a perfect example of monopoly; but the American people, at least, are thoroughly accustomed to such perfect monopolies, and, on the whole, believe them to be suitable rewards for beneficial inventions. In spite, therefore, of the evils caused to the great body of consumers by monopolies, the American public is gentle in its judgment of the conduct of very rich men who have discerned and profited enormously by advantages in business which nobody else could or did procure, Almost every business man feels that if he had had the skill, or the luck, to seize upon some such advantage, he would not have hesitated to do so. A community which is thoroughly possessed in all its strata with a desire and a purpose to better itself is not likely to be harsh in its judgment of men who have conspicuously succeeded in so doing. To be sure, if a very rich man in pursuing the gratification of his own desires interferes with what his neighbors regard as their own traditional rights and customs, as, for instance, by enclosing large areas over which his neighbors have freely fished or hunted, or by occupying shores which have been open to the resort of a whole neighborhood, he is apt to encounter popular condemnation. If he pursues his pleasures with conspicuous disregard of the comfort or safety of other people he is likely to get into trouble, unless, as is often the case, he can manage in his pursuit of his own pleasures to appear to be only enjoying, or perhaps defending, valuable rights, acquired by the whole public.

XIII. the World’s Attitude toward Rich Men In the long run the possessor of great wealth is judged in part by the use he makes of his riches, including in that use his disposal of them at his death, in part by the nature of the business which made him rich, and in part by the moral quality he manifests in the conduct of his business. If it appears that the rich man recognized his

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responsibility to society for a right use of his wealth, the public will forgive much expenditure of his own pleasures and for the pleasures of his own family, and for the security of his children against the possibility of future want. They will condone great extravagance and waste if, on the whole, a high and liberal purpose guided the man in his accumulations and in his benefactions. The peculiar faculties and powers which lead to the accumulations of riches resemble all other human faculties and powers in the following respect,— they may all be degraded and made sordid by a low purpose or elevated and exalted by a noble one. This is just as true of the powers of memory, invention, and penetrative reasoning as it is of that practical sagacity which leads to the possession of wealth. Even love, that all-hallowing motive when it is pure, unselfish, and spiritual, becomes a fearful implement of moral destruction if it be low and animal. The very rich man is, then, not to be pronounced admirable and happy, or contemptible and miserable, until his account is made up and the dominant purpose of his life is made plain. Again, the rich man is judged in part by the quality of the product which made him rich. A beneficial product tends to sanctify riches; a harmful product poisons them. The public judgment is gentler toward men who got rich by producing or selling good petroleum, steel, or copper than it is toward men who produce or sell whiskey, patent medicine, lottery tickets, or advertising space for immoral undertakings. Riches acquired in making mankind more comfortable or healthier are much more likely to give satisfaction to their possessor, and through him to benefit society, than riches acquired through products which are injurious to mankind and so increase the sum of human misery. . . . Reference: Eliot, Charles. 1906. Great Riches. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.

Co-operation among Negro Americans (1907) W. E. B. Du Bois W. E. B. Du Bois, foremost African American scholar and activist of the late ninteenth and early twentieth centuries,

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describes how African Americans (occasionally with the help of Northern white philanthropists) created the basis for a humane life. The self-help approach is typical of other immigrant groups across America during the period. A sketch of co-operation among the Negro Americans begins naturally with the Negro church . . . From such beginnings rose and spread with marvelous rapidity the Negro church in America, the first distinctively Negro American social institution. It was not at first by any means a Christian church, but rather an adaptation of those heathen rites which we roughly designate by the term Obi worship or Voodooism. Association and missionary effort soon gave these rites a veneer of Christianity and gradually after two centuries the church became Christian with a Calvinistic creed and with many of the old customs still clinging to the services. It is this historic fact, that the Negro church of today bases itself on one of the few surviving social institutions of the African Fatherland, that accounts for its extraordinary growth and vitality. We must remember that in the United States today there is a church organization for every sixty Negro families. This institution therefore naturally assumed many functions which the other harshly suppressed social organs had to surrender, and especially the church became the center of economic activity as well as of amusement, education and social intercourse. It was in the church, too, or rather the organization that went by the name of church, that many of the insurrections among the slaves from the sixteenth century down had their origin; we must find in these insurrections the beginning of co-operation which eventually ended in the peaceful economic co-operation. . . . These insurrections fall into three categories: unorganized outbursts of fury, as in the Danish Islands and in early Carolina; military organizations, as in the case of the Maroons; movements of small knots of conspirators, as in New York in 1712 and 1741; and carefully planned efforts at widespread co-operation for freedom, as in the case of San Domingo, and the uprisings under Cato, Gabriel, Vesey and Turner. It was these latter that in most cases grew out of the church organizations.

Co-operation among Negro Americans

It was the fact that the Negro church thus loaned itself to insurrection and plot that led to its partial suppression and careful oversight the latter part of the seventeenth and again in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Nevertheless there arose out of the church in the latter part of the eighteenth and early in the nineteenth centuries the beneficial society, a small and usually clandestine organization for burying the dead; this development usually took place in cities. From the beneficial society arose naturally after emancipation the other co-operative movements: secret societies (which may date back even beyond the church in some way, although there is no tangible proof of this), and cemeteries which began to be bought and arranged for very early in the history of the church. The same sort of movement that started the cemeteries brought the hospital in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and from the secret societies came the homes and orphanages. Out of the beneficial society also developed late in the nineteenth century the first attempts at co-operative business, and still later the insurance societies, out of which came the banks in the last ten years.

The Underground Railroad Meantime, however, the spirit of insurrection and revolt had found outlet earlier than by this slower development. There was early discovered an easier method of attaining freedom than by insurrection and that was by flight to the free states. In the West Indies this safety valve was wanting and the result was San Domingo. . . . Consequently we find that the spirit of revolt which tried to cooperate by means of insurrection led to widespread organization for the rescue of fugitive slaves among Negroes themselves, and developed before the war in the North and during and after the war in the South, into various co-operative efforts toward economic emancipation and land-buying. Gradually these efforts led to co-operative business, building and loan associations and trade unions. On the other hand, the Underground Railroad led directly to various efforts at migration, especially to Canada, and in some cases to Africa. These migrations in our day have led to certain Negro towns and

settlements; and finally from the efforts at migration began the various conventions of Negroes which have endeavored to organize them into one national body, and give them a group consciousness. Let us now notice in detail certain of these steps toward co-operation. We have already spoken of insurrections and can now take up the Underground Railroad and the cooperative efforts during emancipation, and the various schemes of migration. . . . From the beginning of the nineteenth century slaves began to escape in considerable numbers from the region south of Mason and Dixon’s line and the Ohio to the North. Even here, however, they were not safe from the fugitive slave laws, and soon after 1812 the Negro soldiers and sailors discovered a surer refuge in Canada and the tide set thither. Gradually between 1830 and 1850 there were signs of definite concerted co-operation to assist fugitives which came to be known as the Underground Railroad. The organization is best known from the side of the white abolitionists who aided and sheltered the fugitives and furnished them means. But it must not be forgotten that back of these helpers must have lain a more or less conscious co-operation and organization on the part of the colored people. In the first place, the running away of slaves was too systematic to be accidental, without doubt there was widespread knowledge of paths and places and times for going. Constant communication between the land of freedom and the slave states must be kept up by persons going and coming, and there can be no doubt but that the Negro organization back of the Underground Railroad was widespread and very effective.

Migration to Kansas and the North On the Northern side both Negroes and whites organized immigration aid societies. Some of them simply spent money furnished by others. Others were more extensive organizations. In Indianapolis, for instance: On Wednesday evening, December 3, 1879, a meeting was held in the lecture room of the Second Baptist Church to organize a relief society to care for the colored emigrants, as we learned

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that some of them were on their way here from North Carolina, and that they would arrive here destitute. After the preliminary organization of the meeting, the object of the same being stated, on motion. It was voted that a society be organized tonight for the purpose of helping and caring for those people when they arrive here, similar to and in co-operation with the relief society which was organized at the A. M. E. Church, November 24. . . . Two similar societies worked in St. Louis: The colored men of this city, who have been active in the organization of the . . . society to assist the colored immigrants from the South in finding local habitation in the rich and growing West, have just perfected that organization, with . . . as president, secretary, treasurer and directors. These names include some of the leading colored men of the place and an advisory board, to be composed of some of the most public-spirited and benevolent of our citizens, and these are a guaranty to all who know them of perfect good faith, integrity and trustworthiness in the distribution of such funds as may be contributed to them for the purposes indicated. The result of [the] great movement [to Kansas] was thus reported . . . [in] February, 1880, [by] John M. Brown, Esq., general superintendent of the Freedmen’s Relief Association, [in] an interesting report . . . , from which the following extract is taken: The great exodus of the colored people from the South began about the first of February, 1879. By the first of April 1,300 refugees had gathered around Wyandotte, Kans. Many of them were in a suffering condition. It was then that the Kansas Relief Association came into existence for the purpose of helping the most needy among the refugees from the Southern states. Up to date about 60,000 refugees have come to the state of Kansas to live. Nearly 40,000 of them were in a destitute condition when they arrived, and have been helped by our association. We have received to date $68,000 for the relief of the refugees. About 5,000 of those who have come to Kansas have gone to other

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states to live, leaving about 55,000 yet in Kansas. About 30,000 of that number have settled in the country, some of them on lands of their own or rented lands; others have hired out to the farmers, leaving about 25,000 in and around the different cities and towns of Kansas. . . .

The Church The Christian Church did but little . . . until the establishment of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1701; this society and the rising Methodists and Baptists rapidly brought the body of slaves into nominal communion with the Christian Church. No sooner, however, did they appear in the Church than discrimination began to be practiced which the free Negroes of the North refused to accept. They, therefore, withdrew into the African Methodist and Zion Methodist Churches. The Baptists even among the slaves early had their separate churches, and these churches in the North began to federate about 1836. In 1871 the Methodist Church, South, set aside their colored members into the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, and the other Southern churches drove their members into the other colored churches. The remaining Northern denominations regained their Negro members, but organized them for the most part into separate congregations. Practically, then, the seven-eighths of the whole Negro population is included in its own self-sustaining, self-governing church bodies. . . . Consequently a study of economic co-operation among Negroes must begin with the Church group. The most compact and powerful of the Negro churches is the African Methodist Episcopal Church whose membership has grown as follows. . . . The African Methodists had but a few posts in slave territory outside of Maryland and Delaware. William Paul Quinn, the pioneer of the West, blazed a path from Pittsburg to St. Louis, including Louisville, Ky. Good, substantial buildings were erected on slave territory at St. Louis, Louisville and New Orleans, La., in the early 50’s. In the wake of the army the banner of African Methodism was firmly planted under the leadership of Chaplains Turner and Hunter in the East and


Southeast, followed by Carr and others in South Carolina. . . . The history of the Publication Department [of the African Methodist Episcopal Church began with the 1817 publication of ] the First Book of Discipline . . . by Richard Allen [which] contained the articles of religion, government of the church, confession of faith, ritual, etc. A Hymn Book, for the use of the church, was compiled and published. Aside from this and the publishing of the Conference Minutes, but little was accomplished until the year 1841, when in the New York Conference a resolution was made that a magazine be published monthly; but for the want of proper funds could only be published quarterly. This gave promise of some considerable success for nearly eight years. In 1848 the General Conference elected Rev. A. R. Green general book steward and authorized him to purchase a newspaper called the Mystery, edited by Martin R. Delany, and to change its name to the Christian Herald, also to move the Book Concern from Philadelphia to Pittsburg; which he did and continued the publication of the paper until the General Conference in 1852. The name of the paper was then changed to the Christian Recorder. This paper was looked upon by the slaveholders of the South and pro-slavery people of the North as a very dangerous document or sheet, and was watched with a critical eye. It could not be circulated in the slave-holding states by neighbors nor ministers nor members, Hence its circulation was proscribed until the breaking out of the war in 1860, when through the aid of the Christian Commission it did valuable service to the freedmen throughout the South. It followed the army, went into the hovels of the freedmen and also the hospital, placed in the hands of soldiers, speaking cheer and comfort to the law-abiding and liberty-loving slave whose manacles were about to fall off. . . . The Department of Church Extension of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1892 by the Annual Conference at Philadelphia. . . . It was the intention that one dollar from or for each member of the church should cover all the expenses of the general connection for missionary and educational work, the support of bishops, general officers, superannuated preachers, and help the Confer-

ences to help the widows of deceased preachers, and assisting in making up the support of pastors on poor fields. “In one year,” the church reported, “we have secured through the efforts of our resident bishop $50,000 of church property in South Africa alone, while word from one of our presiding elders in Liberia to the secretary of Church Extension is, ‘We are pushing into the interior; stand by us. . . .’” The next largest Negro church is that of the Baptists. The growth in numbers of this sect is not accurately known. They are primarily small disassociated groups of worshippers whose economic activities were small, except in large cities, until the individual groups united into associations. The first of these associations was formed in Ohio in 1836, followed by another in Illinois in 1838. . . . The most remarkable department of the Baptist Church is the National Baptist Publication Board. . . . This organization is so unique that a careful history is necessary. The proposition to establish a publishing house was adopted at the Savannah Convention in 1893. In 1894 at Montgomery, Ala., the question was again discussed, but many obstacles were found in the way. Rev. R. H. Boyd of San Antonio, Texas, offered a set of resolutions [which were adopted], setting forth that this publishing committee, board, or concern should proceed at once to the publication of Sunday School literature, consisting of the International Lessons in either newspaper, magazine or pamphlet form for the benefit of their own schools. On the 15th of December, 1896, Rev. R. H. Boyd, secretary and manager, opened his office in Nashville, Tenn., and secured copies of the electrotype plates from the Sunday Schools of the Southern Baptist Convention and employed the Brandon Printing Company, the University Printing Press of Nashville, Tenn., to publish for him ten thousand copies of the Advanced Quarterly, ten thousand intermediate Quarterlies, ten thousand Primary Quarterlies and two thousand copies of the Teachers’ Monthly, thus launching the long-talked of Negro Publishing Concern. At the next meeting of the National Baptist Convention in Boston, Mass., Secretary Boyd reported having sent out during the year 700,000 copies of the periodicals, together with song books, Bibles and other religious literature.

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The Publishing Board is an incorporated publishing institution, incorporated in 1898, under the special provision granted by the legislature of Tennessee, with headquarters at Nashville, domiciled in the Publishing House, 523 Second Avenue, North, or on the corner of Second avenue and Locust street. This Publishing board owns or holds in trust for the National Baptist Convention three lots with four brick buildings thereon. Besides this it rents or leases two other brick buildings. These make up the domicile of the Publishing Board, and is known as the National Baptist Publishing House. All the work of the Publishing Board is operated under the supervision of a general secretary, assisted by a local Board of management, consisting of nine members. These nine members hold monthly meetings, the second Tuesday in each month. In these meetings they hear and pass upon the reports, recommendations, etc., of the general secretary, and up to this time make quarterly reports to the Executive Committee of the Home Mission Board located at Little Rock, Ark. In this way the Home Mission Board has been a kind of clearing house through which this local committee of management, better known and styled as Board of Directors of the National Baptist Publishing Board, could clear itself and make its reports. . . . Besides the circulation of . . . 9,000,000 copies of Sunday school periodicals annually among the 15,000 Negro Baptist Sunday schools, [it sends] out 170,617 religious circulars, 178,559 religious tracts and booklets. . . . “Take a glance at the dividends arising from the sale of thousands of song books, Bibles and other standard religious books that are being sold and distributed by the thousands throughout the length and breadth of this country, and some faint idea can be had of the magnitude of the work that is being performed by this National Baptist Publishing Board” [wrote a representative], “starting ten years ago from nothing—nothing but faith in God and the justice of its cause, going forth as a great giant strengthened with new wine to battle against the opposition that is hurled against the Bible, the Christian religion and the true Baptist doctrine. . . .” Rev. Lot Carey, who was a slave in Richmond, Va., purchased his freedom in 1813, raised $700 for mis-

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sions in Africa, and was the first missionary from America to Africa. From the days of Lisle and Carey the Negro Baptists of America have been prosecuting missionary work in the West India Islands and in Africa. They have four general organizations of their own through which they are doing missionary work in this and in other lands, besides many Negro churches contribute to both Home and Foreign Missions through the missionary organizations of their white Baptist brethren. . . .

Schools The early interest of the Negroes in education and their willingness to work and pay for it is attested to in many ways. In Philadelphia in 1796 we have the following minutes: To the Teachers of the African School for Free Instruction of the Black People: We, the Trustees of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, called Bethel, . . . being convened on matters of importance relative to the education of the people of color, are desirous of a First Day school being held in our meeting house in such manner that it shall not interfere with the time of our meeting or worship. There has been a school kept in said meeting house last summer which was orderly attended by about sixty scholars, under the care of Thomas Miller, deceased, and having seen the good effects of the said school, are anxious to have a permanent school kept in the said house—so long as it may be convenient or agreeable. Signed by order of the Board of Trustees, Richard Allen, March, 1796. We, the overseers and teachers of the First Day school, being present, it was then concluded that a night school be opened for the further utility of the people of color, and a solemnity attending, it was unanimously agreed that an orderly night school should commence in the next month, beginning at the sixth hour on the first or second day in the said month. And it is fully agreed that no disorderly person be admitted into said school. . . . In Ohio a hard fight was made for schools. In earlier times a few Negroes attended the public schools. . . . Whatever privileges they may have en-


joyed in the schools were cut off in 1829 by a law passed that year that “the attendance of black or mulatto persons be specifically prohibited, but all taxes assessed upon the property of colored persons for school purposes should be appropriated to their instruction and for no other purpose.” The prohibition was vigorously enforced, but the second clause was practically a dead letter. . . . In Cincinnati as early as 1820 a few earnest colored men, desiring to give their children the benefit of a school, raised by subscription a small sum of money, hired a teacher, rented a room and opened a school; but with such uncertain and limited funds it was possible to continue the school for only a few weeks, and it was finally closed altogether. This experiment was continued from time to time during the next ten years in Cincinnati. In September, 1832, a small Sunday school was gathered, which in three years numbered 125 scholars. In their zeal for improvement, a lyceum also was organized, where three times a week practical talks were given on different literary and scientific subjects, and often an attendance of 300 would gather for instruction. A circulating library of 100 volumes was also collected, but owing to the inability of so many to read and write, it was of little use save for its value as an inspiration. In March, 1832, an effort was again made for a school. A suitable room was rented from a colored man and a teacher secured. The clamor of the adults to gain admittance became so great that night schools were opened for two evenings a week, the number of teachers necessary being obtained from Lane Theological Seminary from among the young men preparing for the ministry. This school soon assumed such proportions that three additional schools were demanded and organized, one exclusively for girls, where instruction in sewing was made especially prominent. . . . Some few schools for Negroes existed here and there in the South before the war. In the District of Columbia, as already mentioned, no less than fifteen different schools were conducted here mainly at the expense of the colored people between 1800 and 1861. In Maryland, St. Frances Academy for colored girls was founded by the Roman Catholics in 1829. The convent originated with the French Dominican refugees, who came to Baltimore during the uprising

in the West Indies. The sisters were colored. Another school, established in 1835, gave instruction to free colored children. In North Carolina there were 13 before 1835 several schools maintained by the free Negroes. They had usually white teachers. After 1835 the few clandestine schools were taught by Negroes. In Charleston, S. C., there was a school for Negroes opened in 1844, which lasted some ten years. It was taught by a Negro and was for free Negroes only, although some slaves who hired their time managed to send their children there. Free Negroes in Georgia used to send children to Charleston for education. They returned and opened clandestine schools in Georgia. In Savannah a French Negro, Julian Froumontaine, from San Domingo, conducted a free Negro school openly from 1819 to 1829, and secretly for some time after. Schools were stopped nearly everywhere after 1830 and as slavery became more and more a commercial venture all attempts at Negro education was given up. . . . To the Negro slave, freedom meant schools first of all. Consequently schools immediately sprang up after emancipation. [For example, in] Georgia, in December, 1865, the colored people of Savannah, within a few days after the entrance of Sherman’s army, opened a number of schools, having an enrollment of 500 pupils and contributed $1,000 for the support of teachers. Two of the largest of these were in Bryant’s Slave Mart. In January, 1866, the Negroes of Georgia organized the Georgia Educational Association, whose object was to induce the freedmen to establish and support schools in their own counties and neighborhoods. In 1867, 191 day schools and 45 night schools were reported as existing. Of these, 96 were reported either wholly or in part supported by the freedmen, who also owned 57 of the school buildings. General [0. 0.] Howard’s first Freedmen’s Bureau report says: Schools were taken in charge by the Bureau, and in some States carried on wholly—in connection with local efforts—by use of a refugees’ and freedmen’s fund, which had been collected from various sources. Teachers came under the general direction of the assistant commissioners, and protection through the department commanders was given to all engaged in the work. [The

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inspector of schools testified]. . . . As showing the desire for education among the freedmen, we give the following fact: When the collection of a general tax for colored schools was suspended in Louisiana by military order, the consternation of the colored population was intense. Petitions began to pour in. I saw one from the plantations across the river, at least thirty feet in length, representing 10,000 Negroes. It was affecting to examine it and note the names and marks (X) of such a long list of parents, ignorant themselves, but begging that their children might be educated; promising that from beneath their present burdens and out of their extreme poverty, they would pay for it. . . .

Today the efforts of Negroes to encourage education take three forms of Church schools; Aid to private schools; Aid to public schools. . . . [T]here [is] . . . a fairly widespread system of supplementing public school funds. No data of these schools are available, but the following instance in Virginia is instructive: Mr. T. C. Walker personally supervised the collection of $1,685 from the people [of eleven Virginia counties] by which 77 schools had their terms prolonged from one to two months, and permanent improvements were made to the amount of $400. . . . The visitor of the General Educational Board makes this report:

The report of the [Freedmen’s] Bureau for 1869 which summed up the work, said:

In the rural districts it is the Negro who must lengthen the term and provide better [school] houses. Often it is necessary for him to build the house, while the school authorities pay for the teacher. Sometimes rent is received from these buildings, but more often, particularly in the far South, none is received. Accomac county, in Virginia, for instance, owns scarcely one-third of the school houses in use in the county. At convenient points throughout the county, however, Negroes have purchased land and erected in most cases a church, a hall for secret society purposes, and a schoolhouse. In some places the hall serves as a school house. So closely are these schools and churches associated that nearly every school is known by the name of the church near it. First Baptist, Ebenezer, etc., are the names commonly applied to the schools. The property is usually owned by the entire Negro community. This condition is common in the South. Such a contribution to Negro education is so closely associated with public education that it frequently escapes notice. The way most in vogue at present for supplementing public education in the South, among whites especially, is through local taxation, together with the consolidation of schools. North Carolina is doubtless in the front in this educational revival in the South. Here they have built, on an average, a school house a day for the last two years. This movement, however, has affected the Negro but little as the Superintendent of Public Instruction informed

[N]ot more than one-tenth of the children of freedmen are attending school. Their parents are not yet able to defray the expenses of education. They are already doing something, probably more in proportion to their means, than any other class. During the last year it is estimated that they have raised, and expended for the construction of school houses and the support of the teachers not less than two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000). They have shown a willingness to help, and as they prosper and acquire property, they will assume a larger share of the burden, either by voluntary contributions or by the payment of taxes for the support of schools. The freedmen assist in the support of their schools to the extent of their ability. As their condition is improved, their willingness to contribute for education, as they always have for religious interests, exhibits itself in the largely augmented amount paid for the support of schools. Forty-four thousand three hundred and eighty-six pupils paid $106,866.19 for tuition.— This is by far the largest aggregate sum we have yet had the privilege of reporting; while many thousands of dollars were expended for board and salaries of teachers, and for construction of school houses, of which we received no report, the actual amount of which would greatly increase the above sum. . . .

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me. The Negro is hardly in a position now to benefit by political methods. He is not consulted nor always included, in communities even where local taxation is adopted by the whites. He does not, of course, under such circumstances pay the local tax. He generally uses another method for raising many in the interest of his schools. Here, as in many other phases of Negro life, the church is the agency employed. Through religious denominations the Negro is doing most toward supplementing his elementary public education. This sometimes results in undue multiplicity of schools, but there are not wanting instances where communities, regardless of the various religious faiths, unite in the support of a single school. . . . The Americus Institute, situated in the very heart of the black belt of Georgia, represents even better the possibilities of the Negroes along the line of self-help. In its present organization this school is only seven years old. Prior to that, however, an effort had been made to establish a school there, but owing to the dishonesty of a white man employed as agent the people sustained a loss of $1,000 in cash and eleven acres of land, besides another loss of $275 stolen by a dishonest clerk of the association. Nevertheless, in seven years Mr. M. W. Reddick, the principal, has built up a school with property worth $7,000. This has practically all come through the small contributions of the Negroes themselves. He collects from the neighborhood, through various Baptist organizations, churches and individuals, about $1,000 yearly. Mr. Reddick and his teachers go out to the various churches to collect the monthly contributions. Thus the school and the idea of education are kept in the minds of the people, who are being educated to habits of giving and to a feeling of ownership and pride in their local institutions. . . .

Beneficial and Insurance Societies Out of the churches sprang two different lines of economic co-operation: 1. Schools; 2. Burial Societies. From the burial societies developed sickness and death insurance, on the one hand, and cemeteries, homes and orphanages, on the other. From the insurance societies came banks and co-operative business. . . . No complete account of Negro beneficial societies is possible, so large is their number and so wide their

ramification. Nor can any hard and fast line between them and industrial insurance societies be drawn save in membership and extent of business. These societies are also difficult to separate from secret societies; many have more or less ritual work, and like regular secret societies do much fraternal insurance business. An account of the secret and beneficial societies in several towns of various sizes and in different localities will give some idea of the distribution of these organizations. . . . There is probably no city in the land where there are as many societies among the colored people as in Baltimore, and several of the large societies which have spread far and wide, north and south, had their origin here. Nearly all of the societies are beneficial, but they may be divided in general into two classes, those beneficial merely and those with secret features. In order to help one another in sickness and provide for decent burial, through a system of small but regular payments, beneficial societies were formed among little groups of acquaintances or fellow laborers. In Baltimore they date back to 1820, and were afterwards specially exempted from the state laws forbidding meetings of colored people. Twentyfive, at least, had been formed before the war; from 1865 to 1870, seventeen or more were formed; since 1870, twenty or more have been added, several as late as 1884 and 1885. The number of members vary from a dozen to over 100. In 1884 was held a meeting of many connected with these societies to arouse a more general interest in the work, and very interesting reports were presented. For 117 of them gave an aggregate membership of over 2,100. Nearly 1,400 members had been buried, over $45,000 having been given to funeral expenses; $26,000 had been given as sick dues; $27,000 had been paid widows by some thirty of the societies; over $10,700 had been given towards house rent; and over $10,700 had been paid for incidental expenses. Yet there had been paid back to the members of many of the societies, from unexpended balances, as dividends, a total of over $40,000; and there remained in the banks, to the credit of the societies, over $21,400, and in the treasurers’ hands a cash balance amounting to some $1,400. Five had small sums invested besides, and one the goodly sum of $5,642. The total amount of money handled by all had been nearly $290,000.

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These societies vary somewhat in details. The usual fees from members are 60 cents a month; the usual benefits are $4 a week for a number of weeks, and then reduced sums, in sickness, and $4,000 for death benefit. Some pay as long as sickness lasts. Some give widow’s dues according to need. One, for example, the Friendly Beneficial Society, organized chiefly by the members of a Baptist church, some fifteen years ago, with the usual fees and benefits, carries a standing fund of about $1,000, and the yearly fees of the members have paid the current expenses of from $300 to $500, and has usually allowed an annual dividend of $5 to each. The Colored Barbers’ Society, over fifty years old, gives $80 at the death of a member. Three societies, originally very large, have been gotten up in the last twenty years, by one colored woman, whose name one of them bears. A few of these beneficial societies have disbanded; a few have changed to secret societies. Very few of them have been badly managed, although unincorporated and without any public oversight, and everybody seems to speak well of them and of their work. Secret societies among the colored people are now very numerous. Many important ones date back to before the war. The colored Masons and Independent Order of Odd Fellows are entirely independent of the whites in Baltimore, the colored men having been obliged from the state of public feeling in the United States in the old days to get a charter from the white brethren in England. In 1884 there were nearly 600 colored Masons in Baltimore; now there are probably 700. Of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, fifty lodges of the seventy-seven working ones, giving a membership of over 2,300. The fifty lodges had, during the past two years, aided their sick, buried eightythree brothers and relieved seventy-seven widows and orphans, at a total expenditure of over $13,000. The order held real estate worth $18,500 and had over $10,000 in cash. Of the secret societies in Baltimore, the most influential are the Samaritans, the Nazarites, the Galilean Fishermen and the Wise Men. The first two were instituted some years before the war. The first has spread from Baltimore, during the forty years of its existence, to a number of states; but a

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third of all the lodges and nearly a third of all the members are in Maryland (1890). About one-half of the order are women, Daughters of Samaria, and they meet by themselves in their own lodges. There are now in Maryland fifty-eight lodges, with a membership of 1,925. The order of Galilean Fishermen, of men and women together, was begun in Baltimore in 1856, by a handful of earnest workers; it was legally incorporated in 1869. The order has become influential. It is said to number over 5,000 in Maryland. The order of the Seven Wise Men is a more recent order. There are many more of the same secret, beneficial nature, but these are the largest. Reference: DuBois, W. E. B. 1907. Cooperation among Negro Americans. Atlanta: Atlanta University Press.

Russell Sage Foundation Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage One of the foremost philanthropists of her day, Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage believed firmly that women were responsible for the moral progression of society. To that end, she established the Russell Sage Foundation, named after her late husband, with the intent of improving social and living conditions in the United States. In this letter, Mrs. Russell Sage expresses certain desires relating to programs, geographical allocations, types of investment, and trustee reimbursement for expenses. To the Trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation: I have transferred to the Russell Sage Foundation securities and cash aggregating in value ten million dollars. A schedule of the securities and cash so transferred accompanies this letter. I give them to constitute a fund, the principal of which, as the same is now or may hereafter be invested according to the terms of this letter, shall be held, and the income thereof applied to the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States of America. The act incorporating the Russell Sage Foundation was drawn under my direction. I refer to it as express-

Russell Sage Foundation

ing the purposes for which I have made this gift and the powers which I intend the Foundation to have in its disposition. I do not wish by this letter to enlarge or limit the powers given to the Foundation by its act of incorporation, or to impose any other or different duties upon its trustees than are put upon them by this act. It has seemed to me, however, appropriate to express certain desires to which I would wish the trustees of the Foundation to conform so far as they may from time to time deem expedient. While the scope of the Foundation is intended to be national, it is my wish that special consideration should be given to the needs of my own city and its vicinity. I therefore request that at no time shall less than one-quarter of the income of the fund be applied exclusively to the benefit of the city of New York and its vicinity, and I also wish that at no time shall less than one-quarter of its income be applied generally to the United States at large or to the parts of it outside of the city of New York and its vicinity. The scope of the Foundation is not only national but is broad. It should, however, preferably not undertake to do that which is now being done or is likely to be effectively done by other individuals or by other agencies. It should be its aim to take up the larger and more difficult problems, and to take them up so far as possible in such a manner as to secure co-operation and aid in their solution. In some instances it may wisely initiate movements, in the expectations of having them maintain themselves unaided after once being started. In other instances it may start movements with the expectation of carrying them on itself. I have had some hesitation as to whether the Foundation should be permitted to make investments for social betterment which themselves produce income, as for instance small houses or tenements, in distinction from investments in securities intended only to produce income. I realize that investments for social betterment, even if producing some income, may not produce a percentage as large as that produced by bonds or like securities, and that the income of the Foundation might be therefore diminished by such investments. On the other hand, if I fail to give the Foundation powers in this respect it

may be unable to initiate or establish important agencies or institutions. I decide to authorize the trustees of the Foundation to invest the principal of the fund, to the extent of not more at any one time than one-quarter of its entire amount, directly in activities, agencies, or institutions established and maintained for the improvement of social and living conditions, provided that such investments shall, in the opinion of trustees, be likely to produce an annual income of not less than three per cent. I also wish to authorize the trustees to invest and reinvest the principal of the fund given by me in any of the following manners; a. In any of the kinds or classes of securities included in my gift. b. In the mortgage bonds of any railroad or other corporations which have continuously paid dividends on their common stock at the rate of not less than four per cent per annum, for a period of not less than five years preceding the investment. c. In the preferred stocks of any such companies. d. In any stocks of companies guaranteed by any such companies. e. In any securities in which savings banks or trustees may be authorized to invest at the time of the investment. The authority to invest given by this letter is a condition attached to my gift and is intended to vest that power in the trustees of the Foundation without reference to any law or laws which may now or hereafter limit the power of trustees or charitable corporations in this particular. I am conscious of the burden necessarily placed upon the trustees in accepting office, and I do not wish to add to that burden by involving them in any expense. I therefore direct that travelling and hotel expenses incurred by the trustees in the performance of their duties shall be paid from the income of the fund. Yours sincerely, Margaret Olivia Sage New York, April 19, 1907

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The Difficult Art of Giving John D. Rockefeller This work is excerpted from the third article in Rockefeller’s series, “Some Random Reminiscences of Men and Events,” which appeared in The Worlds Work in 1907 and 1908. It was later renamed “The Difficult Art of Giving” and was often published separately. Mr. Rockefeller notes how difficult it is to give money away effectively; and that the duty of a businessman is first to provide work opportunities and then to apply the same skill and hard work in determining what charities to support. It is, no doubt, easy to write platitudes and generalities about the joys of giving, and the duty that one owes to one’s fellow men, and to put together again all the familiar phrases that have served for generations whenever the subject has been taken up. I can hardly hope to succeed in starting any new interest in this great subject when gifted writers have so often failed. Yet I confess I find much more interest in it at this time than in rambling on, as I have been doing, about the affairs of business and trade. It is most difficult, however, to dwell upon a very practical and businesslike side of benefactions generally, without seeming to ignore, or at least to fail to appreciate fully, the spirit of giving which has its source in the heart, and which, of course, makes it all worth-while. In this country we have come to the period when we can well afford to ask the ablest men to devote more of their time, thought, and money to the public well-being. I am not so presumptuous as to attempt to define exactly what this betterment work should consist of. Every man will do that for himself, and his own conclusion will be final for himself. It is well, I think, that no narrow or preconceived plan should be set down as the best. I am sure it is a mistake to assume that the possession of money in great abundance necessarily brings happiness. The very rich are just like all the rest of us; and if they get pleasure from the possession of money, it comes from their ability to do things which give satisfaction to someone besides themselves.

Limitations of the Rich The mere expenditure of money for things, so I am told by those who profess to know, soon palls upon one. The

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novelty of being able to purchase anything one wants soon passes, because what people most seek cannot be bought with money. These rich men we read about in the newspapers cannot get personal returns beyond a well-defined limit for their expenditure. They cannot gratify the pleasures of the palate beyond very moderate bounds, since they cannot purchase a good digestion; they cannot lavish very much money on fine raiment for themselves or their families without suffering from public ridicule; and in their homes they cannot go much beyond the comforts of the less wealthy without involving them in more pain than pleasure. As I study wealthy men, I can see but one way in which they can secure a real equivalent for money spent, and that is to cultivate a taste for giving where the money may produce an effect which will be a lasting gratification; and I would respectfully present this as a Christmas thought, even though crudely expressed, to the socalled “money-kings,” great and small. A man of business may often most properly consider that he does his share in building up a property which gives steady work for few or many people; and his contribution consists in giving to his employees good working conditions, new opportunities, and a strong stimulus to good work. Just so long as he has the welfare of his employees in his mind and follows his convictions, no one can help honoring such a man. It would be the narrowest sort of view to take, and I think the meanest, to consider that good works consist chiefly in the outright giving of money.

The Best Philanthropy The best philanthropy, the help that does the most good and the least harm, the help that nourishes civilization at its very root, that most widely disseminates health, righteousness, and happiness, is not what is usually called charity. It is, in my judgment, the investment of effort or time or money, carefully considered with relation to the power of employing people at a remunerative wage, to expand and develop the resources at hand, and to give opportunity, for progress and healthful labor where it did not exist before. No mere money-giving is comparable to this in its lasting and beneficial results. If, as I am accustomed to think, this statement is a correct one, how vast indeed is the philanthropic field!

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It may be urged that the daily vocation of life is one thing, and the work of philanthropy quite another. I have no sympathy with this notion. The man who plans to do all his giving on Sunday is a poor prop for the institutions of the country. The excuse for referring so often to the busy man of affairs is that his help is most needed. I know of men who have followed out this large plan of developing work, not as a temporary matter, but as a permanent principle. These men have taken up doubtful enterprises and carried them through to success often at great risk, and in the face of great scepticism, not as a matter only of personal profit, but in the larger spirit of general uplift.

Disinterested Service: The Road to Success If I were to give advice to a young man starting out in life, I should say to him: If you aim for a large, broadgauged success, do not begin your business career, whether you sell your labor or are an independent producer, with the idea of getting from the world by hook or crook all you can. In the choice of your profession or your business employment, let your first thought be: Where can I fit in so that I may be most effective in the work of the world? Where can I lend a hand in a way most effectively to advance the general interests? Enter life in such a spirit, choose your vocation in that way, and you have taken the first step on the highest road to a large success. Investigation will show that the great fortunes which have been made in this country, and the same is probably true of other lands, have come to men who have performed great and far-reaching economic services—men who, with great faith in the future of their country, have done most for the development of its resources. The man will be most successful who confers the greatest service on the world. Commercial enterprises that are needed by the public will pay. Commercial enterprises that are not needed fail, and ought to fail. On the other hand, the one thing which such a business philosopher would be most careful to avoid in his investments of time and effort or money, is the unnecessary duplication of existing industries. He would regard all money spent in increasing needless competition as wasted, and worse. The man who puts up a second factory when the factory in existence will

supply the public demand adequately and cheaply is wasting the national wealth and destroying the national prosperity, taking the bread from the laborer and unnecessarily introducing heartache and misery into the world. Probably the greatest single obstacle to the progress and happiness of the American people lies in the willingness of so many men to invest their time and money in multiplying competitive industries instead of opening up new fields and putting their money into lines of industry and development that are needed. It requires a better type of mind to seek out and to support or to create the new than to follow the worn paths of accepted success; but here is the great chance in our still rapidly developing country. The penalty of a selfish attempt to make the world confer a living without contributing to the progress or happiness of mankind is generally a failure to the individual. The pity is that when he goes down he inflicts heartache and misery also on others who are in no way responsible.

The Generosity of Service Probably the most generous people in the world are the very poor, who assume each other’s burdens in the crises which come so often to the hard pressed. The mother in the tenement falls ill and the neighbor in the next room assumes her burdens. The father loses his work, and neighbors supply food to his children from their own scanty store. How often one hears of cases where the orphans are taken over and brought up by the poor friend whose benefaction means great additional hardship! This sort of genuine service makes the most princely gift from superabundance look insignificant indeed. The Jews have had for centuries a precept that one-tenth of a man’s possessions must be devoted to good works, but even this measure of giving is but a rough yardstick to go by. To give a tenth of one’s income is wellnigh an impossibility to some, while to others it means a miserable pittance. If the spirit is there, the matter of proportion is soon lost sight of. It is only the spirit of giving that counts, and the very poor give without any self-consciousness. But I fear that I am dealing with generalities again. The education of children in my early days may have been straightlaced, yet I have always been

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thankful that the custom was quite general to teach young people to give systematically of money that they themselves had earned. It is a good thing to lead children to realize early the importance of their obligations to others but, I confess, it is increasingly difficult; for what were luxuries then have become commonplaces now. It should be a greater pleasure and satisfaction to give money for a good cause than to earn it, and I have always indulged the hope that during my life I should be able to help establish efficiency in giving so that wealth may be of greater use to the present and future generations. Perhaps just here lies the difference between the gifts of money and service. The poor meet promptly the misfortunes which confront the home circle and household of the neighbor. The giver of money, if his contribution is to be valuable, must add service in the way of study, and he must help to attack and improve underlying conditions. Not being so pressed by the racking necessities, it is he that should be better able to attack the subject from a more scientific standpoint; but the final analysis is the same: his money is a feeble offering without the study behind it which will make its expenditure effective. Great hospitals conducted by noble and unselfish men and women are doing wonderful work; but no less important are the achievements in research that reveal hitherto unknown facts about diseases and provide the remedies by which many of them can be relieved or even stamped out. To help the sick and distressed appeals to the kindhearted always, but to help the investigator who is striving successfully to attack the causes which bring about sickness and distress does not so strongly attract the giver of money. The first appeals to the sentiments overpoweringly, but the second has the head to deal with. Yet I am sure we are making wonderful advances in this field of scientific giving. All over the world the need of dealing with the questions of philanthropy with something beyond the impulses of emotion is evident, and everywhere help is being given to those heroic men and women who are devoting themselves to the practical and essentially scientific tasks. It is a good and inspiring thing to recall occasionally the heroism, for example, of the men who risked and sacrificed their lives to discover the facts about yellow

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fever, a sacrifice for which untold generations will bless them; and this same spirit has animated the professions of medicine and surgery.

The Fundamental Thing in All Help If the people can be educated to help themselves, we strike at the root of many of the evils of the world. This is the fundamental thing and it is worth saying even if it has been said so often that its truth is lost sight of in its constant repetition. The only thing which is of lasting benefit to a man is that which he does for himself. Money which comes to him without effort on his part is so seldom a benefit and often a curse. That is the principal objection to speculation—it is not because more lose than gain, though that is true—but it is because those who gain are apt to receive more injury from their success than they would have received from failure. And so with regard to money or other things which are given by one person to another. It is only in the exceptional case that the receiver is really benefited. But, if we can help people to help themselves, then there is a permanent blessing conferred. Men who are studying the problem of disease tell us that it is becoming more and more evident that the forces which conquer sickness are within the body itself, and that it is only when these are reduced below the normal that disease can get a foothold. The way to ward off disease, therefore, is to tone up the body generally; and, when disease has secured a foothold, the way to combat it is to help these natural resisting agencies which are in the body already. In the same way the failures which a man makes in his life are due almost always to some defect in his personality, some weakness of body, or mind, or character, will, or temperament. The only way to overcome these failings is to build up his personality from within him, that he may overcome the weakness which was the cause of the failure. It is only those efforts the man himself puts forth that can really help him. We all desire to see the widest possible distribution of the blessings of life. Many crude plans have been suggested, some of which utterly ignore the essential facts of human nature, and if carried out would perhaps drag our whole civilization down into hopeless misery. It is my belief that the principal cause for the

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economic differences between people is their difference in personality, and that it is only as we can assist in the wider distribution of those qualities which go to make up a strong personality that we can assist in the wider distribution of wealth. Under normal conditions the man who is strong in body, in mind, in character, and in will need never suffer want. But these qualities can never be developed in a man unless by his own efforts, and the most that any other can do for him is, as I have said, to help him to help himself. We must always remember that there is not enough money for the work of human uplift and that there never can be. How vitally important it is, therefore, that the expenditure should go as far as possible and be used with the greatest intelligence! I have been frank to say that I believe in the spirit of combination and cooperation when properly and fairly conducted in the world of commercial affairs, on the principle that it helps to reduce waste; and waste is a dissipation of power. I sincerely hope and thoroughly believe that this same principle will eventually prevail in the art of giving as it does in business. It is not merely the tendency of the times developed by more exacting conditions in industry, but it should make its most effective appeal to the hearts of the people who are striving to do the most good to the largest number.

Some Underlying Principles At the risk of making this chapter very dull, and I am told that this is a fault which inexperienced authors should avoid at all hazards, I may perhaps be pardoned if I set down here some of the fundamental principles which have been at the bottom of all my own plans. I have undertaken no work of any importance for many years which, in a general way has not followed out these broad lines, and I believe no really constructive effort can be made in philanthropic work without such a well-defined and consecutive purpose. My own conversion to the feeling that an organized plan was an absolute necessity came about in this way. About the year 1890, I was still following the haphazard fashion of giving here and there as appeals presented themselves. I investigated as I could, and worked myself almost to a nervous break-down in

groping my way, without sufficient guide or chart, through this ever-widening field of philanthropic endeavor. There was then forced upon me the necessity to organize and plan this department of our daily tasks on as distinct lines of progress as we did our business affairs; and I will try to describe the underlying principles we arrived at, and have since followed out, and hope still greatly to extend. It may be beyond the pale of good taste to speak at all of such a personal subject—I am not unmindful of this—but I can make these observations with at least a little better grace because so much of the hard work and hard thinking are done by my family and associates, who devote their lives to it. Every right-minded man has a philosophy of life, whether he knows it or not. Hidden away in his mind are certain governing principles, whether he formulates them in words or not, which govern his life. Surely his ideal ought to be to contribute all that he can, however little it may be, whether of money or service, to human progress. Certainly one’s ideal should be to use one’s means, both in one’s investments and in benefactions, for the advancement of civilization. But the question as to what civilization is and what are the great laws which govern its advance have been seriously studied. Our investments not less than gifts have been directed to such ends as we have thought would tend to produce these results. If you were to go into our office, and ask our committee on benevolence or our committee on investment in what they consider civilization to consist, they would say that they have found in their study that the most convenient analysis of the elements which go to make up civilization runs about as follows: 1st. Progress in the means of subsistence, that is to say, progress in abundance and variety of food-supply, clothing, shelter, sanitation, public health, commerce, manufacture, the growth of the public wealth, etc. 2nd. Progress in government and law, that is to say, in the enactment of laws securing justice and equity to every man, consistent with the largest individual liberty, and the due and orderly enforcement of the same upon all.

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3rd. Progress in literature and language. 4th. Progress in science and philosophy. 5th. Progress in art and refinement. 6th. Progress in morality and religion. If you were to ask them, as indeed they are very often asked, which of these they regard as fundamental, they would reply that they would not attempt to answer, that the question is purely an academic one, that all these go hand in hand, but that historically the first of them—namely, progress in means of subsistence— had generally preceded progress in government, in literature, in knowledge, in refinement, and in religion. Though not itself of the highest importance, it is the foundation upon which the whole superstructure of civilization is built, and without which it could not exist. Accordingly, we have sought, so far as we could, to make investments in such a way as will tend to multiply, to cheapen, and to diffuse as universally as possible the comforts of life. We claim no credit for preferring these lines of investment. We make no sacrifices. These are the lines of largest and surest return. In this particular, namely, in cheapness, ease of acquirement, and universality of means of subsistence, our country easily surpasses that of any other in the world, though we are behind other countries, perhaps, in most of the others. It may be asked: How is it consistent with the universal diffusion of these blessings that vast sums of money should be in single hands? The reply is, as I see it, that, while men of wealth control great sums of money, they do not and cannot use them for themselves. They have, indeed, the legal title to large properties, and they do control the investment of them, but that is as far as their own relation to them extends. The money is universally diffused, in the sense that it is kept invested and it passes into the pay-envelope week by week. Up to the present time no scheme has yet presented itself which seems to afford a better method of handling capital than that of individual ownership. We might put our money into the Treasury of the Nation and of the various states, but we do not find any promise in the National or state legislatures, viewed from the experiences of the past, that the funds would

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be expended for the general weal more effectively than under the present methods, nor do we find in any of the schemes of socialism a promise that wealth would be more wisely administered for the general good. It is the duty of men of means to maintain the title to their property and to administer their funds until some man, or body of men, shall rise up capable of administering for the general good the capital of the country better than they can. The next four elements of progress mentioned in the enumeration above, namely, progress in government and law, in language and literature, in science and philosophy, in art and refinement, we for ourselves have thought to be best promoted by means of the higher education, and accordingly we have had the great satisfaction of putting such sums as we could into various forms of education in our own and in foreign lands—and education not merely along the lines of disseminating more generally the known, but quite as much, and perhaps even more, in promoting original investigation. An individual institution of learning can have only a narrow sphere. It can reach only a limited number of people. But every new fact discovered, every widening of the boundaries of human knowledge by research becomes universally known to all institutions of learning, and becomes a benefaction at once to the whole race. Quite as interesting as any phase of the work have been the new lines entered upon by our committee. We have not been satisfied with giving to causes which have appealed to us. We have felt that the mere fact that this or the other cause makes its appeal is no reason why we should give to it any more than to a thousand other causes, perhaps more worthy, which do not happen to have come under our eye. The mere fact of a personal appeal creates no claim which did not exist before, and no preference over other causes more worthy which may not have made their appeal. So this little committee of ours has not been content to let the benevolences drift into the channels of mere convenience—to give to the institutions which have sought aid and to neglect others. This department has studied the field of human progress, and sought to contribute to each of those elements which we believe tend most to promote it. Where it has not found organizations ready to its hand for such purpose, the

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members of the committee have sought to create them. We are still working on new, and, I hope, expanding lines, which make large demands on one’s intelligence and study. Reference: Rockefeller, John D. 1909. Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. New York: Doubleday.

The Chair of Philanthromathematics O. Henry A master of the short story, O. Henry turns his attention in this 1908 writing to two misguided swindlers who turn to philanthropy as an outlet for spending their wealth. They start a university together, but soon realize they have overestimated their financial situation. Their subsequent dealings with the chair of a mathematics department at an established university raise questions about the potential of philanthropy to be a profit-making business. “I SEE that the cause of Education has received the princely gift of more than fifty millions of dollars,” said I. I was gleaning the stray items from the evening papers while Jeff Peters packed his briar pipe with plug cut. “Which same,” said Jeff, “calls for a new deck, and a recitation by the entire class in philanthromathematics.” “Is that an allusion?” I asked. “It is,” said Jeff. “I never told you about the time when me and Andy Tucker was philanthropists, did I? It was eight years ago in Arizona. Andy and me was out in the Gila Mountains with a two-horse wagon prospecting for silver. We struck it, and sold out to parties in Tucson for $25,000. They paid our check at the bank in silver—a thousand dollars in a sack. We loaded it in our wagon and drove east a hundred miles before we recovered our presence of intellect. Twenty-five thousand dollars don’t sound like so much when you’re reading the annual report of the Pennsylvania Railroad or listening to an actor talking about his salary; but when you can raise up a

wagon sheet and kick around your bootheel and hear every one of ’em ring against another it makes you feel like you was a night-and-day bank with the clock striking twelve. “The third day we drove into one of the most specious and tidy little towns that Nature or Rand and McNally ever turned out. It was in the foothills, and mitigated with trees and flowers and about 2,000 head of cordial and dilatory inhabitants. The town seemed to be called Floresville, and Nature had not contaminated it with many railroads, fleas or Eastern tourists. “Me and Andy deposited our money to the credit of Peters and Tucker in the Esperanza Savings Bank, and got rooms at the Skyview Hotel. After supper we lit up, and sat out on the gallery and smoked. Then was when the philanthropy idea struck me. I suppose every grafter gets it sometime. “When a man swindles the public out of a certain amount he begins to get scared and wants to return part of it. And if you’ll watch close and notice the way his charity runs you’ll see that he tries to restore it to the same people he got it from. As a hydrostatical case, take, let’s say, A. A. made his millions selling oil to poor students who sit up nights studying political economy and methods for regulating the trusts. So, back to the universities and colleges goes his conscience dollars. “There’s B got his from the common laboring man that works with his hands and tools. How’s he to get some of the remorse fund back into their overalls? “Aha!” says B, “I’ll do it in the name of Education. I’ve skinned the laboring man,” says he to himself, but, according to the old proverb, “Charity covers a multitude of skins.” “So he puts up eighty million dollars’ worth of libraries; and the boys with the dinner pail that builds’ em gets the benefit. “Where’s the books?” asks the reading public. “I dinna ken,” says B. “I offered ye libraries; and there they are. I suppose if I’d given ye preferred steel trust stock instead ye’d have wanted the water in it set out in cut glass decanters. Hoot, for ye!” “But, as I said, the owning of so much money was beginning to give me philanthropitis. It was the first time me and Andy had ever made a pile big enough to make us stop and think how we got it.

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“Andy,” says I, “we’re wealthy—not beyond the dreams of average; but in our humble way we are comparatively as rich as Greasers. I feel as if I’d like to do something for as well as to humanity.” “I was thinking the same thing, Jeff,” says he. “We’ve been gouging the public for a long time with all kinds of little schemes for selling self-igniting celluloid collars to flooding Georgia with Hoke Smith presidential campaign buttons. I’d like, myself, to hedge a bet or two in the graft game if I could do it without actually banging the cymbalines in the Salvation Army or teaching a bible class by the Bertillon system.” “What’ll we do?” says Andy. “Give free grub to the poor or send a couple of thousand to George Cortelyou?” “Neither,” says I. “We’ve got too much money to be implicated in plain charity; and we haven’t got enough to make restitution. So, we’ll look about for something that’s about half way between the two.” “The next day in walking around Floresville we see on a hill a big red brick building that appears to be disinhabited. The citizens speak up and tell us that it was begun for a residence several years before by a mine owner. After running up the house he finds he only had $2.80 left to furnish it with, so he invests that in whiskey and jumps off the roof on a spot where he now requiescats in pieces. “As soon as me and Andy saw that building the same idea struck both of us. We would fix it up with lights and pen wipers and professors, and put an iron dog and statues of Hercules and Father John on the lawn, and start one of the finest free educational institutions in the world right there. “So we talks it over to the prominent citizens of Floresville, who falls in fine with the idea. They give a banquet in the engine house to us, and we make our bow for the first time as benefactors to the cause of progress and enlightenment, Andy makes an hourand-a-half speech on the subject of irrigation in Lower Egypt, and we have a moral tune on the phonograph and pineapple sherbet. “Andy and me didn’t lose any time in philanthropping. We put every man in town that could tell a hammer from a step ladder to work on the building, dividing it up into class rooms and lecture halls. We wire

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to Frisco for a carload of desks, footballs, arithmetics, penholders, dictionaries, chairs for the professors, slates, skeletons, sponges, twenty-seven cravenetted gowns and caps for the senior class, and an open order for all the truck that goes with a first-class university. I took it on myself to put a campus and a curriculum on the list; but the telegraph operator must have got the words wrong, being an ignorant man, for when the goods come we found a can of peas and a currycomb among ’em. “While the weekly papers was having chalkplate cuts of me and Andy we wired an employment agency in Chicago to express us f.o.b., six professors immediately—one English literature, one up-to-date dead languages, one chemistry, one political economy— democrat preferred—one logic, and one wise to painting, Italian and music, with union card. The Esperanza bank guaranteed salaries, which was to run between $800 and $800.50. “Well, sir, we finally got in shape. Over the front door was carved the words: ‘The World’s University; Peters & Tucker, Patrons and Proprietors.’ And when September the first got a cross-mark on the calendar, the comeons begun to roll in. First the faculty got off the triweekly express from Tucson. They was mostly young, spectacled and red-headed, with sentiments divided between ambition and food. Andy and me got’ em billeted on the Floresvillians and then laid for the students. “They came in bunches. We had advertised the University in all the state papers, and it did us good to see how quick the country responded. Two hundred and nineteen husky lads aging along from 18 up to chin whiskers answered the clarion call of free education. They ripped open that town, sponged the seams, turned it, lined it with new mohair; and you couldn’t have told it from Harvard or Goldfields at the March term of court. “They marched up and down the streets waiving flags with the World’s University colors—ultra-marine and blue—and they certainly made a lively place of Floresville. Andy made them a speech from the balcony of the Skyview Hotel, and the whole town was out celebrating. “In about two weeks the professors got the students disarmed and herded into classes. I don’t believe there’s any pleasure equal to being a philanthropist.

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Me and Andy bought high silk hats and pretended to dodge the two reporters of the Floresville Gazette. The paper had a man to kodak us whenever we appeared on the street, and ran our pictures every week over the column headed ‘Educational Notes.’ Andy lectured twice a week at the University; and afterward I would rise and tell a humorous story. Once the Gazette printed my pictures with Abe Lincoln on one side and Marshall P. Wilder on the other. “Andy was as interested in philanthropy as I was. We used to wake up of nights and tell each other new ideas for booming the University. “Andy,” says I to him one day, “there’s something we overlooked. The boys ought to have dromedaries.” “What’s that?” Andy asks. “Why, something to sleep in, of course,” says I. “All colleges have’ em.” “Oh, you mean pajamas,” says Andy. “I do not,” says I. “I mean dromedaries.” But I never could make Andy understand; so we never ordered ’em. Of course, I meant them long bedrooms in colleges where the scholars sleep in a row. “Well, sir, the World’s University was a success. We had scholars from five States and territories, and Floresville had a boom. A new shooting gallery and a pawn shop and two more saloons started; and the boys got up a college yell that went this way: ”Raw, raw, raw, Done, done, done, Peters, Tucker, Lots of fun. Bow-wow-wow, Haw-hee-haw, World University, Hip hurrah!” “The scholars was a fine lot of young men, and me and Andy was as proud of ’em as if they belonged to our own family. “But one day about the last of October Andy come to me and asks if I have any idea how much money we had left in the bank. I guesses about sixteen thousand. “Our balance,” says Andy, “is $821.62.” “What!” says I, with a kind of a yell. “Do you mean to tell me that them infernal clodhopping, dough-

headed, pup-faced, goose-brained, gate-stealing, rabbit-eared sons of horse thieves have soaked us for that much?” “No less,” says Andy. “Then, to Helvetia with philanthropy,” says I. “Not necessarily,” says Andy. “Philanthropy,” says he, “when run on a good business basis is one of the best grafts going. I’ll look into the matter and see if it can’t be straightened out.” “The next week I am looking over the payroll of our faculty when I run across a new name—Professor James Darnley McCorkle, chair of mathematics; salary $100 per week. I yells so loud that Andy runs in quick. “What’s this,” says I. “A Professor of mathematics at more than $5,000 a year? How did this happen? Did he get in through the window and appoint himself?” “I wired to Frisco for him a week ago,” says Andy. “In ordering the faculty we seemed to have overlooked the chair of mathematics.” “A good thing we did,” says I. “We can pay his salary two weeks, and then our philanthropy will look like the ninth hole on the Skibo golf links.” “Wait a while,” says Andy, “and see how things turn out. We have taken up too noble a cause to draw out now. Besides, the further I gaze into the retail philanthropy business the better it looks to me. I never thought about investigating it before. Come to think of it now,” goes on Andy, “all the philanthropists I ever knew had plenty of money. I ought to have looked into the matter long ago, and located which was the cause and which was the effect.” “I had confidence in Andy’s chicanery in financial affairs, so I left the whole thing in his hands. The University was flourishing fine, and me and Andy kept our silk hats shined up, and Floresville kept on heaping honors on us like we was millionaires instead of almost busted philanthropists. “The students kept the town lively and prosperous. Some stranger came to town and started a faro bank over the Red Front livery stable, and began to amass money in quantities. Me and Andy strolled up one night and piked a dollar or two for sociability. There were about fifty of our students there drinking rum punches and shoving high stacks of blues and reds about the table as the dealer turned the cards up.

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“Why, dang it, Andy,” says I, “these free-schoolhunting, gander-headed, silk-socked little sons of sapsuckers have got more money than you and me ever had. Look at the rolls they’re pulling out of their pistol pockets!” “Yes,” says Andy, “a good many of them are sons of wealthy miners and stockmen. It’s very sad to see ’em wasting their opportunities this way.” “At Christmas all the students went home to spend the holidays. We had a farewell blowout at the University and Andy lectured on ‘Modem Music and Prehistoric Literature of the Archipelagos.’ Each one of the faculty answered to toasts, and compared me and Andy to Rockefeller and the Emperor Marcus Autolycus. I pounded on the table and yelled for Professor McCorkle; but it seems he wasn’t present on the occasion. I wanted a look at the man that Andy thought could earn $100 a week in philanthropy that was on the point of making an assignment. “The students all left on the night train; and the town sounded as quiet as the campus of a correspondence school at midnight. When I went to the hotel I saw a light in Andy’s room and I opened the door and walked in. “There sat Andy and the faro dealer at a table dividing a two-foot high stack of currency in thousanddollar packages. “Correct,” says Andy. “Thirty-one thousand apiece. Come in, Jeff,” says he. “This is our share of the profits of the first half of the scholastic term of the World’s University, incorporated and philanthropated. Are you convinced now,” says Andy, “that philanthropy when practiced in a business way is an art that blesses him who gives as well as him who receives?” “Great!” says I, feeling fine. “I’ll admit you are the doctor this time.” “We’ll be leaving on the morning train,” says Andy. “You’d better get your collars and cuffs and press clippings together.” “Great!” says I. “I’ll be ready. But, Andy,” says I, “I wish I could have met that Professor James Darnley McCorkle before he went. I had a curiosity to know that man.” “That’ll be easy,” says Andy, turning around to the faro dealer.

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“Jim,” says Andy, “shake hands with Mr. Peters.” Reference: Henry, O. 1908. The Gentle Grafter. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, chapter 4.

The Social Creed of the Churches The social gospel was one of the most significant movements of the church in America. The religious were commanded to serve the less fortunate and not to retreat from an evil secular world. Followers of the social gospel were required to actively combat social problems. Philanthropists of the time certainly embraced the movement in their work, even though they didn’t employ the term. It reached its climax in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

Statement Adopted by the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church May 1908 The Methodist Episcopal Church stands: For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life. For the principle of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions. For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational disease, injuries and mortality. For the abolition of child labor. For such regulation of the condition of labor for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community. For the suppression of the “sweating system.” For the gradual and reasonable reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest practical point, with work for all; and for that degree of leisure for all which is the condition of the highest human life. For a release from employment one day in seven. For a living wage in every industry. For the highest wage that each industry can afford, and for the most equitable division of the products industry that can ultimately be devised. For the recognition of the Golden Rule, and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy of all social ills.

Constitution of the General Assembly of the Order of the Knights of Labor

Reference: Ward, H. F., ed. 1916. A Year Book of the Church and Social Service in the United States, 197–198.

Constitution of the General Assembly and for State, National Trade District and Local Assemblies of the Order of the Knights of Labor The secret fraternal order of the Knights of Labor developed out of a society of garment cutters in Philadelphia in 1869. With membership open to a broad range of working people, the organization grew in strength in the late nineteenth century but declined rapidly by the end of the century. Fluctuations in politics and industry kept the Knights of Labor active in community affairs; however, they eventually helped to form the American Federation of Labor. Their constitution is representative of the use of the nonprofit form by a labor union. Washington, D.C. Published by the General Assembly 1911. J.B. Lenau, Printer Member of Job Printers’ Union Local Assembly 2673 Chicago, ILL

Preamble The alarming development and aggressiveness of the power of money and corporations under the present industrial and political system will inevitably lead to the hopeless degradation of the people. It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full blessings of life, that a check be placed upon unjust accumulation and the power for evil of aggregated wealth. This much-desired object can be accomplished only by the united efforts of those who obey the divine injunction: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Therefore, we have formed the Order of the Knights of Labor for the purpose of organizing, educating and directing the power of the industrial masses. It is not a political party, it is more, for in it are crystallized sentiments and measures for the benefit of the whole people; but it should be borne in mind, when

exercising the right and suffrage, that most of the objects herein set forth can only be obtained through legislation, and that it is the duty, regardless of party, of all to assist in nominating and supporting with their votes such candidates as will support these measures. No one shall, however, be compelled to vote with the majority. Calling upon all who believe in securing “the greatest good to the greatest number” to join and assist us, we declare to the world that our aims are: I. To make industrial and moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and national greatness. II. To secure to the workers the full enjoyment of the wealth they create; sufficient leisure in which to develop their intellectual, moral and social faculties; all of the benefits, recreations and pleasures of associations; in a word, to enable them to share in the gains and honors of advancing civilizations. In order to secure these results, we demand at the hands of the law-making power of Municipalities, States and Nations: I. The establishment of direct legislation, the initiative, referendum, recall, imperative mandate and proportional representation. II. The establishment of Bureaus of Labor Statistics and their operation in such manner as to impart a correct knowledge of the educational, moral and financial conditions of the laboring masses, and the establishment of free State Labor Bureaus. III. The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of all the people, and should not be subject to speculative traffic. Occupancy and use should be the only title to the possession of land. The taxes upon land should be levied upon its full value for use, exclusive of improvements, and should be sufficient to take for the community all unearned increment. IV. That the buying and selling of options, the gambling in farm produce or other necessaries of life, be made a felony by law, with adequate punishment for such offense.

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V. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon capitalists and laborers, and the removal of unjust technicalities, delays and discriminations in the administration of justice. VI. The adoption of measures providing for the health and safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing and building industries, and for indemnification to those engaged therein for injuries received through lack of necessary safeguards. VII. The recognition by incorporation of orders and other associations organized by the workers to improve their condition and to protect their rights. VIII. The enactment of laws to compel corporations to pay their employees weekly, in lawful money, for the labor of the preceding week, and giving mechanics and laborers a first lien upon the product of their labor to the extent of their full wages. IX. The abolition of the contract system of National, State and Municipal works. X. The enactment of laws providing for arbitration between employers and employed, and to enforce the decision of the arbitrators. XI. The prohibition by law of the employment of children under fifteen years of age; the compulsory attendance at school for at least ten months in the year of all children between the ages of seven and fifteen years, and the furnishing at the expense of the State of free text books. XII. That a graduate tax on incomes and inheritances be levied. XIII. To prohibit the hiring out of convict labor. XIV. The establishment of a national monetary system in which a circulating medium in necessary quantity shall issue directly to the people without the intervention of banks; that all the national issue shall be full legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private; and that the government shall not guarantee or recognize any private banks or create any banking corporations. XV. That interest-bearing bonds, bills of credit or notes shall never be issued by the government, but that, when need arises, the

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emergency shall be met by issue of legal-tender, non-interest bearing money. XVI. That the importation of foreign labor under contract be prohibited. XVII. That, in connection with the postoffice, the government shall provide facilities for deposits of savings of the people in small sums, and that all banks, other than postal savings banks, receiving deposits shall be required to give good and approved bonds as security in twice the sum of all deposits received. XVIII. That the government shall obtain possession, under the right of eminent domain, of all telegraphs, telephones and railroads; and that hereafter no charter or license be issued to any corporation for construction or operation of any means of transporting intelligence, passenger, freight or power. That we favor the merit system and merit tenure of office in civil service or ordinary service of the Government. And while making the foregoing demands upon State and National Governments, we will endeavor to associate our own labors: I. To establish co-operative institutions, such as will tend to supersede the wage-system, by the introduction of a co-operative industrial system. II. To secure for both sexes equal rights. III. To gain some of the benefits of labor-saving machinery by a gradual reduction of the hours of labor to eight per day. IV. To persuade employers to agree to arbitrate all differences which may arise between them and their employees, in order that the bonds of sympathy between them may be strengthened and that strikes may be rendered unnecessary. . . .

An Act to Incorporate the Rockefeller Foundation (May 1913) In 1913, the U.S. Congress rejected John D. Rockefeller’s effort to seek a federal charter for his new philanthropy be-

The Concentration of Wealth

cause at that time, Congress was demanding the breakup of his Standard Oil empire. Thus he was forced to incorporate his new foundation in the state of New York. Some of his advisors had considered this a better move because if the foundation was incorporated at the state level, it would be able to find regress in a federal court. Unfortunately their advice did not win until after three years of battle with Congress to pass the charter failed. The New York state legislature passed the bill to incorporate the foundation unanimously and quickly with virtually no public debate. The people of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: Section 1. John D. Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller, Junior, Frederick T. Gates, Harry Pratt Judson, Simon Flexner, Starr J. Murphy, Jerome D. Greene, Wickliffe Rose, and Charles O. Heydt, together with such persons as they may associate with themselves, and their successors, are hereby constituted a body corporate by the name of The Rockefeller Foundation, for the purpose of receiving and maintaining a fund or funds, and applying the income and principal thereof to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world. It shall be within the purposes of said corporation to use, as means to that end, research, publication, the establishment and maintenance of charitable, benevolent, religious, missionary, and public education activities, agencies, and institutions, and the aid of any such activities, agencies, and institutions already established and any other means and agencies which from time to time shall seem expedient to its members or trustees. 2. The corporation hereby formed shall have power to take and hold by bequest, devise, gift, purchase, or lease, either absolutely or in trust, for any of its purposes, any property, real or personal, without limitation as to amount or value, except such limitations, if any as the legislature shall hereafter specifically impose; to convey such property and to invest and reinvest any principal; and to deal with and expend the income and principal of the corporation in such manner as in the judgment of the trustees will best promote its objects. It shall have all the power and be subject to all the restrictions which now pertain by law to membership corporations created by

special law so far as the same are applicable thereto and are not inconsistent with the provisions of this act. The persons named in the first sections of this act, or a majority of them, shall hold a meeting and organize the corporation and adopt a constitution and by-laws not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of this state. The constitution shall prescribe the manner of selection of members, the number of members who shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at meetings of the corporation, the number of trustees by whom the business and affairs of the corporation shall be managed, the qualifications, powers, and the manner of selection of the trustees and officers of the corporation, the manner of amending the constitution and by-laws of the corporation, and any other provisions for the management and disposition of the property and regulation of the affairs of the corporation which may be deemed expedient. 3. No officer, member, or employee of this corporation shall receive or be lawfully entitled to receive any pecuniary profit from the operations thereof except reasonable compensation for services in effecting one or more of its purposes, or as a proper beneficiary of its strictly charitable purposes. 4. This act shall take effect immediately.

The Concentration of Wealth: Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations (1915) Congress provided for the Commission on Industrial Relations in 1912 to survey the condition of industry in the United States with particular reference to labor. This excerpt is from the final report, which is volume 1 of an eleven-volume set. Note the reference to foundation influence, to “nonprofit-making” organizations, and the need for high inheritance taxes.

The Concentration of Wealth and Influence The evidence developed by the hearings and investigations of the commission is the basis for the following statements:

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1. The control of manufacturing, mining, and transportation industries is to an increasing degree passing into the hands of great corporations through stock ownership, and control of credit is centralized in a comparatively small number of enormously powerful financial institutions. These financial institutions are in turn dominated by a very small number of powerful financiers. 2. The final control of American industry rests, therefore, in the hands of a small number of wealthy and powerful financiers. 3. The concentration of ownership and control is greatest in the basic industries upon which the welfare of the country must finally rest. 4. With few exceptions each of the great basic industries is dominated by a single large corporation, and where this is not true the control of the industry through stock ownership in supposedly independent corporations and through credit is almost, if not quite, as potent. 5. In such corporations, in spite of the large number of stockholders, the control through actual stock ownership rests with a very small number of persons. For example in United States Steel Corporation, which had in 1911 approximately one hundred thousand share holders, 1.5 percent of the stockholders held 57 percent of the stock, while the final control rested with a single private banking house. Similarly, in the American Tobacco Company before the dissolution, 10 stockholders owned sixty percent of the stock. 6. Almost without exception the employees of the large corporations are unorganized as a result of the active and aggressive “nonunion” policy of the corporation management. Furthermore, the labor policy of the large corporations almost inevitable determines the labor policy of the entire industry. 7. A careful and conservative study shows that the corporations controlled by six financial groups and affiliated interests employ 2,651,684 wage earners and have a grand total capitalization of $19,875,200,000. These six financial groups control 28 percent of the total number of wage earners engaged in the industries covered by the report of our investigation. The Morgan–First National Bank

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group alone controls corporations employing 785,499 wage earners . . . 8. The lives of millions of wage earners are therefore subject to the dictation of a relatively small number of men. 9. These industries dictators for the most part are totally ignorant of every aspect of the industries which they control except the finances, and are totally unconcerned with regard to the working and living conditions of the employees in those industries. Even if they were deeply concerned, the position of the employees would be merely that of the subjects of benevolent industrial despots. 10. Except, perhaps, for improvements in safety and sanitation, the labor conditions of these corporation-control industries are subject to great criticism and are a menace to the welfare of the Nation. 11. In order to prevent the organization of employees for the improvement of working conditions, elaborate systems of espionage are maintained by the large corporations which refuse to deal with labor unions, and the employees suspected of union affiliations are discharged. 12. The domination by the men in whose hands the final control of a large part of American industry rests is not limited to their employees, but is being rapidly extended to control the education and “social service” of the Nation. 13. This control is being extended largely through the creation of enormous privately managed funds for indefinite purposes, hereinafter designated “foundations,” by the endowment of colleges of universities, by the creation of funds for the pensioning of teachers, by contributions to private charities, as well as through controlling or influencing the public press . . . 22. The entrance of the foundations into the field of industrial relations, through the creation of a special division by the Rockefeller Foundation, constitutes a menace to the national welfare to which the attention not only of Congress but of the entire country should be directed. Backed by the $100,000,000 of the Rockefeller Foundation, this movement has the power to influence the entire country in the determination of its most vital policy . . . 26. Apart from these foundations there is developing a degree of control over the teachings of professors

The Concentration of Wealth

in our colleges and universities which constitutes a most serious menace. In June of this year two professors, known throughout their professions as men of great talent and high character, were dropped from the positions they had occupied and no valid reason for such action was made public. Both were witnesses before the commission, and made statements based upon their own expert knowledge and experience which were given wide publicity. One was a professor of law in a State university, who had acted as counsel for the strikers in Colorado; the other a professor of economics, who had not only been active in fights in behalf of child-labor legislation and other progressive measures, but had recently published a work comparing the incomes paid for all classes of service. In the face of such enormous problems one can only frankly confess inability to suggest measure which will protect the Nation from the grave dangers described. It is believed, however, that if Congress will enact the measures already recommended, providing for a heavy tax on large inheritances with a rigid limitation on the total amount of the bequest, for the reclamation by the Federal Government of all parts of the public domain (including mineral rights) which have been secured by fraud, and for a tax on nonproductive land and natural resources, a great step in the right direction will have been taken. As regards the “foundations” created for unlimited general purposes and endowed with enormous resources, their ultimate possibilities are so grave a menace, not only as regards their own activities and influence but also the benumbing effect which they have on private citizens and public bodies, that if they could be clearly differentiated from other forms of voluntary altruistic effort it would be desirable to recommend their abolition. It is not possible, however, at this time to devise any clear-cut definition upon which they can be differentiated. As the basis for effective action, it is suggested that the commission recommend: 1. The enactment by Congress of a statute providing that all incorporated nonprofit-making bodies whose present charters empower them to perform more than a single specific function and whose funds exceed $1,000,000 shall be required to secure a Federal charter.

(a) Definite limitation of the funds to be held by any organization, at least not to exceed the largest amount held by any at the time of the passage of the act. (b) Definite and exact specifications of the powers and functions which the organization is empowered to exercise, with provision for heavy penalties if its corporate powers are exceeded. (c) Specific provision against the accumulation of funds by the compounding of unexpended income and against the expenditure in any one year of more than 10 per cent of the principal. (d) Rigid inspection of the finances as regards both investment and expenditure of funds. (e) Complete publicity through open reports to the proper Government officials. (f ) Provision that no line of work which is not specifically and directly mentioned in the articles of incorporation shall be entered upon without the unanimous consent and approval of the board of trustees, nor unless Congress is directly informed of such intention through communication to the Clerk of the House and the Clerk of the Senate, which shall be duly published in the Congressional Record, not until six months after such intention has been declared. 2. Provision by Congress for the thorough investigation by a special committee or commission, of all endowed institutions, both secular and religious, whose property holdings or income exceeds a moderate amount. The committee or commission should be given full power to compel the production of books and papers and the attendance and testimony of witnesses. It should be authorized and directed to investigate not only the finances of such institutions but all their activities and affiliations. 3. As the only effective means of counteracting the influence of the foundations, as long as they are permitted to exist, consists of the activities of governmental agencies along similar lines, the appropriations of the Federal Government for education and social service should be correspondingly increased. Reference: U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations: Final Report and Testimony, vol. I, p. 80 ff. U.S. 64th Congress, 1st Session, Sen. Doc. No. 415.

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Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime, Chapter 5 (1916) Scott Nearing Chapter 5, excerpted here from Scott Nearing’s 1916 book, Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime, sets forth why inheritance of wealth “riches” is damaging and why philanthropy was an “arid failure” at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although Nearing’s ardent pacifism and socialism earned him persecution and made him an outcast among his contemporaries, his work is today recognized as that of a visionary.

1. The Heaven of the Rich POVERTY is an individual curse and a social sin. It blights and destroys the lives of its victims. It is a disease, and existing, as it does, side by side with the unparalleled increase in productive power that has resulted from the use of the machine, it challenges civilization. Poverty is an outstanding feature of present-day civilization. So is riches. Side by side in the United States are great want and great wealth. Poverty and riches seem bound to each other by some fast-holding tie. Where one is found, there, also, is the other. On closer examination, it appears that the heaven of the rich is founded upon this hell of the poor. The rich man for his paradise is dependent upon the poor man in his squalor. Lazarus sets the feast for Dives and then eats of the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. The lot of the poor is a veritable hell—hideous in all of its aspects. The more closely it is viewed, the more frightful does it appear. The frightfulness of poverty needs no further emphasis, after the facts cited in the last chapter. The time has come, however, to turn from the hell of poverty to an examination of the heaven of riches. Americans have a certain abiding faith in riches that has led to no end of misunderstanding among people in other parts of the world. They praise riches in their homes, extol it in their schools, bow to it in the community life. Even though money is the root of all evil, they dig for it assiduously. Everywhere there is a feeling that the saying of Solomon, “With all thy getting, get wisdom,” should

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be so altered as to read, “With all thy getting, get riches.” “For surely,” they contend, “all things that thou canst desire are not to be compared with them.” The belief in riches is so general in the United States that it resolves itself into a kind of creed or confession of faith. Nine men and women out of every ten who are not rich would jump at the chance to be rich without inquiring seriously into the causes or the effects of riches. The hope for riches and the belief in riches has become a species of American second nature. The last hundred years have seen a phenomenal increase of riches in the United States, and particularly since the Civil War, the number and the wealth of individual rich men have grown fabulously. Today, America numbers her millionaires by the thousands, and there are about one hundred and fifty persons whose incomes exceed a million dollars a year. The leading cities are full of palatial residences; pleasure hotels are able to collect immense fees for the supply of regal luxury; vast funds are donated for charity and philanthropy; and the private and public expenditures of the rich in pursuit, largely, of their own enjoyment are staggering in amount. There is an oft-quoted saying of a great teacher, “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” The assumption is that men must choose between the two fealties. Confronted by the choice between the service of God and of Mammon, Americans, for the most part, have frankly chosen Mammon. Their attitude toward the question makes it quite evident that they believe that the service of Mammon is, on the whole, a quite acceptable substitute for the service of God. There lies the issue. Can men serve Mammon? Granted that they cannot serve God and Mammon, is the service of Mammon a desirable one? Can the Mammon-server survive?

2. The Wealth Machine A very small number of people are rich. In olden times, to be rich meant to have plate, bullion, jewels and sometimes great landed estates as well. The rich man today is in a very different position. Incidentally, the modern rich man may have a supply of plate, bullion and jewels, but in the first instance he secures possession of income-yielding property—stocks, bonds, mortgages and the like.

Poverty and Riches

There are two ways in which a man may make a living. He may work for it or he may own for it. The worker receives an income because of some service that he renders. The owner’s income is based on his ownership. The contrast may be illustrated in this concrete manner. Here is a man who manages a signal tower for the railroad company. Each year he receives $1,000 for his services. Yonder a man owns $20,000 of the railroad company’s five per cent bonds. He receives $1,000 a year for his ownership. The tower-man is paid because he works. The bond-man is paid because he owns. The claim of the property owner is prior and is perpetual. Modern business is so organized that the first shock of industrial depression is carried by the discharged workman. The dividends may be paid on the stocks. The interest will be continued on the bonds. The first burdens of industrial hardship are saddled on the wage-earner. The rich man who invests his money carefully is a thousand times more secure than the worker who is engaged in the productive work of the community. There has never been established a right to work, but there is a virtual right to property income. At all times money invested in a savings bank will draw interest. Practically the same security is found in giltedge bonds, mortgages and other forms of incomeyielding property. The modern wealth machine has been so devised and evolved that it is only necessary for an individual to become the owner of property in order to be secure in his income. A man who can get title to $100,000 in money can exchange it for five per cent bonds or mortgages, and receive an income of $5,000 a year. He may live for forty years, drawing this income each year. Then he may place the $100,000 in trust for his son, who lives, let us say, sixty years, drawing the income each year. This son, in turn, may hand the property on to a grandson, but even the two generations of father and son, from this $100,000 have received $5,000 a year for 100 years, or $500,000 in wealth. It is perfectly conceivable that neither of them earned the money. No one asks that question. The possession of $100,000 entitles the owner and his heirs to a $5,000 income so long as they continue to own the $100,000. . . .

There was an excellent illustration during the winter of 1913–14 of the workings of the wealth machine. Reports indicated that in New York City a very large number of persons—from 250,000 to 400,000—who had work ordinarily, were unemployed. They and those dependent on them needed food and clothing. The landlord demanded rent, but there was no work, because thousands of industrial establishments had shut down temporarily. During each of those winter months, when the suffering was so general and so intense, one man, living near New York, was in receipt of an income of about five millions a month. Was he in need of those five millions? Hardly! He was already the possessor of some $800,000,000 of wealth, and it was for that reason that he received an income of about $60,000,000 a year. Here was a man of fabulous wealth, with an income of more than a hundred dollars a minute, while almost at his door there were hundreds of thousands of industrious people unable to get work—hungry, cold, suffering. The situation is grotesque. It fulfils, with dreadful exactness, the saying, “To him that hath shall be given, he shall have more abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have.” The wealth machine, enabling some to live by owning upon the products made by those who live by working, has produced no more vicious result than this—the workers suffer hardship while the owners bask in nameless luxury.1 Those who live on their incomes are living on the work done by others. They are economically parasitic. The system that supports them penalizes the worker while it glorifies the owner.

3. Wealth and the Wealthy An attentive listener to the teachings of American life might easily assume that the rich were unquestionably beneficiaries of their riches. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The most immediate result of riches is their disastrous effect on the rich. Disastrous? Must “riches” and “disastrous” be linked together? Examine the matter carefully, and the conclusion is inevitable. Riches saps initiative, undermines self-respect and prevents the rich man from enjoying human relation-

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ships. To the extent that riches does these things it is disastrous to the individual who is rich. Riches saps initiative. All normal men and women have a greater or less amount of creative impulse—of yearning for selfexpression. This self-expression is the outward manifestation of their spiritual selves. When they are children, they plan, build, decorate and play. As they grow older, they turn to more permanent forms of activity—inventing, painting, organizing, directing, planning and building tools, machines, pictures, businesses, cities and nations. Shelly wrote because he must write; Franklin experimented scientifically because the spirit within him would not be gainsaid. It was the manners of Lincoln’s soul that carried him to the fore. These things are in the man. Human faculties, including the will, grow strong through use. Activity is the law of life. Truly said Faust, “In the beginning was the deed.” Poverty starves initiative. Riches surfeits it. Both, in the end, destroy it. The rich learn to depend upon others. The boy, born into a rich family, who has someone at hand to fetch and carry for him, is denied the education that comes through doing. Instead of being stimulated to press forward in this direction or that, he is urged to “let James do it.” Said one college lad, “Why should I worry? Why should I work? Nothing is going to happen to me. Father has plenty and he will take care of me.” He had been raised in luxury, trained to depend upon others for the supplying of his daily wants, taught to accept this as a matter of course. In his expensive preparatory school the masters had given him his studies in the form of carefully sterilized, pre-digested intellectual pillets; and in college as well as in life he expected someone to look out for him. This does not always happen. But just as the child of the poor is likely to be thrown too much on his own resources, so the child of the rich is likely to be thrown too little on his own resources. The attitude of the rich is well set forth in one passage from the twenty-third chapter of Matthew. “For they say and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move

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them with one of their fingers.” They wait for others to do it. Riches saps initiative by removing the immediate stimulus to activity. The “I must” of the man thrown on his own resources becomes the “What’s the use?” of the man who need never worry about the morrow or the morrow’s morrow.

4. Riches and Self-Respect Initiative is the grandmother of self-respect. Achievement is born of initiative, and self-respect is the child of achievement. Here are two boys. One has acquired the habit of failure, the other the habit of success. The boy who has learned to fail abhors himself. He is worthless! He feels it in every fiber of his being. The boy who has learned to succeed passes from triumph to triumph. There is nothing too difficult for him to assay, and at each new achievement he becomes more capable of overcoming the next obstacle. Success, like failure, feeds upon itself. The rich, particularly in the second generation, are not called upon to achieve anything. They are relieved from the necessity of exertion. Their power of initiative atrophies. They never learn success. This denial of achievement undermines the self-respect of the rich and is one of the surest explanations of that profound dissatisfaction, world weariness and ennui that is the spiritual scourge of the well-to-do. Stevenson, in that inspired passage at the end of his essay, “Aes Triplex,” tells what, in his estimate, it means to die young. The triumphant soul has barely finished its work. “The sound of the mallet and hammer are scarcely quenched,” when the spirit, in the high tide of its being, “shoots into the spiritual land.” The hand of riches is as palsied as the hand of old age. Gradually, piece by piece, it wears down the foundations of self-respect until the rich man finds himself alone with his riches.

5. The Pauperizing Power of Riches There is an element of contradiction, as well as of unassailable truth in the phrase “The Pauperizing Power of Riches.” Yet, equivocal as it may seem, riches does pauperize the rich. What does “pauperize” mean?

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The rich are most solicitous about the poor. Whatever happens, they must not be pauperized. There is a danger of pauperization in all forms of philanthropy and charity. School lunches pauperize the children; mothers’ pensions pauperize the families; all forms of assistance given to individuals at public expense pauperizes the individuals—that is, it renders them less capable of self-support. Pauperize means “To lead one person to depend for support on another; to make dependent.” Riches pauperizes. The children of rich people, and to a less extent the rich people themselves, learn to depend on others for their support. Servants wait on them; the world of productive industry supplies them with the things that they use. Riches tends to make the rich incapable of self-support. There are in riches the worst features of pauperization against which the rich are constantly seeking to guard the poor. The burden of riches rests heavily upon individual initiative and self-respect. Riches leads to dependence—inability for self-support. Riches pauperizes.

6. The Isolation of Riches Riches isolates the rich as completely as though they were set upon an island of gold in the midst of a boundless ocean. The rich may have their friends among the rich, but they cannot reach the heart of humanity. Philanthropy is the effort of the rich to establish human relations with the rest of mankind. As such, it is perhaps the most arid failure of the century. A rich woman who owned an estate of many acres near a large city decided to set up some tents among her beautiful shade trees and invite shop girls to come there and stay during the summer. She had a child-like faith that while she was away on her summer travels they would come here and enjoy themselves. When she found that they would not come, she was displeased—affronted. They were, she said, “ungrateful.” The rich men of America in the present century are repeating the elaborate philanthropies carried on in Rome by the rich men of the Augustan age. They built schools, baths, libraries, fountains and public buildings in the hope that they could by these means

atone for their riches. Like the philanthropists of the twentieth century, they failed. The failure of philanthropy is inherent in the nature of such benefactions. Assume that the philanthropist is giving from the purest motives of altruism, the fact that he gives wealth and that another receives it throws between the two an impassable gulf. Philanthropist and beneficiary cannot be friends. Philanthropy annihilates friendship. Go one step farther, and have this philanthropy handled professionally by a society whose purpose is organized benevolence, and the philanthropy becomes grotesque. “He gives nothing but worthless gold who gives from a sense of duty,” writes Lowell. The sentence might be paraphrased to read, “He gives nothing but worthless gold who gives professionally.” The $100 wrung from the irascible philanthropist by the smooth-spoken agent of the charity society reeks with the contempt that the giver feels for his fellow men in general and the financial secretary of the charity society in particular. It is a means of disestablishing human relations. Instead of being a blessing, it is a curse. “All gifts,” you insist, “are not given on that basis.” True enough, but those who are acquainted with the running of private philanthropic societies, and who know the lengths to which these organizations go to raise funds, are gravely suspicious that a very large proportion of the dollars that make such an admirable showing after the names of the contributors published in the annual report would never have appeared in print but for the astuteness and persistence of men and women who are paid for their proficiency in the charitable art of wheedling. Personal relationships vanish when the philanthropist signs the check that passes on his “worthless gold.” Organized philanthropy and personal relationship are antithetical terms. Charity is synonymous with love, not checks! The champion of organized philanthropy points in vain to his list of volunteer workers. The givers who have sought to be philanthropic by giving money are in the same trap of impossibilities. Philanthropy may be defended as conscience balm or as social fire insurance. The man who has stolen a hundred-thousand-dollar franchise may dedicate a

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ten-thousand-dollar stained glass window and “call it square.” The astute millionaire may see in philanthropy a means of perpetuating a social system which, without philanthropy, would speedily become intolerable. Even in these cases, and they are probably not so numerous as some radical thinkers believe, there is no personal relation established between the giver and the receiver of the gift. A considerable portion of the chapter on “Industrial Leadership” was devoted to the proposition that the leader must be the server, since great leadership involved great service. The only true philanthropist is the man who gives himself, and the possession of riches seems to erect a sharp barrier between the rich man and the world. Emerson, in his essay on “Manners,” states the matter very clearly. “Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.” He might have said “ugly pauper” and been nearer to the truth. “The only gift,” he writes, in “Gifts,” “is a portion of thyself.” The proposition is so clearly defined and so well established that it needs no elaboration. Lowell states the case in a manner even more sweeping. “Who gives himself with his gold feeds three—himself, his hungering neighbor and Me.” The reverse holds equally true—that the man who does not give himself feeds no one. There is no word here about the great foundations and bequests, because, administered by high-paid directors and by boards of trustees, they do not even profess to represent “giving” in the personal sense of that word. The rich man, because he is rich, cannot give himself. It is this fact that led to the admonition which Jesus gave the rich young man who had kept all of the commandments: “Go, sell all you have; come and follow me.” Until he had divested himself of the impenetrable armor which the possession of riches threw about him, he was of no value as a personal worker.

7. Spending as Philanthropy “True enough,” admit the rich, “we do not give generously. Even the largest gifts are, as a rule, paltry when one considers the amount the giver has left. At the same time, we spend our money generously, circulate it and thus make people prosperous.”

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That “spending” argument is very old and somewhat overworked. Yet it is astonishing to find how many people believe it implicitly. To it there are several answers. First, if it were true that spending makes prosperity, the cause of progress would be served best by having one person do all the spending for the community. That proposition even the most ardent advocate of the spending argument would hardly accept unless he was sure to be designated the spender. Second, in proportion to their income, the poor spend more than the rich. Therefore, if spending were the objective desired, the most successful way to have money spent would be to give it to the poor. Third, the assumption that spending rather than saving makes for prosperity, is based on an idea that is not necessarily correct. In a new country, the person who saves is more important than the person who spends, because it is from the savings of the careful individual that the capital for new industries is secured. Fourth, the person who spends does not do so primarily because he wishes to be philanthropic. . . . He spends because he wishes to have the things that he buys. The rich man’s food, clothing and house decoration are bought with an eye to the rich man’s taste— not to the poor man’s welfare. Fifth, when a rich man uses up food and clothing to supply himself with comforts and luxuries, he automatically denies the rest of the community those same things. There is a loaf of bread for supper. If father eats two-thirds of the loaf, there is only one-third left for mother and the children. At any given time there is only a certain amount of wealth in the community. If one man uses it, other people are automatically deprived of it unless there is more than enough to go round. . . .

8. We Cannot Serve Mammon The declaration, “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon,” offers no real alternative. We cannot serve Mammon. The thinkers of the world for ages have understood this, but in regard to it the world is still in darkness. Here, in the United States, tens of thousands are busying themselves in Mammon’s service, despite the very obvious fact, noted even by Emerson, that the

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rich, who are trying to be rich, “arrive with pains and sweat and fury nowhere.”2 Solomon, though he was rich, said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches.” A long line of Greek and Roman philosophers made the same point. The followers of the early Christian Church went to the extreme of demanding poverty as a pre-requisite to salvation. The revolt against riches is normal if the argument presented is sound. If riches saps initiative, undermines self-respect and prevents the rich man from establishing human relationships, even the rich should, with Timon of Athens, cast their riches aside. When it appears, further, that the rich are taking the wealth of the community for their own selfish enjoyments, while the poor must go without; and that riches, a relative term signifying the opposite of poverty, involves the maintenance of the maximum inequality in favor of those who are rich, society too must reject riches. Riches, with its running mate poverty, becomes the object of universal condemnation. Riches leads those who are rich toward physical and spiritual death. Likewise it leads the community toward the social death that is a necessary product of parasitism. There is a remarkable passage in the writings of James in which he cries to the rich, “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.” Here is the warning that many of the later writers have put in stronger terms, but which is nowhere more strikingly stated. The destruction of the rich is their riches in the same sense that the destruction of the poor is their poverty. The camel shall go through the needle’s eye more easily than a rich man shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. His riches cumber his life. The rich young man who had kept all of the commandments, but who was told to go sell all that he had and give it to the poor, “when he heard this, was very sorrowful; for he had great possessions.” He was young, but already the riches had a firm grip on his life. The same destructive effect of riches may be observed in a social group. Thus Paul writes to the

Church of the Laodiceans: “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” The riches of this group of people obstructed their vision of truth in exactly the same manner that the riches of the virtuous young man obstructed his vision. The objective point of social organization is happy and noble men and women. To this end, poverty and riches alike fail. Neither happiness nor nobility is inherent, either in poverty or in riches. “It is well,” said Saint Augustine, “that thou givest bread to the hungry, but better were it that none hungered and that thou hadst none to give.” Poverty must give place to justice and riches must be supplanted by equal opportunity. Only thus can the greatest good be accomplished for that greatest number upon which the community depends for its continued success and from which alone the community must secure happiness and nobility.

9. What Is Riches? Some will insist, and very promptly, that the place for the definition of riches was at the outset of the discussion. It was deferred and set at this point in order that the reader might have, as a background for definition, the considerations regarding riches that have been stated. The time has now come to define riches. Riches is a purely relative term. Not only is it true that the heaven of the rich is built upon the hell of the poor, but unless there were a hell of poverty there could be no heaven of riches. The terms “rich” and “poor” are opposites in the same sense that the terms “north” and “south” are opposites. Were the south eliminated, there could be no north. The existence of the one presupposes the presence of the other. The Italian who comes to the United States, lives in squalor, saves a thousand dollars and goes back to his little Italian village, is rich there. The “local banker” in the Illinois country village—the most prosperous, substantial citizen in his town—takes a trip to Chicago or New York, where he finds himself inexpressibly poor. The “richness” of riches consists, not at all in the amount of them, but in the contrast between the amount of wealth in the possession of the poor part of the community. An

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Italian peasant is far richer in his native village on a thousand dollars than is a provincial banker in New York on a million; Ruskin states the matter thus: “Men nearly always speak and write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible, by following certain scientific precepts, for everybody to be rich . . .The force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbor’s pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you; the degree of power it possesses depends accurately upon the need or desire he has for it, and the art of making yourself rich . . . is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbor poor.” The poorer the neighbor, the more powerful is the rich man. The contrast between the poverty of the poor and the riches is the measure of the power that the rich can exercise over the poor. The greater the contrast, the greater the power of the rich. . . . The phrase “drunk with power” describes accurately the state of the man who is forging ahead in the wealth-game. Riches is a social stimulant, more exhilarating then champagne. It is more deadly, too, because it gets a stronger grip on its victims and holds them more surely. The love of riches is the most consuming passion in the world. It grips all alike—young and old; weak and strong. It is for this reason that the Teacher exclaims, “How hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdom of God!” The riches block their path and the more they have the greater obstacle do they become. Instead of mounting to a heaven of happiness and satisfaction on the mountain of his riches, the rich man is crushed by them into a hell of taunting oblivions from which even the gilded monuments that he erects cannot save him.

10. The Maximum Inequality Unless riches carry with them power over men, they are meaningless. No rich man would hold title to mines, steamship lines or metropolitan real estate unless they gave him this power. A man owns a great estate on which there is a splendid mansion, fine stables, houses, cattle, orchards, fertile fields. One day a pestilence kills off the men and women who have been working on the es-

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tate. There are no more servants to be had, and the owner decides to keep up the property himself. What does he discover? That if he is a good workman, well equipped with up-to-date tools, his own efforts will maintain from one to five acres of land in a state of high cultivation, while the mansion, the stables and the rolling fields grow up to briers and thickets, and in a decade become a wilderness. The estate that one man can work is small indeed. Only when he can persuade others to accept a part of his riches in return for their services can he expect to be rich. The operation of each piece of industrial property depends upon the same principle. Of what use are railroads, steel mills, sugar refineries and silver mines unless someone can be found who is willing to pay a bonus (rent or interest) for the privilege of working there? Dives has assumed, absurdly enough, that he was conferring a favor when he allowed another to set his table. Unless there were some other than Lazarus to accept his pay and set his table, he would have no feast. Note the conclusion to which this argument leads: “What is really desired, under the name of riches, is essentially power over men; . . . And this power of wealth, of course, is greater or less in direct proportion to the poverty of the men over whom it is exercised, and in inverse proportion to the number of persons who are as rich as ourselves, and who are ready to give the same price for an article of which the supply is limited. . . . So that, as above stated, the art of becoming ‘rich,’ in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighbors shall have less. In accurate terms, it is the art of establishing the maximum inequality in our own favor.”3 The art of becoming rich is “the art of establishing the maximum inequality in our favor.” Study that sentence carefully. Compare it with the ethical codes commonly accepted by the Christian world, or the Pagan either, for that matter, and note the monstrous chasm that yawns between “the maximum inequality in our favor,” and “do unto others as you would that they should do to you.” Riches are of value only when they will command the time and energy of another. The rich are rich be-

Only Jews Solicited

cause others are poor and in proportion as others are poor; the art of getting rich is the art of establishing the maximum inequality in our favor. This is the heaven of the rich that has been built on the hell of the poor. Here endeth the journey through Paradise. Thinking back over it all, do you wonder that Shaw writes of “That indispensable revolt against poverty that must also be a revolt against riches”?4 Notes: 1. Note this keen characterization of the present industrial order in Edward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”: “By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot do better than compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. The seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and failing to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one’s seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode. “But did they think only of themselves? You ask. Was not their very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil! Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who

fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull and there was a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats. “It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers’ sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than before. If the passengers could only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged the coach.” 2. Essay on “Nature.” 3. “Unto This Last,” John Ruskin. 4. “Major Barbara,” Introduction. Reference: Nearing, Scott. 1916. Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime. Philadelphia: John C. Winston.

Only Jews Solicited In the early twentieth century, American giving in minority communities to assist an immigrant group or one’s “race” or ethnic group abroad was quite extraordinary. This editorial comment is illustrative of the efforts of the time to support the spirit and philanthropy of the relief campaigns that raised $63 million between l914 and l923, which helped war-stricken Jews of Palestine and Europe. The Publicity announcements preceding the inauguration of the enterprise are typical of the Jewish race. Away down at the bottom of the statement, in the merest incidental connection, is a declaration to the effect that while subscriptions from anyone will be gratefully received “only Jews will be solicited.” Yet the

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Jew is the last racial class in any community to draw any such distinction when enterprises of nation-wide scope are announced. He bears his full part in all public movements affecting the interests of the country as a whole or the particular community in which he lives. His charity for his own race is as proverbial as his broad-mindedness in assuming his full share of all public burdens, and for this reason alone, if for no other, the present project ought to enlist the most cordial co-operation on the part of those who are not Jews. Millions of dollars have been raised by the Jews of this country to relieve this distress and other millions are needed, in the nature of things. Surely none will draw any lines of race or creed in such a cause. A few weeks ago a great mass meeting in the interest of the Knights of Columbus war relief fund was held in New York and on the platform were a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic archbishop and a Christian minister – typical of the non-sectarian – or pan-sectarian – character of that movement. The present campaign involves the same principles and the appeal, while officially confined to Jews, is nevertheless morally directed to all who are able to contribute to such a fund and there are few who are not able to help to a modest degree. The duty of all is measured only by their ability and their ability must be largely regulated by their consciences. —Kansas City Journal Reference: Rosenfelt, Henry H. 1924. This Thing of Giving. New York: Plymouth.

Islamic Laws Concerning Charity As is the case in all major religions, giving is treated both from a voluntary and obligatory perspective. Islamic Americans look to the Qur’an for guidance in their charitable and philanthropic acts. This excerpted version provides a historical context that continues to be the basis for giving in the Islamic community today. There is no duty to which more frequent reference is made in the Qorân than that of almsgiving. In almost every Sûra is this duty urged upon the believers; and

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in some Sûras, indeed, the prophet returns again and again to this subject. Further, we notice that the duty of almsgiving is usually coupled with that of prayer, upon which also Muhammed lays great stress. Alms are said to be of two kinds, namely, legal and voluntary. The word usually employed to denote the former of these two is zakât; and for the latter – the voluntary alms sadaqat. This distinction, however, is not always observed. Two meanings are given: (a) to increase or augment; to receive an increase and a blessing from God; to thrive by the blessing of God; (b) to be, or to become pure. As to which of these two is the primary meaning there is a difference of opinion among scholars. Baidawi says that these alms are called zakât either because they increase a man’s store, by drawing down a blessing thereon, and produce in his soul the virtue of liberality; or because they purify the remaining part of one’s substance from pollution, and the soul from the filth of avarice . . . . . . The verb form means “to give alms,” and to denote what is given for the sake of God; or what is given with the desire of obtaining a recompense from God. It is what one gives from one’s property as a propitiation, to obtain the favour of God, and is supererogatory. The zakât, on the other hand, is obligatory . . . . . . The references to this subject in the Qorân are exceedingly numerous; and it is clearly impossible within the limits of this work to give here even a tenth of them. The following, however, are a few of the most important. Sûra 9, 5:—“ . . . But if they repent, and are steadfast in prayer, and give alms, then let them go their way. God is forgiving and merciful.” Id., 18:—“He only shall repair to the temples of God who believes in God and the last day, and is steadfast in prayer, and gives the alms, and fears only God. For these are among the rightly guided.” Id., 60:—“Alms are only for the poor and needy, and those who work for them, and those whose hearts are reconciled, and for ransoming (captives), and for debtors (who cannot pay), and for the advancement of God’s religion, and for the wayfarer.” Id., 104:—“Take from their wealth alms to cleanse and to purify them thereby; and pray for them.”

Islamic Laws Concerning Charity

Sûra 2, 269 f.:—“O ye believers, give in alms of the good things that ye have earned, and of what we have brought forth for you out of the earth; but do not take the vile thereof to spend in alms, what you would not take yourselves save by connivance . . .” Sûra 57, 7:—“Believe in God and His apostle, and give alms of what He has made you inheritors of. For those amongst you who believe and give alms, for them is a great reward.” In the early days of Islâm, the obligatory alms was collected by officials especially appointed for the purpose, and applied to different causes, such as the building of the mosques, the maintaining of those who served in the wars, etc. But in course of time this practice was discontinued, and it was left to the Muhammedan’s conscience to give the zakât, to be applied in whatever manner he thought proper. According to Muhammedan law, alms are to be given from five different things, namely, cattle, money, corn, fruit, and wares sold. Alms shall be given once in every year, generally in the proportion of one part in forty, or two and a half per cent of the value of what one possesses. For every five camels, an ewe shall be given; for twenty-five camels, a pregnant camel. He who has money to the amount of two hundred dirhems of silver, or twenty mitkals (that is, thirty dirhems) of gold, must give annually the fortieth part thereof, or the value of that part. Alms are not due for cattle employed in tilling the ground, or in the carrying of burdens. There is no adaqat in the case of working-camels; because they are the riding-camels of the people; for the adaqat is in the case of pasturing camels, and not when they work. On the other hand, in certain cases a much larger portion is stipulated than the above mentioned; that is, of what is taken out of mines, or the sea, or by any art or profession, over and above what is sufficient for the reasonable support of a man’s family, and, especially, where there is a mixture, or a suspicion of unjust gain. In such cases a fifth part ought to be given in alms . . . Finally we have the alms of the breaking of the fast. This was to be given at the end of Ramadân, the ninth of the Arabian months. It was enacted that the believers should fast during the whole of this month

from dawn, when there is light enough to distinguish between a white and black thread till sunset. This alms is obligatory upon every person of the Muhammedans, the free and the slave, male and female, young and old, rich and poor. It is said to purify the faster from unprofitable and lewd discourse . . . That the greatest value is attached to the practice of almsgiving is shown, not only by the prominence given to the matter in the Qorân itself, but also in the frequent references to the same which one meets with in tradition. Thus we read, “Give ye something as alms, though it be but a dried date; for it will supply somewhat of the want of the hungry.” And again, “Give ye alms, though it be but the half of a dried date.” Reference is often made by writers on the subject to a saying of the Caliph ’Omar ibn Abd-’Alziz, namely, “Prayer carries us half-way to God; fasting brings us to the door of his palace; and alms procures for us admission.” It is also related how Hasân, the son of ’Ali, and grandson of the prophet, thrice in his life-time divided his substance equally between himself and the poor, and twice gave away all he possessed. And even if we cannot believe all that is said on this matter, yet it shows us in what light almsgiving was, and is still regarded among the Muhammedans. The hospitality of the Arabs is proverbial. Generosity stands forth as one of the noblest traits in their character. Hence the enactments of the Qorân concerning almsgiving would appeal to the Arab in an especial manner . . . Although it may not be correct to speak of the Muhammedan alms as tithe, yet the principle in both is one and the same, especially as regards the legal alms, which, as we have seen, were originally collected by officials appointed for the purpose. Further, in laying stress upon this duty, the founder of Islâm undoubtedly had in mind the injunction of the Jewish and Christian codes. For in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as in the Talmudic writings, frequent references are made to the matter of almsgiving . . . It is also clear that Muhammed was acquainted with the teaching of the Talmud as regards almsgiving. In the Talmud the greatest stress is laid upon this duty . . .

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Noteworthy also are the following sayings in the Talmud:– “Alms is the salt of wealth. When wealth is salted with this, it keepeth, just as meat is kept from destruction with salt.” “The giving of alms in secret is great, according to the teaching of Moses.” It is said of Rabbi Janay, that seeing a man bestowing alms in a public place he said, “Thou hadst better not have given at all, than to have bestowed alms so openly, and put the poor man to shame.” And Rabbi Jochanan taught that he who is active in kindnesses towards his fellows is forgiven his sin. Muhammed also believed in the value of giving alms in secret. He says, Sûra 2, 273:– “If ye give your alms openly, it is well; but if ye conceal them, and give them up to the poor, this will be better for you, and will atone for your sins.” And with these words regarding secrecy in almsgiving we may compare the words of Christ in Matt. 6, I:– “Take heed that ye do not your alms (R.V. righteousness) before men, to be seen of them: otherwise, ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.” Finally, notwithstanding the great importance which Muhammed attaches to the duty of almsgiving, yet he does not forget to remind his followers that it is possible to forfeit the promised reward through unworthy conduct. So we read in Sûra 2, 265 f.:– “Kind words and pardon are better than almsgiving followed by mischief. O ye believers, make not your alms of non-effect through reproaches and injury, like him who spendeth his substance to be seen of men, and believeth not in God and the last day . . .No profit from their works shall they be able to gain; for God guideth not the unbelieving people.” Thus we find, on the one hand, that the prophet of Islâm, like the doctors of the Talmud, indisputably teaches the doctrine that almsgiving makes atonement for sin, a doctrine which is against the letter and the whole spirit of the New Testament. Still, one cannot be surprised at such a doctrine, since nothing is found in the Qorân corresponding to the N.T. teaching on the death of Christ as a sin-offering. On the other hand, Muhammed warns his followers against the thought that the fulfilment of this duty gives them

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a licence to live unworthy lives. Rather it is only when this virtue is accompanied by such others as adorn human life that the giver has his reward. Reference: Roberts, Robert. 1925. The Social Laws of the Qorân, Considered, and Compared with Those of the Hebrew and Other Ancient Codes, 70–78. London: Williams and Norgate.

Pierce v. Society of the Sisters 268 U.S. 510 (1925) This case provides an example of the attempts of “anti-“ movements of the early twentieth century to restrict the influence of parochial or other nonprofit schools. In this case the state of Oregon had passed a compulsory education act in 1922 requiring all children to attend public schools. It clearly was an effort by the white Protestant majority in the state to discriminate against Catholics. The court upheld the right of parents to choose private education for their children, which did not deter reasonable state regulation. The challenged act, effective September 1, 1926, requires every parent . . . of a child between eight and sixteen years to send him “to a public school for the period of time a public school shall be held during the current year” in the district where the child resides; the failure to do so is declared a misdemeanor . . .The manifest purpose is to compel general attendance at public schools by normal children between eight and sixteen, who have not completed the eighth grade. And without doubt enforcement of the statute would seriously impair, perhaps destroy, the profitable features of appellees’ business, and greatly diminish the value of their property. Appellee the Society of Sisters is an Oregon corporation, organized in 1880, with power to care for orphans, educate and instruct the youth, establish and maintain academies or schools, and acquire necessary real and personal property . . .It conducts interdependent primary and high schools and junior colleges, and maintains orphanages for the custody and control of children between eight and sixteen. In its primary schools many children between those

The Mind of the Millionaire

ages are taught the subjects usually pursued in Oregon public schools during the first eight years. Systematic religious instruction and moral training according to the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church are also regularly provided . . . The business is remunerative . . . and the successful conduct of this business requires long-time contracts with teachers and parents. The Compulsory Education Act of 1922 has already caused the withdrawal from its schools of children who would otherwise continue, and their income has steadily declined . . . The bill alleges that the enactment conflicts with the right of parents to choose schools where their children will review appropriate mental and religious training . . . and the right of schools and teachers therein to engage in a useful business or profession, and is accordingly repugnant to the Constitution and void . . . No question is raised concerning the power of the State reasonably to regulate all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils; to require that all children of proper age attend some school, that teachers shall be of good moral character and patriotic disposition, that certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship must be taught, and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the public welfare. The inevitable practical result of enforcing the act under consideration would be destruction of appellees’ primary schools, and perhaps all other private primary schools for normal children within the State of Oregon. Appellees are engaged in a kind of undertaking not inherently harmful, but long regarded as useful and meritorious. Certainly there is nothing in the present records to indicate that they failed to discharge their obligations to patrons, students, or the State. And there are no peculiar circumstances or present emergencies which demand extraordinary measures relative to primary education. Under the doctrine of Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, we think it entirely plain that the Act of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control. As often heretofore pointed out rights guaranteed by the Constitution may not be abridged by legislation which has no reasonable

relation to some purpose within the competency of the State. The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations . . . Decree affirmed.

The Mind of the Millionaire (1926) Albert W. Atwood, M.A. In 1926 Albert W. Atwood published The Mind of the Millionaire. Excerpts from two chapters on the responsibility of wealth are provided here as illustrative of a more sympathetic view of the rich at the time and an informative view of motives for giving. Atwood was an editorial and staff writer for the Saturday Evening Post and also an associate faculty member at the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Chapter I: His Likeness unto Other Men Few subjects arouse more widespread discussion than the motives, mental processes, and behavior of the rich. The actions of the millionaire and the reasons for them—these are topics on which all men feel free to express an opinion. Nevertheless, a veil of mystery appears to surround the subject. It is a characteristic American custom to write, read, and talk about millionaires—and yet the man himself remains a riddle after all. He is approached with intense curiosity and perhaps with a touch of awe. Through all the vicissitudes of shifting economic and industrial conditions the problems of whether great fortunes in this country are acquired and used in such a way as to be more of a benefit or a menace to the people never fades from sight. It is one of those insistent topics which cannot be dismissed, and, unlike so many other subjects, does not vanish of itself or quietly lose a merely transient popularity. . . . Yes, we have many millionaires. But they are men and women, boys and girls, infants and aged, decrepit

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octogenarians, robust and weak, single, married, and widowed, happy and unhappy, with sturdy, ambitious children and with no children or weak and imbecile offspring, intelligent and stupid, democratic and aristocratic, educated and uneducated, refined and vulgar, visionary and hard headed, energetic and lazy, public spirited and anti-social, selfish and unselfish, self-made and heirs, wise and foolish, extravagant and penurious, wasteful and thrifty, helpful and injurious. . . .

Chapter XIII: Responsibilities of Wealth Several years ago a young man startled the country by refusing to accept several million dollars left him by his grandfather, not that he had any objection to the way in which the money was made, and despite the fact that there were no other claimants. He simply did not believe in money or property. Wealth to him was a burden, not a privilege or an opportunity. There we have one of four sectors in the whole circle of human nature and emotion as related to this subject. The second quarter is reached when a much older man, an active, constructive, creative millionaire, is one day shown a schedule of his possessions by his secretary. As the sheet of paper is laid on his desk he starts back and exclaims, “Why, that’s too much for any one man to have!” From that time he has kept on adding to his fortune through many new as well as old enterprises, but he has given away even larger sums. And when praised for his gifts he turns all flattery aside by saying that no rich man is more than the custodian of his fortune, and that it must always go to others in course of time. Nor have I in mind what many may consider the exceptional case of Andrew Carnegie, who took much the same view and said in his autobiography: “I have got far beyond my just share. Any fair committee sitting on my case would take away more than half. No species of idolatry is more debasing than amassing wealth.” Then we come to the common belief and practice among rich men that the best use of wealth is to employ it in industry, and that giving away money pauperizes and degrades people. For the most part these men are primarily interested, or say they are, in building up organizations and accomplishing useful or im-

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portant results in the business world rather than in adding to wealth which is already sufficient for their wants. Finally, in the fourth quarter of the circle there is a group—or rather two groups—who are either mere misers or spenders.1 There are always a few men who are stingy in every fiber of their being, whether their worldly wealth consists of fifty cents or $50,000,000. Moreover, they are always despised by their associates, whichever class they belong to. . . . . . . This challenge of the responsibility of riches can be and daily is met in as many different ways as human beings differ in tastes and endowment. . . . The truth is, of course, that most of the finer part of the fabric of modern American civilization rests and probably must continue to rest upon the foundation of the giving of wealthy people. In nearly all our large cities and many smaller towns, as well, most of the universities, colleges, and other higher institutions of education, technical as well as academic, hospitals, art galleries, museums, botanical and zoological gardens, research laboratories, convalescent homes, orchestras and other musical organizations, churches, Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations, and even parks and trade schools, have been founded and are largely maintained by wealthy individuals or families. Before a discussion club in a small city a paper was read on the subject of the Rockefeller Foundation. The members debated the paper in great detail, and many differences of opinion developed. A lawyer of local prominence, who is head of the hospital and library, expressed himself rather bitterly as follows: “I have drawn many wills and practiced for years before the Probate Court. I cannot speak for the very rich, but I do know that people who leave from $100,000 to $500,000, those whose means are from moderate to ample, have pitifully little sense of public obligation. The amount they give to charity is absurdly small.” “Perhaps I can explain that,” said the one rich man in the room. “Those of you whose means are small or moderate cannot possibly realize as I do how charity weakens character, and how its recipients lie down on the job. Loans to needy relatives are not repaid and the recipients of favors are pauperized.”


“But I do not see how that applies to a library or a hospital,” said the hard-pressed president of their board of trustees, and the rich man had no reply at all. So easily do we take for granted all the comforts, refinements, and luxuries of our time, that we give little thought to their origin. The man who pays two dollars for a ticket to a concert given by a symphony or philharmonic orchestra, whose annual deficit is met by a small group of rich men, does not bother to thank them, and usually they do not ask for thanks. . . . Wherever one goes, it will usually be found that the institutions of which the city or town is proudest were made possible by and usually bear the name of this or that donor. Even if there be left out of account the immense sums given by John P. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, it is obvious that a large part of all the fortunes made in this country has gone to found and maintain the varied institutions which have been referred to. In any large city it is easy to make a list of a dozen or a score of such institutions, and there are hundreds of large cities and thousands of towns. Even in the more recently developed sections of the country, there are always a number of public-spirited citizens whose purses seem to be at the call of the community. One citizen of Florida writes of another as follows: “He is remembered as our principal philanthropist. The bridge responsible for the development of Beach was his projection. A lover of natural beauty, he planted trees abundantly along the old Florida roads, taking a special pride in the perfection of Dixie Highway. To him is owed the preservation of the ruins of the Spanish Mission, he having bought the property for the public purpose. He built and equipped New Smyrna’s public library, individually maintaining it for years, finally donating it to the city. His enthusiasm and material contributions have been an inspiration to the Florida Historical Society.” To a great extent rich people seem to act, not always consciously or unselfishly, as mere agencies for collecting money and distributing it for the common good. Even where money is not actually given away, but spent for collections of art, the public usually benefits in the end. Great collectors like Morgan, Frick, Widener, Huntington, Walker, Clark, and Altman seldom wish—or if they wish to, are

unable—to leave their collection for the private enjoyment of a few heirs. Usually they go to some public museum. Yet nothing is farther from the truth than to suppose that all rich men acknowledge and accept the responsibility and obligation which should go with wealth. Among all the lines along which mankind splits there is none so clear as that between those who have the urge of service and those who have it not. “It is far more important what a man does with his life than what he does with his money,” said one of the richest, most active and generous of the Jewish bankers of the country when I put the question to him as to the best use of wealth. In other words, if a man has the will to do the right thing with his life, he is almost certain to make the right use of his money. And if he hap pens to have money, the test of whether he knows how to use his life shows up in what he does with his money. It is solely a question of the individual, his character, tastes, mental equipment, leanings, conscience, education, refinement, and, above all, interest. Men and women divide along these lines in hundreds and thousands of different ways, whether they be rich or poor. Wealth has comparatively little to do with it, although in time it may modify other qualities. Fundamentally, however, every individual has a given personality, whether it be John D. Rockefeller or the poorest hobo, and the use to which he puts his money depends entirely upon that personality.2 This is only another way of saying that people who attempt to explain the actions of the wealthy solely on the basis of an economic interpretation, whether it be of the school of conservatism or that of socialism, overlook the governing factor, which is the human element, or, in the language of science, the biological and psychological. A close student of philanthropy says that giving is not so much a matter of reason or conscience, as of habit, tradition, imitation, social pressure, and sentiment. So we must not be surprised to find that a rather small but fairly definite percentage of all rich men are, to quote the eloquent language of their own associates in plutocracy, who know them best, “as mean as hell.” In preparing this chapter I made out a rough list of about fifty names of individuals and families who are

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considered among the richest in the country. About twenty names I put in a column marked “Known to be large givers,” and in another column were placed an equal number of names bearing the title, “Do not give, as far as I know.” The remaining ten names were placed under a question mark. This list was shown to a number of persons who might be considered authorities on the subject, including several of those whose names were listed, and the extent and variety of the information developed was surprising and somewhat explosive. Several men whom I had supposed had no feeling of responsibility for their wealth were credibly reported to be quiet and bashful, but often very large givers. One man who has the reputation of being very stingy was described by an associate in this way: “If you ask him for anything he gruffly tells you to go to blazes, and then the next day sends you a check for $1,000,000 and asks you to keep it quiet.” Another man who is supposed to lead an idle and empty life on a great inherited fortune was said by an associate to have given away many large sums, but to have been so frightened on the one occasion when he was forced to make a speech at the dedication of a building for the erection of which he gave the funds, that he has always since avoided any gift which involves publicity. It also developed that numerous men of conspicuous wealth who have made their homes and business headquarters in New York without winning any reputation there for generosity, had given large sums to improve small towns in the South and West from which they had originally come. Perhaps they did or did not feel toward these places the way Carnegie felt toward Pittsburgh when he said, “In Pittsburgh I had made my fortune, and in the $28,000,000 spent there she gets back only a small part of what she gave, and to which she is richly entitled.” It appeared, too, that a number of men whom I might at first glance have put down in the wrong column did not belong there, because they had given extensively to certain religious institutions regarding which the writer has but slight knowledge. In general, it may be said that it is unfair to pin the badge of irresponsibility in the use of wealth on any one without knowing all about him or her, for certain gifts bring

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great reputation and others, perhaps just as beneficial, do not. Yet it must be admitted that after showing the list of fifty names to numerous authorities a few cases of either complete selfishness or utter irresponsibility remain, and, like the spot on Lady Macbeth’s hand, have not yet been washed away. Indeed, the mere sight of these names aroused contemptuous and even profane remarks from several men of great wealth to whom the list was shown. The name of one man who seems to have an unpleasant habit of giving a few hundred dollars to causes which demand tens or hundreds of thousands, which sums he can easily afford, called forth unprintable remarks from men of equal wealth whose fortunes came from the same industry. The statement has been made by a careful observer that there are few wealthy families that are not definitely connected with one or more such organization, referring to colleges, libraries, hospitals, art galleries, and the like. Unfortunately, there are a few such families. In most cities there appears to be a rather small, limited and generally well-known group that supports everything and that can always be depended upon to respond to every good cause, while outside this group there are always individuals and families of wealth who refuse to give. The name of a man noted for his philanthropies was placed several years ago on one of those trumpedup inaccurate lists of the very rich which yellow Sunday papers and demagogic politicians love to invent. The philanthropist in question made this comment: “An article which recently appeared in the public press and has created much comment purposed to give a list of the very rich men of this country, and my name was erroneously included in the list. . . . I regret that my fortune is only moderate and that I am not a man of large wealth only because large wealth would enable me to give more. Others measure my fortune by what I give. I give what I can and not merely in proportion of what others who could do more are giving. I would be ashamed to adopt such a standard. I would be ashamed to give what I now give if I had any considerable part of the wealth which is accredited to me.” “I don’t think the average rich man gives until it hurts,” said a lawyer whose clients are of that class.


“But he feels that he does more for the community than should be expected of him. The public complains that he gives only $2,000,000 when he might easily with his income give $5,000,000, but his answer is that mighty few are giving even $2,000,000. He looks at it from the point of view of others in like circumstances who don’t give so much.” “Some people simply cannot give, no matter how much they have,” said one of the richest and most generous men in the country in reply to my question as to why a few people are so stingy. “It is hard to say why this is so. Now take the Blank family, who, you know, have a great deal. They spend so much of their time dodging taxes that they haven’t any left to think about giving. “Then you know as well as I that much giving is wedded to social preferment, and there are people who will give only when they see their names down on the list of a really fashionable charity. Business firms often give because it is good business. “Then there are the selfish givers, in which class I include those who will write out a check for $100,000 for a political fund and only a fraction of that amount for a hospital or college. Then there are the actually undesirable citizens, in which class I include a young man who inherited a fortune which gives him an income of $150,000 a year and who spends all his time playing poker, bridge, and golf for large stakes. “The Boy Scout organization down in the country where he has his summer home was in sore need of funds. Everyone was asked to contribute, and this man gave five dollars. You know there are some people who have ice water in their veins instead of blood. “Nor do I think people deserve much credit for giving large sums at their death. That does not place them among the really generous. They can’t take the money with them, as they would if they could. Nor does the mere giving of money stamp a man as generous unless he gives time and personal interest. Money is nothing to me, but time is very valuable. “With many, failure to give is merely due to lack of education, especially where money has been made very quickly. With those who have had it a long time failure to give seems to me to be due to the same cause—to a stunted growth of intellect. Perhaps in a few cases families have English ideas of

primogeniture. They like to be able to say that the family is wealthy from generation to generation, like the Rothschilds. But I repeat that this represents a stunted intellect. “Of course it is hard to learn to give, especially when you have to make your own way. You ask me why that is, and I can only answer that a man cannot help it. It took Rockefeller a long time to learn to do it right. I was sixty-five before I began to learn the long, hard lesson. I had to start in a small way. For one thing a man who plans to give largely, meets the opposition of his immediate family. Often they want to inherit great wealth which they may or may not use wisely. Personally I feel that very few of them do use it that way. Young Mr. Rockefeller is a striking exception. “Perhaps some day another like Christ will arise in the temple and awaken those who have not yet had their hearts stirred.”

Chapter XIV: Givers and Their Motives Anyone who considers dispassionately and in greater detail than in the last chapter the motives which lead to extensive giving cannot honestly maintain that men and women of wealth, any more than their poorer fellows, are moved only by generosity, altruism, and love of mankind. People give because they are bored and dissatisfied with life, and they give because it is the fad to do so. Also they give because those who ask them are persistent, or perhaps in an increasing number of cases because the donor is under obligations to the person who is shrewdly selected to approach him. Then there is the inheritance tax, which is steadily forcing even the most stingy millionaires to break up their fortunes. No rich man likes to see his estate absorbed into the nameless, impersonal, and bottomless pool of government revenues, expenses, and deficits. Several of the great fortunes of the country, notably those of Frick and Stiliman, have been heavily eaten into by inheritance taxes.3 Still another motive of the rich man is to build a monument to himself. There are those who can do it in their business, and there are others who can do it only through their benefactions. We all want to live in the future, and immortality has many forms.

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Mr. George Eastman, who has himself disbursed such enormous sums, was once quoted as saying that the rich do not give money at all, they merely distribute it. Only the poor, or those of moderate means, give, according to this authority.4 It must be agreed that one motive for giving on the part of men of great personal force, is their desire to continue to achieve. This is not generosity, it is not giving in the ordinary sense of the word. Mr. Eastman is quite right about it. But such a distribution of wealth, and the qualities which it shows to be inherent in many a rich man, are admirable and useful to the community. It is a characteristic of men of large affairs to go on from one job to another. At one stage it is money making, at another giving. A “copper king” founded a research institution several years ago, and more recently has started another. An account of his gifts says: “Already the Institution for Research is a thing of the past with him (although he continues and will continue to support it) and the Foundation for at now the big thing. He fulfills the ideals expressed by Theodore Roosevelt: “‘I wish it to be understood that I have not the slightest prejudice against multi-millionaires. I like them. But I always feel this way when I meet one of them: You have made millions—good; that means you have something in you. I wish you would show it.” Fortunately a characteristic of many such men is their almost pitiful desire to be known for something besides their money. Many of them overvalue wealth and base their class distinctions upon it. But nearly always contending with this trait is the desire to be valued for themselves rather than for their money. In conversation, in the personal and social contacts of life, the rich man prefers to be known for his knowledge of art, of old furniture, of football, of chicken raising even, or for his connection with the local hospital and with his college endowment drive, rather than for the size of his income. It becomes still more dangerous to generalize in terms of praise or blame when we dig into the motives which lead to any particular gift. Certainly no one will do much generalization on this subject after reading the chapters on “Why We Give and How We Decide

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What to Give,” in Lilian Brandt’s most interesting little book on How Much Shall I Give? Many people have poked fun at the Carnegie libraries, and others have considered them the finest gifts to mankind. But anyone who studies the life of Andrew Carnegie will doubt whether these libraries were given as the result of cold reasoning. From his earliest days the little steel master had a passion for books, which was difficult to satisfy three-quarters of a century ago. He considered his greatest benefactor to have been the man who first loaned him a considerable number of books. Besides, his father had been one of a small group of workmen who pooled their meager volumes in the little Scotch village of Dunfermline and loaned them to their less fortunate fellows. Thus it was inevitable that Andrew Carnegie should establish libraries. The English statesman Burke once said that no one knows a man’s motives except the Creator and himself, and that the man himself does not always know them. It is a person of unusual poise, intellect, and philosophical insight who can analyze his own motives, and no one can analyze another’s motives. Men give or do not give because of the effect upon and obligations to themselves, their families, their friends, their business, and the public. Sheer altruism and a pure intellectual sense of duty and responsibility are not wholly absent, but they certainly are not the whole thing. But just as the reasons for giving are not simple, so the reasons for not giving are almost equally complicated. A man with several children cannot dispose of his riches quite so lightly as one who has no such dependents, as we have seen in the preceding chapter. A young man of the writer’s acquaintance who inherited a considerable fortune not only has several children of his own, but manages trust funds for something like thirty different women and children who are related to him. Inevitably in such a case the tendency is toward the conservation rather than the distribution of wealth. Nor does a man in serious domestic difficulties have much time to think about giving. It is commonly stated that only a small percentage of the rich support the social work in any community.5 But we are dealing here with a most confused and clouded subject. Who can say how in any individual


case a man’s obligations to himself, family, relatives, friends, business, city, and nation compete with one another? Mrs. Russell Sage, who gave away a large portion of her husband’s great fortune shortly after she came into it, had no children. George Eastman, who is a bachelor, and Edward S. Harkness, who has no children, are two of the larger givers in the country today. I do not mean to imply that any of these three was or is lacking in the finest qualities. Eastman and Harkness are spoken of in the highest terms by those who know them. Harkness, who represents the greatest, perhaps, of the Standard Oil fortunes next to that of Rockefeller, is said to take the responsibilities of his wealth more seriously than any other person in the country. One reason why the circle of large givers is so limited is that active businessmen are unable to give in proportion to their paper, or supposed, wealth. This is best illustrated by an imaginary case. Suppose Henry Ford and his son Edsel, who are the sole owners of the Ford Motor Company, should take into partnership one of their managers, agreeing to give him a onefifth interest, to be paid for by him out of his share of the profits. If the company pays dividends of $30,000,000 in one year his income would be $6,000,000. He will first have to turn a large part of this over to the government in supertaxes, and the remainder he owes to Ford. Yet someone will arise to say that he is a very stingy man because he does not give away a large part of his income! In course of time this man will have paid for his interest, and if then the company should be sold to a syndicate of bankers the situation might become entirely different. Suppose the bankers buy out the three owners for $500,000,000 in bonds or preferred stock. The third partner will then have $100,000,000 in securities, and if he does not then give away any of his wealth he will deserve the title of tightwad or something much worse. Nor is this case so imaginary as it might seem. It follows closely that of Carnegie, and is not so different from that of Rockefeller. I do not wish to take away any of the credit which these two men deserve, but few people seem to appreciate the simple, under-

lying reason for the vastness of their gifts. Mr. Carnegie gave away $350,000,000. He gave to more than five hundred educational institutions alone. Most men can give away only a part of their incomes, and if they try to give away their principal they endanger the very life of the industry out of which their income is made. But Carnegie sold out his business, lock, stock, and barrel, for securities which he could distribute widely without taking one single cent out of the business itself. Though Rockefeller did not sell out in the same sense, he long ago retired from business, owning a vast mass of stable and valuable securities, the total being far beyond the conceivable wants of his family. Moreover, the passing of these securities over to this or that foundation or institute could not possibly injure or ever affect the Standard Oil Company any more than the giving away of Carnegie’s bonds could affect the United States Steel Corporation. Both companies had grown far beyond the point where they needed or even could be helped by the personal credit or borrowing capacity of any individual. But there are many men in active business whom the public supposes to be very rich who are never out of debt. I am credibly informed that one of the most experienced and prominent businessmen in the country has never been free from obligations. When a banker in a position to know the facts was asked why one of the supposedly top-notch business successes of the country did not give away more money, this reply was elicited: “Perhaps he prefers to lose his money rather than give it away.” A man of about forty-five, who has won an enviable reputation for his endeavors to put both his time and his inherited fortune to the best use, when congratulated upon what he had done with his life, replied that he deserved no credit, since his wealth was in a form which did not take all of his time to care for. He remarked that another man of the same age with an even greater inherited fortune should not be criticized for giving all of his time to further moneymaking because this particular fortune, being invested in banking, required constant vigilance on the part of the owner. At any rate, there can be little doubt that

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the amount of time and money which a rich man can give to good works depends to no small extent upon the form which his investment takes. But it would be a foolish mistake to convey the idea that only those who have inherited wealth are notable givers. Not only have great sums been given by such self-made men as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Eastman, Heckscher, and Rosenwald, but among the meanest of our plutocratic families are some of those in the second, third, fourth, and even fifth generations. It is natural to expect the newly rich man to hold on to his money and to be so engrossed with himself that he has no time to think of others. In all countries the profiteer who has just bought an estate is dreaded by the tenants. The rugged captain of industry who has made his own way must be “sold” when approached for a contribution to the worthiest of charities, just as he must be sold on a new investment. I think these qualities in the newly rich are easier to understand than the extreme reluctance of most of the members of certain families of great inherited wealth to part with any of the dough which father or grandfather or great-grandfather made. But let us be fair even to these gentry. In the second, third, and fourth generations an income of $250,000 or $500,000, which is usually fixed in amount no matter how large, is just as likely to be appropriated by circumstances as an income of $10,000 a year. Income and expenses both are likely to be more fixed and inflexible than those of the founder of the fortune. The second and third generation man has a place here and a place there, the mere upkeep of which is a very large item. To give away much requires a violent change in habits which the owner has come to consider a fixed part of his life. Such people feel they have a position to keep up, and their wealth is often less in proportion to the way they live than that of the founder of the fortune. Nor do they have the ability or knowledge, as a rule, to increase their incomes the way the rugged founder had.6 An old gentleman of impressively large wealth was asked some years ago by another millionaire to go on the board of trustees of a university so famous that the position was one of real honor. The old gentleman accepted, but when, a few months later, he was again ap-

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proached by the other millionaire and asked to contribute toward the deficit, he drew himself up haughtily and said, “Is that why I was made a trustee?” and thereupon resigned in great indignation. This represents the extreme type of supersensitive, or perhaps it is the superegotistical, rich man, who becomes so suspicious of everyone that he has no friends left. Fortunately most men, whether rich or poor, do not take themselves so seriously as all that. To the owners of three of the great fortunes of the country I put a series of questions along these lines. Two of these, one a man of twenty-eight and the other of forty-four, inherited their money, the younger man being in the third generation. The third man made it all and at the time of the interview was in his seventy-fourth year. He described the questions as Procrustean—that is, ruthless. But he answered them without flinching, as did the other two. Here are the questions: Is it true that rich men find it difficult to serve because people associated with them either defer to them or try to be bumptious? Are not the conditions surrounding the rich man so unnatural and artificial that he hardly knows which way to turn? Does he not get too much advice? Does he not really dislike being fortune’s darling? Are not his responsibilities a great burden to him? “That’s a lot of rot,” said the man of twenty-eight, “unless a chap takes himself too seriously, and that he will not do if he has any sense of proportion. I don’t know how people will act toward me when I am older, but they certainly do not defer to me now.” “I do not think this is true of the man who is really on the job,” said the forty-four-year-old. “It is true that in some cases the man of wealth is deferred to too much for his own good. I am deferred to in one organization to which I give a large sum each year, but I know that my checkbook is not the only reason. I give more time to this work than any other man on the board, and I am so intensely interested that the other members respect my judgment because they know it is based on long experience, enthusiasm, and hard work. More than that, when money is needed for this and many other causes I go around and personally beg of the richest men in the country.”

Thoughts on the Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions

“No, I do not think your points apply so much in this as in other countries,” said the man of seventythree. “I do not regard the responsibilities of wealth as a burden if one keeps his health and maintains a detached mental attitude, although I do think that many young men who inherit wealth regard themselves as wonders when they really ought to think of themselves as being very small. But on the other hand when they do accomplish things they often fail to get the credit they deserve, because people say: ‘Look at his money. I could have done just as well with it myself.’” There is little doubt that one’s attitude toward the use of wealth is governed to no small extent by age. When a man starts to make a fortune he is naturally fascinated by large figures. His first goal may be the fortune itself, but as time goes on and he realizes how little money will buy, he gradually becomes more interested in how the money is made than in how much. The very young man naturally enjoys the mere selfish pleasures which money can give, such as sport and luxurious living and also the sense of accomplishment and achievement which goes with active participation in business. Besides, he feels he must win his spurs. Though there are exceptions to all such generalities, yet with many older men the so-called pleasures of life and money-making to an extent at least lose their charm, whereas the giving or distribution of their money should in most cases prove a growing source of pleasure. It is wholly normal that young people, with the vigor of their youth, should take less thought for the unfortunate and uneducated than older persons, who have themselves begun to realize that even wealth cannot stave off infirmity and suffering. The most wholesome situation obviously is that where men of middle life feel a sense of responsibility and stewardship in the use of their wealth. Surely it is to be hoped, if we are to retain our faith in human nature, that the lives of the rich are not divided into two completely separate compartments— selfish accumulation, and distribution occasioned by the approach of death. Presumably there are many who share with others as they go along, and do not wait for old age to creep upon them. It is only fair to say that one reason so many millionaires appear to

wait until the fear of death is upon them to give away, is because they did not have the money to give any sooner. All of which brings us back to the essential and unavoidable idea that the use of wealth is not primarily a question of money or economics at all, but of the personality of the individual, and of what seem to him the important values of life. One of the richest five or six men in the country is so bashful, or something else of that sort, that he will not even meet the presidents of universities who come to thank him for his gifts. It seems to many people that this man is missing a great deal of fun, but if a person wishes to be a recluse, or if he is made that way, then about all that can be said of him is that if he likes that sort of thing, then that is the sort of thing he likes. Another and opposite type was Andrew Carnegie, who used the power of his money to bring to him every interesting person that he knew about. The only really hopeless case, however, is the rich man who takes no vital interest in any important subject. He deserves only asphyxiation. Notes: 1. These latter were described in Chapter IX. 2. This point is developed in detail in Chapter I. 3, See Chapter XVI. 4. “The duty of giving is not limited to the few. In fact, it is not the millionaire who, in giving, makes the personal sacrifice. He can afford it. It is the man of moderate means whose generosity involves a real sacrifice.” –John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Interview in New York Times, March 29, 1925. 5. Chapter XIII also treats this subject. 6. But see Chapters XII and XIII. Reference: Atwood, Albert W. 1926. The Mind of the Millionaire. New York: Harper, 1, 12–13, 170–195.

Thoughts on the Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions Frederick T. Gates Frederick T. Gates was a most trusted advisor to John D. Rockefeller and he was also a Baptist minister. In this attachment to a 1926 letter to Rockefeller it is noteworthy that Gates advises that the Rockefeller philanthropies

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should be spent down as well as that Rockefeller should not give endowment gifts. These two arguments continue to be at the front of the foundation debates today. The last hundred years show great continuous and increasing progress in the United States and in all the elements of human well-being, notwithstanding a heavy foreign immigration, much of which was of inferior type. Against this we are not protected by the stringent new immigration laws. Besides inheriting all that our past has achieved, the next hundred years must see a far greater and more rapid uplift in well-being then the last. The inexhaustible natural resources of our national domain will be more fully developed. National wealth will be multiplied. The average citizen will be of a higher type than the average many of today. He will be more intelligent, better trained, more public spirited, more disinterested, more efficient. He will serve his own generation better than we serve ours. He will know his own needs infinitely better than we can guess them, for needs change. If we thrust forward the dead hand of fixed endowments upon future generations, we would repeat the blunders of two thousand years, and invite the fate of civil confiscation, well-nigh universal in Europe. For these reasons and many others I no longer believe that the endowments of the Rockefeller Philanthropies should be permanently maintained. They should all be disendowed by distribution of assets as rapidly as convenient. In this connection I wish to add that the current social charities, dependent annually on private gifts, should never be endowed either in whole or in part. I admit that they are necessary. They tend to give partial relief to the suffering of the submerged tenth, which deserving sufferers of the higher type scorn to accept, preferring to conceal their need and endure it. These charities give play to pity and compassion, but they do not reach the sources of evil they seek to correct. They do not diminish the flow of its fountains. At best they are merely soothing external applications, or temporary opiates. The stern logic of evolution is against them as contrary to nature’s methods. But we Christians can point out that even wild beasts show sympathy and mutual helpfulness. With social progress social needs change from decade to decade.

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New charities emerge. Old charities become obsolete and once obsolete they become evils and should be and soon are dissolved. But if endowed, they become fixed evils and invite the civil confiscation that ultimately befalls them. Just now there is a popular craze for endowing them in whole or in part. Arising from many sources this craze is perpetuated mainly by the volunteer solicitors eager to save themselves the trouble of personal appeals. But these are essential. They develop and maintain public interest, watch-care and protection. Endowed charities, on the other hand, tend to bureaucracy, maladministration and ultimate scandal. Moreover, endowments in part never cease to struggle for the endowment in full, that smothers the vital breath of social charity. Also, we tend to forget that the main value of charity accrues not to the recipient but to the giver. The widow’s mite was judged to be the greatest gift of all, not because of its purchasing power but because of the spirit of the giver. The blessing of charity lies not in the receiving but in the giving. It is the giving that is the more blessed. Why, then, by endowments rob charity of its chief human service – the service to the giver? The local charities of Christian communities should not be endowed in whole or in part. If now it be desirable that the Rockefeller Philanthropies be disendowed and the current local charities be not endowed at all, the question arises what general course may be wisely pursued by Mr. John D. Rockefeller Jr. in the premises, a. He may wisely refrain from adding to his present philanthropic endowments. b. He is personally giving away, at home and abroad, vast sums annually. So far as convenient and possible let him substitute for these personal gifts, appropriations, at home and abroad, from the endowment funds of the various Rockefeller Philanthropies with the view of putting them actively at work for this present generation. c. When any of these various endowment funds becomes exhausted, let the chartered philanthropies be annually supported by appropriations from the colossal endowment funds of the Rockefeller Foundation, which by

Thoughts on the Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions

charter can support them all until they too are set to work. d. May I suggest in this connection that Mr. Rockefeller seriously review the practice of conditional giving by himself and his philanthropies. It has always been attended with distasteful and perhaps indefensible features. Dr. Eliot saw them and always argued against conditions. The contributing public does not like the conditional feature. That the conditional feature is often asked by the beneficiary is carefully concealed from the public. The public thinks it imposed by Mr. Rockefeller and some speak bitterly about it. They say they are not in his class. He can give without feeling it. Weighed down by a colossal fortune, giving some of it away must be to him a relief. They too are willing to give and theirs is more meritorious than his because they give out of their comparative poverty, he of his opulence. By reason of his unexampled wealth he is in the worst possible position to make his own giving dependent in the least on theirs. Is it for him to indicate when, where, how much, and for what they shall contribute, under penalty of his declining to give at all? Moreover the greater the Rockefeller conditional subscriptions, personal or chartered, the severer the pressure forced on the local constituency. After years of such complaints I cannot doubt that it is for Mr. Rockefeller’s personal interest that he and his philanthropies should give outright and cease to give conditionally. But I could not urge this if I did not also believe that it is equally for the interest of the beneficiaries themselves. Nothing would carry so great public confidence and response as a big unconditional gift from “The Rockefellers” to any worthy institution. And surely it would be an immense relief to “The Rockefellers” to be released from the trammels and responsibilities of conditional appropriations, and exactly like all other citizens give when, where and as much or little as they please. Conditional giving ties the hands of the giver. His gifts can neither be

numerous, free nor great. If continued disendowment would be impossible. I once asked Dr. Eliot what he would do with a hundred million if he had it. “Give every dollar of it to Higher Education” was his prompt but well-considered reply. The answer was never so obviously wise as it has become since the war. Our higher institutions have been overwhelmed with students. This congestion of the colleges and universities is not temporary but permanent. It is annually increasing, and is bound to increase. I repeat that every dollar of our educational funds should not be set to work. The endowment of the General Education Board in particular should be distributed as fast as possible. Never will the country need it more than now. I would not hesitate to distribute the whole of it among the greatest privately endowed universities of the land, for illustration: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Hopkins, Chicago, Western Reserve, Nashville, Brown, Washington in St. Louis and others. A like distribution should be made to the most influential colleges, like Bowdoin, Amherst, Williams, Middletown, Union, Bucknell, and many others. Why not give for endowment, unconditionally, an average of $5,000,000 each to the list above. The funds so distributed should go to General endowment, and not be used for grounds, buildings, equipment apparatus, current expenses, fellowships, scholarships or student aid, all of which should be and will be provided by interested members of the institutional clientelle. The privilege should be left to them. For reasons which I have urged in season and out of season for the last ten years I would appropriate no funds to state universities. a. It is opposed to the interests of the state universities themselves. b. It is violative of the very principle on which they are founded. c. It is distinctly contrary to public policy. d. The weakness of the state universities lies in their dependence on the legislature for their annual support, and the legislatures do interfere directly and indirectly with freedom of opinion and teaching. They habitually dictate the popular

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whims on political, social, economic and scientific questions north and south. Our best service to the state universities is by no means to give them money, but to protect them in freedom of teaching by throwing around them in every state a cordon of strong, free, privately endowed colleges and universities, to influence and control public sentiment. A good many millions – is it seven? – have been given recently to state universities, contrary to the public interest, by Mr. Rockefeller’s two oldest chartered philanthropies. I raise the question whether these appropriations are not in violation of our charters and illegal. Can a state treasury be defined as an object of private charity within the legal definition of a charity or philanthropy? I would welcome the matured opinion of Mr. Debevoise on that point. Or again, could it have been the purpose of Mr. Rockefeller in founding his philanthropies, to distribute all their funds to the states? And if in principle not all, then why any part? The endowment of colleges and universities has proved since the middle ages to be an enduring philanthropy and practically the only one. The Higher Education is the chief need of every generation, beyond bare subsistence. The universities are historically the source of all education, even the most primary. They both create and adjust themselves continuously to human progress. They have both created and disseminated modern science, and the development of modern science is the true index of the progress of civilization. The well-being of posterity will depend on the universities. For these reasons and many others the universities and colleges can never die. They must grow in number and power and in the future as in the past they will survive social, political, and religious revolutions, even the most violent. And the colleges and universities are not only nourished and revered, but also passionately loved. Around each of them is an ever-widening clientelle of loyal students, graduates, fellows, professors, patrons, with their families and friends. Great discoveries, great names, proud traditions, gather around them. Nowhere else do we witness such passionate devotion or a partiality so invincible.

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For the speedy disendowment of the Rockefeller Philanthropies no field is so safe, so promising, so ample, so timely, so popular, so grateful, as unconditional endowment gifts to the colleges and universities of the United States. Why not divide two or three hundred millions among them now, and set it to work? I turn not to a wholly different field of usefulness, the field of permanent investment. This offers opportunities quite as philanthropic as philanthropy itself. With all their great philanthropies, it is doubtful if the greatest public service of the Messrs. Rockefeller has not been in their investments. They have neither hoarded nor used for display, nor wasted any of the great fortune. They have no private yachts, or private cars, or racing stables, or magnificent establishments. They have kept the whole fortune invested at all times in the development of the resources of the country at home and of favored nations abroad. They have permanently enlarged the means of subsistence, manufacture, transportation, commerce, distribution. They have given remunerative employment to multitudes and contributed to the health, comfort and happiness of multitudes more. The Messrs. Rockefeller cannot take with them when they go hence any of these factors of well-being. They will remain here, for the permanent enrichment of the coming generations. The Rockefellers have done incomparably more to permanently enrich the commonwealth than any other family since the founding of the republic. It is perhaps their greatest service, a service not often appreciated or even recognized. I hope it will be adequately treated in any forthcoming biographies. It is true that the stocks and bonds, – the mere pieces of paper that represent ownership – may be handed on to the Rockefeller descendents, and may become widely distributed, perhaps the wider the better. Who shall successively own them is not of the slightest public moment. The utilities themselves are a gift to the present and the future, and the permanent prosperity of the commonwealth. Mr. John D. Rockefeller is annually giving away vast sums of money at home and abroad, but the funds he wisely invests are no less treasure in heaven than the funds he gives away.

Principles of Public Giving

Reference: Frederick T. Gates Collection. Box 3, Folder 57. Sleepy Hollow, NY: Rockefeller Archive Center.

Principles of Public Giving Julius Rosenwald Julius Rosenwald was the founder of Sears, Roebuck, and Co. and a major supporter of schools for blacks in the South. He incorporated his fund in 1917 as a family foundation. A decade later he changed it from a personal to a corporate enterprise, enlarged the board, and accompanied a new gift with a letter stating his views on liquidation of the fund. It represents a relatively rare practice to have a foundation go out of business after a specified period of time. He reached the public on his views on philanthropy through a popular article excerpted here from the Atlantic Monthly in 1929, in which he includes his letter to the Trustees. There are few colleges in the land today which are not striving for ‘adequate endowment.’ Museums, orchestras, operas, homes for the aged, hospitals, orphanages, and countless other charitable and remedial organizations, are aiming at the same goal. It was recently estimated that more than two and a half billion dollars were given to various endowments in this country in the last fifteen years. The sum is vast, equal to the total national wealth a hundred years ago, but institutions continue to solicit more and greater endowments, and men of wealth are encouraging them with ever-increasing gifts. All of this giving and receiving is proceeding without much, if any, attention to the underlying question whether perpetual endowments are desirable. Perhaps the time has come to examine, or rather reexamine, this question, for it is not a new one in the long history of philanthropy. I approach this discussion neither as an economist nor as a sociologist, but simply as an American citizen whose experience as a contributor to charitable causes and as a trustee of endowed institutions has given him some insight into the practical side of the problem. My only purpose is to raise the question of

how best we may aid in the advancement of public welfare. We can learn more from British experience, which has been more varied as well as longer than our own. Monasteries, in the earlier centuries, received such enormous grants that Edward I and his successors undertook to limit their possessions. Despite these efforts, it is estimated that shortly before Henry VIII secularized the monasteries, between one-third and one-half of the public wealth of England was held for philanthropic use. This first great struggle between the living State and the dead hand indicated, as Sir Arthur Hobhouse has pointed out, that the ‘nation cannot endure for long the spectacle of large masses of property settled to unalterable uses.’ This experience was reflected in laws intended to restrict charitable bequests in perpetuity, but the endowment of charities of all kinds continued until there was hardly a community in all England without its local fund. So obvious had abuses become that a Parliamentary Commission was created to inquire into the situation. Its preliminary report, published in 1837, filled thirty-eight folio volumes and listed nearly thirty thousand endowments with a combined annual income of more than 1,200,000. Those who view endowments uncritically might think the condition of English charities fifty years ago happy in the extreme, for less than 5 percent of the population lived in parishes without endowed charities, all sorts of human needs had been provided for by generous donors, and funds were increasing rapidly. But Mr. Gladstone, who certainly was a humanitarian, rose in the House of Commons to say that the three commissions which had investigated the endowed charities ‘all condemned them, and spoke of them as doing a greater amount of evil than of good in the forms in which they have been established and now exist.’ The history of charities abounds in illustrations of the paradoxical axiom that, while charity tends to do good, perpetual charities tend to do evil. James C. Young, in a recent article, ‘The Dead Hand in Philanthropy,’ reports that some twenty thousand English foundations have ceased to operate because changing conditions have nullified the good intentions of the donors; and a large number of American funds, many

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of them of comparatively recent origin, have likewise become useless. When I was a boy in Springfield, Illinois, the covered wagons, westward bound, rolled past our door. The road ahead was long and full of hardships for the pioneers. They were hardy and self-reliant men and women, but many of them were so inadequately equipped that if misfortune overtook them, as it frequently did, they were almost certainly doomed to suffering, and perhaps death. The worst hardships and dangers of the Western trail had passed in my boyhood, but there was still use, then, for the Bryan Mullanphy fund, established in 1851 for ‘worthy and distressed travelers and emigrants passing through St. Louis to settle for a home in the West.’ A few years later the trustees could with difficulty find anyone to whom the proceeds of the fund might be given. Some years ago, for lack of beneficiaries, the income had piled up until the fund totaled a million dollars. I have not followed its later fortunes, but, unless the courts have authorized a change in the will, that money is still accumulating, and will accumulate indefinitely. The Mullanphy gift was a godsend in its brief day. The man who gave it found one of the most urgent needs of his time and filled that need precisely. He made only one mistake: he focused his gift too sharply. He forgot that time passes and nothing—not even the crying needs of an era—endures. He deserves to be remembered as a generoushearted man who realized, perhaps better than anyone else in his generation, that a wealth of pioneer blood and energy was being dissipated in the creation of our American empire. If he is remembered at all, it is more likely as the creator of a perpetuity which lost its usefulness almost as soon as it was established. Mullanphy’s mistake has been made not once but countless scores of times. It has been made by some of the wisest of men. Benjamin Franklin in drawing his will assumed that there would always be apprentices and that they would always have difficulty when starting in business for themselves in borrowing money at a rate as low as 5 percent. In addition, he assumed that a loan of three hundred dollars was enough to enable a young mechanic to establish himself independently. With these assumptions in mind, Franklin set up two loan funds of a thousand pounds each. One was for

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the benefit of ‘young married artificers not over the age of twenty-five’ who had served their apprenticeships in Boston, and the other for young men of similar situation in Philadelphia. The accumulated interest as well as the principal was to be lent out for a hundred-years. By that time, Franklin’s calculations showed, each thousand pounds would have amounted to 135,000. One hundred thousand pounds of each fund was then to be spent. The Boston fund was to be used in constructing ‘fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements or whatever may make living in the town more convenient for its people and render it more agreeable to strangers.’ In Philadelphia, he foresaw that the wells which in his day supplied the city with water would become polluted; accordingly, he proposed that Philadelphia’s fund should be used for piping the waters of Wissihicken Creek into the city. Fortunately, Boston provided herself with pavements, and Philadelphia herself with a water supply, without waiting for Franklin’s money. Great as his intellectual powers were, he had miscalculated at every point. The class he proposed to benefit gradually became nonexistent; therefore the funds failed to accumulate as rapidly as he had anticipated. At the end of a hundred years, instead of the $675,000 he had expected in each fund, there were only $391,000 in Boston and $90,000 in Philadelphia, and meanwhile the good works which he had chosen as the grand climax of a career devoted to good works had long been provided. Benjamin Franklin was a wise man, and so was Alexander Hamilton; yet it was Hamilton who drafted the will of Robert Richard Randall, who in the first years of the last century left a farm to be used as a haven for superannuated sailors. A good many years ago the courts were called upon to construe the word ‘sailor’ to include men employed on steamships. Even so, the fund for Snug Harbor, I am assured, vastly exceeds any reasonable requirement for the care of retired seafarers. The farm happened to be situated on Fifth Avenue, New York. Today it is valued at thirty or forty million dollars. I have heard of a fund which provides a baked potato at each meal for each young woman at Bryn Mawr, and of another, dating from one of the great famines, which pays for a half a loaf of bread deposited


each day at the door of each student in one of the colleges at Oxford. Gifts to educational institutions often contain provisions which are made absurd by the advance of learning. An American university has an endowed lectureship on coal gas as the cause of malarial fever. In 1727, Dr. Woodward, in endowing a chair at Cambridge, England, directed that the incumbent should lecture for all time on his Natural History of the Earth and his defense of it against Dr. Camerarius. It did not occur to the good doctor that his scientific theories might eventually become obsolete; yet, with the passing of years and the progress of scientific knowledge, the holder of the chair had to admit his inability to comply with the founder’s instructions and at the same time execute Dr. Woodward’s plain intent— namely, to teach science. The list of these precisely focused gifts which have lost their usefulness could be extended into volumes, but I am willing to rest the case on Franklin and Hamilton. With all their sagacity, they could not foresee what the future would bring. The world does not stand still. Anyone old enough to vote has seen revolutionary changes in the mechanics of living, and these changes have been accompanied and abetted by changing points of view toward the needs and desires of our fellow men. I do not know how many millions of dollars have been given in perpetuity for the support of orphan asylums. The Hershey endowment alone is said to total $40,000,000 and more. Orphan asylums began to disappear about the time the old-fashioned wall telephone went out. We know now that it is far better for penniless orphans, as for other children, to be brought up under home influence. The cost of home care for orphans is no greater than the cost of maintaining them in an orphanage. But the question is not one of cost, but of the better interest of the children. Institutional life exposes them needlessly to contagion, and is likely to breed a sense of inferiority that twists the mind. The money which the dead hand holds out to orphan asylums cannot be used for any other purpose than maintaining orphan asylums; it therefore serves to perpetuate a type of institution that most men of good will and good sense no longer approve. To protest twenty-five years ago that orphans were not best cared for in asylums would have been consid-

ered visionary; fifty years ago it would have been considered crack-brained. There is no endowed institution today which is more firmly approved by public opinion than orphanages were within the life time of any man of middle age. Let that fact serve as a symbol and a warning to those who are tempted to pile up endowments in perpetuity. There is another and to my mind no less grievous error into which many givers still are likely to fall. They conceive that money given for philanthropic purposes must be given, if not for a limited object, then at least in perpetuity: the principal must remain intact and only the income may be spent. The result has been, as many a trustee knows, that institutions have become ‘endowment poor.’ Though they have many millions of dollars in their treasuries, the trustees can touch only the 4 or 5 percent a year that the money earns. There is no means of meeting an extraordinary demand upon the institution, an extraordinary opportunity for increasing its usefulness. Research suffers; museums are unable to purchase objects that never again will be available; experiments of all sorts are frowned upon, not because they do not promise well, but because money to undertake anything out of the ordinary cannot be found, while huge sums are regularly budgeted to carry on traditional and routine activities. And nothing serves more successfully to discourage additional gifts than the knowledge that an institution already possesses great endowments. As a trustee of the University of Chicago, I know how difficult the problem is. Opportunities for purchasing libraries or for extending the work of some department into new fields are continually coming before us, and though we have endowments of $43,000,000 we have frequently been unable to authorize the use of even a few thousands for some object which would add much to the University’s resources and usefulness, to say nothing of its prestige. We may not even convert the principal of our endowments into books or men, which are the real endowment of any university. A number of years ago the University started collecting more endowment. I did not contribute to the fund, but instead turned over a sum of which the principal may be exhausted. That fund, I am assured, has

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been of considerable service. It has been used for such diverse purposes as the purchase of the library of a Cambridge professor; for paying part of the cost of Professor Michelson’s ether drift experiments; for reconstructing the twelve-inch telescope at Yerkes Observatory; for a continuation of research in glacial erosion in the state of Washington, and for research in phonetics. If the fund had been given as permanent endowment, it is obvious that some of the objects could not have been achieved. The men who desired to undertake experiments and research might have been forced to postpone their investigations; the books purchased might have been scattered among a dozen libraries, never to be reassembled. It is true that money disbursed now will not yield income to the University fifty years hence, but it is also true that fifty years hence other contributors can be found to supply the current needs of that generation. I am convinced that the timidity of trustees themselves is often responsible for their inability to spend principal. Donors would in many cases be willing to give greater discretion to trustees in such matters if they were asked to do so. A notable example in point is the consent by Mr. Carnegie, more than ten years ago, to the current use of funds which he had given originally for endowment to Tuskegee Institute. At a time when this school was in desperate need of money, I proposed at a meeting of the board of which Honorable Seth Low was chairman and Theodore Roosevelt was a member that we request Mr. Carnegie to permit us to spend not only the interest but also a small portion of the principal of his gift. My suggestion was at first frowned upon. Finally the board agreed, and a letter, dated January 24, 1916, was sent to Mr. Carnegie by Mr. Low which read in part as follows: I am writing to submit to you a suggestion which has been made to me by one or two of my fellow trustees of the board of Tuskegee Institute. Mr. Rosenwald, in particular, who is a generous supporter of the Institute, feels very strongly that a permanent endowment fund is less useful than a fund the principal of which can be used up in fifty years, his idea being that every institution like a school ought to commend itself so strongly to the living as to command their interest and support . . . In accordance

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with this suggestion, I am writing to ask whether you would be willing to permit the trustees to use, each year, at their discretion, not more than 2 percent of the principal of the fund which you so generously gave some years ago toward the endowment of the Institute. It is always possible that within the lifetime of the next generation industrial training for the negro race will be assumed by the state or national government. Should any such change or any unforeseen change in conditions take place, a fund so firmly tied up in perpetuity that the principal cannot be touched, except possibly through an act of the legislature, might be a disadvantage rather than an advantage. To this Mr. Carnegie’s secretary, Mr. John A. Poynton, replied on February 23, 1916, giving Mr. Carnegie’s approval to the suggestion in the following terms: Mr. Carnegie has given careful thought to the proposal that your trustees be permitted to use each year a portion of the principal of the fund which he contributed toward endowment. In establishing his foundation Mr. Carnegie has favored the plan of giving the trustees and their successors the right to change the policy governing the disposition of the principal as well as interest when to them it might seem expedient, believing it impossible for those now living to anticipate the needs of future generations. Mr. Carnegie would be happy to have the trustees of Tuskegee assume a similar responsibility in connection with the fund which he contributed toward the endowment of that institute, and asks me to say that he is willing to have a small percentage of the principal used annually for current expenses if three-fourths of the members of your board should decide in favor of such a plan. Here is evidence that Mr. Carnegie might have relaxed the terms of his other gifts had he been asked to do so. It was not the donor but the trustees who were timid. (I have seen trustees act in much the same way in matters of financial administration. Men accustomed to investing a large part of their private fortunes in sound common stocks have felt that as trustees they must invest only in first mortgages or bonds. Of late a good many boards of trustees have enjoyed a change of heart, to the vast benefit of the institutions they serve. But that is a digression.) In some of the institutions with which I am best acquainted,


funds given with no strings attached have been added to the perpetual endowment as a matter of course. It is a noteworthy fact, though not as widely known as it should be, that the Rockefeller foundations are not perpetuities. If any of them today are wealthier than at their establishment, it is not because the trustees are not free to spend principal when the occasion rises. As a matter of fact, I am told these boards have expended about seventy-five million dollars of their capital or special funds, and it is probable that at least two of them will disburse all of their principal funds within another decade or two. I am opposed to gifts in perpetuity for any purpose. I do not advocate profligate spending of principal. That is not the true alternative to perpetuities. I advocate the gift which provides that the trustees may spend a small portion of the capital—say, not to exceed 5 to 10 percent—in any one year in addition to the income if in their judgment there is good use at hand for the additional sums. Men who argue that permission to spend principal will lead to profligate spending do not know the temper of trustees and the sense of responsibility they feel toward funds entrusted to them; nor do they appreciate the real difficulties which face donors and trustees of foundations in finding objects worthy of support. I am prepared to say that some of the keenest minds in this country are employed by foundations and universities in seeking such objects; yet, when a real need is discovered, it often cannot be met adequately, simply because of restrictions placed on funds in hand. The point has been raised that great institutions must have perpetual endowments to tide them through hard times when new money may not be forthcoming. Those are precisely the times when it is most important to have unrestricted funds which will permit our institutions to continue their work until conditions improve, as they always do. A great institution like Harvard ought not to have to restrict its activities merely because its income for one reason or another has been temporarily curtailed. The spending of a million or two of principal at such a time is not imprudent. Sound business sense, indeed, would commend it. I am thinking not only of university endowments, but also of the great foundations established to in-

crease the sum of knowledge and happiness among men. Too many of these are in perpetuity. It is an astonishing fact that the men who gave them—for the most part, hard-headed business men who abhorred bureaucracy—have not guarded, in their giving, against this blight. I think it is almost inevitable that as trustees and officers of perpetuities grow old they become more concerned to conserve the funds in their care than to wring from those funds the greatest possible usefulness. That tendency is evident already in some of the foundations, and as time goes on it will not lessen but increase. The cure for this disease is a radical operation. If the funds must exhaust themselves within a generation, no bureaucracy is likely to develop around them. What would happen, it might be asked, if the billions tied up in perpetuities in this country should be released over a period of fifty or one hundred years? What would become of education and of scientific research? How could society care for the sick, the helpless, and the impoverished? The answer is that all these needs would be as well provided for as the demands of the day justified. Wisdom, kindness of heart, and good will are not going to die with this generation. Instead of welcoming perpetuities, trustees, it seems to me, would be justified in resenting them. Perpetuities are, in a measure at least, an avowal of lack of confidence in the trustees by the donor. And it is a strange avowal. The trustees are told that they are wise enough and honest enough to invest the money and spend the income amounting to 4 to 5 percent each year; but they are told in the same breath that they are not capable of spending 6 to 10 or 15 percent wisely. If trustees are not resentful it is because they know that donors of perpetuities are not thinking in those terms. Sometimes perpetuities are created only because lawyers who draft deeds of gifts and wills have not learned that money can be given in any other way. More often, probably, perpetuities are set up because of the donor’s altogether human desire to establish an enduring memorial on earth—an end which becomes increasingly attractive to many men with advancing years. I am certain that those who seek by perpetuities to create for themselves a kind of immortality on earth

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will fail, if only because no institution and no foundation can live forever. If some men are remembered years and centuries after the death of the last of their contemporaries, it is not because of endowments they created. The names of Harvard, Yale, Bodley, and Smithson, to be sure, are still on men’s lips, but the names are now not those of men but of institutions. If any of these men strove for everlasting remembrance, they must feel kinship with Nesselrode, who lived a diplomat, but is immortal as a pudding. There has been evolution in the art of giving, as in other activities. The gift intended to meet a particular need or support a particular institution in perpetuity was generally approved, but is now outmoded. There are evidences that all perpetuities are becoming less popular, and I look forward with confidence to the day when they will become a rarity. They have not stood the test of time. To prove that I practice what I preach, it may not be out of place to say that every donation that I have made may be expended at the discretion of the directors of the institution to which it is given. The charter of the foundation which I created some years ago provides that principal as well as income may be spent as the trustees think best. This year, as the management of this fund was being reorganized, I was anxious to make sure that the trustees and officers would meet present needs instead of hoarding the funds for possible future uses. I have stipulated, therefore, that not only the income but also all of the principal of this fund must be expended within twenty-five years of my death. This I did in the following letter to the board of trustees, approved and accepted by the board at its meeting in Chicago on April 29, 1928: I am happy to present herewith to the Trustees of the Julius Rosenwald Fund certificate for twenty thousand shares of the stock of Sears, Roebuck and Company. When the Julius Rosenwald Fund was created and sums of money turned over, it was provided that the principal should be spent within a reasonable period of time. My experience is that trustees controlling large funds are not only desirous of conserving principal, but often favor adding to it from surplus income. I am not in sympathy with this policy of perpetuating endowment, and believe that more good can be

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accomplished by expending funds as trustees find opportunities for constructive work than by storing up large sums of money for long periods of time. By adopting a policy of using the fund within this generation we may avoid those tendencies toward bureaucracy and a formal or perfunctory attitude toward the work which almost inevitably develop in organizations which prolong their existence indefinitely. Coming generations can be relied upon to provide for their own needs as they arise. In accepting the shares of stock now offered, I ask that the Trustees do so with the understanding that the entire fund in the hands of the Board, both income and principal, be expended within twenty-five years of the time of my death. I submitted this letter, in advance, to a wide circle of men and women experienced in philanthropy and education, anticipating a good deal of dissent. There was almost none. Twenty years ago when I, among others, spoke in this vein, our ideas were considered visionary; today they are receiving an ever wider approval. I believe that large gifts should not be restricted to narrowly specified objects, and that under no circumstances should funds be held in perpetuity. I am not opposed to endowments for colleges or other institutions which require some continuity of support, provided permission is given to use part of the principal from time to time as needs arise. This does not mean profligate spending. It is simply placing confidence in living trustees; it prevents control by the dead hand; it discourages the building up of bureaucratic groups of men, who tend to become overconservative and timid in investment and disbursement of trust funds. I have confidence in future generations and in their ability to meet their own needs wisely and generously. Reference: The Atlantic Monthly. 1929. 143 (May): 599–606.

Looking Backward and Forward Florence Spearing Randolph Florence Spearing Randolph was one of a small group of black women who was licensed to preach by the early

Looking Backward and Forward

twentieth century. She was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church. She was a renowned suffragist, minister, lecturer, as well as temperance worker and organizer. In this sermon, Randolph honors Mary Small, who had been very involved in missionary work. Her focus in the excerpt below is on the importance of missionary work and one’s attitude toward it. Test: 1 Samuel 7:12; Proverbs 4:25, 23:7; Romans 1:28; Matthew 28:19–20; Mark 9:23; Isaiah 11:9 This memorable afternoon we are using two portions of scripture—one from the 1st Book of Samuel, 7th Chapter verse 12, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us,” and the other are the words of a wise man found in Proverbs 4th Chapter verse 25, “Let thine eyes look right on and let thine eye lids look straight before thee.” Hence, we are taking both, a backward and forward look, as we rejoice in the leading of a mighty God. When we say Hitherto—it means we are looking back on the distance we have come. For more than sixty (60) years God has led us . . . Some of us, this afternoon, are looking back not only 20 years, but 40, 50 and even 60. As one of our former General Presidents, the Rev. Mary J. Small, now in her 93rd year—looking all the way of our missionary life and are constrained to say—“Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” But when we say “hitherto” and look back, we also look forward and then we say, “He who hath helped us ‘hitherto’ will help us all the journey through.” Hitherto—means we are not yet to the end, but thus far we have come. There are yet a few more trials, a few more joys, more of real work, old age, sickness, death, It[’]s all over then?—No, a thousand times No—not to the believers in Jesus. When we are through looking backwards and forward in this life, we begin looking forward to a new life. There is the awakening in Jesus’ likeness, thrones, harps, songs, white robes, the great company of saints, of missionaries, the glory of God, the fullness of Eternity. Let us at this hour, with Samuel, raise our “Ebeneezer.” As we begin to retrospect, to think of the early days of our Zion—we recall not only James Varick and the early leaders, but the late Bishop James

Walker Hood as he swept through the old North State organizing churches—here and there—doing just what Jesus said—beginning at Jerusalem, and this made it possible that in the fullness of time the women became inspired to do a greater foreign work. Then we think of the work of our first General President—Mary J. Jones—and her co-workers. Then our new “set up” that began during the leadership of Mrs. Katie P. Hood—under the untiring efforts and far seeing vision of the late Annie W. Blackwell, Mary E. Washington, Anna L. Anderson and Daisy V. Johnson. They have gone from labor to reward. When we think of our work in Africa—can we ever forget Andrew Cartwright and his wife, our first foreign missionaries, or the lamented Bishop J.B. Small—with his dying request, “Don’t let my African work fail,” or the late Alexander Walters, J.W. Hood, and others who have crossed the mystic streams and gone an ahead of us—With Bishop J.W. Brown so recently gone. But all I have said is now history, blessed history, sacred history.—We are now at a new beginning. And now we come to the second part of our text, and to my mind the most important, “Let thine eyes look right on and let thine eye lids look straight before thee” (Prov. 4:25). We are now in the midst of a great turmoil, a world at war, a troubled war torn world.—Men are living in doubt, they are saying—“Where is God?” “Why does he not reveal himself?” Let me say to you beloved, “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform—he plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.” The sins of a disobedient rebellious, ungrateful world [have] caused God, as it were, to hide his face— or as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans (1:28), “And just as they did not think it fit to retain knowledge of God, so God left them with the minds of reprobates to so unseemly things with hearts filled with all sorts of dishonesty, mischief, greed, and malice; full of envy and bloodthirstiness, quarrelsome, crafty, spiteful, secret backbiters, open slanderers, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, ostentatious; inventors of mischief, disobedient, destitute of sense, faithless without affection and without pity.” In short,

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though knowing well the sentence which God pronounces against such deeds as deserving of death, they not only do them, but applaud other who practice them. We must look hopefully into the future, believing God that he will be with us to the end. Hear Jesus the Son of God as he instructs the first missionaries (Matt. 28:19–20), “Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost—teaching them to observe all things what-so-ever I have commanded you and, lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world.” In these words of Jesus to those early missionaries there was first (1) assurance, “All power is given unto me.”

-COMMENTSecond—(2) A great command, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.”

-COMMENT“Teach them to observe all things what-so-ever I have commanded you.”

-COMMENTThird—(3) A great promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” A Poet reminds us, “Not many lives, but only one have we, one only one, How sacred should that life ever be,—That narrow sham—day after day filled up with blessed toil—Hour after hour—still bringing in new spoil.” And so, to Bishops, Foreign Missionaries, Secretaries, Pastors, Laymen and Missionary Women Workers—the 60th. Chapter is closed. Whatever our joys and sorrows have been, whatever our failures or successes—the 60th. Chapter is closed; and today we enter upon a new beginning, a beginning full of hope, pregnant with possibilities and opportunities because we still have—God. So we are stressing the words— “Looking Straight Before Thee.” Oh! how much there is concealed in a look, there is the look of contempt, of indifference, of pity, of sympathy, I fancy it must have been the look of greatest sympathy that Jesus gave Peter after that dreadful denial for he went out and wept bitterly.

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But there is also the mind’s eye. In the material world our happiness and joys, our burdens and sorrows, our successes and failures all depend upon the way we look at things through the eye of the mind. Solomon said (Prov. 23:7), “For as he thinketh in his heart so is he,” and Jesus himself says in Mark 9:23, “All things are possible to him that believeth.” (This was when they brought the boy to Jesus whom the disciples could not heal.) Thus the Optimist is right and the Pessimist is right. Each acts from his own view point, his own determination, his own belief. All depends upon how we take God—. Do we take God seriously? Do we really believe the Bible we study? We are all familiar with the story of Daniel.—Well, the average person after that decree would have fainted. Daniel had to fight with jealousy[,] the most cruel thing in all the world;—it is cruel as the grave— it will stoop to anything. But he did not only keep the window of his room open towards Jerusalem the Holy City, but he kept the window of his room open towards Jerusalem the Holy City, but he kept the window of soul, his mind[,] open towards God—and prayed and he conquered by the way he was able to look at things. Now if we are going to succeed in this great missionary endeavor[,] building schools, and churches in our African fields, then our souls must have windows; we must look away from self and self effort to God and his promises that cannot fail. So many lives are like rooms without windows, they have no soul look, no spiritual look, no great ideas or ideals,—all they see are material things— what they eat and drink and wear, and the things they want. There is nothing grand and noble that does not look beyond self and self gratification, or as one has said, “They are lives without ideas, without vistas, devoid of poetic vision, no windows out upon ethical, moral or altruistic ends.” Our souls must have windows, open windows so that we may have [the] long view.—You know,—we are told when the eyes are tried, not to fix them on things near, but to look far away—there is less strain. So when the heart and soul are tired with the strains and stress of life, with hardships and ingratitude, many times from those we serve, we must look beyond it all to the hills from

Looking Backward and Forward

whence cometh our help, look by faith until we see God, and there will come a peace and quietness that the world cannot give, neither take away. The people to be pitied are not the poor, the crippled or the blind, but the people who cannot see the beautiful, the honest, the earnest—they only see the fault finders[,] the critics, people who are indifferent to the cause. We as missionaries, must learn to look to the hills, see the wonderful changes for a better world—see our work as we would have it, dream dreams and see visions of our work as we would have it, not as we would not have it. When the Prophet Isaiah opened his window, he saw the extent of the Kingdom, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountains: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the Waters cover the sea—” (Isa. 11:9). When God was using Elisha, the Prophet, to save Israel from the King of SYira, and Elisha[’s] servant, through physical eyes—saw that great host that encompassed the city[,] he cried, “Alas my Master, how shall we do?” But Elisha said, “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be against us.” And Elisha asked God to open the young man’s eyes and he saw. “Behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”

-COMMENTJesus taught his disciples, his first missionaries, to lift up their eyes and look on the fields all ready to harvest—never mind about the Samaritan woman with whom you saw me talking or where I got the food from that ye know not of—lift up your eyes and look and you will see throngs of Samaritans coming this way seeking truth. Jesus wanted to destroy their narrowness and awaken in them their duty to help make the world Christian and this Jesus is saying to me and to you— use your eyes lift them up don’t go through the world forever looking down and in, if you do you will become self centered and narrow, you never will see the beauty of life and service.—Like the Turtle—you will believe, “There is no ocean bigger than my well.” Look and see Africa with its teeming millions, see India, China, see the isles of the sea, see the Virgin Islands and South America—they are all waiting.

I read a story of two windows—one on the south and one on the east. From the south window the writer saw a neglected weather beaten house with its faded shades and flimsy curtains, a desolate picture that house presented. My! what a little paint, a little fixing would do to that house, it would transform it, but there it stood a sad fixture.—The writer closed his eyes—, but presently opened them and looked out of the [e]ast [w]indow—AH! he saw a pretty lawn, a rustic bower supporting a grape vine, a row of majestic brick bungalows, a wonderful bed of flowers.— My! what a difference, and he could see either by just the turning of his head. One depressed—the other inspired—.One showed shiftlessness, hopelessness, despondency—the other joy, peace, prosperity and beauty. How much better to look out of the [e]ast window than the South. In this great missionary venture, this new beginning—if God permits Bishops C.C. Alleyne’s return to the field—through which window are we looking—through the window of petty bickerings—of misunderstandings of foolish jealousy—or through the window of simple faith in God who said, “Go, I’ll be unto you wisdom, ask, I’ll supply all of your needs and lo, I am with you always to the end of the world.” “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.” Sometimes it is not bad to look back over the journey we have come—in order that we might guard against old mistakes, that we might correct old blunders. Sometimes it is well to look down just long enough to humble ourselves under the mighty arm of God that he might exalt us in due season—and it is a real God given gift if we are able to look over and forgive an injury—forget an injustice. Let me emphasize in closing—“Look Ahead.” It means something to be constantly looking and working for eternity—surrounded as we are by the things of time and sense. But thank God—the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. Perhaps we have not accomplished all we hoped for in the past 60 years; perhaps we have met with hardships and disappointments and perhaps ingratitude; some of us perhaps have had heartaches, have shed tears, but O, the joy of looking ahead to know that

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God himself is keeping watch. That we are not laboring for earthly rewards, for our reward is on high. Let us then, dear co-workers, renew our vows, place our hand in his, and be ever mindful of the heritage we shall leave to those who will celebrate the next 60 years.—This is our only chance. The bread that bringeth strength I want to give The water pure that bids the thirst live; I want to help the fainting day by day I’m sure I shall not pass again this way. I want to give the oil of joy for tears, The faith to conquer crowding doubts and fears, Beauty for ashes may I give always, I’m sure I shall not pass again this way. I want to give good measure running o’er, And into angry hearts I want to pour The answer soft that turneth wrath away I’m sure I shall not pass again this way. “Let your eyes look straight ahead—gaze right in front of you to God.” Florence Spearing Randolph, 1943 Reference: Collier-Thomas, Bettye, ed. 1998. Daughters of Thunder. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 140–145.

Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947) The challenge to free transportation for all pupils of public and parochial schools in Ewing, New Jersey, illustrates the ongoing separation of church and state debate. Appeal from the Court of Errors and Appeals of the State of New Jersey. Affirmed. Black, J. . . . A New Jersey statute authorizes its local school districts to make rules and contracts for the transportation of children to and from schools. The appellee, a township board of education, acting pursuant to this statute authorized reimbursement to parents of money expended by them for the bus transportation of their children on regular busses operated by the public transportation system. Part of this

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money was for the payment of transportation of some children in the community to Catholic parochial schools. The appellant, in his capacity as a district taxpayer, filed suit in a State court challenging the right of the Board to reimburse parents of parochial school students. He contended that the statute and the resolution passed pursuant to it violated both the State and the Federal Constitutions . . . The only contention here is that the State statute and the resolution, in so far as they authorized reimbursement to parents of children attending parochial schools, violate the Federal Constitution in these two respects, which to some extent, overlap. First. They authorize the State to take by taxation the private property of some and bestow it upon others, to be used for their own private purposes. This, it is alleged violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Second. The statute and the resolution forced inhabitants to pay taxes to help support and maintain schools which are dedicated to, and which regularly teach, the Catholic Faith. This is alleged to be a use of State power to support church schools contrary to the prohibition of the First Amendment which the Fourteenth Amendment made applicable to the states . . . Insofar as the second phase of the due process argument may differ from the first, it is by suggesting that taxation for transportation of children to church schools constitutes support of a religion by the States. But if the law is invalid for this reason, it is because it violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against the establishment of religion by law. This is the exact question raised by appellant’s second contention, to consideration of which we now turn. Second. The New Jersey statute is challenged as a “law respecting an establishment of religion.” The First Amendment, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth, commands that a state “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These words of the First Amendment reflected in the minds of early Americans a vivid mental picture of conditions and practices which they fervently wished to stamp out in order to preserve liberty for themselves and for their posterity. Doubtless their goal has not been entirely

Everson v. Board of Education

reached; but so far has the Nation moved toward it that the expression “law respecting an establishment of religion,” probably does not so vividly remind present-day Americans of the evils, fears, and political problems that caused that expression to be written into our Bill of Rights. Whether this New Jersey law is one respecting the “establishment of religion” requires an understanding of the meaning of that language, particularly with respect to the imposition of taxes. Once again, therefore, it is not inappropriate briefly to review the background and environment of the period in which that constitutional language was fashioned and adopted . . . This Court has previously recognized that the provisions of the First Amendment, in the drafting and adoption of which Madison and Jefferson played such leading roles, had the same objective and were intended to provide the same protection against governmental intrusion on religious liberty as the Virginia statute. Reynolds v. United States, supra, 98 U.S. at page 164, [etc.]. Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment did not apply as a restrain against the states. Most of them did soon provide similar constitutional protections for religious liberty. But some states persisted for about half a century in imposing restraints upon the free exercise of religion and in discriminating against particular religious groups. In recent years, so far as the provision against the establishment of a religion is concerned, the question has most frequently arisen in connection with proposed state aid to church schools and efforts to carry on religious teachings in the public schools in accordance with the tenets of a particular sect. Some churches have either sought or accepted state financial support of their schools. Here again the efforts to obtain state aid or acceptance of it have not been limited to any one particular faith. The state courts, in the main, have remained faithful to the language of their own constitutional provisions designed to protect religious freedom and to separate religions and governments. Their decisions, however, show the difficulty in drawing the line between tax legislation which provides funds for the welfare of the general public and that which is designed to support institutions which teach religion.

The meaning and scope of the First Amendment, preventing establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, in the light of its history and the evils it was designed forever to suppress, have been several times elaborated by the decisions of this Court prior to the application of the First Amendment to the states by the Fourteenth. The broad meaning given the Amendment by these earlier cases has been accepted by this Court in its decisions concerning an individual’s religious freedom rendered since the Fourteenth Amendment was interpreted to make the prohibitions of the First applicable to state action abridging religious freedom. There is every reason to give the same application and broad interpretation to the “establishment of religion” clause. The interrelation of these complementary clauses was well summarized in a statement of the Court of Appeals of South Carolina, quoted with approval by this Court, in Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679: “The structure of our government has, for the preservation of civil liberty, rescued the temporal institutions from religious interference. On the other hand, it has secured religious liberty from the invasions of the civil authority.” The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation between Church and State.” Reynolds v. United States, supra, 98 U.S. at page 164. We must consider the New Jersey statute in accordance with the foregoing limitations imposed by the

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First Amendment. But we must not strike that state statute down if it is within the state’s constitutional power even though it approaches the verge of that power. New Jersey cannot consistently with the “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment contribute tax-raised funds to the support of an institution which teaches the tenets and faith of any church. On the other hand, other language of the amendment commands that New Jersey cannot hamper its citizens in the free exercise of their own religion. Consequently, it cannot exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation. While we do not mean to intimate that a state could not provide transportation only to children attending public schools, we must be careful, in protecting the citizens of New Jersey against state-established churches, to be sure that we do not inadvertently prohibit New Jersey from extending its general State law benefits to all its citizens without regard to their religious belief. Measured by these standards, we cannot say that the First Amendment prohibits New Jersey from spending tax-raised funds to pay the bus fares of parochial school pupils as a part of a general program under which it pays the fares of pupils attending public and other schools. It is undoubtedly true that children are helped to get to church schools. There is even a possibility that some of the children might not be sent to the church schools if the parents were compelled to pay their children’s bus fares out of their own pickets when transportation to a public school would have been paid for by the State. The same possibility exists where the state requires a local transit company to provide reduced fares to school children including those attending parochial schools, or where a municipally owned transportation system undertakes to carry all school children free of charge. Moreover, state-paid policemen, detailed to protect children going to and from church schools from the very real hazards of traffic, would serve much the same purpose and accomplish much the same result as state provisions intended to guarantee free transportation of a kind which the state deems to be best for the school children’s welfare.

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And parents might refuse to risk their children to the serious danger of traffic accidents going to and from parochial schools, the approaches to which were not protected by policemen. Similarly, parents might be reluctant to permit their children to attend schools which the state had cut off from such general government services as ordinary police and fire protection, connections for sewage disposal, public highways and sidewalks. Of course, cutting off church schools from these services, so separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function, would make it far more difficult for the schools to operate. But such is obviously not the purpose of the First Amendment. That Amendment requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions, than it is to favor them. This Court has said that parents may, in the discharge of their duty under state compulsory education laws, send their children to a religious rather than a public school if the school meets the secular educational requirements which the state has power to impose. See Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510. It appears that these parochial schools meet New Jersey’s requirements. The state contributes no money to the schools. It does not support them. Its legislation, as applied, does not more than provide a general program to help parents get their children, regardless of their religion, safely and expeditiously to and from accredited schools. The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach: New Jersey has not breached it here. Affirmed.

Articles of Incorporation of the George Gund Foundation George Gund was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and his family settled in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1897 where he enjoyed a successful banking career. In 1937, Mr. Gund began a formal program of charitable giving. He created the George Gund Foundation in 1952 because he believed the

First Unitarian Church v. Los Angeles County

private foundation concept provided the best way for support of creative solutions to social ills in a way that would not be limited to his own lifetime. He favored the corporate foundation structure. The articles below are typical of many foundations established during this period. The undersigned, all of whom are citizens of the United States desiring to form a Corporation Not for Profit under the General Corporation Act of Ohio, do hereby make, subscribe and certify the following Articles of Incorporation for the purpose of assisting the effectuation of the charitable and benevolent wishes of George Gund and all others of similar mind. Article I – Name The name of the Corporation to be formed shall be THE GEORGE GUND FOUNDATION. Article II – Principal Place of Business The place in the State of Ohio where the principal office of the Corporation is to be located is the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Article III – Purposes The sole and exclusive purposes for which this Corporation is organized and for which it shall be operated is to hold, manage and disburse property and funds and the income derived thereform or from investments thereof solely and exclusively for charitable, scientific, literary, educational or religious purposes or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, and to receive and accept from George Gund and others gifts, grants, devises or bequests of property, personal or real, and to take and hold title to the same for any or all of the foregoing purposes. No part of the net earnings of the Corporation shall inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual and no substantial part of its activities shall consist of carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation.

First Unitarian Church v. Los Angeles County 357 U.S. 513 at 529 (1958) Religion represents the single largest area of individual giving in America, as well as the largest number of orga-

nizations in a subsector of the nonprofit sector. How religious organizations interact with government has always been an issue of American life. This case illustrates the challenges to free speech and freedom of religion declared in the First Amendment that continue to make their way to the Supreme Court. Mr. Justice Black, whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins, concurring . . . California, in effect, has imposed a tax on belief and expression. In my view, a levy of this nature is wholly out of place in this country; so far as I know such a thing has never even been attempted before. I believe that it constitutes a palpable violation of the First Amendment, which of course is applicable in all its particulars to the states . . .The mere fact that California attempts to exact this ill-concealed penalty from individuals and churches and that its validity has to be considered in this Court only emphasizes how dangerously far we have departed from the fundamental principles of freedom declared in the First Amendment. We should never forget that the freedoms secured by that Amendment—Speech, Press, Religion, Petition and Assembly—are absolutely indispensable for the preservation of a free society in which government is based upon the consent of an informed citizenry and is dedicated to the protection of the rights of all, even the most despised minorities . . . This case offers just another example of wide-scale effort by government in this country to impose penalties and disabilities on everyone who is or is suspected of being a “Communist” or who is not ready at all times and all places to swear his loyalty to state and nation. Government employees, lawyers, doctors, teachers, pharmacists, veterinarians, subway conductors, industrial workers and a multitude of others have been denied an opportunity to work at their trade or profession for these reasons. Here a tax is levied unless the taxpayer makes an oath that he does not and will not in the future advocate certain things; in Ohio those without jobs have been denied unemployment insurance unless they are willing to swear that they do not hold specific views; and Congress has even attempted to deny public housing to needy families unless they first demonstrate their loyalty. There are merely random samples; I will not take

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time here to refer to innumerable others, such as oaths for hunters and fisherman, wrestlers and boxers and junk dealers. I am convinced that this whole business of penalizing people because of their views and expressions concerning government is hopelessly repugnant to the principles of freedom upon which this nation was founded and which have helped to make it the greatest in the world. As stated in prior cases, I believe “that the First Amendment grants an absolute right to believe in any governmental system, [to] discuss all governmental affairs and [to] argue for desired changes in the existing order. This freedom is too dangerous for bad, tyrannical governments to permit. But those who wrote and adopted our First Amendment weighed those dangers against the dangers of censorship and deliberately chose the First Amendment’s unequivocal command that freedom of assembly, petition, speech and press shall not be abridged. I happen to believe this was a wise choice and that our free way of life enlists such respect and love that our nation cannot be imperiled by mere talk.” Loyalty oaths, as well as other contemporary “security measures,” tend to stifle all forms of unorthodox or unpopular thinking or expression—the kind of thought and expression which has played such a vital and beneficial role in the history of this nation. The result is a stultifying conformity which in the end may well turn out to be more destructive to our free society than foreign agents could ever hope to be. The course which we have been following the last decade is not the course of a strong, free, secure people, but that of the frightened, the insecure, the intolerant. I am certain that loyalty to the United States can never be secured by the endless proliferation of “loyalty” oaths; loyalty must arise spontaneously from the hearts of people who love their country and respect their government. I also adhere to the proposition that the “First Amendment provides the only kind of security system that can preserve a free government—one that leaves the way wide open for people to favor, discuss, advocate, or incite causes and doctrines however obnoxious and antagonistic such views may be to the rest of us.” Yates v. United States, 345 U.S. 298, 344.

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Civil Rights Act of 1964 (July 2, 1964) Philanthropic action manifested through social movements has been one of the most important roles of private voluntary action in building civil society. Preceded by several earlier Civil Rights Acts, the following represents the strongest bill since Reconstruction—in practice it was only a qualified success.

Title I Voting Rights Sec. 101 (2). No person acting under color of law shall(A) in determining whether any individual is qualified under State law or laws to vote in any Federal election, apply any standard, practice, or procedure different from the standards, practices, or procedures applied under such law or laws to other individuals within the same county, parish, or similar political subdivision who have been found by State officials to be qualified to vote; . . . (C) employ any literacy test as a qualification for voting in any Federal election unless (i) such test is administered to each individual wholly in writing; and (ii) a certified copy of the test and of the answers given by the individual is furnished to him within twentyfive days of the submission of his request made within the period are required to be retained and preserved pursuant to be retained and preserved pursuant to title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 . . .

TITLE II Injunctive Relief against Discrimination in Places of Public Accommodation Sec. 201. (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. (b) Each of the following establishments which serves the public is a place of public accommodation within the meaning of this title of its operations affect commerce, or if discrimination or segregation by it is supported by State action:

The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life

(1) any inn, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence; (2) any restaurant, cafeteria, lunch room, lunch counter, soda fountain, or other facility principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises . . . (3) any motion picture house, theater, concert hall, sports arena, stadium or other place of exhibition or entertainment . . . (d) Discrimination or segregation by an establishment is supported by State action within the meaning of this title if such discrimination or segregation (1) is carried on under color of any law, statute, ordinance, or regulation; or (2) is carried on under color of any custom or usage required or enforced by officials of the State or political subdivision thereof . . . Sec. 202. All persons shall be entitled to be free, at any establishment or place, from discrimination or segregation of any kind on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin, if such discrimination or segregation is or purports to be required by any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, rule, or order of a State or any agency or political subdivision thereof . . . Sec. 206. (a) Whenever the Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe that any person or group of persons is engaged in a pattern of practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of any of the rights secured by this title, the Attorney General may bring a civil action in the appropriate district court of the United States by filing with it a complaint . . . requesting such preventive relief, including an application for a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order or other order against the person or persons responsible for such pattern or practice, as he deems necessary to insure the full enjoyment of the rights herein described.

TITLE VI Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs Sec. 601. No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be

subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. Reference: 78 U.S. Statues at Large 241 ff. Public Law 88–352.

The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life (April 9, 1967) Martin Luther King Jr. This excerpt is illustrative of the philanthropic guidance given from the pulpit in black Christian churches in the United States during the twentieth century from one of America’s foremost civil rights leaders. So I move on and say that it is necessary to add breadth to length. Now the breadth of life is the outward concern for the welfare of others, as I said. And a man has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his own individual concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. One day Jesus told a parable. You will remember that parable. He had a man that came to him to talk with him about some very profound concerns. And they finally got around to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” And this man wanted to debate with Jesus. This question could have very easily ended up in thin air as a theological or philosophical debate. But you remember Jesus immediately pulled that question out of thin air and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. He talked about a certain man who fell among thieves. Two men came by and they just kept going. And then finally another man came, a member of another race, who stopped and helped him. And that parable ends up saying that this good Samaritan was a great man; he was a good man because he was concerned about more than himself. Now you know, there are many ideas about why the priest and the Levite passed and didn’t stop to help that man. A lot of ideas about it. Some say that they were going to a church service, and they were running a little late, you know, and couldn’t be late for church, so they kept going because they had to get down to the synagogue. And then there are others who would say that they were involved in the

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priesthood and consequently there was a priestly law which said that if you were going to administer the sacrament or what have you, you couldn’t touch a human body twenty-four hours before worship. Now there’s another possibility. It is possible that they were going down to Jericho to organize a Jericho Road Improvement Association. That’s another possibility. And they may have passed by because they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal source rather than one individual victim. That’s a possibility. But you know, when I think about this parable, I think of another possibility as I use my imagination. It’s possible that these men passed by on the other side because they were afraid . . . They were just like me. I was going out to my father’s house in Atlanta the other day. He lives about three or four miles from me, and you go out there by going down Simpson Road. And then when I came back later that night—and brother, I can tell you, Simpson Road is a winding road. And a fellow was standing out there trying to flag me down. And I felt that he needed some help; I knew he needed help. But I didn’t know it. I’ll be honest with you, I kept going. I wasn’t really willing to take the risk. I say to you this morning that the first question that the priest asked was the first question that I asked on that Jericho Road of Atlanta known as Simpson Road. The first question that the Levite asked was, ‘‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But the good Samaritan came by and he reversed the question. Not “What will happen to me if I stop to help this man?” but “What will happen to this man if I do not stop to help him?” This was why that man was good and great. He was great because he was willing to take a risk for humanity; he was willing to ask, “What will happen to this man?” not “What will happen to me?” This is what God needs today: Men and women who will ask, “What will happen to humanity if I don’t help? What will happen to the civil rights movement if I don’t participate? What will happen to my city if I don’t vote? What will happen to the sick if I don’t visit them?” This is how God judges people in the final analysis. Oh, there will be a day, the question won’t be, “How many awards did you get in life?” Not that day.

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It won’t be, “How popular were you in your social setting?” That won’t be the question that day. . . .”How much money did you accumulate? How much did you have in stocks and bonds?” On that day the question will be, “What did you do for others?” Now I can hear somebody saying, “Lord, I did a lot of things in life. I did my job well; the world honored me for doing my job. I did a lot of things, Lord; I went to school and studied hard. I accumulated a lot of money, Lord; that’s what I did.” It seems as if I can hear the Lord of Life saying, “But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was sick, and ye visited me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was in prison, and you weren’t concerned about me. So get out of my face. What did you do for others?” This is the breadth of life. Somewhere along the way, we must learn that there is nothing greater than to do something for others. And this is the way I’ve decided to go the rest of my days. . . . “He who is greatest among you shall be your servant.” I want to be a servant. I want to be a witness for my Lord, to do something for others. And don’t forget in doing something for others that you have what you have because of others. Don’t forget that. We are tied together in life and in the world. And you may think you got all you got by yourself. But you know, before you got out here to church this morning, you were dependent on more than half of the world. You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom, and you reach over for a bar of soap, and that’s handed to you by a Frenchman. You reach over for a sponge, and that’s given to you by a Turk. You reach over for a towel, and that comes to your hand from the hands of a Pacific Islander. And then you go on to the kitchen to get your breakfast. You reach on over to get a little coffee, and that’s poured in your cup by a South American. Or maybe you decide that you want a little tea this morning, only to discover that that’s poured in your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you want a little cocoa, that’s poured in your cup by a West African. Then you want a little bread and you reach over to get it, and that’s given to you by the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. Before you get through eating breakfast in the morning, you’re dependent on more than half the world. That’s the way God structured it; that’s the way

The Role of Philanthropy in a Changing Society

God structured this world. So let us be concerned about others because we are dependent on others.

The Role of Philanthropy in a Changing Society The Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy The Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy was created in 1968 at the initiation of John D. Rockefeller III. Rockefeller invited Peter G. Peterson, chairman of Bell and Howell, to form a commission of private citizens, which would conduct an objective appraisal of philanthropic foundations in America and make long-term policy recommendations. Fifteen people representing diverse viewpoints were selected and funding was provided by a variety of nonfoundation sources. The following selection is excerpted from the second chapter of the commission’s final report.

Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy In America these days, nothing stands still in one place for very long. Old systems of thought are unhinged. The legitimacy of most forms of authority is being questioned. People with unredressed grievances and with hopes deferred too long have become impatient with patience. In this strained atmosphere the institutions of philanthropy, like almost all other institutions, face a rising demand that they justify their inner life and their external effects. The first question asked about them is this: are the dynamics at American philanthropic institutions congruous with America’s highest interest? If that first question is ignored, or if it cannot be convincingly answered in the affirmative, then the fate in store for philanthropy could resemble that of the man in the fable who was so abstracted from his own life that he scarcely knew he existed until one fine morning he awoke and found himself dead. There are some who may agree “in principle” with the worth of private philanthropy, but, when a crunch is on, they view philanthropy as Lord Melbourne, prime minister of England in the early years of Queen

Victoria’s reign, viewed religion. “I have,” said he, “as much respect for religion as the next person. But things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to interfere with England’s interests.” Critics who assert that American philanthropy actually goes against the grain of America’s highest interest advance several lines of argument in support of their conclusions. They say first that philanthropy in America is hardly “pure” in motive, nor is it an evangelical expression of human fraternity. It is tied at the hip bone to tax deductions and, as such, is a self-serving instrument of greater use to the wealthy than to the average taxpayer. Why? Because under existing tax laws, persons in the lower income brackets have little incentive to contribute to charity. But, as a taxpayer with rising income moves into higher tax brackets, the more do deductions for charity increase in importance; the higher his income, the less each dollar he contributes costs him in after-tax income, or, to put it another way, the more these charitable contributions cost the government. Further, only the wealthy, and not people of modest means, are likely to be in a position to gain substantial added tax benefits by giving appreciated property instead of cash to philanthropic institutions. Present tax laws, therefore, foster a concentration of philanthropic giving (especially for nonreligious purposes) in the hands of the rich. This in turn, so it is argued, means that tax incentives for charitable giving serve the process of “elitism” instead of the cause of “democratic pluralism.” It serves that process because wealthy people are free to use billions of dollars to support their eccentricities and hobbies—billions of dollars which would other wise be absorbed into the pool of government funds for uses approved by a vote of the representatives of the people. No similar freedom or subsidy is available for the less well-to-do. Even when the latter deduct their charitable contributions from taxable income, their margin of freedom is confined to their choice of the organizations which will receive their donations. They will, however, have little say about what is done with the money they contribute. Board members of charitable organizations are more likely to be the larger donors to it.

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Second, say the critics, it is wrong to take at face value the claims of philanthropic organizations that, since they are private, they are a more efficient instrument of action than the government, and that there is a commitment behind private dollars which government dollars lack. There may be more important goals and more efficient means to attain them, and in any case there is no guarantee that the private commitment is actually in the public interest. The freedom of private philanthropic organizations to choose their own goals can lead to redundant or wasteful disbursement, the scattering of seeds that produce only a harvest of dead leaves, and a diversion—into the high costs of public relations and advertising incident to fundraising—of money meant for charitable causes. The critics then ask a passionate question. When funds are desperately needed to support massive governmental efforts to solve acute social problems, why should tax dollars be lost in the form of charitable deductions for privately selected purposes? After all, the very existence of the tax incentive for philanthropy plainly means that charitable expenditures are not purely private expenditures. They are made partly with dollars which, were it not for charitable deductions allowed by tax laws, would have become public funds to be allocated through the governmental process under the controlling power of the electorate as a whole. Thus, say the critics, in place of a democratic allocation of resources, we have a market place for philanthropy dominated by a plutocracy that can do what it pleases without being called to public account for what it does. Is there an answer to these lines of argument? The Commission is convinced that there is. At the same time, in formulating its own answering argument, the Commission has taken care to bypass the ambush of three assumptions. It does not assume that private philanthropy is a perfect system that has no need for further, and perhaps substantial, improvement. It does not assume that the system will never have any entries in its record of some follies, excesses, redundancy— and, above all, of some of the failures that are inherent in pioneering, high risk ventures. Least of all does the Commission assume that the system can make a “perfect allocation” of its resources, “accountable in

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full” to the public—a concept, incidentally, which cannot even be defined precisely, let alone attained. The heart of the Commission’s position, expressed in shorthand form, comes to this. Despite the claims made about how governmental decisions are less “elitist,” more “democratic,” and “more accountable to the public,” the test of practical experience clearly makes a strong dual system of private giving and government funding a better way to allocate resources for the general welfare than the alternative of relying solely on governmental allocations. Stated more fully, the Commission’s judgment of such a dual system of private giving and public funding rests on the following propositions transposed into the form of beliefs: 1.We believe that the improvement of the material and moral condition of the individual human being is central to our society’s outlook. 2.We believe that just as the health of a muscle depends on its being exercised, the individual braces his freedom and enlarges his perceptions through actions on behalf of others which he initiates voluntarily and for which he is willing to assume personal responsibility. 3.We believe that a society which encourages a sense among its citizens that they have a reciprocal responsibility for themselves and for others strengthens its own fabric—whereas a society which spurs every man to live in and for himself alone weakens the society by weakening the bonds of fraternity. 4.We believe that government is destined to play an ever-increasing and indispensable role in areas that have traditionally been served by private philanthropic’ activity. . . . 5.At the same time, we believe that government should not venture to do those things . . .We need philanthropic institutions which can spot emergent problems, diagnose them, and test alternative ways to deal with them. This is not to say that private funds should merely provide an increment—even though a relatively small one—to what government is doing. A narrow view of that kind would weaken any justification for the exis-


tence of philanthropy as an island of autonomy alongside a system of government funding. It would weaken any justification for the diversion of money that would otherwise become funds in the public treasury. Such diversion—exclusive of the realm of religion, from which the government is constitutionally excluded—is most strongly justified when private philanthropic money is used, not as a substitute for tax dollars, but as a supplement of a special kind that serves the public interest in ways in which the government itself is under various operational constraints. A major case in point turns on the question of whether social change in our day will be a product of the blind play of accident and force or whether it will result from rational reflection and deliberate choice. If we want it to be a result of rational reflection and deliberate choice, then we need social laboratories where new ideas and social innovation are extremely important(at least as important as technological innovation(and probably even more difficult and less understood. In an era of unprecedented technological innovations, social innovation lags seriously. Yet, there is a suggestive analogy between the way new things are born in the commercial sector and the way the support by private philanthropy for laboratory tests of social innovations can lead to an impressive payoff. In the commercial sector, success usually starts with a vision, often very personal, of what tomorrow’s consumers will want, and whether there are technological possibilities of meeting it. The mere bigness of a large industrial establishment, however, is no guarantee that it will have that kind of vision or will have it exclusively. Large industrial establishments can be the captive of a self-generated consensus which says with great force that a proposed new technology is not workable or that the market does not want it or need it. But this is not always the last word about the matter. An entrepreneur, often small, new, and from an unlikely background, arrives on the commercial scene. He is committed to a vision of how a proposed new technology is workable and why consumers of tomorrow will want it and need it. He manages to get access to venture capital—a crucial need. He subjects his judgment to a practical test in the formidable world of real things. In the social realm as well, the consensus mechanism of the large, established institutions of govern-

ment are not always the best and are certainly not the only way to innovate measures that lead to orderly social change. In statist societies, governments held in thrall by ideologies and dogmas have irrevocably committed the lives of millions of people to large-scale social experiments—such as farm collectivization—with cruel and costly consequences. Even governments of democratic societies have initiated massive programs on the basis of untested theories. Great expectations were aroused by the claimed benefits of what these programs would lead to. But the expectations eventually collapsed, and the result served only to increase public cynicism about the whole of the political process. The moral of the story is clear. Just as the technological realm and the commercial realm need the innovative individual and the small firm, so does our social realm need them. . . . It is true that individual states in the American union can be laboratories for social experiments. They are places where “pilot projects” can be put to the test of practice, and successful social inventions can then become, by adoption, the common property of the nation. This, indeed, is a root source of strength for our federal system of government. Yet the problems besetting our society are so many and so complex that we need many different kinds of laboratories where social experiments can be conducted. Private philanthropy can help fill this need. We have also reached an hour in American history when no institution can cultivate its own garden wall. Walls of privacy have been breached by the daily shocks and eruptions that have swept across American life. The spirit of dissent has spread its contagion across our student population and from there to other sectors of American life. And we deceive ourselves if we think the signs and sounds of distress are limited to an anarchistic handful of young people. If they are not to reach their climax in a war of all against all, we are summoned by this turmoil carefully to consider the ways in which we can convert dissent into a force for constructive action and civil peace. We must evolve more responsive processes through which our young and disenfranchised can secure a fair piece of the social action, whether or not they can acquire a piece of our affluent economic action.

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Indeed, perhaps it is fair to say that part of the unrest in our society is due to the paradoxical fact that nothing fails like success—that the more successful we have been in assuring the citizen his physical needs will be met, the more sensitive he becomes to other cravings of his soul and mind, as he yearns to realize his potentialities as a human being. In this yearning, he becomes all the more aware of institutional structures, with their inertia and congealed ideologies. He feels that all these stand between him and his vision of an elevated condition of life. In this seemingly chaotic and clearly diverse and demanding setting, it is perhaps true that only a pluralistic society can become a responsive one. Philanthropy, we believe, must bring a fresh understanding of what pluralism can mean in American life. We have said a pluralistic society must be one in which multiple options and multiple initiatives are open to its members. Multiple options more than ever will require a mature understanding of majority and minority approaches, living side by side. Responsive pluralism requires the majority be willing to place itself under a self-denying ordinance not to use the weight of its larger numbers to crush the minority’s claim for equitable consideration and coexistence. It means conversely that the minority is willing to place itself under a self-denying ordinance not to use for frivolous and vengeful reasons any veto power it has over the desires of the majority. This delicate balance cannot be legislated. It is a habit of the heart which reminds the citizen that today’s majority might well be tomorrow’s minority and, of course, that today’s minority might well be tomorrow’s majority. Nor is this delicate balance likely to be funded by a majoritarian political process alone. We believe private sector philanthropy must be a major source of support for the multiple options our society offers. Philanthropy, then, must have sufficient funds, so that it can respond to unmet and still unseen needs of society. Yet, if a Declaration of Independence does not by itself make a people free, neither will more funds by itself ensure philanthropy a defensible and relevant place in American life. To ensure such a place for itself, philanthropy must be independent and must use freedom in responsible and courageous ways. It will

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ensure nothing if it simply enjoys an easy popularity by applying its weight to the end of having everything stand still. While we believe that the system of strong dual funding is based on sound theoretical principles, we also believe that it offers pragmatic advantages measurable in dollars and cents. In this connection, two points should be made about the relative “costs” to society of a private charity dollar compared to that of a governmental social dollar. First, the donor contributes part of the gift out of his own net worth— even after the tax deduction. Second, any review of cost effectiveness of the private charitable sector must also take into account a factor previously noted— namely, the value of the labor represented by volunteer work on behalf of philanthropies . . . Values in dollars are not the only means for judging the worth of volunteer work in private philanthropy. Society also gains from the way the individual who voluntarily participates in philanthropic efforts builds up an immunity to a malaise common to our day, It is the malaise of the man who stands frustrated in the face of a thousand things he sees should be done. He wants to help make events become what they ought to be—to repair the broken connections between talk and being heard, between pain experienced and a remedy, between urgent needs and their solution. Yet, in the shadow of a big government he may feel powerless to do any of this by himself. Recoiling, he migrates psychologically out of society. He becomes indifferent alike to any good or evil befalling it and withdraws ever deeper into his private self. It is otherwise with many individuals who volunteer for the work of private philanthropy. The more they concern themselves with the welfare of other people, the more alive they feel through having absorbed within themselves the throb of the society around them. The individual volunteer cannot do everything he would like to do. Yet when he does with all his might that which lies closest at hand, he is less frustrated because he is rewarded with a sense of his own identity—rewarded because he can see his identity stamped on the face of things he helped turn for the better through his personal efforts. He and society are jointly the gainers, whereas both would be the los-


ers if private philanthropy was foreclosed, and its nondollar values were also wiped out. The commission, in arriving at its conclusions about the merits of maintaining a dual system of public funding and private support for socially desirable projects, found it instructive to listen closely to a lesson taught by Europe’s experiences with philanthropy. It is enough to say here that, after the secular authorities in European nation-states for various reasons curbed the economic capacity of ecclesiastical organizations to engage in extensive philanthropic activities, the long-range consequences were fourfold. First, the sense of personal responsibility by the individual for the welfare of his neighbor was hobbled. Second, the government staked out a monopoly of decision and initiative in areas which, in American experience, were retained as a preserve for private philanthropic efforts. Third, in contrast to America, where private charitable institutions are often the prime innovators and experimenters in social, scientific, cultural, and educational fields, European society depended for its general welfare almost totally on the decisions of government itself. Fourth, this habit of dependence fostered in Europe the kind of stultifying attitudes and values which, in the archetype case of France, were recently excoriated by no less a person than the premier, Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Said he: An octopus, and an inefficient one! That is what—we all know it—the State is becoming, despite the fact that there is a corps of generally efficient, at times outstanding, civil servants. An octopus, I say, for, by indefinitely extending its responsibilities it has gradually put our entire French society under its paternalism . . . The distribution of social subsidies is governed by a narrow legal concept of equality that leads to inequality. On the pretext of not distinguishing between beneficiaries, identically the same assistance is being given to those who have the greatest need of it, those who have only a moderate need of it, and those who have no need of it at all. Result: the initial aims are not achieved. . . . [As] de Tocqueville demonstrated—and this continues to be true—there is a deep-lying connection between the omnipotence of the State

and the weakness of community life in our country. As a result of this situation, each social or occupational group, or rather their representatives, not feeling secure enough to be able to negotiate directly and responsibly with other groups, fall back on the practice of submitting their claims to the State, often complicating their claims with a somewhat veiled rivalry. Thus, all too often a real social dialogue is replaced with an appeal to the State for protection, which only strengthens further the State’s control over the life of the people and, at the same time, places an excessively heavy burden on the entire economy. In addition to what the Commission learned from European experience, sources lying closer to home stressed the worth of maintaining a dual system of public funding and private support for socially desirable projects. The Commission put a specific question to fifty Chicago charitable organizations which have had intimate experience with various kinds of financial support. Would they favor government support for the work done by their own organizations being increased to a point at which there was little or no room for private effort? Almost all replies strongly opposed any such total reliance on public funding to the exclusion of private support. It was observed that, under such an arrangement, social efforts would be affected by every turn in the political winds, by every accident flowing from a change of administration, and by every political scramble for government funds. Further, as the power of day-today decisions gravitated to the governmental bureaucracy, an all-too familiar consequence would start to unfold. The realities of local conditions—whether on the side of danger or of opportunity—either would not be seen or might be forced to fit a bureaucratic Procrustean bed. Autonomous islands of private philanthropy existing side by side with a system for public funding provide indispensable initiatives to change. In the realm of social efforts, such an arrangement corresponds to what we have evolved in the realm of economic efforts—a ‘mixed economy” arrangement that serves as a model to the world.

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Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs The Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs was formed in 1973 with the urging of John D. Rockefeller III, under the direction of John H. Filer as chairman and Leonard L. Silverstein as executive director. The commission worked from 1973 to 1975. It represents a benchmark in the functions of private philanthropy and its relationship to government. Included here are excerpts from the introduction, commission comments on the recommendations, and the Donee Group report.

can be considered to be a part of this sector although their relationship to government is pervasive and in many cases—congressional party caucuses, for instance—inextricable. On the other hand, the third sector is not business. Its organizations do not exist to make profit and those that enjoy tax immunities are specifically prohibited from doing so, although near the boundaries of the sector many groups do serve primarily the economic interests of their members. Chambers of commerce, labor unions, trade associations and the like hardly pretend to be principally altruistic.

The Third Sector: Introduction

The World of Philanthropy

On the map of American society, one of the least charted regions is variously known as the voluntary, the private nonprofit or simply the third sector. Third, that is, after the often overshadowing worlds of government and business. While these two other realms have been and continue to be microscopically examined and analyzed and while their boundaries are for the most part readily identified by experts and laymen alike, the third sector—made up of non-governmental, nonprofit associations and organizations remains something of a terra incognito, barely explored in terms of its inner dynamics and motivations, and its social, economic and political relations to the rest of the world. As on ancient maps, its boundaries fade off into extensions of the imagination, and a monster or two may lurk in the surrounding seas. Yet it is within this institutional domain that nearly all philanthropic input—giving and volunteering—is transformed into philanthropic output goods and services for ultimate beneficiaries. So the Commission has attempted to take the measure of this area, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and has examined the sector’s roles and rationales, past, present and future. The sector as a whole is most broadly defined by what it is not. It is not government—that is, its component organizations do not command the full power and authority of government, although some may exercise powerful influences over their members and some may even perform certain functions of government. Educational accrediting organizations, for instance, exercise aspects of the governmental power of licensing. For that matter, political parties

Inside these negative boundaries is a somewhat narrower domain within which the world of philanthropy generally operates, a domain made up of private groups and institutions that are deemed to serve the public interest rather than a primarily self-benefiting one, and it is this narrower area that has been the principal focus of the Commission. This area is legally defined by laws that determine which types of organizations should be immune from income taxes and eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions from individuals and corporations. Under the Internal Revenue Code, twenty categories of organizations are exempt from federal income tax, but most of those that are eligible receive tax-deductible gifts as well as fall in one category of the code, Section 501 (c) (3). To qualify for exemption under this section, whose “501 (c) (3)” designation has become for the nonprofit world virtually synonymous with tax deductibility, an organization must operate exclusively for one or more of these broad purposes: charitable, religious, scientific, literary, educational. Two narrower aims are specified as well: testing for public safety and prevention of cruelty to children or animals. The code further states that no “substantial” part of such an organization’s activities may be devoted to attempting to influence legislation and that the organization may not participate at all in candidates’ political campaigns. But even these boundaries, though narrower than those set by the non-government, nonprofit definition, are immensely broad and vague. What is charitable, what educational, what religious? In a time in

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Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs

which new and unconventional religious sects are being born, it seems, almost monthly, which are genuine expressions of the religious impulse that are legitimately protected from both taxes and governmental scrutiny? The Internal Revenue Service, for one, wishes it had an all-purpose definition of religion to work with. When is an activity educational rather than primarily propagandistic (and thus barred from tax-deductible gifts under the current laws)? Considerable litigation and administrative judgment have been devoted to answering such questions. Philosophical as well as legal arguments can be and are raised, moreover, as to whether whole groups of organizations within the tax-exempt categories are truly oriented to the public interest—their justification for tax privilege—or whether they serve primarily to further the interests of a select group. The Commission has not attempted to establish a definition or principle by which nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations can be judged to be in the public interest and thus a proper concern of and channel for philanthropy. Others have tried to form such a definition, but none has unquestionably succeeded. In any case, a certain flexibility is seen as desirable, both philosophically and legally, in defining the public interest. One of the main virtues of the private nonprofit sector lies in its very testing and extension of any definition of public interest, so it would be counterproductive to try to establish boundaries in more than a general, expandable sense. Similarly, although this Commission has operated under the rubric of “public needs,” no attempt has been made to catalogue, let alone establish any priority scale of such needs. Like the public interest, the closely related concept of public needs is itself fluid and shifting. A constant and transcendent public need by which the voluntary sector and philanthropy may perhaps be ultimately judged is how effectively they keep abreast of this shifting and how well they are deemed to meet whatever new public needs are perceived. Likewise, no attempt has been made to attach, and certainly none has succeeded in attaching, a new, better name to the territory under examination, even though none of the existing names is universally admired. Here, and throughout the report, the terms voluntary sector, private nonprofit sector (or simply

nonprofit sector for short) or third sector are used interchangeably and in all cases except where otherwise indicated are meant to exclude organizations that primarily serve the interests of their own members.

Dimensions of the Voluntary Sector What are the dimensions of this sector? To the extent that they have been measured at all, the measurement has usually been only a partial one that looks at the amount of private giving and volunteer activity that goes into nonprofit organizations. Even on this incomplete scale, however, it is clear that the nonprofit sector accounts for a very large amount of time and money. According to estimates based on surveys made for the Commission, at least $25 billion annually is given to various causes and organizations, and an equal amount worth of volunteer work is devoted to philanthropic activity. Yet these figures require some subtraction, and a good deal of addition. For one, a small but significant and growing amount of private giving goes to public institutions, mainly state colleges and universities. On the other hand, a sizable share of the funding of the nonprofit sector comes from the government nowadays, and considerable additional funds come from endowment and other investment income and from operating revenues, including payments to nonprofit organizations by those who use their services—students’ tuitions, medical patients’ fees and the like. Government funding, endowment income and service charges must be added to the overall ledger of the voluntary sector. When they are, a rough extrapolation from available data indicated the total annual receipts of the private nonprofit sector to be in the range of $80 billion, or half as much as Americans spend on food in a year. Another measure of the dimensions of the nonprofit sector is the employment it accounts for. Approximately 4.6 million wage and salary workers are estimated to have worked in the nonprofit sector in 1974, or 5.2 percent of the total American workforce for that year. One out of every ten service workers in the United States is employed by a nonprofit organization. The proportion of professional workers is even higher—nearly one out of six. For a physical count of nonprofit organizations, the Commission has turned to a number of sources. The

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Internal Revenue Service lists, as of June, 1975, 691,627 exempt organizations, groups that have formally filed for and been accorded exemption from federal income taxes. But that number does not include a great many church organizations which automatically enjoy exemption from federal income taxes without filing, nor does it include numerous small organizations that never feel the need to file for tax exemption. On the other hand, it does include a large number of groups that fall outside the philanthropic part of the nonprofit sector, such as labor unions and fraternal organizations, and it also counts a good many groups that are only active for a short time. One Commission report calculates that a “core group” of traditional philanthropic organizations includes 350,000 religious organizations, 37,000 human service organizations, 6,000 museums, 5,500 private libraries, 4,600 privately sponsored secondary schools, 3,500 private hospitals, 1,514 private institutions of higher education, and 1,100 symphony orchestras. Some other recent calculations: There are 1,000 national professional associations. New York City alone has around 6,000 block associations. And a study of voluntary groups in the town of Arlington, Mass., identified some 350 such groups there, serving a population of around 52,000. This last finding confirms earlier estimates of proportions between community size and the number of voluntary groups, and gives support to the extrapolation that in all, counting local chapters of regional or national groups, there may be as many as six million private voluntary organizations in the United States. A purely intuitive indication that this very large number is feasible can be glimpsed in a minute sample of nonprofit groups. . . .

Ultimate Beneficiaries The arithmetic of the nonprofit sector finds much of its significance in less quantifiable and even less precise dimensions—in the human measurements of who is served, who is affected by nonprofit groups and activities. In some sense, everybody is: the contributions of voluntary organizations to broadscale social and scientific advances have been widely and frequently extolled. Charitable groups were in the forefront of ridding society of child labor, abolitionist groups in tearing down the institution of slavery,

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civic-minded groups in purging the spoils system from public office. The benefits of nonprofit scientific and technological research include the great reduction of scourges such as tuberculosis and polio, malaria, typhus, influenza, rabies, yaws, bilharziasis, syphilis and amoebic dysentery. These are among the myriad products of the nonprofit sector that have at least indirectly affected all Americans and much of the rest of the world besides. Perhaps the nonprofit activity that most directly touches the lives of most Americans today is noncommercial “public” television. A bare concept twenty-five years ago, its development was underwritten mainly by foundations. Today it comprises a network of some 240 stations valued at billions of dollars, is increasingly supported by small, “subscriber” contributions and has broadened and enriched a medium that occupies hours of the average American’s day. More particularly benefited by voluntary organizations are the one quarter of all college and university students who attend private institutions of higher education. For hundreds of millions of Americans, private community hospitals, accounting for half of all hospitals in the United States, have been, as one Commission study puts it, “the primary site for handling the most dramatic of human experiences— birth, death, and the alleviation of personal suffering.” In this secular age, too, it is worth noting that the largest category in the nonprofit sector is still very large indeed, that nearly two out of three Americans belong to and evidently find comfort and inspiration in the nation’s hundreds of thousands of religious organizations. All told, it would be hard to imagine American life without voluntary nonprofit organizations and associations, so entwined are they in the very fabric of our society, from massive national organizations to the local Girl Scouts, the parent-teachers associations or the bottle-recycling group.

Government and Voluntary Association Ultimately, the nonprofit sector’s significance, and any measure of its continuing importance, lies in its broader societal role, as seen in the long history of voluntary association and in what signs can currently be glimpsed of new or continuing directions. To talk of the sector’s role in society inevitably means looking at voluntary ac-


tivity and association alongside of government. Both are expressions of the same disposition of people to join together to achieve a common end, and in much of the United States’ experience they have been complementary expressions. But in global terms they often have functioned and do function as mutually competitive forces. No government tolerates all forms of voluntary association; groups that are seen as threatening a country’s security or that pursue common criminal purposes are routinely suppressed. The tensions between voluntary association and government run broader and deeper in many parts of the world, however, and have done so through many periods of history. Sociologist Robert A. Nisbet has written of the “momentous conflicts of jurisdiction between the political state and the social associations lying intermediate to it and the individual.” These have been, he writes, “of all the conflicts in history, the most fateful.” Such conflicts can be traced at least as far back as democratic Greece and imperial Rome, in both of which societies governments were at times hostile to voluntary association. Imperial Rome, wrote Gibbon, “viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any association among its subjects.” The Middle Ages witnessed a flourishing in Europe of more or less autonomous groupings—guilds, churches, fiefdoms—within weak central governments. But modern history can be seen at least in part as being patterned by the return to Greek and Roman affinities for the central, dominant state, with an accompanying discouragement of nongovernmental groups. The foremost philosophers of this monism of the state in modern times were Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the French Revolution was one of its most exuberant expressions. Charitable, literary, educational and cultural societies were banned in the brittle course of the revolution. “A state that is truly free,” declared a legislator of revolutionary France, “ought not to suffer within its bosom any association, not even such as, being dedicated to public improvement, has merited well of the country.”

Americans Are Forever Forming Associations In spite of this inhospitable historical and philosophical setting, “associations dedicated to public improvement” found fertile territory in the New World, a land

colonized far from the reach of central government of its own and in frontier areas was slow to adopt even minimal local governments. As historian Daniel Boorstin has observed, America evidenced a profound tendency to rely on voluntary, nongovernmental organizations and associations to pursue community purposes “from the beginning.” As this country was settled, he writes, “communities existed before governments were there to care for public needs.” The result was that “voluntary collaborative activities” were set up first to provide basic social services. Government followed later on. It is no historical accident that one of the Founding Fathers is nearly as famous for his development of nongovernmental means to public ends as he is for his role in shaping and representing the fledgling republic. Benjamin Franklin’s institutions outside of government compose a major portion of the index of the voluntary sector. He was the leading force in founding a library, a volunteer fire department, a hospital, a university and a research institution. An historical survey of philanthropy made for the Commission notes: “Franklin did not invent the principle of improving social conditions through voluntary association, but more than any American before him he showed the availability, usefulness and appropriateness to American conditions.” “The principle of voluntary association accorded so well with American political and economic theories,” the survey observes further, “that as early as 1820 the larger cities had an embarrassment of benevolent organizations.” Fifteen years later, this propensity to organize became the subject of one of Alexis de Tocqueville’s most famous of many famous observations about the new nation: Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types—religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. Americans combine to give fetes, found seminaries, build churches, distribute books and send missionaries to the antipodes. Hospitals,

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prisons and schools take shape that way. Finally, if they want to proclaim a truth or propagate some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association. In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association.

Evolutions within the Third Sector This observation applies to the United States almost as fully 140 years later. Today, in fact, private association appears to be so deeply embedded and to exist on so much broader a scale in the United States than in other parts of the world as to represent one of the principal distinguishing characteristics of American society. Yet the purposes of voluntary organization have hardly remained stationary or of the same relative significance within the voluntary sector over the years. In a pattern of evolution that has repeated itself in different areas of society, government has taken over many services and functions of the nonprofit sector, and new focuses of nonprofit activity and organization have emerged. Schools, as de Tocqueville observed, were generally founded and run by nongovernmental organizations, often churches, in early America. But soon after de Tocqueville’s observations were published in 1835, the public school system began to take hold in the United States, and today only one out of ten primary and secondary school students goes to nonpublic schools. Higher education and aid to the poor correspondingly accounted for more and more nonprofit activity as the nineteenth century progressed. Then, beginning in the late nineteenth century, many of today’s giant state universities got their start, and public institutions began to challenge the privacy of private institutions in higher education as well. The private nonprofit sector was the chief dispenser of “charity” well into this century, but in recent decades this function has increasingly been absorbed by government welfare and social insurance programs. Today we appear to be on the threshold of yet another major expansion by government in an area that until a few years ago was dominated by private nonprofit (and profit) organizations, the health field. A

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Commission study of philanthropy in this area anticipated that by the mid-1980’s more than half of all spending on health in the United States will be accounted for by government programs, with much of the rest through government-regulated private insurance plans.

Underlying Functions of Voluntary Groups The end purposes of nonprofit activity have changed considerably over the course of American history, therefore, and unquestionably will continue to change. Yet certain basic functions—underlying social roles that have been characteristic of much or all nonprofit activity regardless of the particular service or cause involved—have endured throughout the changes that have taken place. This is not to say, of course, that all nonprofit organizations are performing these functions optimally or even adequately. Indeed, expert research the Commission has received and informal testimony it has listened to suggest that many organizations in the sector fall well short of their capabilities. Yet the same research and testimony is virtually unanimous in finding distinctive functions for the nonprofit sector and in asserting that these functions are today as important as they ever have been to the health and progress of American society, more important in some cases than ever. Among these basic functions are the following: Initiating New Ideas and Processes “There are critical reasons for maintaining a vital balance of public and private support for human services,” asserts a Commission report by Wilbur J. Cohen, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, “not the least of which is the continuing task of innovating in areas where public agencies lack knowledge or are afraid to venture. . . . The private sector is adept at innovation, and at providing the models government needs.” . . . “A new idea stands a better chance of survival in a social system with many kinds of initiative and decision,” observes a Commission study of the health field. Government undoubtedly provides the most fertile arena for certain kinds of initiative and innovation, but certain new ideas, these and other Commission reports indicate, stand a better chance of survival


and growth in the nonprofit sector than in the corridors of government. . . . Once successfully pioneered by nonprofit groups, and having established their legitimacy and worthiness, new ideas and processes can be, and often have been, supported and expanded by government. Birthcontrol technology, to take a relatively recent example, was pioneered by the nonprofit world in its more controversial beginnings and today is heavily underwritten by many governments throughout the world. Developing Public Policy Standing outside of government, voluntary organizations not only can try out new ideas, initiate services that may be too controversial for government bodies to deal with at early stages, but can exercise a direct influence on shaping and advancing government policy in broad areas in which the government is already involved. Groups specializing in certain policy areas are continually producing research and analysis, information and viewpoints, especially on long-range policy matters, that may be lacking at times in government circles themselves, preoccupied as they often are with day-to-day operating concerns. . . . Supporting Minority or Local Interests For many of the same reasons the nonprofit world can experiment with new ideas less cautiously than government, voluntary groups can support causes and interests that may be swept aside by majoritarian priorities or prejudices. The civil rights movement grew out of the initiatives of nonprofit organizations such as the NAACP; the consumer and environmental movements, once the concerns of only a few perceptive or single-minded people, also found their early nourishment in private groups. . . . More specialized private agencies may be able to operate efficiently and intelligently within their spheres, may be more sensitive to small-scale problems than government. . . . Providing Services That the Government Is Constitutionally Barred from Providing In the United States, the government is proscribed from entering the broadest area of the nonprofit sector, religion. So there is simply no alternative to the nonprofit sector if religious functions are to be filled

at all in this country. Similarly, the Council on Foundations points out in its report to the Commission, the establishment in 1973 of a private nonprofit National News Council to oversee the news media “is an experiment that, if not totally off limits to the government because of the First Amendment, is clearly not the kind of function that it should or would undertake.” Overseeing Government Alongside government’s constitutional inhibitions are its institutional ones. Despite its own internal checks and balances, government can hardly be counted on to keep a disinterested eye on itself. In his historical perspective on philanthropy written for the Commission, historian Robert H. Bremner observes: “A marked tendency of American philanthropy has been to encourage, assist and even goad democratic government—and democratic citizens—toward better performance of civic duties and closer attention to social requirements.” The Nathan Committee, which looked at philanthropy in Great Britain a quarter century ago, saw much the same role for voluntary groups. “They are able to stand aside from and criticize state action, or inaction, in the interest of the inarticulate man-in-the-street.” As government’s role in many areas formerly dominated by nongovernmental groups grows even larger, and the voluntary role grows correspondingly smaller, the monitoring and influencing of government may be emerging as one of the single most important and effective functions of the private nonprofit sector. Overseeing the Market Place While most of the third sector’s activity relates more closely to government than to the business sector because of the nonprofit, public-interest common denominator of government and voluntary organizations, the sector does play a role, and perhaps a growing one, in relation to the business world. In some areas, voluntary organizations provide a direct alternative to, and a kind of yardstick for, business organizations. Non-profit hospitals and research organizations, for instance, operate in competition with close commercial counterparts. A number of nonprofit groups make it their business to keep a

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critical gaze on business, including labor union activity, as well. Potentially freer from the influence of powerful economic interests, nonprofit groups can act as detached overseers of the market place in ways that government agencies and legislators are often restrained from doing. Bringing the Sectors Together Nonprofit organizations frequently serve to stimulate and coordinate activities in which government or business or both interact with voluntary groups to pursue public purposes. Organization for community development is one example of this synergistic role. Another is the practice by a group such as The Nature Conservancy of enlisting the help of industry in the form of low-interest loans to buy land for preservation and conservation purposes, land that may eventually be turned over to government ownership. The fact that voluntary organizations have neither commercial interests to pursue nor official status often makes them best suited to act as intermediary or coordinator in activities involving government and business. Giving Aid Abroad In a time of heightened nationalistic sensitivities, especially where official American actions abroad are concerned, nonprofit organizations have been able to offer aid in situations where government help would be politically unacceptable. Workers for the American Friends Service Committee, for instance, were able to remain behind in Da Nang during the North Vietnamese takeover of that city and were able to help war victims there even though the United States government was considered hostile by the city’s occupiers. As a Ford Foundation annual report observed a few years ago: . . . “Our welcome in sensitive areas often derives from the fact that we are not a government.” Furthering Active Citizenship and Altruism While the previous categories deal mainly with the important roles nonprofit organizations serve for the society as a whole or for certain beneficiary segments of the society, one of the broadest and most important functions voluntary groups perform derives not so much from what they do for beneficiaries as what they do for participants. Voluntary groups serve as ready

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and accessible outlets for public-spirited initiative and activity—for philanthropy broadly defined. In a complex urbanized and suburbanized society, the individual acting alone can hope to make little impress on community or national problems, is often at a loss to find and help those who need help. Many government agencies have highly structured work arrangements and cannot or do not readily receive the assistance of public-spirited citizens. But those so minded can usually join or can help form a voluntary organization as an effective vehicle for altruistic action, and this possibility itself serves as a constant encouragement to altruism, to an active involvement in public causes, which is of the very essence in a healthy democratic society.

New Frontiers and an Ageless Rationale These vital roles for voluntary organizations continue to serve and influence areas of society that have traditionally been the concern of the nonprofit sector. In addition, many new or greatly expanded concerns of voluntary activity have emerged in recent years as challenging new frontiers of the sector and of its particular capabilities. “Over the past 20 years,” observes Pablo Eisenberg, head of the Center for Community Change, “hundreds if not thousands of new local organizations have been created to deal with issues such as ecology, consumer problems, economic and social self-determination, public-interest law, poverty and neighborhood revitalization . . . groups with different purposes and structures and, in some cases, constituencies.” Indeed, a recent survey indicates that possibly as many as 40,000 environmental organizations alone have sprung up throughout the country, mostly in the last few years. And in a Commission study of philanthropy in five cities, one major conclusion is that “nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations continue to grow in each of the cities studied.” For all the absorptions by government and despite severe financial difficulties of many voluntary organizations, it would appear, in other words, that the impulse to associate is still very strong. Indeed, there are social currents in motion that should be adding fresh impetus and vitality to this ageless expression of man’s community with man.


One current is the sense of alienation that modern men and women are viewed as experiencing in the face of giant, impersonal institutions or government and business. The generally smaller size and more perceptible humanity of voluntary groups—be they block associations, local chapters of the American Legion or women’s rights organizations—would appear to offer a partial antidote to any contemporary malaise stemming from feelings of ineffectiveness or unidentity. As Richard W. Lyman, president of Stanford University, wrote recently in an essay entitled “In Defense of the Private Sector,” “People everywhere are yearning for the chance to feel significant as individuals. They are yearning for institutions built on a human scale, and responsive to human needs and aspirations. Is this not precisely what we have believed in and worked for, long before it became so popular to do so?” In addition to responding to an existential yearning, the voluntary sector should appeal more than ever today in terms of its bedrock grounding in the spirit and political philosophy of pluralism—in the idea that society benefits from having many different ways for striving to advance the common weal. The federal government’s unavailing efforts to control the economy follow many frustrating social programs of the Great Society and both add to the evidence of our senses that in our increasingly complex society there is no one body, one governing structure, that holds the answers to society’s problems, is equipped to find the answers by itself or could put them into effect if it did. In the wake of Watergate, moreover, we are probably less persuaded than ever to stake our destiny totally on the wisdom or beneficence of centralized authority. This sorry and sordid chapter in recent history has dramatically demonstrated the virtues of diffusion of power and decentralization of decision making in public affairs, and it has demonstrated the correlative virtues of a vigorous public-minded and independent sector. The sector ideally should not compete with government so much as complement it and help humanize it, however. Nor because of institutional inertia or self-protectiveness should it or parts of it stand in the way of proper extensions of government into areas where, because of the demands of scale or equity, the private sector simply cannot fill a collective want.

The sector should not be at odds with government, in other words, so much as outside of it and in addition to it. In furtherance of its own role of serving the public interest, government at the same time should actively encourage a large and vigorous voluntary sector that can help carry the burdens of public services. For to operate effectively, and humanely, government must take care not to overload its own mechanisms by attempting to bring every public purpose directly under its direction and control. The late Walter Lippmann recognized this central importance to government, and to American society at large, of nongovernmental organization. American democracy, he wrote a number of years ago, “has worked, I am convinced, for two reasons. The first is that government in America has not, hitherto, been permitted to attempt to do too many things; its problems have been kept within the capacity of ordinary men. The second . . . is that outside the government and outside the party system, there have existed independent institutions and independent men . . .” His observation describes the ultimate rationale for a “third“ sector in American society, a rationale that applies as fully for today. . . . Part I COMMISSION ON PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY AND PUBLIC NEEDS COMMENTARY ON COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS This commentary, prepared by the staff of the Commission, has two purposes. First, it is intended generally to relate the Commission’s recommendations to the relevant research papers included in this publication. Second, and more particularly, it is intended to present for discussion comments and alternatives with respect to the implementation of those recommendations. The views expressed are not those of the Commission nor of any Commission member. . . . BROADENING THE BASE OF PHILANTHROPY Commission Recommendations l. That to increase inducements for charitable giving, all taxpayers who take the standard deduction should also be permitted to deduct charitable contributions as an additional, itemized deduction.

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Commentary Under the Commission’s recommendation, which would require implementing legislation, a taxpayer electing the standard deduction could, in addition to the standard deduction, separately itemize and deduct charitable contributions to the extent of the applicable percentage-of-income limitations. Nonitemizers could claim the charitable contributions deduction on a separate schedule attached to either the basic tax form (Form 1040) or the short form tax return (Form 1040A), or on the return forms themselves if they can be modified to include the needed information. . . . 2. That an additional inducement to charitable giving should be provided to low- and middle-income taxpayers. Toward this end, the Commission proposes that a “double deduction” be instituted for families with incomes of less than $15,000 a year; they would be allowed to deduct twice what they give in computing their income taxes. For those families with incomes between $15,000 and $30,000, the Commission proposes a deduction of 150 percent of their giving. Commentary The amplified deductions, if implemented by legislation, could be claimed by any eligible taxpayer regardless of filing status, that is, joint return, married filing separately, single or head of households, Trusts, estates, and corporations would not be eligible. Partnership contributions would be allocated to individual partners to determine the amount of the amplified deductions, if the partner is otherwise eligible. . . . Commission Recommendation 3. That income deducted for charitable giving should be excluded from any minimum tax provision. Commentary The Commission’s report contemplates that voluntary contributions to the nonprofit sector can, in the areas in which they are given, serve public needs as effectively and readily as payment of taxes. . . . Commission Recommendation 4. That the appreciated property allowance within the charitable deduction be basically retained but amended to eliminate any possibility of personal financial gain through tax deductible charitable giving.

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Commentary The Commission’s recommendation would not alter the basic rules of present law, which permit gifts of appreciated property to be made at fair market value without tax to the donor. However, no taxpayer would be permitted (in the extreme cases in which this can occur) to increase his net worth as the result of a charitable contribution. Thus, the deduction arising from a charitable contribution of appreciated property would be reduced so that the taxpayer’s after-tax position could be no more favorable than if the same property had been sold. . . . Commission Recommendation 5. That the charitable bequest deduction be retained in its present form. Commission Recommendation 6. That corporations set as a minimum goal, to be reached no later than 1980, the giving to charitable purposes of 2 percent of pretax net income. Moreover, the Commission believes that the national commission proposed in this report should consider as a priority concern additional measures to stimulate corporate giving. Commentary Although the Commission recommendation does not contemplate mandatory corporate charitable contributions, it does anticipate increased voluntary activity from the business community as a result of wider disclosure of the amount of corporate charitable giving and numbers of donors. Such greater exposure of corporate giving practices could take the form of annual publication by the Treasury of corporate charitable contributions (describing, for example, types of donees to which gifts are made), together with the publication of annual (or more frequent periodic) information furnished by private organizations. . . . II IMPROVING THE PHILANTHROPIC PROCESS Commission Recommendation 1. That all larger tax-exempt charitable organizations except churches and church affiliates be required to prepare and make readily available detailed annual reports on their finances, programs, and priorities. Commentary A number of considerations are inherent in this recommendation: the organizations that would be af-


fected; the contents of the annual reports; the manner in which such reports would be made available to the public; and the sanctions which would be applied for failure to publish or to make available such reports. Each of these will be discussed separately. Organizations Affected The Commission’s recommendation would apply to all categories of organizations exempt under sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4), except churches and church affiliates as hereinafter described. Included within the filing requirement therefore would be both operating and grant-making charities, as well as organizations that combine these functions. Also, no distinction would be made among the various types of charitable organizations, including public charities, independent foundations, and private foundations. Business corporations would also be subject to the requirements of annum filing and public disclosure if their annual contributions, together with the amount of direct and indirect expenses attributable to them, equal or exceed $100,000 (determined under principles comparable to those used with respect to charitable organizations). Although the determination of a corporation’s contribution budget is within the control of the donor corporation (thus apparently permitting ready avoidance of the provision), the regulations could require filing in cases, for example, in which contributions allocable to more than one year are “bunched” or otherwise deliberately reduced. While the Commission recommendation would not apply to business entities other than corporations, consideration might be given to including non-corporate business entities meeting the $100,000 test. Although the Commission’s recommendation in general is directed at the private nonprofit sector, consideration might also be given to the inclusion of certain government entities (such as the National Science Foundation and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities). Despite the dissemination of some public information respecting these organizations, greater disclosure of the specifics of their activities presented in a manner comparable to and compatible with that required of private organizations should facilitate better understanding, and therefore more effective performance by those organizations.

Annual reports would be required only of organizations whose annual budgets exceed $100,000. Because of this “floor,” smaller organizations would not be burdened with this expense. If, however, experience with such a provision suggests that a higher or lower limit should be set, further studies should then be made of the means to facilitate the desired disclosure. In determining whether a charitable organization’s budget requires it to file the detailed annual report and to make it available for public inspection for any taxable year, principles which now apply in calculating “gross receipts” in regulations under section 603336 could be adapted to the new rule. An organization whose gross receipts do not exceed $100,000 (determined under such principles) in the immediately preceding year and whose average gross receipts over the preceding five years do not exceed $100,000, would not be required to make available its annum report. It should be observed that the Commission’s recommendation would not apply to a church or a “church affiliate,” a term not defined under present law. No precise definition is intended to be formulated here. In promulgating regulations under this provision, however, consideration can be given to drawing a distinction between organizations which are “integrated” auxiliaries of a church and those which, while related to it, do not conduct, to any substantial degree, sacramental or sacerdotal activities characteristic of the church. Examples are schools or hospitals that are operated primarily for education, welfare, health, charity or other humanitarian goals consistent with section 501(c)(3). Content of Reports The Internal Revenue Service could develop one or more forms (or revise Form 990) to generate meaningful data about the nonprofit sector on an ongoing basis. Although the Service’s interest in adapting forms to its statistical needs is recognized, it is expected that with respect to these documents, the Service would also take into account their intended use as a means of disseminating facts about nonprofit entities on a much wider basis than heretofore. The annual report of an organization should include financial data, an opinion of independent auditors, a description of the programs and priorities of the organization, and criteria taken into account in

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accepting or rejecting requests for funds, products, or services, as well as the names, addresses, and titles of trustees, directors, or other governing persons. The opinion of independent auditors should clearly set forth the standards applied in distinguishing between funds held for endowment, for general operations, and for special purposes. In the case of a business corporation, the information required would be limited to the pertinent aspects of the corporation’s contribution program. Income statements included in the report would be expected to identify in detail the separate amounts of income received for the rendition of services, the sale of products, or from the use of facilities. In determining an organization’s expenditures, the criteria by which overhead and general and administrative expenses are separated from those associated with the processing or administration of specific grants or activities should also be explained. The preparation of meaningful reports necessarily requires that uniform accounting principles be applied to the degree practicable in describing the various categories of accounts and functions of nonprofit organizations. Because the nonprofit sector encompasses entities performing a wide variety of functions, many with differing sources of support and types of activities, accounting principles would need to be made uniform with respect to comparable categories of organizations. Consistent with the recommendation of the Commission would be provision for a summary annual report to be made available to those requesting it in shorter form and in less detail than the basic annual report of which it would be a part. Where such a summary report is utilized, however, it would supplement and not replace the basic annual report, which would also be available upon request in the manner described below. It is also anticipated that the annual report of a reporting organization will contain a statement describing its field or fields of philanthropic activity. Additionally, if its charter is broad but in practice the programs are limited to specific fields of interest (whether or not such fields change from time to time), an explanation of the criteria which have been taken into account in establishing (or changing) such areas

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would be included. This information could be incorporated in each year’s report. Nothing in the Commission recommendation would require that the internal decision making processes of a reporting organization be subject to public disclosure. Such an organization could, within the ambit of the recommendation, retain flexibility to accept or reject a request for funds, products, or services for reasons which are private to it in a specific case. On the other hand, the general criteria that are applied by a grant-making entity should be incorporated into the filed material and made appropriately available in sufficient detail so that a donor or a potential (or rejected) applicant can determine the general policies and circumstances in which grants may be awarded (or rejected), subject to the availability of resources. Availability of Reports To increase access to the data accumulated under the expanded reporting requirements, the information filed should be made available to the general public on a continuous, current basis, at or below actual reproduction costs, within a reasonable period after a request is made. Each organization filing this information could be required to make it available upon request for a minimum period of time (for example, one year) after it is filed with the Service. The organization could be required to supply requested material within a stated period (for example, 60 days) after the request is made. If a member of the public seeks information subsequent to the expiration of the minimum period, or if the organization does not respond within the stated period, the requested data could then be made available from the Service. Presumably the Service would not be required to respond to requests for information within any definite time. In this manner, members of the public would be encouraged to seek information from the organization in the first instance, with the Service serving only as a secondary source. As an aid to public access to information from the Service, the material should be made available in the offices of the District Directors, as well as the National Office. Sanctions Penalties could be imposed (unless reasonable cause is shown) in the case of an organization that fails to


provide the information fully and promptly in response to a proper request from the public for the information. Such penalties could be patterned after those imposed under section 6652 of the present law. Equitable remedies (or, alternatively, penalty taxes patterned after the Chapter 42 excise tax structure) could be utilized to assure that reports comply with the requirement and set forth the required information in full. Commission Recommendation 2. That larger grant-making organizations be required to hold annual public meetings to discuss their programs, priorities, and contributions. Commentary The Commission’s recommendation would apply only to grant-making organizations (except for churches and church affiliates) whose annual grants equal or exceed $100,000 (under standards described heretofore). Governmental grant-making organizations such as the National Science Foundation and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities could (for reasons described in connection with the filing of reports) also be included within this rule. Operating charities would be excluded from the requirement, however, where their principal function is the direct conduct of nonprofit activities. . . . Commission Recommendation 3. That the present 4 percent “audit” tax on private foundations be repealed and replaced by a fee on all private foundations based on the total actual costs of auditing them. Commentary Under the Commission’s recommendation, private and independent foundations would continue to bear the costs of their own audit. In the case of all other section 501(c)(3) organizations, their costs of audit would continue to be borne from general government funds as under present law. Commission Recommendation 4. That the Internal Revenue Service continue to be the principal agency responsible for the oversight of tax-exempt organizations. Commentary The Commission’s recommendation reflects an expectation that the Service will continue to function with particular vigor and impartiality respecting its administration of exempt organization tax matters.

To assure that the nonprofit sector and the public are fully aware of the Service’s attention to exempt organizations, and to enable interested persons to participate in an ongoing process of improvement, the Internal Revenue Service should publish within six months of the close of each calendar year a statement which would contain the following information respecting the administration of its duties with respect to the exempt organization field: (1) Statistics respecting the number of organizations for which an exemption is granted, classified by categories of entities, including private foundations; (2) Statistics respecting the number of organizations for which an exemption is denied, and categories of such organizations; (3) A statement of gross receipts and disbursements of exempt organizations, including a breakdown to show receipts from contributions, government grants and contracts for services, and such other meaningful categories as can feasibly be reported; (4) A statement of penalty excise taxes assessed and collected from private foundations; (5) A statement of collections of income taxes and unrelated business income taxes; (6) A statement indicating dollar amounts spent in administration and fund raising by charities that solicit funds from the general public; (7) A statement indicating the criteria applied by the Service in determining exemption in various fields. For example, the Service should state the elements that enter into the determination of whether an organization is or is not exempt as a church, school, educational organization, or otherwise; (8) A statement of the amount of charitable bequests reported during the year, with the categories of philanthropic fields to which such bequests were made, and the amount given to each field; (9) Information respecting corporate giving would indicate the numbers of corporations, their size, their industry classification, the value of charitable contributions made, and the charitable categories in which the contributions are made. Corporate commitments not listed as contributions which benefit charities (such as interest-free or low interest rate loans, contributions of services of employees, and free or low-cost use of facilities) could be identified; the percentage of

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a company’s pretax income given by it to charity would also be subject to annual disclosure; (10) When feasible through the use of the existing statistics of an income program, information should be developed with respect to individual giving as follows: (a) percentages of individual income given to charities at various levels of gross income; (b) indication of amount of gifts given in cash and property and the dispersion of each among charitable fields; (c) information respecting size of gifts, classified by donors’ income and purposes of gifts (health, education, welfare, religion, and so forth); (11) All publicly available material (for example, information returns and exemption applications) should be readily accessible. The Service should make financial and physical arrangements to assure that persons seeking this information are able to receive it with a minimum of delay and at moderate costs. Implementation of this aspect of the Commission’s recommendation clearly involves substantial expenditures of funds for the production, dissemination, and processing of the new data. This, together with other increased demands upon the Service, suggests that separate budgetary arrangements should be made to assure that the Service could carry out these responsibilities without diminishing its normal revenue and administrative collection functions. Commission Recommendation 5. That the duplication of legal responsibility for proper expenditure of foundation grants, now imposed on both foundations and recipients, be eliminated and that recipient organizations be made primarily responsible for their expenditures. Commentary This recommendation would relieve a grantor private foundation of detailed “expenditure responsibility” for grants to organizations that do not qualify as “public charities.’’ Commission Recommendation 6. That tax-exempt organizations, particularly funding organizations, recognize an obligation to be responsive to changing viewpoints and emerging needs and that they take steps such as broadening their boards and staffs to insure that they are responsive.

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Commentary This recommendation would broaden the spectrum of institutional philanthropy: by generating diversified staffs and governing bodies with differing backgrounds; through adoption of programs that are responsive to emerging priorities; and (in the case of the largest foundations) by establishing a presence in various locations in the country. . . . Commission Recommendation 7. That a new category of “independent” foundation be established by law. Such organizations would enjoy the tax benefits of public charities in return for diminished influence on the foundation’s board by the foundation’s benefactor or by his or her family or business associates. Commentary This recommendation would narrow distinctions between publicly supported charities and those private foundations which have, or can be expected to have, substantial public charity attributes. An “independent” foundation would be one that is independent in fact and not susceptible to the influence of the original donor. The majority of its governing officers would not be related to or employed by the donor, his family or business associates. Such a foundation would be treated essentially as if it were a public charity, thus enabling it to receive gifts of property more readily and to function with respect to grants and transactions as if it were a public charity. The ability of such independent foundations to receive corpus grants and to function more flexibly than private foundations should enhance the resources of the private foundation component of the nonprofit sector. . . . Commission Recommendation 8. That all tax-exempt organizations be required by law to maintain “arms-length” business relationships with profit-making organizations or activities in which any member of the organization’s staff, any board member or any major contributor has a substantial financial interest, either directly or through his or her family. Commentary This recommendation would prohibit improper business dealings between a nonprofit organization and its governing body or substantial contributors. It would,


however, permit dealings between such parties in aid of the organization and its beneficiaries, but under carefully scrutinized circumstances. The recommendation would be uniformly applied with respect to all charities, but to the extent feasible, interference with normal business transactions would be avoided. . . . Commission Recommendation 9. That to discourage unnecessary accumulation of income, a flat payout rate of 5 percent of principal be fixed by Congress for private foundations and a lower rate for other endowed tax-exempt organizations. Commentary This recommendation would assure that both private foundations and endowed operating charities distribute or apply for direct operational charitable purposes reasonable amounts annually, sufficient to prevent unjustified accumulation of income, but also not in such great amounts as to cause erosion of principal. . . . Commission Recommendation 10. That a system of federal regulation be established for interstate charitable solicitations and that intrastate solicitations be more effectively regulated by state governments. Commentary This recommendation would reinforce public confidence in the integrity of solicitation processes of nonprofit organizations and establish procedures to assure that fund-raising and administrative costs will not be excessive in amount. The recommendation contemplates that the federal government, the states and localities, as well as nonprofit organizations themselves, take prompt and concrete steps to assure the public that the solicitation practices of nonprofit organizations are rational and reasonable. These steps should assist in this process: Commission Recommendation 11. That as a federal enforcement tool against abuses by tax-exempt organizations, and to protect these organizations themselves, sanctions appropriate to the abuses should be enacted as well as forms of administrative or judicial review of the principal existing sanction—revocation of an organization’s exempt status. Commentary This recommendation would provide a variety of flexible sanctions to be imposed by administrative

agencies and the courts upon nonprofit organizations in appropriate cases, thereby enabling the rectification of abuses without necessarily revoking the organization’s tax-exempt status. . . . Commission Recommendation 12. That nonprofit organizations, other than foundations, be allowed the same freedoms to attempt to influence legislation as are business corporations and trade associations, that toward this end Congress remove the current limitation on such activity by charitable groups eligible to receive tax-deductible gifts. Commentary This recommendation would remove limitations on the right of nonprofit organizations to engage in legislative activity. Because of the strictures of present law, the public is deprived of the expertise of these organizations except in narrow and ambiguously defined circumstances. The restrictions under present law whereby charitable organizations are prohibited from engaging in any “substantial” legislative activities should be eliminated, thus placing such organizations on a parity with trade associations, labor unions, business interests, and other organizations. . . . III PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY: VITAL AND INNOVATIVE OR PASSIVE AND IRRELEVANT The Donee Group: Report and Recommendations In the late 1960s and early 1970s, many American institutions wielding large amounts of apparently unaccountable power came under scrutiny by citizen groups and Congress. Private philanthropy, dispensing billions of dollars annually and responsible primarily to its own good judgment, was not excepted. The Tax Reform Act of 1969 was interpreted in the philanthropic community as a punitive measure, and possibly only the opening move in a campaign to alter the power relationships which had long prevailed in the closed world of philanthropic giving. It was in this context that John D. Rockefeller III initiated the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs in the fall of 1973. Since the problems of private philanthropy were thought of as inextricably connected to the tax law, the encouragement and support of Wilbur D. Mills, then chairman of the

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House Committee on Ways and Means, and George P. Schultz, then Secretary of the Treasury, along with William E. Simon, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury at that time and later Secretary, was sought in creating the Commission. Known as the Filer Commission, after its Chairman, John H. Filer, Chairman of the Board of Aetna Life and Casualty Company, it has spent over $2 million in conducting a study of private philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. The membership of the Commission was chosen overwhelmingly from among prominent businessmen, judges, religious leaders, university presidents and foundation executives. Given this membership and the Commission’s auspices, its work was sure to have a significant impact in any future discussion of the role of private philanthropy in our national life. The Commission worked in relative obscurity until late 1974 when a group of public interest and social change organizations became interested in and concerned with the direction the Commission seemed to be taking. A catalyst for these concerns was an article written by a coalition of public interest, social action, and volunteer groups acting as advisors to the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. (The Donee Group has disbanded. Inquiries about this report should be made to the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy, Washington, D.C., organized in 1976 to follow up on many of the Donee Group concerns.) This report is published as originally submitted to the Commission. Pablo Eisenberg, now President of the Center for Community Change, in the January 1975 issue of The Grantsmanship Center News. He noted that the Commission had stressed the problems and concerns of only one half of the philanthropic equation—the givers—and had neglected the very real and pressing needs of the recipients or would-be recipients of philanthropic largess. Mr. Eisenberg noted that “the questions, Who gets what?, What are the priorities of foundations and Voluntary organizations?, and Do current conditions meet society’s changing needs? have either been played down Or largely ignored.” He postulated that the emphasis of the Commission’s work was at least partly the result of the composition of the Commis-

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sion and its advisory committee. He noted that they reflected “very disproportionately the establishment side of both the voluntary sector and philanthropic organizations.” The Commission responded to this criticism by asking Mr. Eisenberg to assist them in convening a meeting with public interest groups and others in Washington on March 6, 1975. As a result of that meeting and subsequent ones, the Commission, at its April 18, 1975, meeting, approved a proposal developed by public interest, social action and volunteer organizations to provide additional research and consultation on issues important to recipients of philanthropy and to the Commission. This proposal outlined the following tasks: 1. To obtain the views, information and experience from a broad range of organizations within the donee community. 2. To explore the public needs and organizational concerns that philanthropy is either neglecting or not meeting. 3. To help review and critique the studies and papers already prepared for the Commission, thereby identifying gaps in its research that should be filled. 4. To commission additional studies that could fill the research gaps that had been identified or broaden the perspective of pertinent subject areas. 5. To provide specific comments and concrete policy recommendations on the major issues before the Commission from the perspective of the donee community. 6. To help the Commission members, staff and consultants think through, redefine, and possibly, expand the policy issues, assumptions and recommendations that will characterize its final report. 7. To study and recommend the ways in which the donee community can continue to make a contribution to any research and work on private philanthropy and public needs that follow the official termination of the Commission’s life. The Donee Group (as it called itself partly for want of a better name) has carried out these tasks by engaging in a variety of activities, including consultation, research and the sponsoring of several meetings attended by a wide cross section of interested organizations and individuals. The group is composed of


organizations involved in minority rights, urban affairs, tax reform, voluntary action, environmental action, public interest law, housing, women’s rights, community organizing, service to the handicapped, children’s rights, social service, consumer rights and citizen participation activities in addition to scholars and some observers from the donor community. Since April 15, 1975, the Donee Group as a whole has met on ten occasions. There have also been meetings in California and New York with donee organizations which were not members of the Donee Group. In addition we have met individually with representatives of a wide range of organizations, including foundation executives, advocates for the American Indian, the physically handicapped, local art groups, religious organizations and local social action and community organizations in various parts of the country. The staff and members of the Donee Group consulted with Commission members and staff on a regular basis. We have had various research studies prepared by outside consultants and have produced analyses of our own. Through all of those efforts we have attempted to get this Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs to deal with the questions that are implied in its title. For instance, in our interim report on June 16, 1975, we urged them to examine the questions: “What are the nation’s public needs? How are they being met by private philanthropy? By government? Which needs should be met by government? Which by private philanthropy?” Because the concerns of the Commission seemed to center almost solely on technical tax considerations, we urged that it take a larger perspective and ask: “Who benefits? And who should benefit from private philanthropy?” Once these value-laden priorities were determined, we suggested, the “How” questions include the tax issues as well as governance, donor control, and accessibility. We maintained that “all of these are basically methods or means to attain certain ends. If these ends are clearly understood, methods of attaining them become easier to find.” To a large extent we failed at our effort to have the Commission seriously and directly address these basic questions, as an examination of the Commission’s report will reveal.

We succeeded in moving the Commission to accept our point of view in some areas. But now that the Commission has completed its work and we have fulfilled our obligation to them, we feel we must call attention to our differences both on the basic policy issues and on the recommendations which flow from them. We have three groups of recommendations which are discussed in detail in this report. They arise from our findings that 1. Access to the philanthropic process must be widened and made more readily available to many organizations presently shut out of the system. Similarly, greater accountability and changes in governance are necessary to strengthen as well as to provide greater access to the system. 2. The donor community must be redefined and broadened by giving all people (including non-itemizers and non-filers) the incentive to allocate money to charity. 3. The present system of government regulation and control of philanthropic organizations must be overhauled to eliminate impediments to certain necessary activities and to provide exempt organizations with competent, conscientious and nonpartisan oversight and supervision. It should be noted that those of us who have signed this report do so as individuals and not as representatives of our organizations. We have met together as an ad-hoc association of concerned citizens and have made specific recommendations to the Filer Commission and now to the public in hopes of providing the debate over these important issues with a perspective that it would not have otherwise had. It is for that reason that we have made many compromises and come to conclusions which are by no means unanimous in several instances. Those signing this report do not necessarily agree with each specific recommendation. However, they do agree on the general values and principles embodied herein which suggest that a drastic reevaluation and improvement of the workings of philanthropy must be brought about. Therefore, we hope that debate will center on the principles which lead us to make those recommendations as well as the recommendations themselves.

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Introduction What role will private philanthropy play in our national life in the next decade? Will it provide the resources for constructive innovation, the seed money for new institutions and new issues, the venture capital for social change? Will it contribute to the solutions of the hard problems of American society in our most perilous period? Will private philanthropy become an open, vital and accessible force for progress? Or will it continue in the patterns of the past, basically supporting established programs of established institutions, largely refusing to recognize new needs, and continually fighting a rear-guard action against mounting public and congressional concern with the private use of public money? These are the questions one would expect a Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs to address. In this context, it is also worthwhile to ask: Does the Commission’s report meet the challenges of the future, or is it just another study to be shelved and forgotten as irrelevant to the needs of America at the beginning of its third century? We recognize the significant contribution to many areas of our national life which the nonprofit sector has made in the past. Much of the work of various foundations stands out as excellent examples of the best of philanthropy. But we fear that more of the same from the vast majority of the nonprofit sector will not suffice. At present, philanthropy has largely failed to meet or has barely met the needs of many constituencies within our society. It has also failed to have substantial impact on the most pressing issues of the day, such as nuclear proliferation, the energy crisis, inflation, world hunger, women’s rights, to mention only a few. Future problems promise to be dramatically different from the past in both degree and kind. Private philanthropy will be called upon to meet more complicated and difficult challenges, calling for innovation and new solutions, not the “tried and true.” Shortly over two years ago, the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, in their own words, “launched a broad-range, in-depth study of philanthropy, its relationship to government and its role in American society.” They listed the following “basic areas for study and analysis.”

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Should our society continue to encourage the formation and support of private organizations and institutions as a major means of satisfying our public needs? Would the fabric of American society be altered if government replaced the private initiative and effort which traditionally defined and met our public needs? What is the appropriate relationship between government and private society in harnessing national resources of creative initiative, energy and money to define and meet our public needs? Is the present system of private support providing adequate resources for society’s needs or should new sources be found? How can existing sources be strengthened, perhaps through public support in the form of improved tax incentives? Should the present trend toward increased governmental support be encouraged? Are our society’s resources devoted to satisfying community needs being appropriately allocated among the many purposes, organizations and institutions which depend on private support? Is the federal tax system an effective and desirable means for encouraging private donations? Should the present system be modified to achieve more equity and tax rate progression? Are other means possible to encourage and supplement private support for public needs in addition to, or in lieu of, the present tax system? How has private philanthropy adapted to changing issues and expectations and to changes in the role of government? What is the nature and extent of non-financial philanthropy, such as donated time by individuals and organizations and how is this related to incentives for financial philanthropy? All of these questions implied that the Commission was going to make some qualitative judgments about how philanthropy had performed in the past and how it should perform in the future. Instead, the Commission has dealt mostly with quantitative assessments of the economic and tax law problems facing established philanthropic institutions. It is our view that the Commission’s report fails to deal adequately with many issues of present and future importance to the private nonprofit sector. The report fails to recognize the need for profound reform to im-


prove the philanthropic process; it opts for exhortation and pleas to open and reform the process when legislation and structural changes may be necessary; it continues to plead for the status quo; it fails to recognize the needs of new and emerging issues and organizations; it fails to deal adequately with problems of corporate and union donors and federated drives such as United Way; it fails to deal with problems of regulation by the Internal Revenue Service; and it postpones many important issues in the hope that the proposal to create a permanent Commission will soon be implemented. It is worth remembering that the tax and financial matters which occupied so much of the Commission’s time and resources are not ends in themselves, but merely means to achieve policy goals. We regret that the Commission too often failed to recognize that it was dealing with public policy issues affecting the lives of real people. Our basic dissatisfaction with the Commission’s major findings and conclusions may be briefly summarized as follows: 1. Important groups and issues have been given inadequate consideration in the Commission’s report. These groups have been variously described as social action or public interest or minority advocate organizations. They include the following: (a) the smaller, newer, primarily local organizations dealing with a wide spectrum of concerns; (b) groups advocating minority and women’s rights; and (c) groups engaged in overseeing, monitoring and evaluating government and other institutions of the society. These include public interest law, consumer and environmental organizations as well as those institutions providing technical services to otherwise powerless organizations. Although the Commission recognizes the support of organizations such as these to be one of “the enduring pragmatic functions seen for nonprofit organizations,” it does not make recommendations to remedy the lack of support which these issues and organizations have received from the nonprofit sector. 2. The report does not deal adequately with the need for improving the philanthropic process by providing greater access, accountability and changes in the governance of private nonprofit organizations.

The report recognizes the problems, yet the recommendations which follow do not provide the means to achieve these rhetorical goals. Also, the draft fails to deal adequately with the special problems of accountability of and access to United Way, corporate and union donors. 3. A major concern of the report is the need to protect established institutions of higher education, health, welfare and the arts. The Commission has not adequately considered, or has rejected, non-philanthropic means of supporting these institutions in spite of the fact that the need to find alternative sources of support is clearly understood. 4. The changing relationship between the public and private sectors has not been analyzed and no recommendations for the future have been made. The Commission has failed to answer two basic questions. The first is: Which public needs should be met by private nonprofit groups and which by public bodies? The second is: Which needs should be met with government funds and which with philanthropic funds? Not only has the Commission failed to clarify these issues, it has further confused them by equating public funding with public auspices. The Commission should have dealt with finding ways to preserve the independence of nonprofit groups while providing them with necessary government funding. Although this report is to some extent a catalog of our disagreements with the Commission, there are some issues on which we agree and others on which our differences are minor or ones of degree. The Commission’s recommendation on lobbying and personal or institutional self-benefiting are substantially the same as ours. Those on donor control of foundations, expenditure responsibility, public information requirements and others represent different approaches to solving the problem but also reflect our agreement on the principles behind those approaches. THE BASIC POLICY ISSUES This section will attempt to set forth the Donee Group’s values and concerns as reflected in the meetings and other activities which we have sponsored. We also will attempt to assess what we believe to be the Commission’s major value assumptions in an effort to provide the context from which we believe the Commission’s policy recommendations flow.

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It should be noted that the Donee Group agrees with many of the most important Commission value assumptions, such as the need to preserve and strengthen the private nonprofit sector and the need to preserve freedom of choice for philanthropic support. Disagreement arises, however, on questions of the relative utility of certain kinds of giving, the proper role of government and the need for basic reform in access and governance. The Perspectives of the Donee Group We view the issues of private philanthropy and public needs in the context of a society in which power and resources are grossly misallocated. Ours is a society in which racial, ethnic, sexual and other forms of discrimination deny many the political, economic and social advantages enjoyed by other Americans. It is also a society in which misallocations of power and discriminating patterns have created widespread distrust and disaffection for institutions of power of all kinds. But it is a society nonetheless with many mechanisms, both public and private, for remedying its ills. Given this general point of view we view private philanthropy as a valuable tool to be used in meeting public needs. When philanthropy does live up to the ideal of an innovative, fearless agent of social change and an advocate for those who are most in need, it becomes invaluable. Sarah Carey, in her paper “Philanthropy and the Powerless,” points to several instances of support for organizations such as the National Welfare Rights Organization, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Southern Regional Council Voter Education Project which illustrate philanthropy at its best. As Marion Fremont-Smith and Adam Yarmolinsky state in their paper, private philanthropy “can foster constructive innovation, and it can sustain valuable but neglected ongoing activities, making room for diversity, and broadening the field of choice for possible government support.” They also acknowledge that “it can simply indulge in an exchange of back-scratching favors within a narrow circle of wealth.” We believe that instead of being the venture capital for social change, philanthropy has, for the most part, patterned itself after its corporate and govern-

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mental counterparts. Most of it has become bureaucratic, safe and more conservative and less willing to take risks than the government. Other observers support this contention. For example: 1. Archibald Gilles, President of the John Hay Whitney Foundation in an article entitled “Real Politics” in the January/February 1975 issue of Foundation News, finds that less than 1 percent of foundation grants in 1972 and 1973 dealt with fundamental questions relating to the functioning of major political and economic institutions in the United States. 2. Herman Gallegos in his study, Foundations: Responsiveness to Concerns of Minority Groups, finds that less than 1 percent of foundation grants in 1972–73–74 went for the benefit of social and ethnic minorities. 3. Sarah Carey in her Commission paper, “Philanthropy and the Powerless,” says, “Regardless of how the pie is sliced, there is no question that grants made directly for social change or to assist the powerless are dwarfed by the massive philanthropic contributions made annually in support of education, the arts, health services and the like.” 4. Mary Jean Tully in her Donee Group paper, “Who’s Funding the Women’s Movement?” finds that projects designed to improve the status of women amounted to less than 1/5 of 1 percent of foundation grants between 1972 and 1974. 5. The figures in Giving U.S.A., 1975 show that 35.4 percent of all philanthropy goes to established institutions of higher education, hospitals, museums and the like with another 43.1 percent expended on religion. Most of what remains is used to support institutions with large overhead expenses which perform functions and provide services similar if not identical to those performed by government. We believe that a critical role for philanthropy is support of organizations monitoring, overseeing or seeking changes in government, industry and other established institutions. We agree with Waldemar Nielsen’s conclusion that the essential role of a private philanthropy is to support “independent centers of initiative to challenge, criticize, and provide a creative spark for the massive governmental, economic, social and religious institutions which increasingly dominate


our national life.” Equally important, private philanthropy must help to build institutions and provide technical assistance for deprived communities (such as women, Blacks, the Spanish speaking) as they begin to partake of the rights of the majority and to consolidate and maintain the gains they make. We do not believe that philanthropy should have as its primary purpose the support of private institutions performing essential public services that are being delivered by business or government. Higher education, health care, the arts and other public functions may be performed by public or private institutions. In either case, it is done largely with public rather than private funds. Since the amounts available from philanthropy for support of service organizations will never be equal to the task those organizations must undertake, philanthropy must consider altering its objects of support to make optimum use of its limited resources. It can do this by applying relatively small amounts of money to social change, monitoring and oversight functions which can have long-lasting impact of great significance. As philanthropy has an impact in certain areas, it should (except in cases of certain minorities which need substantial “catching up”) move on to new concerns and leave to government or other institutions the burden of permanent funding, a task which the nonprofit sector cannot be expected to fulfill. Private philanthropy should permanently maintain only those groups which oversee, monitor and “goad” the ongoing process. In order to maintain the responsiveness to changing needs that such a system requires, philanthropy must provide greater access to those new issues and organizations that reflect emerging needs. In many cases that will not be enough. Philanthropy will have to actively seek objects of support rather than remaining essentially passive while supporting established institutions. It is equally important for nonprofit organizations which are recipients of philanthropy to remain open and responsive. Many of these groups act as though the preservation of the organization is more important than meeting the needs of the public. Given the key role they must play, it is especially important for these groups to evaluate themselves critically in relation to the public they serve.

Most other institutions in our society have recognized or have been made to recognize the value of openness and accountability. Freedom of information and “sunshine” laws are increasingly regulating the process of government. Some corporations have responded to the corporate responsibility movement and the demands of the general public by revealing more and more about their operations. The citizen movement which propelled this process has found that philanthropy is lagging far behind in openness and responsiveness to many constituencies. Many people ask the same questions that Mavity and Ylvisaker pose: “Why, in a society that values equality of opportunity so highly, should such a vital process as the private allocation of otherwise-taxed resources be so organically tied to private wealth? Isn’t it time to democratize philanthropy, and make certain—as we have with other vital processes—of more equal access and participation?” In summary, we believe that there is a permanent role for a private nonprofit sector. Monitoring institutions of power and providing vehicles for emerging minorities to gain their rightful place in society will always be necessary tasks and these tasks are even more important as government on all levels grows larger and further removed from the citizen. Commission Perspectives There are several explicit and implicit value assumptions permeating the draft of the Commission’s final report. These value assumptions include the following: Preserving the Status Quo “For now and the foreseeable future, however, the Commission feels that any inducements to giving should not be constructed so as to discourage giving to current recipients.” (Filer Commission Report, p. 128.) Thus, baldly stated, is the Commission’s major assumption—preserving favored treatment of established private institutions in the areas of higher education, health, welfare and the arts. As we have attempted to demonstrate through research papers and meetings, there are, of course, competing values and competing organizations which are given insufficient attention by philanthropy in general, and by the Commission’s report. These organizations, which are described in greater detail below, include

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those engaged in efforts to achieve social justice or social change and those which advocate for or on behalf of under-represented minorities. There are occasional references in the draft to these groups, but there is little recognition that these are new constituencies which philanthropy must serve. Nor is there sufficient recognition of the many worthy causes which are underfunded or ignored. Moreover, no effort is made to analyze the structural or institutional reasons that social change and newer and smaller organizations and issues have such difficulties. While the report recognizes that support of “cutting edge” issues and organizations is one of the most valid justifications for private philanthropy, this is little more than lip service when one considers the major thrust of the report and the hierarchy of Commission values. The report contains many examples drawn from the problems of higher education and health care delivery but virtually nothing about public interest, consumer, or environmental law, or organizations engaged in public policy development, or overseeing government, the market place and the media, or community organizing and advocating minority rights. Although one of the Commission’s “Basic Issues” was an examination of the appropriate relationship between government and private society in defining and meeting our public needs, there is no serious debate over whether there is a continued need for private support of certain kinds of institutions. For example, it is widely recognized that there is excess capacity in the country of hospital beds and institutions of higher education. Yet the Commission has not grappled with the hard questions of reallocating limited philanthropic dollars from these areas to those in greater need. In addition, the report contains no analysis of the purposes for which philanthropic dollars are given, beyond the calculation for “welfare” or “education” or “health.” Within these general categories, moreover, most grants are made to the relatively established organizations and for relatively “non-cutting-edge” purposes. The Commission states that “private funds can provide an ‘edge of quality’ . . . ,” but does not analyze the uses made of philanthropic dollars. It is quite clear that the purposes for which grants are

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made are often no more innovative or imaginative than the choice of organizations receiving the bulk of philanthropic giving. Failure to Assess Public Needs As indicated above, once the Commission had determined, a priori, that established objects of giving should continue to be supported, there was no need to assess relative public needs. And, not surprisingly, the Commission has made no attempt to discuss or catalog such needs or to decide which public needs should be publicly supported and which supported by private philanthropy. Why, for example, is higher education or the arts of such concern to the Commission and not problems of housing or nutrition or reform of our criminal and penal laws? Why is the report full of health care delivery examples, but so little on preventive medicine or occupational disease? Why is there no mention of the role of private philanthropy in the energy crisis or in problems of nuclear proliferation or inflation or dozens of other crushing problems? Are these not public needs with which private philanthropy ought to try to deal? In short, the Commission has only done half of its job unless and until it makes an effort to answer the kind of question it initially set for itself: What are our “public needs” and how are they to be supported? Fear of Government The report recognizes the increasing role of government support to higher education, health care, welfare and the arts, but insists, without adequate substantiation, that such support inevitably diminishes independence and leads to political interference. This fear of government pervades the report. It is implicit in the dismissal of most alternative methods of support for these institutions, such as a voucher system or matching grants, and it is explicit in the refusal to accept a greater role for government in governance, access and accountability. Yet the Commission’s research largely fails to substantiate these fears. The report does not document its concern with government interference in the programs and operations of institutions receiving government support. It also does not distinguish between the role of government as philanthropist and its role as regulator. As Professor Galbraith has observed, “the role of government, when


one contemplates reform, is a dual one. The government is a major part of the problem; it is also central to the remedy.” There have, in fact, been examples of political interference in the exemption and audit process conducted by the I.R.S. And there surely must be examples of government attempts to interfere in program and policy decisions of organizations receiving government support. But is the alternative of interference by private philanthropy preferable? The report fails to recognize that very often private sources of support will dictate to potential grantees in an equally egregious manner. For example, Yale alumni recently reduced their contributions in order to force the University to change their admission policy which had resulted in fewer progeny of graduates being admitted. In short, the problem is not meddling, control or interference; it is the potential source—government— which gives rise to the Commission’s fears. It is our view that not only are fears of government not documented, but that the Commission has not adequately recognized the methods by which private sources of support exert equally extensive bonds over recipients of giving. The Commission should have focused on how to retain the privacy and independence of those institutions during a period in which the proportion of their budgets coming from government is increasing. This is one of the fundamental problems of a pluralistic society. We are no further toward its solution than we were two years ago. Excessive Confidence in Self-Regulation The Commission has an unjustified belief in the efficacy of self-regulation. Many of its recommendations on governance, access and accountability rely on exhortation and self-regulation. This is partly based on fear of government interference, but it does not recognize the futility of self-regulation. In a paper on “Self-Regulation in Private Philanthropy” prepared by Peter Meek for the Commission it is stated: During this study several persons expressed the opinion that self-regulation by the private sector, including philanthropy, is a myth in the United States. It is a concept which the private sector believes it practices and behind which it rallies when the threat of government intervention is perceived.

On the basis of present knowledge and understanding of self-regulation in philanthropy, the cynical observations cannot be convincingly contradicted. Certainly it was the absence of effective self-regulation that contributed to the restrictive regulations imposed on private foundations by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. This report makes it evident, too, that self-regulation mechanisms have made no startling progress among private foundations since 1969. Previous studies on philanthropy such as the Peterson and Treasury Reports have suggested reforms through self-regulation. They have not succeeded in accomplishing much, nor is there reason to believe that any institution willingly alters its procedures, especially toward greater openness and accountability, without outside pressure of some kind. II RECOMMENDATIONS The Donee Group, working with essentially the same information as the Filer Commission, has come to different conclusions on most isles because of the different perspectives discussed above. However, we feel that in many instances our recommendations are more in concert with the Commission’s own research than are theirs. We present our recommendations in the hope that debate over these important issues will be stimulated. We strongly believe that it would be detrimental to both philanthropy and society in general if the questions we raise are not part of that debate. Improving the Philanthropic Process The Donee Group’s most important conclusion is that individuals and organized philanthropies must reorder their priorities for giving to insure that, in the words of Alan Pifer, President of the Carnegie Corporation, “the benefit should go to those who are most in need of benefit. That is, the poor, the downtrodden, those that have suffered discrimination.” Such an exhortation is ineffective unless specifically implemented, but given past history, it is unlikely to be acted upon voluntarily. Therefore, we endorse the following specific legal remedies which, in our opinion, will change the rules of the philanthropic market place sufficiently so that groups engaged in “citizen empowerment” and other social change activities will be able to compete on a more equal basis with the

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older, larger and more nationally oriented groups now enjoying a substantial monopoly. Limit Donor Control In order to improve access to the philanthropic process, the Donee Group recommends a phase out of donor control over charitable organizations. Specifically, the governing boards of all foundations would be required by law to have no less than one third public members immediately and no less than two thirds public members after five years. Public members would be defined negatively to eliminate donors, their relatives and business associates. The Filer Commission takes the opposite approach of providing incentives for decreasing donor control of foundations through creation of a new entity called an “independent foundation” which would not be subject to the limitations on giving placed on private foundations by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. The Donee Group does not reject its approach but feels that it should operate in tandem with our phase-out plan. Although we recognize that many of the larger, national foundations already comply with our recommendation, we believe it will prove useful in reforming those small, local and tightly controlled foundations which constitute the vast majority of grant-making organizations. It would make clear to donors that, as the Council on Foundations report to the Commission puts it, it’s “not our money, but charity’s.” All too often donors view foundations as their personal property. “My foundation” is the standard form of reference used by most donors. We agree with the view expressed in the “1965 Treasury Department Report on Private Foundations” (on whose model our recommendation is based) that many charities “continue in existence year after year without achieving any of the external indicia of unique advancement of philanthropy. They attract no public attention; their endeavors gain no public support; they appear to open no new areas, develop no new vistas, create no rearrangements or alterations of focus among charitable enterprises generally.” We agree with the Treasury Report that by “broadening the base of foundation management, the recommendation (to eliminate donor control) would bring fresh views to the foundation’s councils, combat

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parochialism, and augment the flexibility of the organization in responding to social needs and changes.” Broadening Membership of Governing Boards We believe that the removal of donor control is just the first step in realizing needed changes in the governance of philanthropic institutions. Those replacing the donor and his designees must bring new ideas and perspectives to those boards or there may be no change of consequence. We therefore recommend that organized philanthropies with broad purposes be required by law to expand their governing boards to include significant representation from the general public and nonprofit agencies and, in particular, women and minorities. For those philanthropies which have a specialized purpose or geographic or program limitation, we recommend that the law require representation of those communities which are affected by or which have a special interest in those programs or areas. We do not agree with the Commission that such changes are likely to occur through exhortation. Their proposal will result, at best, in some additional window dressing. We also reject the Commission’s contention that a proposal such as ours will “undermine an important distinction between the voluntary sector and government.” Our proposal will actually make philanthropy more pluralistic by making it more able to represent “different priorities, differently arrived at.” Staffing Is Essential Opening the boards of some private philanthropies to more points of view will not improve access for some charities because the lack of professional staff is an even greater impediment. There can be no real consideration of proposals, much less affirmative outreach, unless there is adequate staff. The Peterson Commission in 1970 urged foundations to hire staff themselves or “to consider merging into existing community foundations” or “to pool their resources to share the services of a professional administrator” or to “form associations of foundations interested in a similar program area and jointly hire an expert.” The report of the Council on Foundations to the Filer Commission indicates that there are indeed more foundation staff now than in 1969. But the sur-


vey also demonstrates that, for the most part, staff were hired to deal with the administrative complexities of the Tax Reform Act of 1969 rather than to enhance the foundations’ program functions. By all accounts, the vast majority of foundations have no professional staff and of all reported staff, 23 percent work for either the Ford or Rockefeller Foundations. The survey by the Conference Board done for the Commission also indicated a similar need for staff in corporate giving. The survey stated, “although professional staff analysis is the most widely used evaluative technique, the fact is that there is a minimum of professional staff employed specifically for the contributions and foundation functions. More than four out of ten companies have no professional or clerical staff. Only one out of four companies has one full-time professional working in this area.” “It has been previously noted that a number of corporate leaders (23 percent) indicated they would increase contributions if they had more confidence that their contributions programs were successful. Perhaps part of the problem lies in this area of professionalization and evaluation. If 41 percent of the companies lack professional staff, how can they assess the need for new grants, the effectiveness of on-going grants, the performance of donor agencies?” Since exhortation has not been successful in the past in changing the staffing of grant-making organizations, the Donee Group recommends that there be a legal requirement that any organization making grants in excess of $100,000 per year employ at least one full-time professional (i.e., not a bookkeeper, accountant or donor’s secretary) or, as an alternative, join in a cooperative venture with other organizations sharing common staff. Expanded Public Information Requirements Governance and staffing are not the only barriers to accessibility to philanthropic dollars. The absence of information is at least as important. At present, only 352 private foundations out of the total of 26,000 go beyond the legal requirements and publish reports which define their program areas and describe grant procedures. In the case of religious, corporate, union and United Way funders, there are no legal reporting requirements. Except for United Way almost none of these groups reports voluntarily.

Aside from insufficient reporting, it is generally believed (as stated, for example, in our meetings with local organizations in California and New York) that organized philanthropies often fail to adhere to minimal courtesies unless the seeker of funding has the “right contacts.” Foundations often refuse to communicate at all. A survey published in the April-May 1974 issue of the Grantsmanship Center News showed that even among the larger foundations, 78 percent made no response to a simple request for information. When there is a response, very often it is a form letter containing a negative reply to a request for funds whether such a request was made or not. It rarely contains any reason for denial. All of these persistent problems lead us to recommend that all grant-making organizations which are exempt or which receive deductions through their grants (including churches, unions, corporations, United Ways, etc.) be required by law to publish annually: (a) nature of the program areas in which they make grants; (b) criteria by which they make decisions between individual applicants; (c) amounts available in each program area; and (d) a list of grant recipients with amounts and a short description of the purposes of the grant and the recipient. Those grantors with $250,000 or more in assets devoted to grant programs or $100,000 or more in total grants per year would additionally be required by law to provide applicants with specific explanations for rejection of grant requests. They would also be required to publish annually a formal procedure of request for proposals; a statement of the organization’s efforts to evaluate its programs in light of changing public needs; a statement of the methods used to recruit new members of the governing board and new staff; a list of staff, consultants and board members with their salaries and fees; and a statement of efforts to work with other grantors to avoid duplication and to seek out worthy projects for funding. “Publish,” in these recommendations, means to produce a printed document written in narrative form in clearly understandable language containing the above information. It also means distributing it to the media, interested citizens and groups and making the document available to any-

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one requesting it in addition to filing it with the Internal Revenue Service. Since all of these recommendations are designed to improve communication between donor and donee, we would further urge that the grant-making organizations insure that language barriers do not prevent or impede that communication. Annum Public Meetings As a corollary of the public information requirement, we recommend that the law require annual public meetings of the governing boards of grantors with $250,000 or more in assets or $100,000 or more in total grants per year. These meetings, which are standard procedures for organizations in other sectors, would include a program assessment; a preview of future priorities; a review of staff and board member selection; a review of major grants; a forum for the public to state grievances and such other matters as members of the public may wish to raise. Appropriate notice to the public and affected constituencies should be required. Eliminate Expenditure Responsibility One special barrier to access to philanthropic funds by new and struggling organizations is the expenditure responsibility requirements placed on private foundations by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. Under the act foundations and their managers are subject to severe financial penalties if they made grants to organizations which use the funds for noncharitable purposes. This has caused a tremendous decrease in foundation grants to non-tax-exempt organizations. Before 1970, 39 percent of foundations made such grants while now only 20 percent do. Therefore, we recommend that the law be amended to eliminate expenditure responsibility requirements. In addition to increasing the funding of new and controversial organizations, such a change in the law would reduce the administrative costs of foundations and make more money available for charity. If the Congress and regulators feel that there must be such requirements, then we strongly urge that the requirements be eliminated for grants under a set limit, which should be no lower than $50,000.

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Federated Fund Raising: Non-Exclusive Access; Prevent Conflicts of Interest; Reduce “Effective Donor” Control One of the types of organized philanthropies which presents special problems of access is the federated fund-raising organization, such as United Way. (One of the great voids in the Commission’s work is the absence of any substantive comment or recommendations on federated fund-raising campaigns.) It is for this reason we have included such federated campaigns in our other recommendations on access such as broadening membership of governing boards, public information, public meetings, etc. Among major problems those recommendations do not solve is the virtual monopoly United Way fund-raising campaigns hold on access to workplace solicitations and accompanying payroll deduction plans. This monopoly prevents federations representing areas of public needs or communities unrepresented or underrepresented in United Way from using a highly successful technique. It is a classic example of a monopoly market, denying the “worker-consumer” the right to “buy” the charitable cause of his or her choice. We therefore recommend national legislation to require businesses to provide equal access to workplace charitable solicitation and payroll deduction programs for all federated charitable campaigns if access is provided to any such campaign. Once equal access to fund raising is solved, it then becomes necessary to provide more equal access to the allocation process for the funds raised. At present, United Way board and committee members participate in financial allocation decisions that can and do affect other charitable organizations that they as individuals represent or to which they have a fiduciary and trustee relationship. This pattern of interlocking directorates results in a stagnant allocation pattern by United Ways. This is demonstrated by a study by Professor David Horton Smith for the Donee Group which shows that for a recent year there was an average change of only 0.56 percent in United Way allocations nationally for 72 agencies for which records were available. Very seldom are agencies removed from or added to the United Way list of recipients and when such changes are made it involves only a tiny fraction of the total funding allocation. The planning process which


supposedly assesses public needs and gives the board and staff information on which to base allocation decisions is non-functional. As Beatrice Dinerman noted in an article in Nation in March 1970, “the supposedly difficult and delicate process of distributing Community Chest contributions becomes little more than a charade designed to lull the lay decision maker into the belief that he is, in fact, reaching monumental decisions.” To end the charade and at least make outright selfdealing impossible, we recommend legislation to prevent conflicts of interest between the governing boards and allocation committees of federated fundraising organizations on the one hand and the governing boards of recipient agencies on the other. Another governance problem in federated fundraising organization is donor control. Control in this case is different than that addressed in our recommendation on foundation donor control. Effective control federated fund-raising organizations is most often exercised by major corporate or governmental executives whose organizations have major pay-roll deduction, fund raising, or other workplace-based campaign. These people may or may not be major donors as individuals, but they control large amounts of both corporate and employee giving. Although of different type than donor control of foundations, this type of control results in the same parochical, inflexible and unresponsive management as it often does in foundations. We, therefore, recommend that the governing boards of all United Ways, United Funds and similar, ostensibly representative federated fund-raising organizations should be discouraged from having more than minimal (preferably 1/4 or less) control by effective donors. Redefining the Donor Community In discussing changes in the tax laws affecting charity, we must first state that the Donee Group favors basic tax reform to restore the progressivity of the income tax and to eliminate those preferences and other devices which allow great disparities to continue. We do not, however, believe that if tax reform is gradual and piecemeal, as it is likely to be, that the tax incentives for charitable giving should be the first to go. We believe that there are far more unfair and costly tax preferences than the charitable deduction. They should be tackled first, since the benefits they

provide do not compare with the support (meager though it may be) given to many useful movements and organizations for social changes. Charitable Deduction: Tax Credit Available to Everyone; Optional Tax Credit As long as the tax incentive remains, however, it should be available on an equal basis to all citizens without regard to income or filing status. We feel strongly that the 8 million households which do not earn enough to file a tax return and the 50 million taxpayers (60 percent of all taxpayers) who do not earn enough to itemize their deductions should also receive a government subsidy for charitable contributions. It is indeed these people who are most in need of a vigorous nonprofit sector performing advocacy roles for their interests. We feel very strongly that the Filer Commission recommendations extending the charitable deduction to non-itemizers and allowing increased deductions for those with incomes of less than $30,000 does not go far enough towards democratizing charitable giving. Even more important it does not correct the great inequity of the present system which reverses the progressivity of the income tax by adding $70 to the $30 contribution of a wealthy taxpayer in the 70 percent tax bracket, only $14 to the $86 contribution of those in the lowest tax bracket and nothing to the contribution of those who don’t itemize or file tax returns. We do not believe that the Commission’s studies are adequate to predict what the changes in the present allocation pattern to various types of recipients will be as a result of democratizing the charitable deduction. However, in order to provide a period of adjustment for charities which might incur reduced income from such measures, we favor measures that would increase the total of philanthropic giving (and consequently reduce tax revenues) until alternative funding mechanisms can be implemented. Therefore, the Donee Group recommends that the charitable deduction be retained in its present form and that, as an intermediate measure, a 100 percent tax credit for a modest but not insubstantial amount (for example, $100) be made available to all adults whose incomes are low enough so that the benefits are concentrated on low-income people, but the revenue loss to the Treasury is not excessive. This would give

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all adult citizens the opportunity to utilize the advantages available now only to the wealthy. In addition, a tax credit equal to 30 percent of the amount contributed should be available to both itemizers and non-itemizers as an option to the charitable deduction. The present ceilings on the percentage of income that can be donated should be retained. Fixing the credit at 30 percent will reduce the inequity of the present system while increasing amounts available to all classes of recipients. We assume our plan is efficient since the 30 percent optional credit standing alone, according to Harvard Professor Martin Feldstein’s calculations for the Commission, results in an increase in total giving greater than the revenue lost to the government by $500 million. After five years there should be a review of the effects of this system (i.e., the two recommendations above) to determine how efficient, democratic and equitable it is in practice. After this period of evaluation a decision can be made as to whether the charitable deduction should be eliminated and the credits recommended here as options should take its place. Minimum Tax Required We cannot support the contention of the Commission that “income deducted for charitable giving should be excluded from any minimum tax provision.” It is our opinion that there should be a substantial minimum tax to prevent higher income individuals from avoiding taxation through use of deductions or preferences. That, in order to implement such a minimum tax, limitations should be placed on the use of all deductions including the charitable deduction but that the charitable deduction should be impacted last and least so as to minimize the decline in charitable giving. Anything less, in our opinion, would threaten the continued existence of the government subsidy to charity through the tax system by undermining public confidence in the fairness of the income tax as a whole. Charitable Bequests: Minimum Estate Tax Required Our recommendation on the charitable bequest is a corollary of our recommendation on the minimum tax. We feel that since it is possible to avoid paying any minimum tax at death because of charitable gifts that the charitable deduction not be allowed to prevent the payment of a minimum estate tax.

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Tax Gifts of Appreciated Property The Donee Group believes that the deductibility of gifts of appreciated property without a tax on the increase in value constitutes one of the worst examples of the inequity of the tax system. At present: 1. A gift of property costs a taxpayer less than a gift of cash. 2. Two taxpayers with the same income, giving gifts of equal value, receive different government subsidies because of the nature of the gift. 3. It is possible for a taxpayer to realize a greater after-tax profit by making a gift of appreciated property than by selling the property, paying tax on the gain, and keeping the proceeds. (This is possible where a piece of property originally cost the owner nothing, is now worth $100 and the owner is in the 70 percent income tax bracket. By giving the property to charity, the taxpayer can subtract $100 from his taxable income and thereby pays $70 less in taxes. If the same property is sold, its after-tax value is $65 or the $100 sale price minus a $35 capital gains tax for a person in the 70 percent tax bracket. The property is worth $5 more to the owner if he gives it away than if he sells it and keeps the proceeds.) 4. These are tax preferences almost exclusively for the rich. (50 percent of appreciated property gifts come from those with annual incomes of at least $100,000.) The Commission’s recommendations would alleviate only the third problem listed above. We favor taxing all appreciation in donated property. If such a change were made abruptly and in conjunction with other changes in the charitable deduction, it would have damaging effects on certain colleges, hospitals and others. Therefore we favor a transition period in which increasing proportions of the appreciation are taxed. In addition we would vigorously support measures to insure public support of some institutions to substitute for those revenues lost through this measure. Charitable Tax on Corporations The weak and vacillating recommendation of the Commission with regard to corporate giving is a consequence of the Commission’s unwillingness to recommend mandatory change and its reliance on exhortation.


Employing exhortation to increase corporate gifts to charity is a futile exercise. The Commission’s own research and even corporate members of the Commission acknowledged that mere talk has not and will not increase corporate contributions. We recommend that there be a 2 percent tax added to the corporate tax which could be offset wholly or in part through gifts of cash to charity which were made through a private foundation, a majority of whose members were not corporate officers, board members, employees or otherwise under corporate control and which was subject to the disclosure and reporting requirements contained in our other recommendations. This proposal would guarantee an increase in corporate giving. It would have the further advantage that public utilities (some of whom are not permitted by regulators to make contributions) and corporations under negative pressure from stockholders would relieve themselves from all objections to contributing by this measure. Allow Exemptions Only on Property Used for Charitable Purposes The growing hostility of citizens to the property tax is bringing greater attention to the exemption of property owned by charities from that tax. A Filer Commission study indicates that $5 billion in property tax revenues is lost to local governments every year due to this exemption. There is open questioning of the value to the public of the institutions which receive such benefits. For instance, in November 1975, the District of Columbia City Council held hearings to ask nonprofit groups to justify their exemption from the property tax. The opinion of many on the Council was similar to that held in other cities, namely that the organizations are often providing benefits to suburban residents while using city services and paying no city taxes. Other critics agree with the Filer Commission paper, “The Exemption of Religious, Educational and Charitable Institutions from Property Taxation,” which says that “by its very nature, the exemption runs counter to the ideal tax of uniform rate and broad coverage and may bestow a tax competitive advantage if used by recipients to provide goods and services that have a private sector analogue. Further exacerbating their drawbacks is the fact that, once in-

voked, the property tax exemption device can snowball in importance, making serious inroads into the ability of at least some local governments to raise revenue equitably.” However, because the exemption is of such great importance to many nonprofit organizations that its removal would create an intolerable financial burden for them, we recommend a measure which would make the exemption more equitable without abolishing it. It would deal with the problem of charitable organizations owning property which is used for commercial purposes, thereby creating hostility through permitting unfair competition and placing a greater burden on those who do pay the tax. Therefore, we propose that state governments change their laws so that the exemptions from property taxes of property owned by charitable organizations is limited to the property used for the charitable purpose of the organization. Government Regulation of Philanthropy Remove Exempt Organizations Function from I.R.S. The Donee Group believes that there is a need for a highly visible, impartial, non-political agency to regulate private philanthropy. Present regulation by the Internal Revenue Service is, in Alan Pifer’s words, “quite ineffective, it is characterized by a negative rather than positive attitude toward charity and it is located in the wrong place within the Government.” It is our view that the I.R.S. is institutionally incapable of regulating and rendering adequate service to charitable organizations since exempt organizations are by definition excluded from the agency’s main area of concern, which is raising revenue. The I.R.S. has given little attention, minimal funds and utilized the least skillful employees in their exempt organization activities. We recognize that Congress has attempted to deal with the problem of elevating the status of the exempt organizations section of I.R.S. by creating a new office of Employee Plans and Exempt Organizations, headed by a presidential appointee. However, we believe that exempt organizations will continue to be given secondary treatment as in the past. This is borne out by the fact that since the passage of the pension legislation establishing that office, exempt

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organizations have continued to receive an inadequate share of resources and attention. In addition, part of the case for removing exempt organization function from the I.R.S. can be based on the past record of the Internal Revenue Service in supervising charities. There was no significant supervision of private foundations until Congressman Patman and others in Congress began complaining about I.R.S.’s oversight of charities in the early 1960s. With the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, a heavy allocation of the Service’s exempt organizations resources shifted to private foundations, but very large and important classes of charities outside the foundation area still get little or no attention year after year. Another example of the failure of present regulation is demonstrated by Senator Mondale’s hearings on charities which solicit contributions from the public. These hearings show that some organizations continually pay very large amounts for fund-raising and administrative expenses, with little of the money solicited from the public ever finding its way to charitable use. Another example is the series which the Washington Post ran a couple of years ago on nonprofit hospitals in the District of Columbia, exposing many self-dealing and other abuses. The discoveries in New York and elsewhere about nursing homes, many of them operating as tax-exempt charities, provide a further example. As one of the participants in the post-Ditchley group stated in a letter to the Donee Group, “The fact simply is that the principal objective of the Service has to be revenue raising. It is, as Sheldon Cohen has often observed, the name of the agency. Little revenue is to be found among investigations of charities. Hence, this activity will always take second, third, or last place among the priorities of the people at the Service.” Furthermore, I.R.S., being part of a Cabinet Department, is subject to political pressures with detrimental effects on exempt organizations. Some politically unpopular exempt organizations have been subjected to denial of exemption, excessive delay in rulings on exempt status and audit procedures extraordinary in both frequency and intensity. Contrary to the Commission’s assertion that “except in several isolated instances, the Service has

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demonstrated its capacity for independent, impartial oversight of tax exempt organizations,” the I.R.S. has: 1. During the McCarthy era, under both Truman and Eisenhower administrations, denied and revoked exemptions of “subversive” organizations. 2. During the Kennedy and Johnson adminstrations an “ideological organization project” was established which disrupted the activities of those exempt groups who were viewed as threats from the right or left. 3. During the Nixon administration a “Special Service Staff ” was established to harrass leftwing tax-exempt organizations. We therefore recommend the removal of all ruling and audit functions regarding exempt organizations from I.R.S. and creation of a new independent regulatory commission with a presidentially appointed board reflecting all elements of private philanthropy, including donees. Among other requirements, the law creating the agency should provide for regional offices and institutionalized citizen feedback and participation mechanisms. In addition, we recommend that the agency be empowered to engage in the “overview, analysis, and advancement” of philanthropic functions provided for in the Commission’s recommendations. The new agency would be in a better position for information compilation and distribution than the Commission’s quasi-public body. Congressional Oversight of Philanthropy Is Necessary Establishing a new agency to accomplish informational, regulatory and advocacy goals will not be completely successful unless Congress is given specific oversight responsibilities. At present, no full or parttime staff and no legislative committee or subcommittee in either the House or Senate is devoted exclusively to examining the impact legislation will have on private philanthropy either directly or indirectly. This situation allows many bills to pass without their impact on charitable groups being assessed systematically. In the absence of a staff or congressional advocate for philanthropy with some “turf ” to protect, bills with punitive provisions such as the Tax Reform Act of 1969 will continue to be passed and ignorance will continue to rule by default.


We therefore recommend a permanent, staffed, standing committee or subcommittee in the House and Senate having oversight responsibility over any permanent regulatory or oversight agency and power to review any legislation affecting the nonprofit sector. Limit Fund-Raising Cost There are presently three different bills in Congress dealing with charitable solicitation. Each is in a different committee, each has entirely different approaches to regulation and all could pass or be defeated without any joint review. There is now no federal regulation of charitable solicitation, but instead a crazy-quilt pattern of state and local regulations with different accounting standards, fund-raising cost percentage limits, disclosure and registration requirements and regulating agencies. This greatly varying pattern allows gross fraud in some areas and unjustly penalizes legitimate charities in others and makes national fund raising especially difficult. Organizations which solicit publicly for charitable funds have a responsibility to account fully to the public on the uses to which funds have been put in the past. Those which continue to violate the public trust through misapplication of funds should be prohibited from soliciting. The Commission recommendation on this issue would not set a statutory limit on fund-raising costs and even more importantly would require disclosure of fund-raising costs only upon request of those being solicited. A recent study by the Office of Education determined that one out of every five adults in this country lack the basic knowledge to function in our society. A majority of American adults were found to be less than competent in dealing with consumer economics. Ascertaining fraud and deception in charitable solicitation requires even greater skills in consumer economics than the everyday skills being surveyed. The Commission’s recommendation is totally inadequate to protect either the public or to rid philanthropy of charlatans. We therefore recommend a uniform national law limiting to 30 percent the amount that may be expended for the expenses of solicitation by an exempt organization after its first two years of operation. All exempt organizations would be required to register

with the new agency (or I.R.S. if a new agency was not created) and disclose to the public at the time of solicitation their financial audit and program evaluation. This would mean that the charity would have to prominently display their fund-raising costs on all printed solicitations and make the costs clearly evident in all other media. Judicial Review of I.R.S. Determinations Present laws prevent judicial review of the denial of exemption, revocation of exemption or I.R.S.’s failure to act on an application for exempt status. The only recourse is for the organization to pay a tax and then sue to recover the tax or to have a donor contest the disallowance of a deduction. We therefore recommend that the law be changed to allow action for declaratory judgment in federal District Court to be brought by a nonprofit organization denied exemption or seeking a determination of exempt status from I.R.S. when action is delayed for more than 90 days. The fact that I.R.S. has persisted in supporting the present statutes in the face of these grave difficulties is additional proof, incidentally, that tax policy and philanthropic policy should not be made in the same agency. No Limits on Right to Receive Fees for Services Another problem with I.R.S.’s present policy is that it makes arbitrary distinctions between charitable organizations on the basis of source of funds. It is particularly difficult to understand why some taxexempt organizations (mainly public interest law firms) should have limits placed on their right to receive fees for services which are pursuant to their charitable purposes while other nonprofit groups (such as hospitals, colleges, etc.) operate under no such limits. We therefore recommend that no limit be placed on the right of nonprofit groups to receive fees for services rendered in connection with their charitable purpose. Abolish the 4 Percent Excise Tax on Foundations We believe that the present 4 percent excise tax on foundations deprives nonprofit groups of funds they desperately need. We also believe that tax-exempt groups should not be singled out for taxation or the payment of audit fees. We therefore favor the complete abolition of the 4 percent excise tax.

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Permanent Payout Rate of 6 Percent The Congress appropriately addressed a real problem in 1969 when it legislated foundation payout requirements. However, we believe that fluctuations in the foundation payout rate are not useful for the longterm planning and good management of either foundations or foundation donees. We also believe that foundations should be encouraged to increase their incomes to as high a level as possible for the benefit of potential recipients. Therefore, we recommend a permanent payout rate of 6 percent of the market value of foundation assets plus one half of any excess of income over that. This would give foundations an additional incentive to increase investment income and make possible preservation of the foundation’s corpus. Exempt Organizations and the Public Process Remove Limitations on Lobbying If philanthropy is to fulfill its role as the venture capital of social change, it is vitally important that certain recipients of charitable giving have access to the public decision-making processes. It is therefore one of our highest priorities that all limitations on lobbying by tax-exempt organizations be removed. The present law is extremely confusing and ambiguous. It leads many tax-exempt groups to simply avoid any activities which might arguably be regarded by the I.R.S. as objectionable. Furthermore, it leads donors to be timid in making grants to groups that have an advocacy component. The important work of tax-exempt groups, such as public interest law firms, which are actively engaged in monitoring the processes of government, is significantly impaired by the limitations on lobbying. Tax-exempt groups are permitted to pursue their program objectives through advocacy before courts and administrative agencies; yet such advocacy is prohibited if the same matter is considered by a legislature. For example, environmental protection groups participated in deliberations concerning the construction of an Alaskan pipeline in the Department of Interior and in the courts. They provided expert testimony and advocated the conservationist viewpoint. They were, however, prohibited from using their knowledge and expertise when the matter passed to the Congress. There is no justification for this distinction, and the public interest is disserved by excluding tax-exempt groups from the legislative process.

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We believe that tax-exempt monies have an important role to play in supporting citizen action groups and the innovative programs which give citizens an opportunity to participate fully in the American political, economic and social life. It is precisely these groups who feel most acutely the limitation on lobbying. We stress the importance of this legislative change from the standpoint of the donee organizations for whom this is a significant impediment. We concur with the recommendation contained in the Filer Commission Report which urges that lobbying restrictions be abolished. We do not agree, however, that the current prohibition against lobbying by private foundations should be maintained. No organization will be required to lobby; this recommendation would merely give them the right to do so. We therefore recommend that all limitations on lobbying by tax-exempt organizations be removed except that no person should be allowed to form a private foundation for no other purpose than to influence legislation. Donee Accountability Requirements We believe that the public trust implied by the granting of a tax exemption requires the exempt organization to give the public an accounting of its finances and an evaluation of its program. At present all 501(c)(3) organizations must file an annual report. Only reports of private foundations are available for public inspection in their entirety. Religious groups and those having less than $5,000 gross receipts do not have to file either type of report. No group is required to report a program assessment; only financial information is required, and the financial reporting standards are not uniform. We recommend that all exempt organizations which have been in operation for three years be required to file with the agency regulating exempt organizations (I.R.S. or the new agency) an annual report with a financial audit and program evaluation. This report must be made available for public inspection by the regulatory agency. The agency must devise a means for easy public access for viewing the report and provide copies free of charge upon request.


Prevent Private Profit from Charitable Activity The governors of exempt organizations also have an obligation beyond accounting to the public to refrain from using their positions to benefit themselves or their businesses to the detriment of the charity. Several instances of such self-dealing have come to light recently. We therefore concur in the Commission’s recommendation that all tax-exempt organizations be required by law to maintain “arm’s-length” business relationships to profit-making organizations or activities in which any member of the organization’s staff, any board member or any major contributor has a substantial interest, either directly or through his or her family. In addition, we recommend that any person be permitted to initiate an action in Federal District Court to enforce this provision and that upon a finding that activities proscribed have caused a financial loss to the charity involved, the excise tax penalties applicable to private foundations be assessed against the charity and its managers and governors. Revenue Sharing The Donee Group is of the opinion that nonprofit groups have an invaluable role in monitoring government and influencing public policy, especially on the local level. In addition they can perform many public service functions as well as or better than government agencies by performing more efficiently or by being better able to relate to the community being served. There is a trend towards exclusion of local, regional and national nonprofit groups from access to federal funds at a time when public needs are great, funding for nonprofit groups is declining and the responsiveness of local governments remains low. Many states have statutory provisions which prohibit outright or limit the granting of federal revenue sharing, special revenue sharing and block grant funds to nonprofit groups. We recommend immediate legislative changes to guarantee the availability of revenue sharing funds to private nonprofit groups. In addition, we urge changes in the procedures for public notice, public hearings and the determination of criteria for local revenue sharing distribution so that nonprofit groups have equal access with government agencies to this important source of funds.

In addition, there is a need for the new agency, if it is created, or some other body to make a continuing and periodic evaluation of the relative effectiveness of profitmaking, government and nonprofit service providers in many human service areas. This would provide some basis upon which to make judgments about appropriate roles for public and private agencies. Members of the Donee Group Those who have signed this report do so as individuals only and the names of their organizations appear for identification only. No endorsement of this report should be imputed to any group listed below. Thomas R. Asher Msgr. Geno Baroni, President, The National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs Barbara Bode, Executive Director, The Childrens Foundation Wilfred Chabrier, Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers Alicia Christian Carl Clark, Executive Director, Commission for the Advancement of Public Interest Organizations John Dixon Pablo Eisenberg, President, Center for Community Change George Esser, Executive Director, Southern Regional Council Marge Gates, Co-Director, Center for Women Policy Studies Charles Halpern, Executive Director, Council for Public Interest Law Robert Hearn Alice Kinkead Norton J. Kiritz, President, The Grantmanship Center Albert H. Kramer, National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting Maggie Kuhn, National Convener, The Gray Panthers Arthur Naparstek, Director of Policy, Planning and Research, The National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs Waldemar Nielsen Peter J. Petkas, Director, Southern Governmental Monitoring Project

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Lydia Ratcliff, Good Health Center Walter Smart, Executive Director, National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers David Horton Smith, Professor, Boston College, and Executive Director, Association of Voluntary Action Scholars Margery Tabankin, Executive Director, The Youth Project Mary Jean Tully, President, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund Raul Yzaguirre, Executive Director, National Council of La Raza Ann Zill Donee Group Staff James W. Abernathy, Jr. Theodore J. Jacobs

Global Sullivan Principles Rev. Leon Sullivan was an African American preacher, educator, activist, and author of the 1977 Sullivan Principles, a conduct code for companies operating in South Africa. The Sullivan Principles became the standard by which to judge social responsibility in South Africa, and after the fall of the apartheid regime, Reverend Sullivan brought world and business leaders together to expand the principles into the Global Sullivan Principles reprinted here. As a company which endorses the Global Sullivan Principles we will respect the law, and as a responsible member of society we will apply these Principles with integrity consistent with the legitimate role of business. We will develop and implement company policies, procedures, training and internal reporting structures to ensure commitment to these Principles throughout our organization. We believe the application of these Principles will achieve greater tolerance and better understanding among peoples, and advance the culture of peace. Accordingly, we will: Express our support for universal human rights and, particularly, those of our employees, the communities within which we operate, and parties with whom we do business. Promote equal opportunity for our employees at all levels of the company with respect

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to issues such as color, race, gender, age, ethnicity or religious beliefs, and operate without unacceptable worker treatment such as the exploitation of children, physical punishment, female abuse, involuntary servitude, or other forms of abuse. Respect our employees’ voluntary freedom of association. Compensate our employees to enable them to meet at least their basic needs and provide the opportunity to improve their skill and capability in order to raise their social and economic opportunities. Provide a safe and healthy workplace; protect human health and the environment; and promote sustainable development. Promote fair competition including respect for intellectual and other property rights, and not offer, pay or accept bribes. Work with governments and communities in which we do business to improve the quality of life in those communities—their educational, cultural, economic and social well being—and seek to provide training and opportunities for workers from disadvantaged backgrounds. Promote the application of these Principles by those with whom we do business. We will be transparent in our implementation of these Principles and provide information which demonstrates publicly our commitment to them.

The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere (1890–1930) Barry D. Karl and Stanley N. Katz This work is one of the most important analyses of the role and development of the modern foundation in shaping public policy during the early twentieth century by two of the foremost historians of philanthropy today. Foundations came into existence partly because the ideals of the American social order had not been met by a weak federal government. Funding research to address social issues was one of the more important methods used by foundations to influence federal social policy. The growing use of the term “public policy” to describe programmes placed, supported, and administered by the federal government may conceal one of

The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere

the most profound social revolutions in American history. The power of the federal government to command compliance with the aims of social reform, which vast majorities of Americans may agree are noble, rests on a legal authority that those same majorities, even a few years ago, would not have believed existed. Federal administrators, backed by federal courts, are able now not only to withhold money appropriated by Congress for support of local schools, transportation, and police and fire protection, but also to take private business firms to court to enforce social changes which may have played little or no part in the legislation which authorised the original programmes. Even those who supported the need for social reform can be puzzled by the size and shape of the federal authority which has emerged to bring it about. The fact that the issues involved are part of a peculiarly American historical problem which has evolved over the last century tends to be obscured in the hail of bureaucratic decisions, court orders, and ad hoc agreements based on the very realistic belief that if equality and justice are the objectives, this is the most efficient way of attaining them. The new methods have an effectiveness which is undeniable. They do, indeed, achieve changes. It is, however, difficult for historians to believe that change which transforms centuries-old patterns of political practice and conduct can take place without some more explicit and thoughtful commentary. One might then be able to defend the revolution on grounds more philosophically attractive than efficiency. In some respects, the peculiarly American aspects of the problem offer us the best historical point of departure. The major political debates of the first century of American government centred on the issue of the power of the federal government to control national policy. The hard-fought battles which ultimately produced a measure of agreement on such issues as banking, currency, and the tariff, also produced a civil war which abolished slavery. Underneath what we now acknowledge as the limited success of such national crusades, however, was the commitment to government which began at home—in state legislatures, in traditional county and town systems, and in the growing urban governments. The compromises which followed the Civil War affirmed the limitations

of the federal government where the making of policy was concerned, but most of all in the formulation of policy on social issues. This was an important affirmation for the South in particular where “social issues” meant not only the treatment of Negroes, but the whole problem of poverty in what was, in effect, an under-industrialized and a recently defeated colony with relatively little industry.1 State and local governments were perceived as independent entities pursuing locally determined “public” aims of their own, aims which might in fact conflict with aims pursued by other “publics” in other communities and regions. The term “public” itself was loosely applied, stretched to include the interests of business and professional groups whose concern with the health and well-being of the community, as well as its moral and charitable needs, could be defined by many different organisations and associations which no one would have called governmental.

The Formation of a National Society Awareness of the need for some kind of national institutions and procedures for influencing the quality of the lives of all citizens came basically from two sources, one quite traditional and the other quite new. The older of the two, the charitable and religious beliefs and institutions which had served as the organisational base for national, education and social reform since the Jacksonian era, no longer appeared to be effective, even though for many the benevolent motive remained unchanged. The Civil War had taught a lot of lessons, among them the divisiveness of denominational interests and transience of religious enthusiasm.2 At the same time, however, the growing consciousness of the needs of the technological revolution under way had led some entrepreneurs and managers engaged in the building of national industry in the nineteenth century to see a new range of national needs in education, in scientific research, and in the relation of the two to human welfare more generally.3 The combination of the religious and the technological objectives was by no means uniquely American. It is an outlook which existed in Great Britain and Germany, and among groups much like those interested in such problems in America. In America,

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Great Britain and Germany, enlightened members of the middle and upper classes joined reform movements designed to modernise and bureaucratise modes of welfare which the new social scientists were proposing.4 While the threat of a socialist revolution served more successfully and much earlier as a spur to vast social reform in Europe than it did in America, the consciousness of vast technological changes in medicine, in industrial methods and in techniques of education and social management may have been more important. The proponents of socialism and capitalism alike were interested in the technological revolution and the knowledge it entailed. What made the combination of charity and technology unique in American society was the tradition of federalism—the unwillingness of Americans to give their national government the authority to set national standards of social well-being, let alone to enforce them. Part of the problem lay in the diversity of ethnic, racial and cultural groups which had been affected dramatically by the successive waves of late nineteenth-century immigration and the unprecedentedly rapid expansion and settlement of the western lands. The traditional American idea of equality did not reflect a national standard according to which communities could measure the quality of education, medical care, treatment of the aged or the unemployed, even from neighbourhood to neighbourhood in the growing cities, let alone from state to state. For better or for worse, federalism in the nineteenth century had become a way of making pluralism palatable by confining unresolvable differences and accepting them. While few methods were as open and as obvious as the establishment of the Indian reservations— or as much supported by federal policy—local communities were free to find ways of containing conflicts resolvable otherwise only by periodic outbreaks of brutality. From the vantage point of historical distance, one can see the problem more clearly than it was perceived at the time. Among a national élite of modern industrial reformers, a growing consciousness of the desirability of national programmes of social welfare collided with a general political culture which could not accept a national government bent on such reform. It was a culture which would have been threat-

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ened down to its partisan and regional roots by any attempt to create a nationally unified conception of social policy. Into the gap created by this impasse stepped the modern foundation, a system of national philanthropy—privately devoted to increasing the welfare of mankind. Not until the New Deal would the federal government move into areas dominated by private philanthropy and local government move into areas dominated by private philanthropy and local government, and then only in a very limited form engendered by the Great Depression and accomplished by emergency measures that many believed would not become permanent changes. Even Americans who looked upon the social programmes of the New Deal as the origins of the American welfare state still accepted the fact that such national problems as compensation for the unemployed, the children of the poor, or the indigent and disabled elderly would vary widely according to the resources provided by state and local governments as much as regional traditions.5 Federal financial support was always deemed to be supplementary, encouraging rather than controlling state and local policies. Private organisations supported by associations of well-to-do citizens and religious groups worked jointly with agencies managed by local communities and bore the major responsibility for dealing with the condition of those unable to care for themselves. Schools run by various local committees and boards would continue to hold a widely differing range of powers to tax citizens within their jurisdictions and to distribute educational services the quality of which depended largely on the willingness and financial ability of citizens to supply the necessary funds. Wealthier communities would educate their children differently from less wealthy communities, while ethnic and racial distinctions would play their traditional roles in determining balances of quality. The emergence of the federal government as the controlling presence in the management of national social policy is a remarkable recent phenomenon: historians have scarcely seemed to notice how recent it is. Familiar with federal management of banking and currency, and observant of the slowly developing culmination of battles over the federal government’s power to determine who could vote and under what


circumstances, they have accepted such extraordinary innovations as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Elementary and Secondary School Act of 1965, and the subsequent legislation of programmes for support of the arts and humanities, for the requirement of occupational safety and for control of the environment as though they were simply predictable extensions of New Deal and Fair Deal reforms. By the end of the decade of the 1970s, the federal government had become the country’s main arbiter in the establishment of policies for the promotion of equality of economic opportunity and political equality had been added policies to promote social equality; the latter intruded in spheres of life previously governed by custom and individual preference and interest. The growth in the activities and powers of the central government, and the revenues it has collected to pursue its new objectives have had profound consequences for the philanthropic foundations. The relative decline in power of the traditional foundation in the face of increased federal management of reform has produced puzzlement and defensiveness on both sides.6 Alternately the targets of attack from those who accused them of fomenting radical social reform and those who saw them as protectors of conservative powers and beliefs, foundations have continued to insist that they are private organisations engaged in appropriately private efforts to improve the condition of life. The vastly enlarged role of the federal government in supporting and managing the same kinds of projects, even at times with foundations support and borrowed foundation staffs, has not changed the defence. “Private philanthropy” remains the distinctive phrase it has always been. “Private” began as a legitimating modifier, but as the meaning of the term was changed so has its political force. Any effort to disentangle the history of foundations depends, then not simply on providing a story that traces the formation of the first great foundations in the first two decades of the twentieth century, but some understanding as well of the relation of such organisations to national government and politics. That relation, in turn, rests on a history of debate over the appropriate role of the federal government in achieving the reforms at which it aimed. Such questions might lead to a sounder historical understanding of

the process whereby a national welfare state was legitimated against two centuries of opposition. As early as 1854 when the Jacksonian reformer, Dorothea Dix succeeded in having her proposal for federal support of mental hospitals passed by both houses of Congress, President Franklin Pierce’s veto stated the historical opposition in its starkest terms. “I cannot but repeat what I have before expressed,” he wrote, “that if the several States, many of which have already laid the foundations of munificent establishments of local beneficence, and nearly all of which are proceeding to establish them, shall be led to suppose, as they will be, should the bill become law, that Congress is to make provision for such objects, the fountains of charity will be dried up at home, and the several States, instead of bestowing their own means on the social wants of their own people, may themselves, through the strong temptation, which appeals to States as to individuals, become humble suppliants for the bounty of the Federal Government reversing their true relation to this Union.”7 The same year Henry Barnard submitted a proposal to create an “agent for education” whose office would be part of the Smithsonian Institution, but opposition from Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian helped to justify a generalised opposition that raised such issues as parochial and private education, as well as the argument that individual citizens should educate their own children and not be required to educate the children of others. A strong movement for the creation of a national system of education was part of the general furor about reform that followed in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. While it was initially part of the argument for the creation of the Freedman’s Bureau, educators like Emerson White saw it as a wider alternative. He called for the creation of a national system which would require states to maintain systems of public schools. In his argument, a National Bureau of Education would provide inspection and encouragement. Despite a fair amount of support for some kind of national programme, the opposition could still argue effectively that Congress could not take over state prerogatives or threaten local control of schools. Even though the bill involved asked only for the collection and distribution of information, opponents could see behind the veil.8

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While the work of the United States Sanitary Commission during the Civil War undoubtedly affected the post-war interest in public health boards and hospital facilities in the states, the wartime Commission had been a privately financed and privately managed agency. Efforts to press wartime enthusiasm for reform on the post-war government succeeded, finally, in the establishment in 1879 of a National Board of Health; but its life was brief and unhappy. Hedged about with restrictions on its activities intended to assure states that they would do little more than attempt to control entry and spread of yellow fever in port cities (one of the oldest and most accepted aims of the sanitarians), the Board none the less ran into opposition from its friends, who thought it weak and ineffective, as well as from its enemies, who thought it an infringement on the local practices of medicine.9 The resolution by the Civil War of the battle over states’ rights did not herald a conversion of federal power into a national instrument of social reform. Indeed, one could argue that the war and the political settlement that followed it effectively blunted the pressure of Jacksonian reform. Federal support for civil rights, an aim at least some reformers believed had been a major purpose of the country’s agony, was still a century away. Within a generation, Progressive reformers intent on forcing their society to face the damage and dislocation produced by advancing industrialisation and urbanisation were still content to press their revolution on state and local governments rather than Congress. Although the move toward increased federal involvement in action to deal with social problems was slow and cautious, usually involving merely the provision of statistical information, the mood created by the more rapidly expanding demand for federal regulation of business had unexpected repercussions. The United States Supreme Court, apparently concerned over increased use of federal authority to regulate, took the opportunity in Lochner v. New York (1905) to declare a State law regulating the hours of bakers unconstitutional.10 Since control of labour conditions was the entering wedge of reformers seeking federal rather than state redress, the future of national social reform looked ominous.

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The confining of social reform to state and local government was part of a tradition of local and private initiative that accepted differences in customs, racial and religious attitudes and regional resources of personal wealth and industrial development. The line between private and public was loosely drawn and scarcely perceived by community leaders who viewed property taxes as money out of their pockets, the use of which they wanted to superintend as carefully as they watched the money they donated to churches and charitable organisations. Even after they and their wives ceased personal management of the hospitals, schools, and havens for the poor they had founded, they continued to sit on boards and committees that oversaw the government of such social institutions. Until the turn of the century, they still ran for political office in cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago, fighting corruption and calling for more efficient uses of public money.11 They continued to support the welfare agencies and the various programmes to supervise housing, safety and health they themselves had founded long after such agencies had become “public” in the sense of looking to municipal revenues for part of their financial resources. Smaller communities, many without formal government of any kind, looked to county and state boards in similar fashion. Where state and local government were concerned, the line between public and private was bridged by a sense of personal association and community action underscored by an almost universal familiarity with local and regional church organisation. Westward expansion and settlement had moved on a network of Protestant sectarian organisations preceded by the establishment of governments and courts and some, like the Y.M.C.A., were explicitly charged with maintaining order by providing wholesome living conditions for the country’s itinerant labour force.12 None the less, the inability of Americans to accept the idea of a national social order was not an objection to the fact of social control but to its location in the central government. Nineteenth-century Americans controlled social organisation and social behaviour in states and local communities in accordance with their Victorian social beliefs, their racial, religious, and ethnic attachments, and their sense of compassion for the poor, the aged, the sick and the


unemployed. It was a system that worked so effectively that its breakdown in the depression of the 1930s came as a shock to those who had supported it. Neither Herbert Hoover nor Franklin D. Roosevelt was prepared to abandon it and the slow consciousness within the New Deal that federal responsibility would ultimately have to be the answer is a mark of the reluctance to admit the ending of an era.13 To define that era that ended thus poses problems of what might be called historical consciousness. The awareness on the part of a small but significant group of Americans that the older system of local charitable support and local reform might not continue to work, at least if left in traditional form, is where the transition begins. The creation of modern foundation and its legitimation as a national system of social reform— a privately supported system operating in lieu of a government system—carried the United States through a crucial period of its development: the first third of the twentieth century. While other western societies facing similar problems moved towards national systems of governmentally supported programmes, American society evolved a private method of producing many of the same results.14 The method was destined to have consequences not only for the period when foundations reigned supreme in the field of research bearing on social policy, but in the later and more recent period as well. The role the federal government was ultimately forced to accept was shaped and continues to be shaped in the presence of private philanthropy.

From Charity to Philanthropy By the last decade of the nineteenth century, the traditional institutions and goals of American charitable action no longer sufficed to achieve their aims and satisfy the ambitions of an emerging philanthropic class, while values changed from “charity” to “philanthropy.”15 The philanthropists as a group were newly minted captains of industry, self-made men riding the crest of America’s surge to industrial prosperity in the last third of nineteenth century. They were not well assimilated into the institutions and patterns of élite charitable activity, although they were more committed to sectarian religious traditions. And they were making money faster than they could give it away. For

a generation still imbued with the notion of the stewardship of wealth, this fact alone posed problems and created an incentive to establish new modes of charitable action. They were modern businessmen committed to notions of rational organisation and efficiency. They saw no reason why their charitable action should not be guided by the same principles as their business concerns, and indeed the task of giving away large sums of money already necessitated the rationalisation of charity. These new men were also imbued with the ethic of modern science, which taught, at a minimum the distinction between causes and results, between pathology and symptomatology.16 The new generation of philanthropists therefore came to perceive the inefficiency of the general goal of charity, which was the alleviation of the immediate effects of “social dysfunction”: poverty, sickness and the various gross forms of social disorder. A more scientific and business-like approach, they thought, was to attack the root causes of social dysfunction directly, when one could determine what they were. And how did one find out? The answer, it seemed clear by the turn of the twentieth century, lay in the scientific investigation of social and physical well-being. The answers lay in research, and in precisely that sort of investigation which characterised the work of scientists and the new social scientists in the emerging American university system. Economically, philosophically and politically, then, philanthropy and the modern university with its emphasis on research are the products of the same era and the same impulses.17 Captains of industry such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, towards the end of their active business careers, wholeheartedly accepted the ambitions of the modern spirit of philanthropy. They understood that their wealth could best be used to investigate the underlying causes of human and social evil, but of course it was not obvious to them or their contemporaries how such a goal could most readily be achieved.18 One solution, clearly, was simply to contribute material resources to the new universities, or to help found them, as Rockefeller did with the University of Chicago in 1892. But it was not yet clear how scientifically ambitious the universities would become, especially since it was not until after 1910 that

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the intellectual aspirations of the universities would clearly separate the graduate schools of the university from the college, with its primary commitment to the education of undergraduates.19 Moreover, to give to the universities, it became clear—although it was always clear to Rockefeller—was to lose control over the use of the funds which they contributed. In any case, the universities were new and untried. What alternative institutions were there? By and large, traditional charitable institutions were narrowly focused on particular problems and committed to cautious and well-tried courses of action. They were directed by quasi-professionals and élite trustees who were not likely to change their goals or patterns of behaviour radically. Although a good deal of effort went into the rationalisation of such traditional and charitable activity, under the guidance of the “charity organisation” movement, this was clearly a rationalisation of tradition. Radically new approaches would require new institutional forms, and at least one type began to seem fairly obvious and attractive by the latter part of the nineteenth century. This was the endowment, generally organised legally as a trust, with a specific yet untraditional goal.20 These new charitable trusts were mainly founded in response to dilemmas concerning the status of Negroes in the “New South.” The most important of these was founded by George Peabody, an American businessman then resident in England, and was devoted to the improvement of Negro education.21 Peabody recruited to his board of trustees a distinguished group of eastern businessmen-philanthropists, and spurred the creation of parallel efforts, all of which were more or less co-ordinated ultimately under the guidance of the Southern Education Board. Joseph Rockefeller, who had been earlier attracted to the movement, responded to this stimulus by the creation in 1902 of the General Education Board, the primary mission of which was to address itself to southern education, but its immense financial resources gave it new scope, powerful potentiality.22

The Welfare of Mankind as an Objective At just about this time comparable institutions began to emerge, the apparently simultaneous and unexamined assumption that the philanthropic thrust could

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best be organised with very general terms of reform. In this way, the donor could make a substantial gift in trust, that is in perpetuity, to be managed by a selfperpetuating board of trustees, limited only by the most general statement of purpose imagined ordinarily, to promote the “well-being of mankind.” Although the philanthropic trust seems obvious in retrospect, it was both unlawful—given standards of British and American trust law—and unforeseen the moment it sprang into a multiple existence in the first decade of the twentieth century. The philanthropic foundation thus represents the fusion of traditional charitable organisation, ancient methods for the perpetuation of family wealth and novel social, legal and intellectual ideas. In the earliest period of foundation-founding, philanthropists published a number of different models before they settled on a prescription for the philanthropic foundation with general purposes. The university itself was one such form, and probably Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago were its most perfect embodiments.23 A second possibility was the research institute, along the lines of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and the Carnegie Institution of Washington. These were, essentially, universities without students in which carefully selected investigators could pursue scientific inquiry unhindered by the obligations of teaching and administered in a manner which avoided the politics, goals and traditions of educational institutions. The research institutions form with obvious European antecedents, was destined for a long and successful career in the United States, although, as the history of Rockefeller University indicates, Americans have always viewed institutions of pure research with a sceptical eye.24 Third, the reform trust with a single purpose proliferated. The tradition begun by Peabody was carried on under a variety of different labels: the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the like. These trusts were all more or less closely devoted to the solution of particular social problems, and in some cases they were restricted in time, either for a designated number of years or to that period of time sufficient to solve the designated problems. Fourth, the tradition of social work itself


spawned a number of institutions intended to carry on the newly professionalised conduct of social work, and which proved to be a sort of mid-point between charitable and philanthropic action. The best exemplar of such an institution was fittingly entitled the (Chicago) School of Civics and Philanthropy. Such institutions were closely aligned with the new national and international associations of social workers, and also with state and local agencies charged with social welfare tasks.25 The most adventurous of the philanthropists, however, preferred not to limit themselves or their philanthropic successors. Thus, beginning with the creation of The Carnegie Corporation in 1911 and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913, the modern philanthropic foundation came into existence. This is not to suggest that the foundation came into existence full-blown, although its legal form has remained unchanged to this day. Rather, what has persisted has been the notion of large economic resources devoted in perpetuity to the advancement of the general welfare of society, and distributed according to the changing wishes of the trustees—and later, staff—who were the legal custodians of the fund. Moreover, from the very start it seemed clear that a substantial proportion of the annual income of these institutions was to be devoted to scientific and social research, much of it done through grants to universities, but substantial proportions performed by scientists employed by the foundations themselves.26 The philanthropic foundation was, then, a noble and heroic endeavour, and it was also unique to the United States. The reasons for this are not altogether clear, although of course there were few countries, even in Europe, in which so many large fortunes were created so quickly, and in which, therefore, so much readily disposable capital was in the hands of so many new men.27 Equally important, there was in the sectarian United States no national Church with a tradition of charitable action and with strong links to schemes of public welfare of all kinds. There was, that in a huge field of opportunity for privately controlled charitable investment, at just the right moment when modern reform, professionalisation and reorganisation were taking hold of American society. There was thus a new opportunity for the philanthropists to

align themselves with the reformers and the new professional classes on the basis of a common commitment to humanitarian, democratic and generally acceptable political and social goals. There was also an opportunity, as a society of corporations gave way to the corporate state, for the foundation, the corporate form of charity, to play a major role in preparing the way for the modern state. For by supporting research and thereby influencing the choice of social policies the philanthropists were capable of exercising the function of shaping governmental actions in what was increasingly identified as the private sector, especially once the associational ethos of the first decade of the century gave way to the new emphasis on the value of private action in the 1920s.28 Some of this was consciously striven for, some of it came in existence seemingly unperceived, but by the late 1920s it had become clear that the foundations and their allies had played an important role in forming a national policy for American society quite different from those of the explicitly rejected welfare capitalism of Great Britain and the Continent. The immediate ancestors of all modern philanthropic foundations are the Russell Sage Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation. The Russell Sage Foundation, founded in 1907 by Olivia Sage with the inheritance from her despised financier-husband, employed the form and rhetoric of the foundation with a general purpose but in fact it represented a continuation and modernisation of the tradition of social work. The foundation was conceived of and managed by Robert DeForest, a wealthy lawyer and proponent of the “charity organisation movement.”29 It drew its staff and its projects, most of which were carried on by the foundation itself, from the network of social work organisation and most of all its long-term director John Glenn, a lawyer-social worker from Baltimore.30 More modern, in the sense that it drew its purpose more generally from the views of its trustees and staff, and distributed its funds more wisely, was the Carnegie Corporation. After an early period characterised by the commanding presence of Andrew Carnegie, the Corporation invested fairly widely in American universities and research projects, as did the Rockefeller Foundation following the First World War.

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For all three foundations, but especially for Carnegie and Rockefeller, there was begun the process of awarding grants which developed links between the philanthropic organisations, research workers, social reformers and government. The lines between government and private action, through financial support, were blurred when they were recognised at all, as evidenced by investment of the General Education Board in “public” education of Negroes31 or the Rockefeller Foundation’s investment in the United States Department of Agriculture experimental stations in the south.32 The foundations also supported private and public institutions of a novel character, designed to stimulate the research upon which the making of public policy depended. Among such efforts were the Brookings Institution, the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, the Social Science Research Council and the National Bureau of Economic Research.33 They thus had a hand in creating a complex system of institutions devoted to the generation, communication and control of research with a bearing on public policy, and they quickly came to play a significant role in the determination of the membership of the interlocking staffs which came to dominate the major national organisations concerned with the promotion of research. To argue that this occurred by 1930 is certainly not, however, to argue that is was the deliberate intention of the philanthropists.

Populistic and Anti-Capitalistic Distrust of Foundations One cannot exaggerate the extent to which contemporaries perceived the potential of the foundation movement, both for good and ill. Almost from the moment of the creation of the first foundation, there came into being a body of criticism which has not significantly altered over the past 75 years. The criticism was, on the whole, populistic and was based on the assumption that the foundations represented the investment of ill-gotten gains in a manner which threatened to subvert the democratic process by giving philanthropists a determining role in the conduct of American public life. As one reads through the hostile literature, originating in the protest against congressional incorporation of the

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Rockefeller Foundation34 and the Walsh Commission hearings on industrial relations of 1915–16,35 following through bitter attacks of Harold Laski36 and others in the late 1920s and early 1930s to the twin attacks on conservative congressmen and political radicals in the 1950s37 and 1960s.38 Similar themes recur: money which ought to be in the hands of the public is being retained by aristocrats for purposes beyond the control of democratic institutions; the academic freedom of universities is being subverted by control of academic budgets by the foundations; public policy is being determined by private groups; the scientific and scholarly research and the artistic creativity of individuals are being stifled by the emphasis of foundations on group-research; smallness and individual effort are thwarted by materialistic and business-oriented demands of foundation management; foundations are bastions of an élite of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant managers holding out against the normal development of a pluralistic and ethnic society; and so on. These criticisms and their counterparts, are founded generally in the half-examined premise that foundations pose an intellectual and financial threat to the democratic constitution of the national intellectual life. More important, there exists the almost totally unexamined view that an intellectual conspiracy threatens the health of the body politic. The foundations have learned to live with this criticism, although it accounts for their perennially defensive political and intellectual attitude, but what matters to the present argument is the way in which the foundations overcame political challenges to their legitimacy in the first years in their existence. The first assault was directed primarily at the philanthropical activities of John D. Rockefeller. It arose out of Rockefeller’s attempt to secure a congressional charter of incorporation for his foundation in 1910, when, as he knew, he would have no difficulty whatsoever in achieving precisely the same legal result in the state legislature in Albany. Congress had already granted corporate charters to the General Education Board,39 the Carnegie Institute of Washington,40 and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,41 but the sensitivity to special acts of incorporation had increased at the same time that Rocke-


feller’s reputation had declined. Rockefeller sought federal authorisation precisely at the time that his Standard Oil empire was in the last stages of its unsuccessful struggle against dismemberment on grounds of violation of anti-trust regulations, and when his reputation as a “robber baron” was standing offence to public opinion.42 He undoubtedly thought that congressional recognition of his remarkable generosity would convey to the public his own sense of moral rectitude, but of course the result was just the opposite, and his failure to win over the senate seemed to confirm the official condemnation of his business conduct. Matters were exacerbated in the hearings of the Walsh Commission in 1915 which produced at the same time devastatingly negative information on Rockefeller’s sense of social responsibility in the management of industrial relations and the showcase for a broad range of liberal disapproval of the very concept of philanthropy. Under the leadership of the progressive lawyer, Senator Frank Walsh, the United States Commission on Industrial Relations conducted a wide-ranging inquiry into the impact of the modern industrial system on labour relations in the United States. The Commission quickly identified the new philanthropic foundations as thinly disguised capitalist manipulation of the social order, and interrogated most of the leading creators of foundations of the era: Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Daniel Guggenheim. The Rockefellers were hardest hit, since the “Ludlow Massacre” which had just occurred at their Colorado Fuel and Iron subsidiary revealed even young John D. Rockefeller, Jr. as implicated in ruthlessly oppressive policies of the most appalling character against labouring men, and caught him in a bare-faced lie when he denied participation in the management of the affairs of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The message was not lost on Walsh, who pointed out that John D. Rockefeller, Sr.’s “philosophy” sought “to justify our existing economic and industrial regime, and the relation of the great foundations thereto.” Walsh contended that the Commission hearings had led him to “challenge the wisdom of giving public sanction and approval to the spending of a huge fortune thru such philanthropies as that of the Rockefeller Foundation,” since “the huge phil-

anthropic trusts, known as foundations, appear to be a menace to the welfare of society.” The problem was that the enormous leverage of industrial wealth enabled the philanthropists “to become molders of public thought . . .” Even if the great charitable and philanthropic trusts should confine their work to the field of science, where temperament, point of view, and economic theory cannot enter, many of us should still feel that this was work for the state, and that even in the power to do good, no one man, or group of men should hold the monopoly.43 Walsh’s sentiments have been repeated many times during the ensuing 65 years. Hostility to the idea of the foundation was thus intense in the period up to American entry into the First World War, but of course with the single exception of the rejection of the Rockefeller charter, which was meaningless in view of the ready availability of state authorisation, there was really nothing the opponents of foundations could do to eliminate them. And in any case the tide of opinion with respect to foundations began to change rapidly after 1916.44 Perhaps the most significant reason for this shift in opinion was the extraordinary effort of the Rockefeller philanthropy in support of European relief, but perhaps even more important was the widespread penetration of the expanded government by businessmen in connection with the multifarious tasks required for the conduct of war.45 Many of the young members of philanthropic staffs and trustees of foundations were themselves active in the war in civilian and military capacities, and returned with a new understanding of and acceptance in the public sphere after 1918. A number of factors contributed to the legitimation of the foundations following the War. Perhaps most important was the quick maturation of the foundations themselves. By this we mean the death or removal of the original donor from the management of the foundation, and the emergence of foundation staff as the predominant determiners of the actions of the foundations. This was true in all the major foundations, even at Rockefeller where John D. Rockefeller, Jr. survived his father to symbolise family presence in the foundation, but he deferred to the newly professionalised staff in the management of the foundation’s

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affairs. The process was speeded by the emergence of strong personalities who devoted all their time to their work at the major foundations: John Glenn at Russell Sage, George Vincent at Rockefeller and Frederick Keppel at Carnegie. These professionals and their staffs were supported by trustees who, increasingly, were not drawn from among the personal and business associated of the donors, but rather represented a selection from the business and social élite of the northeastern United States, and thus helped to broaden support of the foundations within that élite.46 The acceptance of foundations was also promoted by the activities of the foundation during the period from 1918 until the Great Depression. Money carefully given sometimes makes friends among its recipients, and that was certainly the case with the foundations. The universities were quickly won over, as were numerous private and public agencies which had been helped by the philanthropists. The foundations encouraged the development of intermediary organisations, such as the Social Science Research Council, to mediate between themselves and competitors for the support proffered by the foundations and they thus succeeded in creating a belief that they were not permanently aligned with any one set of individual research workers or with particular institutional recipients of their awards. They also shrewdly supported a side variety of recipients, individual and corporate, and they also carefully selected the objects of their largesse in order to avoid public controversy. Medicine was always safe as well as any number of subjects within the ordinary and accepted range of social welfare. What was to be avoided was the appearance of investment in research which touched on controversial political questions even when that was in fact the objective of foundations and research workers. The result of ten years of effort was the creation of a network of institutions—mainly but not entirely universities—and individuals, in education, government and social work, who came to know and depend upon one another, and who frequently exchanged places.47 Since they numbered amongst themselves a good many of the leaders of public opinion, it is not surprising that the new institutions received a generally favourable press.

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The acceptance of the foundations was most importantly reinforced by their dramatic successes. It could be claimed that the grants and initiative of the foundations had eliminated pellagra, hookworm, typhoid, yellow fever, malaria, and numerous other physical aliments which had throughout history damaged and shortened life.48 The had contributed to the search for international peace following the First World War, contributed to the improvement of the techniques of the social survey on which so much reform was based, and pointed a way toward schemes of social reform, especially in the urban areas.49 In the 1920s it was generally accepted that the foundations were doing good and it was not really until the very different years following the Second World War that they encountered a new wave of public suspicion.50 Nothing succeeds like longevity, and by 1929 the foundations had come to appear traditionally inevitable and acceptable.

The Convergence of the Progressive Movement and the Aspirations of the Foundation The emergence of the modern foundation at that special point in American history generally defined as the “Progressive era” suggests some important questions both about philanthropy and “Progressives,” either politically or intellectually. It is inconceivable that either Carnegie or Rockefeller could have supported all of Theodore Roosevelt’s policies as president, although Carnegie had been sympathetic to Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Rockefeller feared Bryan and enthusiastically supported McKinley. Both men fought against organised labour with the kind of brutality many of their position considered appropriate.51 At the same time, the activities of the new foundations, like those of their donors before they created the foundations, continued to support issues and institutions which were espoused by the Progressive movement. This included not only the concerns with medicine and social welfare, but universities and other research institutions directly concerned with governmental economic policy. Some kind of bureau of government research interested John D. Rockefeller as early as 1915; and while a national institution of that kind was not clearly envisaged until after the First


World War he had already contributed to the New York Bureau of Municipal Research.52 Indeed, both Carnegie and Rockefeller had supported local reform groups which were later designated “progressive” for at least a decade before the term had been given any political significance. Part of the problem of defining their relation to the era lies in the distinction, once again, between local and national reform. Wealthy local leaders in cities like Boston and New York had long engaged in campaign reforms of various kinds to which they contributed time and money. They joined a growing group of influential leaders in universities and of publishers associated with national newspapers and periodicals to support reformers drawn from the social and intellectual élite which included Seth Low, president of Columbia University and mayor of New York, Charles Eliot of Harvard and William Rainey Harper of the University of Chicago. They visited clubs like the Lotos in New York, the Cosmos in Washington, and the City Club of Chicago to discuss local and national problems in convivial and opulent surroundings. Woodrow Wilson attended club dinners and spoke on programmes with Andrew Carnegie and other influential New Yorkers long before he gave up the presidency of Princeton and entered Politics. If some, like James Jackson Storrow of Boston, were losing political campaigns to new leaders in partisan local politics like “Honey-Fitz” Fitzgerald, men against whom they now felt themselves arrayed, the national scene could well have seemed more inviting and encouraging, particularly after Wilson’s nomination by the Democratic convention of 1912 and his election to the presidency. The new industrial élite had all taken part in the national development of more effective collaboration between the federal government and industry. Some, like Rockefeller, were advocating national charters for business corporations to enable them to deal more directly with Washington and with those aspects of regulation and rationalisation they were finding useful.53 Industrial firms like Standard Oil and the steel manufacturers who had recently come together to create United States Steel were national enterprises. Relations with and among the states were incidental to the national scale of their industries and therefore inefficient. Some of those who had sought to introduce sys-

tems of budgeting and uniform methods of accounting in their local governments were now looking hopefully towards similar transformations in federal economic management.54 Even progressives who joined with populists in decrying the evils of the trusts and seeking either their regulation or their dissolution were attracted to the same conceptions of efficient management that many who had built the trusts were seeking. When philanthropists like Rockefeller and Carnegie sought to apply similar and familiar governmental and legal standards to the national corporations they believed their foundations to be, they ran into political opposition which puzzled them. Local urban reform movements had tended to be anti-political, attacking corruption in the management of tax revenues. Locally, the issues of schools, charity and welfare, protective services of various kinds, and the rapidly growing problems of housing and land-use control had all entangled the charitable interests of philanthropic reformers with the political aims of partisan organisations. Philanthropic reform had always been a tangled skein, several threads of which always led to local political parties and their leaders. The alliances that could be struck between local reform groups, industrial leaders, and party leaders could be struck most effectively when there existed leaders who could maintain ties with all three groups, or at least with any two of the three. Theodore Roosevelt of New York and Carter Harrison in Chicago were two of the more remarkable examples. Roosevelt, like his youngest cousin Franklin at a later date, was in fact a professional politician throughout his career, yet none even among their closest followers would have defined them as “pols” or linked them with the rabble of political hacks which their reform literature denigrated. Yet the Roosevelts were among the classic philanthropic families of New York, members of the merchant banking élite that had also produced the Mellons of Pittsburgh and would eventually produce the Kennedys of Boston. Some became politicians, some did not, but all could be classed with the wealthy philanthropists. The attempt on the part of the new foundations to conduct these activities on a national scale and to win national political recognition in so doing raised the

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issue of whether or not the traditional relationship between philanthropists and government which were acceptable in dealing with local issues and issues in the states could be transferred to the federal government. This seemed to them a reasonable extension of an experience they had helped modernise, one which should, by the turn of the century have been able to override the opposition the Jacksonians had faced from Pierce and other traditionalists in 1854. The fact that John D. Rockefeller in his submission of a revised foundation charter after its first defeat in Congress was willing to make concessions to governmental supervision which dwarf even the most recent efforts at governmental regulation of foundations indicates, perhaps, the extent of his desire for an acknowledgement of the Rockefeller Foundation’s legitimacy in the eyes of national public. Congress could “impose such limitations upon the objects of the corporation as the public interest may demand,” the new charter was to read. Congress could direct the dissolution of the foundation after 100 years. Election of new trustees would be subject to disapproval within 60 days by a majority of a group which would consist of the President of the United States, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the president of the Senate, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and the presidents of Harvard, Yale, Columbia and the Johns Hopkins Universities and the University of Chicago.55 The proposed new charter also raises two additional problems which are essential to understanding the character of the modern foundation. One is the question of whether such a charter would have made the corporation public or private. The second is the question of whether social concerns, even so broadly defined as “the well-being of mankind,” can be separated from the political and economic interests of the federal government. The two problems are inextricably intertwined in ways which, once again, appear to be peculiar to the situation in the United Sates. The relation between public and private was part of the dilemma of Progressivism as well. From what one can tell, the Progressive generation—indeed, reformers back into the Jacksonian era—did not look on the institutions of state and local government as institutions that raised the issue of privacy. State and local

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governments still came under the rubrics of self-government and all that implied to those for whom local and state citizenship was the primary source of political legitimacy. Local and state government and politics responded to the commands of the interest groups, special élites, and traditional religious organisations which controlled political power. The federal government had no generally and widely esteemed traditions and, in the minds of those satisfied with the systems of local politics that gave them their sense of governing themselves, it did not need one. Only wars required such a sense of nationality and every war before the Spanish-American War could be taken as proof that there were many obstacles to the formation of such a national culture. When Progressivism was transformed from a reform movement into a political movement, it raised the issues of a national culture in ways that would continue to be threatening to the local and regional bases of American politics. Yet, urbanisation and industrialisation had pushed the country to a point where fundamental inequities in living conditions and economic opportunities could be described as national issues rather than as matters to be dealt with, if they were to be dealt with at all, by local or regional action.56 Whether or not the frontier had served as the relief valve that made such a national consensus unnecessary, Americans of the turn of the century were being pressed to believe that they needed such a sense of nationality. The argument for a national viewpoint and for national institutions were being put forth by national publications and the national network of local élites who travelled to the various city reform clubs to speak, the growing numbers of academics who moved from university to university carrying their interests in social reform with them, and now the philanthropists who were being persuaded by their advisers to support scientific research. Whatever they thought scientific research meant, they agreed on the ideal of universality embedded in the search for the “root causes” of the evils they had once been content to attack, instance by instance. Universality and nationality were bound, ultimately, to encounter the particularity and localism on which the fervent individualism Americans identified as their common birthright was based.


The failure of Progressivism as a political movement for social reform left a large scope for philanthropy.57 That failure stemmed in part from the refusal of Americans to make the federal government a centre of national social reform. One can explain that refusal a variety of ways. Localism and individualism were among the ideals preserved by those who remembered President Pierce’s concerns with the fountains of charity; but one could cite a harder and more politically realistic set of reasons by the turn of the century. Southern politicians had their own historical recollections of the consequences of national reform movements. Reconstruction had taught unforgettable lessons about the power of the federal government when it set out on a reforming crusade. Western agrarian interests had reason to be concerned about the effects of federal regulatory powers even on subjects like banking and railroad rates where they had pressed for expanded authority but discovered in the aftermath that they would still have to fight to ensure that centralised power would be exercised in their interests. Industrial leaders like Rockefeller and Carnegie were aware, even as they argued for federal acceptance of their philanthropic endeavours, that they wanted to limit federal intervention in their industrial interests. The fact that they chose not to confuse the profits they expected with their philanthropy distinguished them sharply from the tradition of philanthropy which had sought to humanise the industrial system by engaging industries themselves in the social lives of workers.58 Neither Carnegie nor Rockefeller ever seemed to think of themselves as doing anything for workers through their philanthropy, except only through paternalistic gifts of pensions, although Carnegie did endow libraries for some of his workers. Indeed, they had for years taken an unyielding position about the discontent and the unionisation of their workers; and they continued to do so, even after the formation of their foundations. Their business interests were effectively separated from their obligations to society; the former required one attitude towards the federal government, the latter another. Yet Rockefeller, at least, sought some kind of federal support for his philanthropic activities through his request for a charter. It is by no means easy to see what he actually thought he was doing, what changes

in the attitude and direction of federal policy toward social welfare he thought he was advancing. It is not known whether he asked himself whether success in his request for a federal charter would lead other philanthropists to look to the federal government for charters; or whether all national philanthropy should be federally chartered.59 That rejection may be more important than the confused debates which surrounded it. Both Progressivism and the move toward a national system of philanthropy implied that there had to be some national standard for dealing with social reforms. The very limited successes of Progressivism as a national movement certainly suggest that the American voters were not prepared to accept the idea that a group of its leaders in reform were pressing on it. As reformers on a national scale back as far as the Jacksonian era were aware, efforts to establish national programmes would be interpreted as efforts to enforce compliance with national programmes. In that sense, the Civil War had been a grotesque example of the logic of compliance with a reform movement on a national scale. Despite the fact that reformers would continue to argue that their aim was primarily one of educating the public to an understanding of its own best interests and not forcing them to comply with commands from Washington, the threat was there. In any case, the great accretion of power in Washington and the creation of a national system of philanthropy were crucial steps in the sharpening of the line between public and private in ways that would have been startlingly unfamiliar to men like Rockefeller and Carnegie, if not to American public opinion in general. Foundations were “private” now in what might be called a new sense of the term. “Private,” a term which once designated a form of behaviour that could be distinguished from restricted to sources of financial support and methods of control, could not be restricted to sources of financial support and methods of control, regardless of the substantive content of the actions. The term “public” had always had a somewhat ambiguous meaning in that regard, and it continued to do so in local affairs. Public agencies continued to depend on private donors without worrying about the distinction. Public utilities, public schools, and a whole range of social services provided to and by hos-

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pitals and courts amalgamated private and public financial support and management. The complex process of enfranchising private companies to operate “public” transportation or provide “public” services continued to raise questions of corruption and periodic cries for governmental ownership, but the relation between public and private could be flexibly redrawn as circumstances required. Where the federal government was concerned that kind of accommodation appeared to be impossible. Yet the modern foundation, from the very beginning, was engaged in a process of influencing the formulation of policies which affected the public and in which the public had an interest. Government could be called upon to support, or to continue, or even to try to prevent the carrying out of programmes designed by private groups. The federal government’s rejection in principle of a process that was locally acceptable did not change matters, particularly after presidents began looking to private sources to provide the funds for their own in promoting research bearing on policies the government was pursuing or considering. What that rejection did, however, was to change the terms in which the periodic debates over influence and direction were to be argues. Private philanthropy was forced to accept the fluctuations of public opinion which swung from periodic praise for the goods resulting from the research which foundations had supported and even initiated, and denunciations of foundations as part of a conspiracy to take over the government and as efforts to impose on the entire society ideas which were repugnant to significant sections of society. The officers of the foundations could respond to the swings by optimistic moments of camaraderie in which they advised and cajoled federal officials to do things government had not before been doing and episodes of flight in which they sought to restrict themselves to issues that could not possibly get them into trouble. The curing of sick children was always at the top of the list.60

The Private Foundation and the Public Sphere It is possible that in the process of developing the modern foundation, both defenders and critics gave the term “private” a special and deceptive meaning.

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The right to refuse disclosure, once part of any dictionary definition of the term, could scarcely be given the full defence it had always had. The various “taxbenefits” conferred on donors became the instrument which justified public investigation; but the truth of the matter was far more serious than the questionable idea that foundations were spending money that, somehow, rightfully belonged in the public treasury. Whatever the source of the money and its relation to the public treasury, the programmes it was supporting were intended to influence the situations and actions of part or all of the public. “The welfare of mankind” which appeared in various forms in the initiating documents of the foundations was being interpreted and used far more explicitly than the “general welfare” clause of the constitution of the United States.61 The federal government’s rejection of responsibility for changing society was tied to tradition that still defined the causes of social disorder and misery as local. The growing consciousness of the country as a whole as a single system of causes and effects, without regard to the traditional boundaries of locality, was in part a product of the growth of national industry and of the national economy; this went hand in hand with the growing consciousness of scientific propositions about “root causes” and “scientific cures.” Science was not only national but international. It transcended state as well as national boundaries and made obsolete the politics that confined observations of problems and experiments that promised their solution. The fact that national foundations came into being at the moment they did might well have been an historical accident; but they served purposes which could be recognised in every language but that of politics. The relation between public and private became, in the process, a heuristic device that concealed the truth only from those on both sides who wanted it concealed. Rockefeller’s openness in seeking a federal charter may have been politically naïve, but there was also a more realistic argument for it. In any case, the creation of the private foundation in an era of attacks on “invisible governments” was and would remain something of an anomaly. Americans had found a way of doing “privately” what governments in other advanced industrial societies were beginning to do. Despite the periodic investigations


through which the United States Congress looked to private donors, among them foundations, for the research on which they sought to base new social and economic policies.62 Although the First World War appeared on the scene as the kind of accidental event no one would have predicted, American entry helped establish patterns to be followed over the next three decades. The First World War transformed the role of philanthropy in American society in several distinctive ways. First of all, from the outbreak of the war in Europe in August 1914 until American entry in April 1917, American philanthropists and American philanthropy set about aiding the victims of the war through a massive outpouring of money and material, through an ad hoc administrative system privately created but operating under the watchful, if not always totally supporting eye of the Department of State.63 The Rockefeller group alone gave $22,000,000 and served as liaison between the various groups who competed with one another in the delivery of American benefactions.64 Herbert Hoover headed the Belgian Relief Commission. His own interests were influenced by principles that were destined to characterise his career in the public service over the next two decades, particularly the belief that the governments being aided abroad should also be prepared to match the contributions being made to them, lest they become dependent upon American gifts, and damaged somehow by that dependence.65 That idea, the need to assure benefactors that the communities being helped were willing to take action in their own support, had been part of the American philanthropic tradition. Carnegie had invoked it in his gifts of libraries, but not books.66 Carnegie agreements contained a clause requiring communities to provide the site and 10 per cent. of the amount of the gift for annual maintenance. Rockefeller had supported it in his insistence that local boards be established to receive such grants as his contributions to the University of Chicago, and to raise additional funds on their own. The issue of matching governmental support had not been raised so baldly on the domestic scene as it was abroad, but it had been there when the occasion made it appear to be appropriate. Local philanthropists in cities like Boston, New York and Chicago had grown

accustomed to expecting that the specialised services they provided for public use—social workers for the courts, advisers for the schools, and boards to test and certify milk—be taken over by governmental institutions once they had proved their utility.67 Equally important, however, was a second and related effect of the war. Woodrow Wilson’s decision to administer the government’s arrangements through ad hoc boards and agencies jointly staffed by private citizens and public officials set a pattern of what was called, somewhat deceptively, “voluntarism,” or “volunteerism,” depending, in a sense, on whether the system was perceived as one willingly obeyed by patriotic citizens or managed by volunteer administrators given unprecedented power to act in the public interest. While the method was looked upon as part of a special effort justified by the emergence of the war and destined for dismantling at its end, it did in fact reflect patterns of philanthropic public service which had their origins in the recent history of philanthropy.68 In the depression of the 1930s, the wartime experience was looked to, a bit romantically at times, as a model of voluntary public assistance, community self-help put to the country’s service. The expansion of the American Red Cross during the war from an agency which expended roughly $5,000,000 a year, to one which could raise and distribute $100,000,000 in a single campaign and $400,000,000 during the war itself was not viewed as a temporary exigency, necessarily, but as an experience that could be repeated when required; and the scale of operations changed.69 To be sure, in the immediate aftermath of the war, the insistence on getting the federal government out of direct engagement with the lives of citizens was strong, even among Progressives who had once viewed the intervention as an opportunity to achieve their aims. But the recollection of the experience remained. The memory of it as a national triumph frequently obscured its repressive and coercive side. In some respects the role which foundations sought for themselves during the war was no more prescient and no further advanced than the roles sought by knowledgeable and intelligent Americans of the period. Even the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was puzzled to define its appropriate position in the three years before American entry,

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attempting to remain neutral even after reports of supposed anti-German statements by Mr. Carnegie had generated a certain amount of confusion. With American entry into the war, the Endowment seemed to shift its interests and began worrying about shifting American academic interest to things French, rather than German, setting up methods of a new approach to international education which they would probably not have insisted was anti-German, even though such an implication was clearly there.70 The Rockefeller medical interests were suited to wartime specialisation, and they provided the funds for the building of a hospital in New York City, the purpose of which was to investigate new treatments for wounds, burns, and the effects of poison gas.71 John D. Rockefeller, Jr. himself served on the War Labor Board in an effort to foster a consensus between labour, management and government. But while he was seeking more friendly relations, his father’s hostility to government was growing.72 While his response was, in some respects, the hard-bitten reply of a man who still considered taxation a threat to his independence of action and judgement, it was also a statement of a generational difference that would continue to affect the philanthropic world. For the older man’s generation, philanthropy did things government did not, or should not do. When the federal government decided to do them, philanthropy stepped out. The war was teaching a different lesson. Co-operation looked more promising, at least for the moment. The relation between a strict separation of functions and some kinds of co-operative effort continued to shape the relation between philanthropy and government. The battles between them and the attempts of one to influence the other continued to suggest at the same time that their separation was at least partly illusory. The foundations, too, took part in the issues which troubled the domestic wartime scene. The creation of the National Civic Federation in 1900 had been part of a privately supported effort to establish more informative communication between management and labour in a form more acceptable to industrial leaders than was union hostility. It had been a favourite interest of Andrew Carnegie and it had attracted support form the elder Rockefeller. During the war its nation-

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alist attacks on the alleged radical attack on American society had been part of the wartime furore which had, by the end of the war, begun to trouble liberals and moderates concerned over the then new issue of civil liberties. Its director, Ralph C. Easley, had become a patriotic zealot and sought to make the Federation the leading anti-radical agency in the years after the war. By 1920 he and his agency had become an embarrassment to both the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation. They reduced their contributions or tried to maintain them at their lowest pre-war level in response to his pleas, while they discussed among themselves and their advisers the appropriateness of continuing to support an organisation they believed to be headed in a totally wrong direction. While later critics of philanthropy saw their interest in the National Civic Federation as proof of their preoccupation with anti-radical and anti-labour activities, their correspondence suggests a far more sophisticated understanding of the condition of labour and the attitudes of American society. They saw little urgency in the threat of radicalism.73 The war had transformed the country’s sense of the role of American philanthropy in ways no one anticipated. Part of that transformation was simply a function of the size of the national effort to allay suffering in Europe before America’s entry into the war, to develop the armed forces, to arouse the spirit which the war effort required after the years of doubts and indecision and to define war aims in ways that were consistent with a popular view of the national interest in a world setting. The war bond drives to finance the war by what appeared, at least, to be individual subscription, the American Red Cross drives which greatly multiplied that organisation’s scale of operation and the enlistment of the services of private citizens for voluntary effort, from the “dollar-a-year men” who actually ran the civil side of the military operation and the ladies who gathered together to roll bandages, knit sweaters, or provide coffee and doughnuts at railway stopovers, were all examples of a national voluntary effort that obscured for a time the sanctions applied to those who refused to volunteer because they found that particular war or all war unacceptable.74 None the less, the model of citizen philanthropy moved into the 1920s intact. The formation


of groups of citizens to organise local charities more efficiently went on at a quickened pace, as did the effort to popularise small contributions by handing out little envelopes to school children limiting the gift to one penny.75 (Franklin Roosevelt’s later establishment of the March of Dimes was built on the same idea: philanthropy was not and should not be simply a responsibility of the rich.)

Foundations after the Life-time of Their Founders Within the new situation of the older foundations, another transformation was taking place as the new foundations began to face the consequences of their perpetuity. The death of Andrew Carnegie in 1919 followed several years of inactivity during which one can see the beginnings of the realignments of power and management which were destined to become the focus of reorganisations in the 1920s. John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s decision to retire as president of the Foundation in 1918 and to become chairman of the board, and the naming of George Vincent as president, suggests a similar transition. John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s struggle to overcome his shyness had been tested severely by the appearance before the Industrial Relations Commission several years earlier when he had been forced to acknowledge a fact, the significance of which struck him at the time, namely, that the work of the foundation and the management of the response to the strike in Colorado had both been carried on from the same small suite of offices at 26 Broadway in New York City. The obvious proximity had generated the kind of beliefs which the critics of the Rockefeller Foundation had always feared and it seemed to establish an ostensible pattern of insidious influence the foundation world would continue to have to bear as part of the burden of doing good. Friends of the family like Charles W. Eliot, retired from his presidency of Harvard for a decade but still looked to for advice, urged him to give up the strenuous responsibility of management, and he did.76 The transition of the Carnegie philanthropies was complex in a somewhat different way. The Carnegie Corporation of New York was Andrew Carnegie’s last and biggest philanthropic corporation. He had never made its purpose clear, particularly to the extent of

defining its relation to the other Carnegie philanthropic bodies. The fact that its board included the presidents of the other corporations tended to confirm, at least in the minds of the men who ran such institutions as the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Carnegie Institute for Technology in Pittsburgh, the possibility that Carnegie had intended the Corporation in New York as a holding company of sorts to manage and supply the others, not as an independent fund with an independent set of purposes. The battle lines were drawn—and the conclusion quite possibly determined—by Carnegie’s own selection of a former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Henry S. Pritchett, as president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.77 Pritchett had assumed that Carnegie would leave all of his remaining money to the Foundation. The creation of the Corporation was a blow. The first of the former college presidents to be drawn into foundation management, rather than as advisers or as board members, Pritchett began simply as the officer in charge of the programme of college and university teachers’ pensions which the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching administered; but his location in New York in the office of the Corporation, his proximity to Carnegie, and his influence in the selection of staff were crucial.78 The Corporation itself was, during Carnegie’s lifetime, little more than an agency for his own benefactions. He ruled as president and delegated such interests as libraries, church organs, and the extraordinary system of simplified spelling he wanted everyone in the organisation to employ to his initial staff which consisted of James Bertram and Robert Franks, his personal secretaries and aides. Pritchett sometimes referred to them as “Mr. Carnegie’s clerks.”79 The selection of James B. Angell as the first president of the Corporation after Andrew Carnegie’s death gave the Corporation the beginning of a brief, independent life. It was brief, relatively speaking, only because Angell committed about six years of available funds to various projects before he left, after serving less than a year, to become president of Yale, but independent because the grants were not in support of the other Carnegie enterprises. Pritchett, during

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Carnegie’s last illness, had established a close working relation with the chairman of the board, Elihu Root, and the two of them became the managers of the Carnegie philanthropic enterprise. It was a relationship which made them not only managers of the future, but its prophets. It is unlikely that Pritchett alone could have battled such powers as Nicholas Murray Butler and John Campbell Merriam; but with Root at his side and with a stern and unshakeable patience, he triumphed. As acting-president of the Corporation, he was crucial in the appointment of Frederick Keppel as Angell’s successor. The two of them, based in New York, one determined in the paternalism of his endeavour, the other a wise and shrewd filial politician, created the independent course of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.80 Butler and his associates on the board could argue that violation of Carnegie’s intention, but to no avail.81 However correct they may have been about Carnegie’s original plan—and he had used his own presidency of the Corporation of New York as they thought his successors should have used it—he had left the money in such a way as to avoid tying the hands of his successors. Root, Pritchett, and Keppel remained untied. Although the Rockefeller family was bound to remain very much in evidence in the direction of the foundation’s interests, the same problems of reorganisation there suggest that relationships of the donors to the planning of the activities of the foundation were perhaps not so important as the much more pervasive consciousness of the need to plan, to create direction and purpose, to construct a system for the administrative management of plans and purposes and to establish the board of trustees as the body through which perpetuity would be achieved.82 In the large foundations in the 1920s one can find the pattern which was to persist in the development of all foundations large enough to be forced to face the problem. Successive presidents would have to assemble professional staffs to manage the activities of the foundation. Successive boards of trustees would have to respond to policies, determine new direction, appoint—or dismiss— presidents, and manage as, in effect, surrogate donors. Even where donors were present as board members, and obviously deferred to as such, the

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principle of perpetuity and the responsibility of acting as a community of trustees was clear. In Rockefeller and in Carnegie what had begun as a small group of secretaries, friends, trusted lawyers, and, later, a few acceptable presidents of acceptable universities had become, by the end of the 1920s, an administrative system which still included many of the same types, but with a clear sense now of their own independence as a community or group of communities from the intentions of one wealthy man. In both cases, efforts were made to interpret the intentions of “the Founder” in a tone which at times seems somewhat mystical; but those intentions were, quite rapidly, transformed into ideas of preferred policies: education, in the case of Rockefeller. Where Carnegie’s interest in libraries is concerned, the transformation of that in the 1920s is a good example. From the construction of library buildings, the Carnegie Corporation moved to the creation of academic schools to train professional librarians. The University of Chicago, initially the somewhat reluctant and puzzled recipient of the offer of money, became the first university to create a “graduate school of library science.” The Carnegie Corporation clearly took the initiative, supported surveys to determine the need for such a school, following the model which had been created a decade earlier to carry out the reforms proposed by Abraham Flexner for medical education, decided where such a school would best be located, and enticed the administration of the University of Chicago to establish the school.83

Social Improvement through Social Science One can see that a similar initiative in the Rockefeller Foundation’s support of projects in the social sciences where the problem is complicated by the fact that social science can come dangerously close to politics and hence to political criticism. The staff of the foundation had been divided internally on the subject since the beginning. Medicine was same philanthropy in the days when medical policy was considered public only when it affected the poor or the military. Most medical research was private and most provision of medical care was private, local or religious in it support. The decision by the Rockefeller Foundation to


support social science had earlier roots in John D. Rockefeller Sr.’s interest in research in economics; but such expansions in the 1920s and the support of the Social Science Research Council, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Institute for Government Research (later renamed the Brookings Institution in honour of its philanthropic founder) were all Rockefeller entries in the field of research on social science with practical intentions.84 The expansion of research in social policy by foundations in the 1920s raised a number of complex issues. The creation of research corporations which did not bear the foundation name was one way of coming to grips with the problem of political criticism. The establishment of the Spelman Fund of New York in 1928 was certainly an example of a compromise bordering on subterfuge, since the funds came from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (1918). Beardsley Ruml had been active in social science and public administration. The growing opposition of officers of the Rockefeller Foundation led to the separation of such interests into organisations less identifiable with the Rockefeller name. The Spelman Fund was explicitly directed toward problems in public administration and social science, and Ruml eventually left Rockefeller to pursue his interests more directly. Yet in the 1920s the investment of the Rockefeller and the Carnegie foundations in social problems grew. Rockefeller entered the field of low-cost housing, and both foundations enlarged their concern with race relations.85 The entry of the Commonwealth Fund into the field immediately after the war put the wealth of Edward S. Harkness and his mother to similar purposes, even though their initial interest in economic and legal research was ultimately dropped in favour of medical care.86 The “New Era” of the 1920s meant, for foundations, a new social-scientific utopianism and the development of voluntary, non-governmental systems of bringing about desired changes in American society. When, in the first months of his presidency, Herbert Hoover assembled a group of the country’s most prominent social scientists to study the state of American society, he approached foundations himself and received the support he had requested.87 Although Recent Social Trends in the United States did not finally

appear until 1933, it was intended as a document of “policy research” which the President could use as the basis for a major programme of social reform. No such massive social survey had been done before, nor has one been done since. A privately financed effort which utilised the support of government staffs and agencies as well as staffs from public and private research institutions, it remains a unique model of the kind of cooperative public-private effort of which the founders of the major foundations had dreamed. Indeed, improving the “welfare of mankind” may even have faded beside the assurance that social science research could lead to governmental policies which would in turn create a society without poverty and without war. Even the hostility towards private business that ultimately came to dominate the New Deal did nothing to stop the expansion of influence by privately supported research on the making of governmental policy. If Franklin Roosevelt preferred to conceal the fact that so many of his major advisers on policy and some of his major programmes in social reform were the result of support by one or more of the private foundations, it was because he had no choice when he needed the outside aid; and he depended upon it willingly, if not gratefully. Not until 1939 when the creation of the Executive Office of the President gave him funds to commission and conduct such research was he even relatively independent of the reluctance of Congress to support such endeavours. The programme which led to the establishment of the Executive Office of the President had been prepared by a group supported in part by the Rockefeller Foundation, indirectly, to be sure, through the Social Science Research Council, but supported by it none the less. New Foundations continued to emerge, even amidst the criticisms of the 1930s. Ford in 1936 and Lilly in 1937, although originally inactive measures of tax-avoidance, were destined to become important factors in the next 25 years.88 In the period after the Second World War, the relations between foundations and the makers of national policy grew even closer as foundations provided government with international research opportunities which would have run into opposition from Congress, while government agencies looked to foundations for ways of

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supplying money for covert activities some of the research workers themselves did not perceive. It was an era that would ultimately come under a great deal of criticism from virtually everyone involved, but at least from the perspective of a kind of organisational pattern developed over half a century, the inter-relations and interpenetrations reflected a triumph of ad hoc procedure. Administratively, foundations became one of the crucial foci in the training of the country’s managerial élite and the creation of the research techniques and the data that the élite needed. They were part of a system which provided governments and universities with advice and staff, in turn drawing their own staffs from universities and governments. The course of careers from foundation to university to government and back again became the track which the United States depended upon to develop staff and leadership for its system of government, as well as ideas. The careers of Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, and John Gardner, to name only the most obvious, illustrate the pattern.

Private Foundations, Pluralism and Collectivistic Liberalism The seeming breakdown of the system during the war in Vietnam is far more complex than simple notions about the “best and the brightest” as the rebellion of the intellectuals would suggest. The attack on foundations that began in the election battles of 1968 and focused on such matters as voter-registration in the South and the Ford Foundation’s support for the close associates of the assassinated Robert Kennedy were again striking events which obscured an historical past in which foundations traditionally worked to do for southern Negroes what their white neighbours would not do for them, and in which foundation officers found ways of sustaining the temporarily displaced members of an élite they had helped create.89 But actions were traditional parts of the pattern of action of American foundations. Both were products of the fact that for over half a century foundations had been bridging the hitherto unbridged gap which Americans had created between public and private, between state and nation and between social and political, between traditional American ideas and the urgent problems of the time.

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Even so, the discussion of the problem in terms of the old polarities persisted. Defenders of the public from interference by foundations continued to assume that government alone could do, or prevent the doing of, things which regional majorities or local interests rejected. Foundations defended themselves as “private” despite the special benefit which they received from the tax law or moved to a new level of linguistic fabrication by defining themselves as members of a “third sector,” despite the fact that such language only sustains an historical illusion.90 Foundations came into existence because American society was unable to maintain a social order which corresponded to its passionately held localist ideals. The ideals are as real as the political history which prevented their fulfilment. In the process, however, foundations helped create a voice which transcended politics, even when they were engaged in influencing them. As the battles of 1968 and 1969 showed, their voices had been critical in raising issues effectively and with organisational skill and sensitivity. The transformation of federal approaches to social problems in the 1970s raised as many historical questions as it answers and poses as many threats.91 So does the emergence of corporate philanthropy and new foundations with mandates to criticise and reform government policy. The historical argument, once again, has been transformed. Whether or not it has been changed is another matter. Notes: 1. Wilson, Woodrow, Division and Reunion, 1829–1889 (New York: Longmans, Green, 1893). Reprinted with permission from Minerva 2 (l982) pp. 236–269. 2. Bremner, Robert H., The Public Good: Philanthropy and Welfare in the Civil War Era (New York: Knopf, 1980). 3. Hays, Samuel P., The Response to Industrialism, 1885–1915 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957). 4. Owen, David, English Philanthropy 1600–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964). 5. U.S. National Resources Planning Board, Security Work and Relief Policies, Report of the Committee and Long-Range Work and Relief Policies to the National Resources Planning Board (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942). 6. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary


Sector, Report on the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (Washington, D.C.: The Commission, 1978). 7. Congressional Globe, XXVIII, 2 (1854), p. 1,062. 8. Bremner, R. H., op. cit., pp. 171–207. 9. Dupree, A. Hunter, Science in the Federal Government (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957), pp. 256–270. 10. 198 U.S. 45. 11. See Diner, Steven J., “A City and its University: Chicago Professors and Elite Reform, 1892–1919.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Chicago, 1972; see also Buenker, John D., Urban Liberalism and Progressive Reform (New York: Scribner’s, 1973). 12. Hopkins, C. Howard, History of the Y.M.C.A. in North America (New York: Association Press, 1951), pp. 227–239, 455–458, 594–604. 13. See Romasco, Albert U., The Poverty of Abundance: Hoover, the Nation and the Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965). Harry Hopkins, when appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt as director of the New York State Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, was head of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, a private charitable organization. 14. A valuable treatment of a private philanthropic system developing in the shadow of a welfare state is to be found in Own, D., op cit.: see also Clough, Shepherd B., “Philanthropy and the Welfare State in Europe,” Political Science Quarterly, LXXV (March 1960), pp. 87–93. 15. See, for example, Allen, William H., Modern Philanthropy: A Study of Efficient and Appealing Giving (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1912). 16. Rosenberg, Charles, No Other Gods (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). 17. Veysey, Laurence R., The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965). 18. Carnegie, Andrew, “The Best Fields for Philanthropy,” North American Review, CXLIX (December 1889), pp. 682–698; Rockefeller, John D., Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (New York: Doubleday Page, 1909), pp. 130–188; Gates, Frederick T., “Memo by Mr. Gates,” 7 October, 1908, Frederick T. Gates Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Hillcrest, Pocantico Hills, New York, Box II, File 27 (hereafter Gates Papers) 19. Veysey, L.R., op. cit., pp. 22–57. 20. Lowell, Josephine S., “True Aim of Charity Organization Societies,” Forum, XXI ( June 1896), pp. 494–500. 21. Curry, J. L. M., Brief Sketch of George Peabody and a History of the Peabody Education Fund Through Thirty Years (Cambridge: John Wilson, 1898); Ware, Louise, George Foster Peabody: Banker, Philanthropist, Publicist (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1951).

22. Fosdick, Raymond B. and Pringle, Henry, Adventures in Giving (New York: Harper, 1962). 23. Hawkins, Hugh, Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University 1874–89 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969); Storr, Richard, Harper’s University: The Beginnings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966). 24. Corner, George W., A History of the Rockefeller Institute, 1901–1953: Origins and Growth (New York: Rockefeller Institute Press, 1964), pp. 1–55. 25. Trattner, Walter and Klein, Philip, From Philanthropy to Social Welfare (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1968). 26. Jerome D. Greene to Trustees of The Rockefeller Foundation, 21 January, 1914, Files of The Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Archive Center, Record Group 3, Series 900, Box XVIII, Folder 129 (hereafter cited in this fashion: RF 3.900.XVIII.129). 27. See, for example, Giovanni Agnelli Foundation, Guide to European Foundations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973). 28. Hawley, Ellis W., “Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat, and the Vision of an ‘Association State’, 1921–1928,” Journal of American History, LXXXI ( June 1974), pp. 116–140. 29. “Suggestions for a Possible Sage Foundation. Memorandum made by R. W. deforest for Mrs. Sage, 10 December, 1906, Russell Sage Foundation Files, New York. 30. Glenn, John M., “Personal Reminiscences,” The Sight-Saving Review, X (September 1940); Glenn, John M., Brandt, Lillian and Andrews, F. Emerson, The Russell Sage Foundation, 1907–1946 (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1947). 31. See Harlan, Louis R., Separate and Unequal: Public School Campaigns and Racism in the Southern Seaboard States, 1901–1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), pp. 75–101. 32. McConnell, Grant, Private Power and American Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1966). 33. Oswald W. Knauth to Beardsley Ruml, 2 December, 1920, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files, New York. 34. U.S. Senate, 62nd Congress, 3rd session, The Rockefeller Foundation, Report No. 1258 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913); U.S. House of Representatives, 62nd Congress, 2nd Session, The Rockefeller Foundation, Report No. 529 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912); U.S. Senate, 61st Congress, 2nd session, Incorporation of the Rockefeller Foundation, Report No. 405 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910); Congressional Record, LI (1913), pp. 1,109–1,113, 1,808–1,811, appendix pp. 74–75. 35. U.S. Senate, 64th Congress, 1st session, Industrial Relations: Final Report and Testimony Submitted to Congress by the Commission on Industrial Relations, Document No.

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415 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1916). 36. Laski, Harold J., Dangers of Obedience (New York: Harper, 1930). 37. U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations, 82nd Congress, 2nd session, Final Report, House Report 3514 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954): U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate TaxExempt Foundations, 82nd Congress, 2nd session, Hearings (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954); U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations, 83rd Congress, 2nd session, Final Report, House Report 2681 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955); U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate TaxExempt Foundations, 83rd Congress, 2nd session, Hearings (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955). 38. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, 91st Congress, 1st session, Hearings on the Subject of Tax Reform (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969); U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, 91st Congress, 1st session, Hearings on House Report 13270 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969). 39. 32 U.S. Statutes: 768–769, 12 January, 1903. 40. 33 U.S. Statutes: 575–577, 28 April, 1904. 41. 34 U.S. Statutes: 59–61, 10 March 1906. 42. See Nevins, A. F., Study in Power: John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist and Philanthropist (New York: Scribner’s 1953), vol. II, pp. 356–385; Pringle, Henry F., The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1939) vol. II, pp. 659–667. 43. Walsh, Frank P., “Perilous Philanthropy,” The Independent, LXXXIII (August 1915), p. 262. 44. Nevins, A. F., op. cit., vol. II, p. 420. 45. Cuff, Robert, The War Industries Board: BusinessGovernment Relations during World War I (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973). 46. George E. Vincent to Jerome D. Greene, 13 September 1928, RF 3.903. I.1: H. S. Pritchett to the trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 13 February, 1922, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files; F. P. Keppel to Nicholas Murray Butler, 28 November, 1938, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Archives, Department of Special Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York. 47. Kusmer, Kenneth L., “The Functions of Organized Charity in the Progressive Era: Chicago as a Case Study,” Journal of American History, LX (December 1973), pp. 657–678. 48. See U. S. House of Representatives, 62nd Congress, nd 2 session, The Rockefeller Foundation, Report No. 529,

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pp. 2–3; see also Benison, Saul, “Poliomyelitis and the Rockefeller Institute: Social Effects and Institutional Response,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, XXIX ( January 1974), pp. 74–92. 49. McClymer, John F., “The Pittsburgh Survey, 1907–1914; Forging an Ideology in the Steel District,” Pennsylvania History, XLI (April 1974), pp. 169–186. 50. See editorial, “Scientific Philanthropy,” The New York Times, 5 January, 1929. 51. McCloskey, Robert G., American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951); Carnegie, Andrew, Problems of Today: WealthLabor-Socialism (New York: Doubleday, Page 1908); Fitch, John A., “Ludlow, Chrome, Homestead and Wall Street in the Melting Pot,” Survey, XXX (13 February, 1915), pp. 531–534. 52. See Dahlburg, Jane S., The New York Bureau of Municipal Research: Pioneer in Government Administration (New York: New York University Press, 1966); Grossman, David M., “Professors and Public Service, 1885–1925: A Chapter in the Professionalization of the Social Sciences,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University, St. Louis, 1973; Saunders, Charles B., Jr., The Brookings Institution: A Fifty-Year History (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1966); Critchlow, Donald, “The Brookings Institution: The Early History 1916–1952,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1976. 53. Rockefeller, J.D. op. cit., pp. 68–69. 54. Message of the President of the United States transmitting report of the Commission of Economy and Efficiency on the subject of the need for a national budget, 27 June, 1912, 62nd Congress, 2nd session, The Need for a National Budget, House Report No. 854 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912). 55. U.S. Senate, 62nd Congress, 3rd session, The Proposed Incorporation of the Rockefeller Foundation in the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910). 56. Corly, Herbert, Promise of American Life (New York: Macmillan, 1909); Wiebe, Robert, The Search for Order (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964). 57. Link, Arthur S., “What Happened to the Progressive Movement in the 1920s?,” American Historical Review, XLIV ( July 1959), pp. 833–851. 58. Brandes, Stuart D., American Welfare Capitalism, 1880–1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) calls John D. Rockefeller, Jr. a “welfare capitalist.” While that description may have had some relevance after Ludlow, his father could never have been accused of sharing those sentiments. 59. See U.S. Senate, 62nd Congress, 3rd session, The Rockefeller Foundation, Report No. 1258; U.S. House of


Representatives, 62nd Congress, 2nd session, The Rockefeller Foundation, Report No. 529; U.S. Senate, 61st Congress, 2nd session, Incorporation of the Rockefeller Foundation, Report No, 405; Congressional Record, LI (1913). 60. Frederick T. Gates to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., 10 March, 1914, Gates Papers, Box III, File 58. 61. Chambers, Merrit M., Charters of Philanthropies (New York: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1948). 62. Karl, Barry D., “Presidential Planning and Social Science Research: Mr. Hoover’s Experts,” Perspectives in American History, III (1969), pp. 347–412; Herbert Hoover to F. P. Keppel, 26 October, 1927, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. 63. Jerome D. Greene to William J. Bryan, 24 April, 1915, RF 1.100. LVII. 567; William Phillips to Jerome D. Greene, 28 April, 1915, loc. cit. 64. Fosdick, Raymond B., The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation (New York: Harper, 1952). 65. Herbert Hoover to Wickliffe Rose, 21 November, 1914, RF 1.100. LCVI. 653. 66. Wall, Joseph F., Andrew Carnegie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 815–819; see also Dunne, Finley P., “The Carnegie Libraries,” Dissertations by Dr. Dooley (New York: Harper, 1906), pp. 177–182. 67. Lubove, Roy, The Professional Altruist: The Emergence of Social Work as a Career, 1880–1930 (New York: Atheneum, 1972), pp. 1–55. 68. Cuff, R. D., op. cit.: Fosdick, Raymond B., Chronicle of a Generation (New York: Harper, 1958). 69. Cutlip, Scott M., Fund Raising in the U.S.: Its Role in American Philanthropy (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1965); Davison, Henry P., The American Red Cross in the Great War (New York: Macmillan, 1919). 70. Henry S. Pritchett to John B. Clark, 30 June, 1915, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. 71. T. Mitchell Prudden to George F. Vincent, 15 November, 1918, RF 1.100. LXIV. 642. 72. John D. Rockefeller, Sr. to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 25 April, 1917, Rockefeller Family Archives, Rockefeller Center, New York, Record Group 2, Box LVII (hereafter RFA). 73. Weinstein, James, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968); Memorandum of interview with General Carty, 11 June, 1926, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. 74. Cutlip, S. M., op. cit. 75. Kingsley, Sherman C., “Reconstruction of the War Chest,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, XLVI (1919), pp. 697–702). 76. Charles W. Eliot to Jerome D. Greene, 20 September, 1915, RF 3.903. I.1.

77. A Manual of the Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1919). 78. Flexner, Abraham, Henry S. Pritchett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943); an autobiographical sketch is contained in Henry S. Pritchett to Floyd C. Shoemaker, 1 May, 1923, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. 79. “Confidential Memorandum for the Trustees,” 1922, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files; Henry S. Pritchett to Elihu Root, Jr., 19 November, 1921, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. 80. See Henry S. Pritchett to Elihu Root, Jr., 29 March, 1918, 19 November, 1921, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. 81. Nicholas M. Butler to Walter A. Jessup, 11 October, 1937; Nicholas M. Butler to F. P. Keppel, 18 October, 1937; Samuel H. Church to Walter A. Jessup, 8 January, 1942; F. P. Keppel, memorandum of interview with Elihu Root, Jr., 13 October, 1926, Carnegie Corporation of New York Archives. 82. Kohler, Robert E., “A Policy for the Advancement of Science: The Rockefeller Foundation, 1924–29,” Minerva, XVI (Winter 1978), pp. 480–515; George E. Vincent, “Memorandum on Policies and Organization of Rockefeller Boards,” 29 January, 1927, RF 3.900.XIX.138. 83. “Memorandum of Conversation with President Burton Regarding his Letter of 17 March, 1925,” Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. 84. Raymond B. Fosdick to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 3 December, 1921, RFA, Record Group 2, Box LVII; Lawrence B. Dunham to Thomas M. Debevoise, 20 June, 1927, loc. cit. 85. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to Charles O. Heydt, 13 July, 1925, RFA, Record Group 2, Box X; memorandum from Henry James to F. P. Keppel, 11 July, 1932, Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. 86. Commonwealth Fund, The Commonwealth Fund: Historical Sketch, 1918–1962 (New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1963). 87. Karl, B. D., op. cit. 88. See Greenleaf, William, From These Beginnings: The Early Philanthropies of Henry and Edsel Ford, 1911–1936 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964), esp. ch. 7; Nielsen, Waldemar A., The Big Foundations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), pp. 78–98, 170–176. 89. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, 91st Congress, 1st session, Hearings on the subject of Tax Reform; U.S. Senate, Committee on Finance, 91st Congress, 1st session, Hearings on House Report 13270. 90. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, op. cit.

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91. Karl, Barry D., “Philanthropy, Policy Planning and the Bureaucratisation of the Democratic Ideal,” Daedalus, CV (Fall 1976).

Giving and Getting: Philanthropy as a Social Relation Susan A. Ostrander and Paul G. Schervish In this seminal work published in the late 1980’s, Susan Ostrander and Paul Schervish, two sociologists and scholars of philanthropy, capture the importance of understanding the giving relationship not only from a donor perspective but also from the recipient’s view thus creating a philanthropic relationship which is based upon a more equal footing for both parties. In the decade since the Filer Commission Report, a growing body of research and theory has sought to clarify the nature of philanthropy, the institutional boundaries of the nonprofit sector, and the giving behavior of individuals and organizations. Most of this research conceptualizes and studies the philanthropic world as a world of donors. This work, including some done by the present authors, has focused on explanations of why and how and under what circumstances people give voluntarily of their money and time. This research is important and should continue. It is also important to recognize that an exclusive focus on donors runs the risk of obscuring issues that are of concern to recipients and therefore to philanthropy as a whole. The common language of giver and receiver used to characterize philanthropy suggests a one-way relationship in which valued goods and services move only in one direction, a point of view we challenge here. A donor focus also ignores the ways in which recipients actively take part in defining what goes on in the world of philanthropy, ways in which recipients are agents in creating philanthropic institutions and relations. Attention tends to be diverted from the social needs that recipients have and that donors seek to address, and from what gifts actually accomplish from the perspective of those who receive them. Strategies that recipients and their advocates use to obtain support are generally left unexplored and unspecified.

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Of greatest concern to us here is that the relatively exclusive focus on donors obscures the most fundamental sociological fact about philanthropy; namely, that philanthropy is a social relation of giving and getting between donors and recipients. The major aim of this chapter is to conceptualize and explore philanthropy in this way. This relational understanding of philanthropy elevates the position and priority of the recipient. It brings the recipient into theory, research, and practice in the field. Conceptualizing philanthropy as a social relation has the potential, we believe, for contributing to the making of a better match between the resources and needs of donors and the resources and needs of recipients. It can therefore help to improve philanthropic practice by developing a philanthropy that is more responsive to social need. We begin this chapter by explaining what we mean by this understanding of philanthropy as social relation. We differentiate philanthropy from two other kinds of social relations, commercial transactions and electoral politics. Next we lay out an array of strategies that the two major parties in the relation—donors and recipients—use to gain the attention and favorable response of the other. Each of the strategies is defined by the relative power with which donors and recipients approach each other, that is, the extent to which each party takes into account the needs and interests of the other. Strategies as we conceive them are composites of three dimensions: complex goals, strategic rationales, and practices. Finally, we consider briefly some implications of our conceptualization of philanthropy and the strategies for philanthropic practices. Throughout the chapter, we speak of the social relation that is philanthropy as an interaction between what appears to be only two actors: donors and recipients. We recognize, however, that a whole set of actors exist between and within these two sides of the social relation and that mediate the interaction. On the donor side, the relation to recipients is mediated by organizations such as foundations and funding exchanges and by individual office and field staff members who represent such organizations. On the recipient side, the relation to donors is mediated by grant-seeking organizations (including universities, hospitals, museums, churches, and social service agencies) that provide services to clients and consumers

Giving and Getting

and by advocacy groups that work politically for social change. Other organizations and individuals combine donor-side and recipient-side roles, such as the United Way and the Black United Fund, which both raise and disperse funds. Thus, while we speak here of donors and recipients, we in fact mean to include the chain of donor-side and recipient-side agents that represent and carry out the wishes, concerns, and interests of the two ultimate actors at either end of the chain of interaction. In the following discussion, we speak of recipients most frequently, although not exclusively, as organizations that provide services for clients and consumers or that advocate for social change. In contrast, we tend to speak of donors as individuals who give money to support such organizations. This approach makes sense since over 80 percent of donors are individuals, where virtually all legally recognized tax-exempt recipients of these contributions are organizations. The strategies we develop here to conceptualize the orientations and actions of recipients and donors in the social relation that is philanthropy emerged from three sources: our own research on philanthropic donors and recipient organizations, the literature on philanthropy and fundraising, and our conversations with other scholars and activists in the world of philanthropy. Donor strategies presented here were developed from the research of Schervish and Herman on wealth and philanthropy. Recipient strategies were developed from what is known about donors and from the trade literature on fund raising as well as indirectly from Ostrander’s field work in voluntary social service agencies. A major task for future research is to specify which strategies and under which conditions these are most likely to result in a match between the resources and needs of donors and the resources and needs of recipients.

Philanthropy as a Distinctive Social Relation Philanthropy, in our way of thinking, is not distinct because of its location in a clearly defined or bounded institutional sector or realm. Philanthropy as we conceive it here is not limited to a “third” or voluntary or nonprofit sector. Our point is that philanthropy is a particular type of social relation that may occur in

government and corporate settings, and it most certainly occurs in families and neighborhoods. The other kinds of social relations we look at here—commercial transactions and electoral politics—also are not defined or limited by a particular institutional realm. Commercial transactions occur not only in the economic market place but throughout social life wherever goods and services are exchanged for monetary compensation. Electoral politics is not limited to government organizations or the institution of the state but represents a mode of exercising power and decision making wherever votes are taken to establish positions, determine officeholders, and decide policy directions. In the same way, our notion of philanthropy as social relation is more extensive than the notion of philanthropy as institution or organization. Like other social relations, that between donorside and recipient-side actors contains identifiable patterns of interaction. Like other social relations, it is a transaction in which both parties get and give as a condition for establishing and maintaining the relation. At the same time, in this and many other social exchanges, the relation between the two parties is not an equal one. For a number of reasons a power difference between donor and recipient emerges from the current character of philanthropy as a social relation. The general tendency is for donors to occupy positions that give them substantially more active choice than recipients about how to define the philanthropic transaction and how to take part in it. Recipients also can and do make choices that affect what happens to themselves and to donors and shape the way philanthropy is organized. This relative inequality between donors and recipients and the disparity in the extent of active choice available to each party derive from the larger societal context in which philanthropy occurs. We conceptualize this context by drawing on social theory about human agency and societal structure. Social structure both creates and is created by human action and choice in an iterative process. Once created, social structure defines the terms and boundaries of choice, presenting both obstacles and possibilities for action. Donors and recipients, then, are both constrained and facilitated by the structure of philanthropy in what they do and how they think. At the same time, both

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donors and recipients participate as agents in reinforcing or changing this structure of philanthropy— the structure that then in turn forms the context for their own thinking and acting in the philanthropic world.

Commercial Transaction, Electoral Politics, and Philanthropy If it is not an institutional or legal boundary that separates philanthropic relations from commerce and politics, then what is it? What distinguishes philanthropy as a particular kind of social relation? The most important distinction we make between philanthropy and commercial and electoral relations revolves around the media of communication through which needs are put forth in each case. Each type of relation differs in how a request or demand is made and in how such demand elicits a response. Commercial appeals or demands are made in terms of dollars, while electoral appeals or demands arc made in terms of votes. Philanthropic appeals are made in normative or moral or value terms. In commercial transactions, consumer demands or needs generate a response from suppliers of resources largely to the extent that demands are expressed through dollars. Needs are communicated to suppliers or producers through what economists call “effective demand,” that is, demand backed up by and made efficacious by the power of monetary votes or dollars. It is not just the existence of needs or demands that is important in getting a response, but also the fact that these needs can mobilize or generate a response that produces what is demanded. Similarly in electoral politics, needs or interests get attended to largely to the extent that they can be expressed as votes—what one might call another kind of effective demand. The important question here is just what makes commercial and electoral demands effective in eliciting responses? It is, we believe, that commercial and electoral demands are regulating and “coercive.” That is, they are presented through quantifiable media upon which suppliers depend for their very existence in material terms. Elected officials must have votes. Commercial suppliers must have consumer dollars. The demands of voters and consumer dollars cannot

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in the long run be ignored. In philanthropy the demands are not compelling in the same way. In philanthropic relations, the media for communicating recipient needs or demands are neither votes nor dollars but rather words and images that are put together in such a way as to make a normative or moral appeal for support. In philanthropy, demand is made efficacious by inviting the supplier or producer to attend primarily to the needs expressed themselves rather than to the medium through which they are expressed. Philanthropy thus recognizes or responds to what can be called “affective” rather than “effective” demand. By this we mean that philanthropy is mobilized and governed by a moral or normative currency that ultimately appeals to the nonmaterial or “affective” aspects of the giver’s consciousness rather than to a particular material interest. This approach to philanthropy should not be interpreted as meaning that demands or needs expressed by institutions or organizations presently defined as “charitable” or philanthropic do in fact always operate according to the moral or normative currency that we see as the defining characteristic of philanthropy defined in these relational terms. Indeed, it is one of our points that the non profit sector is no more exclusively the realm of philanthropic relations than the forprofit sector is exclusively the realm of commercial relations or government is the exclusive realm of electoral relations. For instance, nonprofit hospitals may in fact be characterized largely by commercial relations just as for-profit hospitals may in fact respond philanthropically, as we have defined the term, when they mobilize some services around patient need rather than ability to pay. Put simply, when appeals or demands are not expressed primarily in normative or moral terms, they are not philanthropic in the sense we mean that term here, regardless of the social setting from which they come.

The Tendency of Philanthropy to Be Donor-Led The major consequence for the way that philanthropy works as a social relation arises from its governance more by moral than by material or electoral claims. Because normative appeals do not carry the same kinds of rewards or sanctions as money or votes, phi-

Giving and Getting

lanthropy (unlike commercial transactions or electoral politics) tends to be driven more by the supply of philanthropic resources than by the demand for them based in recipient needs. Because philanthropic appeals are normative or morally based, they tend therefore to be “weaker” and less compelling than when the currency is votes or money. This means that attention to recipient needs may not always remain prominent or determinant in the minds of those providing donor resources or in the minds of those who seek funding on behalf of ultimate beneficiaries. Commercial and electoral relations retain at least some semblance of consumer and voter sovereignty. That is, they tend to be demand-led in the sense of being responsive in some degree to consumer needs and voter interests. Suppliers or producers in commercial and electoral relations are constrained at least to some extent by the countervailing power of consumers to buy other products from other producers and by voters to cast their ballots for other candidates. Philanthropic donors—by which we mean suppliers or producers of monetary resources essential for philanthropy—are not similarly constrained by the countervailing power of recipients and their representatives. This is because philanthropy tends to be supply- or donor-led. That is, recipients enjoy little or no ability to ensure or “discipline” the response of donors. Appeals in the form of words and images arranged in a normative display cannot be accumulated as can dollars or votes. As a result, philanthropic donors who supply the resources essential to meeting recipients’ needs are not threatened by the withdrawal of the media for expressing the need. The consequences of philanthropy being supply-led are profound for both donors and recipients. We characterize two such major consequences by the terms donor ascendancy and recipient influence.

Donor Ascendancy and Recipient Influence Because normative appeals offer little, if any, immediate extrinsic reward or sanction to a potential donor, any single appeal can be refused without any direct negative material consequence. It is, of course, true that donors are not exempt from pressures to give money to “charitable” causes as a part of their climb to success in the corporate world or as a result of be-

longing to certain social networks. Still, for the most part, the obligation to give money is essentially based on moral grounds—because it is the right and good and sincere gesture to be made—without direct material censure or reward. Normative claims impose this obligation only to the extent that donors recognize and heed them. So recipient groups find themselves dependent on donors not only for funds. Ironically, they depend as well on donors for the very recognition of the legitimacy of the appeals by which recipients make claims on donors in the first place. The structural tendency in philanthropic relations is, therefore, to grant more power to the donor than to the recipient. As we noted earlier, donors occupy positions that afford them substantially more choice or agency about how they define the social relation that is philanthropy and about how they act and think in it. The concept of agency thus explains more about how the philanthropic world looks and works from the vantage point of the donor. The concept of social structure explains more about the vantage point of the recipient. One of our aims here is to specify the social relation between donor and recipient in such a way as to provide practical guidelines toward empowering recipient groups and the beneficiaries they represent. We want to increase the influence, bargaining power, and choices of strategies available to recipients in their relation with donors and potential donors. Simply defining philanthropy as a social relation in which there is some kind of reciprocal exchange is itself a first step in this direction. As we said earlier, it brings recipients more prominently into the relation. Given our discussion of philanthropy as donor-led, it is now clearer why and how recipients exercise less choice, power, and influence than donors. Recipients are dependent on donors for their organizational existence and for the well-being of their clients, consumers, and employees. The imperative of finding a donor leads recipients to search actively and continuously, to “prospect” as it is sometimes put in the fundraising literature. This is done at considerable effort and expense. Small recipient organizations and those whose activities are controversial are at a distinct disadvantage in mounting the fund-raising or “development” efforts. While it is true that some donors choose to search actively for recipients, donors do not

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have to carry on this kind of activity as a condition of their existence. They can choose among the requests that come to them from grant-seeking recipients. Indeed, one of the problems of being a well-known donor is that one is constantly receiving requests for contributions and having to decide which of them to grant. Although donors certainly cannot be said to depend on recipients for their actual and material existence, it could be said that donors depend on recipients for the moral and normative and perhaps social meaning of their existence. Recipients have their own influence and their own set of resources to give to donors. In recipient appeals to potential donors, the moral currency that is used is not without value and command. As will be seen in our discussion of philanthropic strategies, donors respond to a whole array of non-material incentives, ranging from making a sincere effort to meet social needs to fulfilling a moral duty, obtaining psychic satisfaction, achieving social and personal legitimation, gaining status in the community, or achieving a social agenda. Although philanthropy as currently constituted tends toward donor ascendancy, in actual practice the balance of power does not always remain firmly established on the side of the donor. Whenever recipients or their advocates introduce and enforce normative claims or incentives that affect donors, the balance of power begins to shift toward recipients. It is, then, not always the case that philanthropy is governed by the supply of donor resources though this does not refute the structural tendencies we have noted here. Framing the issue in this way does call for a specification of the conditions under which the structural tendencies get modified so that recipients have more influence. The strategies we next consider differ in the extent to which they contain possible directions for creating and strengthening such conditions. As we will show, it is not simply a matter of the degree to which recipients and their needs are taken into account by donors. It is also a matter of the qualitatively different ways in which this comes about.

Strategies in Philanthropy: Modes of Interaction between Donors and Recipients By focusing on philanthropic strategies of donors and recipients, we are able to characterize philanthropy in

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a different way than by types of donor motivations, the size of gifts, or the cause or purpose for which gifts are dedicated. While these matters are certainly important, none really helps us to understand how donors and recipients actively participate in philanthropy. By conceptualizing strategies of philanthropy as modes of consciousness and modes of engagement, we highlight the different ways that people on the donor and recipient sides of the relation come to think about and carry out philanthropy. The strategies as we conceive them are a composite of three dimensions: a complex goal, a strategic rationale or consciousness, and a strategic practice or mode of engagement. These dimensions can perhaps be best understood as answers to a series of questions. What is the multiple set of goals or ends that each party seeks to accomplish or bring about through participation in the relation? How does each think about or understand the way in which the relationship between them is or ought to be constituted in order to accomplish these ends? How is this presented or communicated to the other so as to gain access and attention? What kinds of claims and appeals are made, and how exactly are they expressed? What does each party actually do? What specific practices are engaged in and how are they carried out? The strategies, as we have developed them, differ in regard to the quality of the social relation between donor and recipient. We discuss this difference in terms of (1) the kind of involvement, contact, and communication between the two parties or sides; (2) the kind of specific knowledge each has about the other; and (3) the relative priority given by the two parties to what donors want in comparison to what recipients need. An important focus here, as we have said, is one particular aspect of the social relation of philanthropy, namely, the media of expression or communication between donor and recipient. These strategies are not mutually exclusive or exhaustive. A particular donor or recipient probably participates in more than one at a time, and the strategies we list are by no means complete. Given our earlier discussion about the donor-led character of philanthropy and the power of the donor, we present donor-side strategies first because we see them as framing an important context within which recipients must think and act.

Giving and Getting

Donor-Side Philanthropic Strategies. In previous research, Schervish and Herman identified sixteen qualitatively different strategies or “logics” of philanthropy that are carried out by donors, distinguishing them according to differences in goals, modes of consciousness, and modes of practice. Here we discuss nine of those strategies, locating them within three broad approaches by which donors understand and carry out their relation to recipients. The three general donor-side approaches we will consider here are the personal-engagement, mediated-engagement, and donor-oriented strategies (Table 4.1).

Table 4.1

Donor-Side Strategies

Personal-Engagement Strategies: direct personal contact and exchange of information between donors and beneficiaries, with priority given to recipient needs 1. Consumption: donor is also beneficiary of gift 2. Therapeutic/empowering: donors seek simultaneously to enhance their own sense of self-empowerment and to give over some active organizational control to beneficiaries 3. Adoptive: donors attend personally to recipient needs in an ongoing and multifaceted relationship Mediated-Engagement Strategies: contact between donors and recipients mediated by organizations or other individuals though knowledge and concern for recipient needs may be high 1. Contributory: donor gives to a cause with no direct contact with recipient 2. Brokering: donors solicit other key donors in their own network 3. Catalytic: organizers donate time to mobilize large number of other donors in a mass appeal Donor-Oriented Strategies: donors governed and mobilized by their own circumstances rather than by those of recipients 1. Exchange: giving propelled by mutual obligation within a network of donors 2. Derivative: giving based on obligations associated with job expectations or family responsibilities Noblesse oblige: philanthropy grows out of decision to designate part of family money for social involvement

Personal-Engagement Strategies. In the personal-engagement approach, donors attend immediately and directly to the needs of recipients and, as the name implies, are in personal, physical contact with them. We describe three specific types of personal-engagement philanthropy, each of which shares a common set of goals. Individuals who carry out personal-engagement philanthropy are attempting to do more than fulfill their personal aspirations and support a beneficial outcome for recipients. Those who pursue the various types of personal-engagement philanthropy also seek to know and be known by the ultimate beneficiaries of their support and in some cases to allow beneficiaries to actually enforce attention to their needs. The way such donors think about their relationship to recipients reflects a concern to learn as much as possible about the recipients and their specific needs. Accordingly, the distinctive practice that characterizes personal-engagement forms of philanthropy revolves around efforts to be in personal contact with recipients, to learn their appeals, and to ensure that these appeals become binding on them. A number of diverse types of philanthropy fall under this general category of personal-engagement philanthropy. The extreme instance of the direct personal matching of donor resources to recipient needs is consumption philanthropy. In this approach donors contribute to causes or organizations from which these donors directly benefit. The match is so complete simply because the donor and beneficiary are the same. Consumption philanthropy, it turns out, is the largest single category of philanthropy because it includes contributions to churches, schools, cultural institutions, and professional organizations, from which givers and their families directly benefit. Even though the other two forms of personal-engagement philanthropy are much less prominent, they are important to describe because they indicate possible directions for the future development of philanthropy. One such approach is what we call therapeutic or empowerment philanthropy as it takes form in various funding organizations such as the Vanguard Foundation and the Funding Exchange. The term therapeutic is coupled with the term empowerment to emphasize how the practice of philanthropy is viewed and concretely organized by donors to come to grips

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simultaneously with their own need to become personally empowered in regard to their wealth and their desire to empower others. The feelings of donors who pursue this approach that their own needs have been denied or obscured in their lives of wealth lead them to be particularly sensitive to the experience of powerlessness among those at the opposite end of the economic spectrum. The upshot is the creation of an organizational structure with two unique aspects. First, in regard to donors there is a requirement that they contribute relatively equal amounts so that no one donor is overly able to influence decisions. Also, there is the more or less informal expectation that donors will meet among themselves to discuss how they can grow in their self-understanding as socially responsible wealthy individuals. Second, in regard to recipients, such donors constitute boards of directors composed of nondonors, representatives of recipient groups, and beneficiaries. They also establish organizational bylaws that ensure the articulation and enforcement of recipient claims by limiting or even eliminating giver control over funding decisions. A third form of personal-engagement philanthropy is called adoptive philanthropy. In adoptive philanthropy, donors become personally involved in the lives of the beneficiaries they seek to help. This is typified by Eugene Lang’s and others’ efforts in the I Have a Dream program. In addition to devoting funds to a cause, the goal is for donors to involve themselves directly in the lives of inner-city students in an effort to motivate and guide them toward a college education. Working in and supporting the Boys Club and Girls Club and in Big Sister and Big Brother programs are obvious examples. Others include efforts by suburban churches to assist innercity churches, corporations that commit themselves to develop a particular neighborhood or assist particular schools, individuals who assist particular artists or scholars as does the MacArthur family, and a respondent in the Study on Wealth and Philanthropy who supports a writer’s retreat for women. Many other examples could be enumerated, but the point is, again, that personal attention to particular needs of the beneficiaries is foremost in the donor’s mind, in part because the recipient is physically in the donor’s social world.

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Although substantially different in how they come to recognize and heed the moral claims of recipients, adoptive, therapeutic/empowerment, and consumption donors all have in common the highest regard for the needs of the recipients. In fact, by being so directly in contact with the ultimate beneficiaries and not just with their advocates, such donors often go so far as to give over legal governance at least in part to these beneficiaries, their advocates, or third-party professionals such as social workers and academics. Mediated-Engagement Strategies. A second level and type of attention to recipient issues is represented by a variety of strategies in which contacts with the recipients are indirect or mediated by organizations or individuals who serve as advocates on behalf of recipients. In general terms, the composite goal is to contribute to important concerns while, at the same time, remaining somewhat insulated from having to expend time in contact with ultimate beneficiaries. If the strategy of personal engagement is like retail relations in the commercial sphere, mediated engagement is like wholesale relations. The strategic consciousness revolves around discerning how much and to what one should contribute while the practice tends to be limited to making such contributions and getting others to do so as well. The most common form of such mediated engagement is termed contributory philanthropy. This approach, second only to consumption philanthropy in the amount of giving, is the form most likely to occur in all income groups and is the most familiar popular image of philanthropy. The contributory strategy revolves quite simply around obtaining and mobilizing financial resources on behalf of a cause. The term contributory is used to emphasize the fact that philanthropic involvement is primarily in the form of monetary contributions rather than in time or skills. In addition, there is virtually no direct contact between the donor and the ultimate beneficiary. Rather, the moral appeal to which donors respond is formulated and presented by a grant-seeking or advocacy organization. This, of course, is the most common mode of fund raising by such groups as OXFAM America, CARE, the NAACP, universities, hospitals, symphony orchestras, peace groups, and numerous other traditional and progressive organizations devoted to

Giving and Getting

raising funds for important causes and needy recipients. It is important to note that the contributory strategy often reflects a very high level of commitment and devotion by contributors to fulfilling the needs of the ultimate beneficiaries and, indeed, to the beneficiaries themselves. But the relation to them remains indirect and impersonal, mediated by various intermediary organizations and individuals. A second form of mediated interaction occurs in brokering philanthropy. Here organizational officers, board members, or other interested parties devote their efforts to fundraising by seeking contributions from major donors. Once again, a high degree of affective commitment may motivate brokering donors as they demonstrate by spending time and effort to solicit contributions from others. We usually see this strategy exercised by wealthy individuals who turn to their social and business associates to raise funds for a cause. But such brokering is not limited to efforts by the rich to solicit contributions from their peers. The nonwealthy also pursue the brokering strategy by seeking pledges from friends and associates for each mile traversed in the various “walks” and “runs” on behalf of efforts to relieve hunger and cure AIDS, to name just two. A less widespread but equally visible form of mediated engagement is catalytic philanthropy. If the vast majority of participants in the mass-involvement types of philanthropy like Boston’s Walk for Hunger are engaging in brokering philanthropy, many of those organizing and directing such efforts are engaging in catalytic philanthropy. Like brokering philanthropy, the major goal is broadening the base for fund raising on behalf of a cherished cause but, again, without requiring any direct involvement with beneficiaries by those giving time and money. In contrast to brokering philanthropy, however, the catalytic strategy—as its name implies—is directed toward mobilizing not a small number of personally known peers but a large number of unknown contributors. Accordingly, catalytic philanthropy is often led by media stars, sports figures, and other celebrities. They lend their names, notoriety, and personal efforts to raise money by eliciting an affective engagement of a broad popular base. What the sociologist Robert Merton discovered more than forty years ago in his study of Kate Smith’s dra-

matic success in getting Americans to invest in war bonds is directly relevant here. The public’s perception of personal sacrifice and dedication by celebrities on behalf of a cause induces more contributions than what would be generated by a verbal appeal alone. Even when the central figures who lead such catalytic projects are not publicly known at the inception of a mass-participation drive, they often become so over time. For instance, those of us who live in Boston have witnessed how the dramatic success of the Walk for Hunger coincided with the rise to prominence of its inspirational founder and organizer, Dan Daley. In contrast to the strategy of personal engagement, then, the strategy of mediated engagement does not entail a direct knowledge of or contact with the final beneficiaries of the philanthropic efforts—although the strategy does not preclude it. The major advantage of this strategy is its relatively efficient fund-raising process—one that appeals to donors because it leaves them relatively unencumbered in that they can retain whatever degree of social distance from the recipients they desire. The most serious disadvantage is that in the absence of a systematic direct contact between donors and recipients, it is possible for extraphilanthropic personal and organizational goals to become substituted for the moral claims of beneficiaries. Donors continue to respond to direct normative appeals in this strategy. However, there is the possibility of substantial slippage between how such normative appeals are recognized and responded to when mediated by advocacy groups and how they might be recognized and responded to if donors were placed in personal contact with those in need. Donor-Oriented Strategies. A third general strategy encompasses a number of philanthropic approaches that tend to be governed almost exclusively by donorside rather than recipient-side considerations. The major characteristic of what we call a donor-oriented giving strategy is that it is primarily attentive not to recipient needs but to donor interests and obligations. It is not the pull of engagement with recipients but the push of obligation that governs this strategy. The complex goal or teleology of donor-based philanthropy, then, revolves around fulfilling a set of obligations derived from family, business, or social relationships. Dedication to specific causes remains a goal of

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philanthropy, but it is not key to what mobilizes philanthropy in the first place. The strategic consciousness centers around learning and recognizing the expectations of one’s position in relation to peers rather than in relation to those outside one’s personal circle. The major practice is moving back and forth between responding to the expectations derived from one’s social position and getting others in one’s social purview to do the same. Concretely, one prominent form of donor-based giving is exchange philanthropy. In this strategy, individuals give to a cause at the request of an associate in anticipation that in the future they will be able to call upon that associate to contribute to their cause. Individuals participate in a network of friends and associates each of whom feels free to call upon the other to support a favored project. Again, it is not that the beneficiaries disappear completely from the picture; it is just that the needs of beneficiaries are not what motivates philanthropy in the sense of setting it in motion. In contrast to the affective dedication surrounding personal-engagement and even mediated-engagement philanthropy, exchange philanthropy is matter of fact and dispassionate in tone. Whatever urgency emerges results not from what individual donors deem important but from the need to fulfill a social obligation that reproduces the bonds in a social network of friends and associates. In a similar vein is derivative philanthropy, in which philanthropy is once again starkly supply-led in the sense that giving of money and time is derived from the everyday expectations of employment or social status. Schervish and Herman found that this gets played out most commonly in two arenas. The first is at the workplace. A number of respondents indicated that they expect their senior staff to be engaged in some form of philanthropic activity or community involvement as a condition for working in their firm. Other respondents, especially attorneys, indicated that they were on the receiving end of such imposed obligation, again in the form of service within the broader community and not simply in the performance of pro bono legal work. The second arena wherein derivative philanthropy is relatively prominent is in volunteer networks of women of the upper class. Here the traditional family and social roles ac-

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corded wealthy women become expressed in the realm of philanthropy as the expectation that they devote substantial amounts of time to various volunteer activities, ranging from the simplest clerical tasks to the most arduous of managerial responsibilities. Although younger generations of women eschew the imposition of such roles and many who carry them out are deeply critical of their status, the point is that this is a form of philanthropy that is clearly supply-led. The engagement of donors occurs in response to the mobilization of normative expectations in their own world rather than the mobilization of moral claims in the world of others. A final form of donor-initiated mobilization is noblesse oblige philanthropy. This term is used in a nonpejorative sense to emphasize that for many the inherited practice of philanthropy is derived from the expectation that community involvement is a traditional family obligation. What connects this strategy to inherited wealth is not an attitude of condescending parentalism but the fact that those pursuing this strategy inherit along with their wealth a set of expectations about how they are to use their wealth. Money is conceived as divided into three categories: an untouchable principal or capital, an amount for daily consumption, and an amount for philanthropic endeavors. Once again it is the nature of socialization and an understanding of money derived from a particular status—here, membership in an established family line—that induce philanthropic activity, rather than the pull of moral obligation. Recipient needs may come into play in determining the specific causes to which such individuals devote their time and money, but the fact of involvement is determined from another quarter, namely, a preexistent duty to allocate a certain part of one’s time and money to philanthropic endeavors. As we will also see in the case of the recipient-side strategies, the donor-side strategies can be understood as differing in regard to the kind of relationship that exists and is carried out between donors and recipients. The three specific approaches summarized under the rubric of donor-oriented giving exemplify that pole of the relationship most expressive of the underlying tendency of philanthropy as it is now organized to be supply- or donor-led. Exchange, derivative, and

Giving and Getting

noblesse oblige philanthropy all center around efforts by donors to fulfill obligations derived from relations with those in their social circle rather than from relations with recipients. In the strategies grouped together as mediated-engagement philanthropy, there is a shift in psychological attention toward the needs of beneficiaries and a shift in practice toward heeding and responding to the world of beneficiaries even though personal contact with recipients does not occur. The most direct communication and contact between donors and recipients takes place, as we have said, in the personal-engagement strategies such as consumption, adoption, and therapeutic/empowerment philanthropy. Compared to donor-oriented approaches, especially, personal-engagement strategies shift the direction of concern to the ultimate beneficiaries of philanthropy. It is not just that donors come to heed the needs of recipients in a more direct and responsive manner that distinguishes approaches to philanthropy that bring donors and recipients into personal contact. It is also that a set of conditions are set in motion that have the potential for transforming the very way donors and recipients think about and interact with each other, both individually and as social groups.

Recipient-Side Philanthropic Strategies We have developed three strategies that recipient organizations can use to gain the attention and favorable response of donors and potential donors. They are needs-based, opportunity-based, and agendabased strategies (Table 4.2). Needs-Based Strategy. The foremost goal of the needs-based strategy is to put forth as straightforwardly and in as unmediated a fashion as possible the preeminence of beneficiaries’ needs. The central concern always remains the depth and scope of the needs and interests of the people—potential clients, consumers, beneficiaries—for whom or with whom the philanthropic project is being proposed and carried out. The two major ways that beneficiaries’ needs may be directly and forthrightly communicated to donors are, first, for a grant-seeking organization to serve as a broker between donors and beneficiaries and, second, for beneficiaries to frame and express their needs directly to donors on their own. In some cases, the two

Table 4.2

Recipient-Side Strategies

Needs-Based Strategy: needs of beneficiaries are presented forthrightly to donors as the sole basis for mobilizing contributions; these needs may be presented either by the beneficiaries themselves or by recipient organizations or groups on their behalf • Recipient frames need as inherently worthy of attention • Recipient poses relationship to donor as a collaboration around a shared responsibility • Recipient appeals revolve around efforts to communicate information about beneficiaries and their need Opportunity-Based Strategy: needs of beneficiaries are recast and expressed as donor opportunities representing social or political benefit for the donor beyond simply responding to the needs themselves • Recipients’ appeals are formulated to persuade donors that responding to the needs of beneficiaries simultaneously provides donors with valued rewards • Recipients may present the proposed project or program as an opportunity for the donors to make an innovative or distinctive contribution to the community, to enhance their own status or influence, to make a good investment, or to enter a prominent donor network • Recipients may offer donors reduced costs or special access to programs or activities of recipient organizations Agenda-Based Strategy: needs of beneficiaries are submerged and even compromised as recipients offer donors the chance to fulfill interests arising from events or circumstances in the donors’ personal, family, or professional life • Recipients cultivate personal relationships with current and prospective donors by focusing on what donors want or need as the condition or incentive for making a gift • Recipients remain alert to new and emerging donor agendas as old agendas are fulfilled or fade in importance • Recipients often maintain and update detailed prospecting files on individual donors

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approaches are joined, as when beneficiaries become an integral part of the group actively seeking funds. This is the case, for example, with a battered-women’s shelter whose staff and board members seeking the grant include women who have been or might be in the future residents of the shelter. Given such a strong focus on the needs and interests of the beneficiaries, beneficiaries are more likely to be involved directly in this strategy than in the opportunity- or agenda-based strategy. Indeed this involvement is itself often one of the goals of the needs-based strategy. If beneficiaries are not involved directly (as is perhaps most often the case), grant seekers still press clearly, forcefully, and sometimes dramatically the import of their need. This is the case, for example, with the appeals made by Mother Teresa. In addition to convincing donors of the import of the need itself and involving ultimate beneficiaries in the philanthropic process, those pursuing the needs-based strategy often seek to educate the community as a whole in an effort to press the needs in a broader arena. The strategic consciousness or rationale expressed in a needs-based strategy focuses on a relationship between donor and recipient of a shared sense of responsibility and obligation to the community and its needs. Donors are not held in special esteem in this view. Rather, they are often seen as collaborators in a relationship of mutual respect and cooperation. Recipients take it as a given that donors wish to contribute and be involved in projects that seek to address community needs, and that if given the chance to do so, they will come forward and give what they can. Recipient groups are not hesitant in their zeal for seeking funds, and the relationship is conceived as being less hierarchical than is typically the case. The intrinsic rewards for donor contributions are highly valued both by the recipients and by the donors to whom this kind of appeal is attractive. These rewards include the intrinsic worth of being part of a community with connections to others and the inherent satisfaction of doing with and for others. Recipient-side practices consistent with a needsbased strategy are targeted toward donors who are likely to be responsive to a direct and immediate appeal. Possible specific fund-raising tactics might include mailings to lists of donors who have given to

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similar programs. Mailings would likely include substantial amounts of concrete, explicit information about the need or interest being addressed. Testimony from potential or actual beneficiaries might be included. Telephoning from known lists and door-todoor campaigning, especially in areas most affected, are other tactics consistent with this strategy. Public speaking engagements, ads in the public media, and opportunities for donors to meet with potential or current beneficiaries could be arranged. From the point of view of recipient-side organizations, the needs-based strategy has a number of advantages. It allows these recipient groups and the beneficiaries with whom and for whom they work to define the issues or needs that are important and the projects most appropriate and feasible to address them. Because the needs-based strategy focuses the appeal to donors around these points, it is the most recipient centered. Opportunity-Based Strategy. In the recipient-side strategy we call the opportunity-based strategy, the mode of gaining access to the donor and a favorable response shifts toward the donor. While the importance of the needs addressed and the value of the project designed to address them are not ignored in this or any other strategy, here recipient needs are mediated through and expressed as donor opportunities. The goal of the transaction is to persuade the donor of the value of this opportunity. It is a strategy that requires that the recipient have more specific knowledge about the donor and what the donor might want and value than is the case with a needs-based strategy. The strategic consciousness or rationale on the part of the recipient in the opportunity-based strategy conceives of the relationship with the donor as one in which the recipient who is seeking the grant must pose some reward—perhaps social or political or even indirectly material—that will induce the donor to make a gift. Giving is not seen as its own reward here, and so the recipients feel indebted to and beholden to the donor. This is less likely to occur in the needsbased strategy, where recipients do not feel compelled to provide something extrinsic in return for a gift. The basis for asking donor support here is what recipients have to offer to donors beyond the satisfaction of giving itself. Recipients can offer donors the

Giving and Getting

opportunity to be seen as innovators in the community, to make their mark by funding a project posed as a new and exciting solution or an innovative response to a need or interest. Appeals may be expressed so as to persuade donors to give to a program that is professionally managed, fiscally responsible, and efficiently organized—in other words, a good investment. The recipient group may offer, explicitly or implicitly, the donor the chance to be brought into the organization in a decision-making position as a member of the board. This may be presented in such a way as to imply that the donor’s position at his or her place of business may be enhanced by such voluntary activity, thus contributing to the donor’s economic and social well-being. Becoming a donor may be presented by recipient groups that are seeking a gift as the opportunity to become part of a community network of other donors of high status, thus also enhancing one’s own social position and opportunity to have a voice in community affairs. To facilitate such networks and to provide entertainment as well as raise funds, recipient groups that use the opportunity-based strategy may organize events that provide donors a chance to see friends and be seen, to combine pleasure with social conscience. While some donors may view this kind of appeal as an onerous social obligation, to others it is an indispensable part of their social and business lives. The onus is on the recipient group that is seeking the gift to discover what will appeal to which donors and to carry out that particular form of appeal. The practices used to express the opportunitybased strategy seem likely to include a strong visual packaging of the program as innovative and exciting, as an entrepreneurial opportunity for the donor. A selling package that emphasizes financial reports and evaluations of the program and its organization might be used. Donors with high name recognition and social status or “star” status may be used to appeal to other potential donors. The recipient organization may offer donors free or reduced-cost services, such as discounted subscriptions to symphonies, museums, and theaters, or implicit promises to university donors that members of their family will have an edge in admission. In these instances, the donor also becomes a user, as in the earlier discussion of consumption philanthropy.

In the opportunity-based strategy, groups that are seeking grants must still argue the importance of the need persuasively, but this and the capacity of the proposed project to meet the need are not seen as sufficient to get the gift. In addition, this strategy requires that the recipient group obtain information about potential donors that anticipates what they might want as the basis for an appeal. It requires that recipients learn relevant fund-raising techniques that focus not just on their needs but on the interests of the donors. Agenda-Based Strategy. The third and final recipient-side strategy for seeking funds we will describe here is the most donor centered of the three. An agenda-based strategy is organized around and mediated through tactics that pose for donors a chance to carry out some pre-established agenda of their own or to fulfill some interest arising from an event in their family, professional, or business life. Recipients approach fundraising by locating specific donors who have some agenda and by persuading them—often indirectly and with discretion—that the agenda can be met in the course of giving to a certain project or organization. This strategy requires that the recipient have detailed and personal knowledge of the donor. It is a strategy that requires an investment on the part of recipient groups that can be made only by the largest, most affluent, and most professionally staffed grantseeking organizations. The claims that recipient groups that use this strategy make on donors include some event in the donor’s life, such as a recent inheritance, change in marital status or parental status, graduation from college, geographical move, or illness or death of a family member. Files that catalogue this kind of information are kept on current and potential donors. Critical events in business or professional life include a recent promotion, surge in company profits, new position on a board of directors, a geographical move of corporate headquarters, or the need to counter some adverse publicity as a result of a boycott, union strike, industrial accident, or pollution alert. The specific practices that accompany an agendabased strategy for grant seeking are articulated in the fund-raising literature on what is called “prospecting” and in advertisements for costly workshops

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where recipient groups learn the techniques appropriate to this strategy. Expensive reference manuals with names, addresses, and other personal information about wealthy donors are printed and frequently updated. The fund-raising literature that emphasizes this approach advises recipient groups to do “investigative work” on potential donors and to keep elaborate and detailed “prospecting files” on individuals who may be persuaded to give. Information from personal conversations between donors and the staff or volunteers of the grant-seeking organizations and from a wide range of other sources such as newspaper clippings are to be included in these files. Annual reports of the donor’s business are collected along with any other information that can be found about the donor’s company. Medical records, credit records, family counseling files, and academic records are referred to in one source as “hot potatoes” that should be used with discretion and a sensitivity to the need for confidentiality. Grant seekers are cautioned by one fund-raising manual that though “It may take a long time to establish a real working relationship with the keepers of these records,” the rewards will be worth the effort and the grant seeker should stay with it. The agenda-based strategy seems problematic from the point of view of many recipient groups and, in at least some instances, the donor as well. The outlay of resources on the part of the recipient is very high, and some ethical questions seem troublesome. The use of donors’ medical and counseling records does not seem to us justifiable no matter how effective they might be in getting a gift. The need of clients and consumers seems to almost disappear in the agenda-based strategy, and the usefulness of the project in meeting that need is at best seen as secondary. The strategy seems most suited to a donor base of a small number of large donors, given the investment that must be made in order to get the gift. The donor may be personally very involved in the recipient organization if convinced that a personal agenda can be played out and a donor need met. The basis for the donor’s involvement, however, may or may not be consistent with what recipients and beneficiaries want or need. Once the donor has fulfilled his or her need, interest in making further gifts to the recipient organization may end. Donors with their own agenda may

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also expect—or be seen by recipients as expecting— formal and public recognition of their efforts, such as naming opportunities and ceremonies of appreciation that are highly publicized. The three recipient-side strategies we have outlined here differ according to the kind of involvement between donor and recipient, knowledge about the other, and the relative priority given to donor or recipient interests. Involvement of the various parties and contact among them over time seem highest in the needs-based strategy, where donors, beneficiaries, and recipient groups are all very invested in addressing the need or concern in a collaborative manner. Since the needs-based strategy is centered around beneficiary needs, recipient groups and donors are required to know only of each other’s mutual interest and concern as a condition for the gift and for the relationship between them. In the opportunity-based strategy, the degree of involvement or contact of the various parties with one another is less than in the needs-based strategy. They are required to have enough contact with one another for the recipient to receive the gift and for the donor to fulfill the desired opportunity obtainable through the gift. Recipients would seem to require somewhat more detailed information about donors than is the case in the needs-based strategy. Since the opportunity-based strategy is more donor centered than the needs-based strategy, the recipient organization has to know what opportunities will appeal to which potential donors, and donors have to know what opportunities are being offered beyond the chance to respond to and participate in some community project or program. The agenda-based strategy requires recipients to accrue perhaps the most intensive knowledge of a personal nature about donors. The appeal for a gift is mediated through a personal, private agenda of the donor’s that the recipient discovers through detailed investigation. Since this strategy is almost exclusively donor centered, recipients must have detailed information about the donors in order to ascertain their agenda.

Implications for the Practice of Philanthropy As we have discussed, philanthropy typically is mobilized and governed more by availability of donor re-

Giving and Getting

sources than by the existence of recipient needs. The implications of what we have had to say here about reconceptualizing philanthropy as a social relation between donor and recipient and about developing and applying philanthropic strategies that represent the interests and concerns of donors and recipients flow from this tension that is generated by a supply-led or donor-led process. As a counterbalance to the structural tendency of philanthropy to be supply-led—and therefore for donors to have more power in the relation than recipients—conditions need to be specified under which recipients can and do have influence in the philanthropic relation. As we have said, it is our belief that this counterbalance—that bringing recipients in—will improve the quality and performance of philanthropy for donors and recipients. One principle in particular seems to derive from the arguments we have made here: donors have needs to be fulfilled as well as resources to grant, and recipients have resources to give as well as needs to be met. In other words, donors and recipients both give and get in the social relation that is philanthropy. In consumption philanthropy, where donors and recipients are one and the same, we see that recipient needs are the most heeded. We think it is not accidental that such consumption philanthropy turns out to be the largest form of philanthropy in terms of size of contributions. What can be learned from this is not that consumptive philanthropy itself should be extended but rather that contributions are mobilized most strongly when donors see their interests and concerns to be the same as those of recipients or closely identified with them. This is counter to the more traditional view of philanthropic relation in which givers and receivers are socially distant and hierarchically arranged. In each of the strategies we have laid out here, donors and recipients can be seen both as wanting something from each other and as having something to give that the other values. If recipients could be clearer about this, it would counter their tendency to go “hat in hand” to potential donors. It seems to us that recipients could use the needs-based strategy more often than our review of the fund-raising literature would suggest they do, or at least are advised by that literature to do. A fundamental assumption made over and over in this literature is that donors will not

give to a project simply because it is presented as an effective way to address an important community need or interest. The desire on the part of a donor to be a part of a community effort, the satisfaction of being an active participant in creating one’s own community and being connected to others in a collaborative project, the enlightened self-interest on the part of donors who recognize that they might benefit directly or indirectly from some philanthropic project— these are not seen as sufficient to motivate donors to give. In Proven Tips and Secrets for Winning Grant $$, for example, grant seekers are advised that while they “must present a clear picture of why [their] program is necessary” and they must “solicit community involvement in the grants-manship process,” the most important factor is the ability to “tailor each proposal to the individual requirements of funders.”1 Grant seekers are urged to keep the donors’ wants constantly in mind and to “appeal to them often” in the proposal2. Even more bluntly, Grantsmanship: Money and How to Get to Get It advises, “Tailor the letter [of inquiry] to the [funding] organization’s opportunity, not the applicant’s need.”3 This kind of advice, repeated frequently and, as the above quotations illustrate, in very similar language, seems to advocate the use of what we have conceptualized here as the opportunity-based and agendabased recipient-side strategies of grant seeking. Although these strategies may be effective in one sense, they are the most donor centered, and they require the largest investment and effort on the part of recipients. The agenda-based strategy in particular requires that recipient groups have a substantial amount of information about donors in order to find out what donors want and how they as recipients might satisfy those wants as a condition of “winning” the gift. The fundraising techniques that are applied, again, especially in the agenda-based approach, often require the counsel of “experts” who constitute a whole new industry that can be called the fundraising business. Clients and consumers, along with the needs and interests they carry, are the least visible in these strategies and the appeals and practices that derive from them. The needs-based strategy that we have conceptualized here places the concerns and interests of the grantseeking organization and the clients and consumers it

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serves at the center. It is less costly to carry out. It empowers recipients because they are the ones who define the need and the program, ideally in collaboration and in dialogue with clients and consumers and with donors. The depth and scope of the need and the interest in all parties in addressing that need with an effective program are seen as sufficient to win the gift. Donors are envisioned as members of the community who have resources that they are willing to contribute in return for the satisfaction of community involvement and participation. While individual donors may indeed use their philanthropic activities to create opportunities for themselves or to carry out their own personal or professional agendas, these are not the focus of the grant-seeking organization’s appeals. They are seen as individual matters not at the center of the social relation that is philanthropy. Our call for a recipient movement toward the needs-based strategy corresponds to a parallel call for a donor movement away from donor-oriented strategies and toward mediated-engagement, especially personal-engagement, philanthropy. From the point of view of donor strategies, the implication is to encourage increased donor engagement—both personal and psychological—in the needs and interests of recipients. Such engagement may well lead to increased monetary contributions by donors, but this is not the only or even the most important consequence. Engagement between donors and recipients has the potential for transforming the practice of philanthropy in a more profound way. The projects funded may become more in line with what people need and less with what they can get funded. As the hierarchical and nonreciprocal distinction between donor and recipient becomes replaced with more collaborative approaches, philanthropy has the potential of becoming more innovative and creative, not only in regard to types of social projects that it initiates but in regard to the interactive quality of social relations that it exemplifies a philanthropic practice that emphasizes a personal-engagement strategy for donors and a needsbased strategy for recipients would be organized around the values of reciprocity, cooperation, mutual respect, accountability, and commitment. By conceptualizing philanthropy as a social relation rather than as an institution, sector, or organiza-

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tion, we have attempted to locate in a positive way the distinctive attribute of philanthropy. What constitutes philanthropy is not the legal tax status of an organization or the deductibility of a contribution. Rather, it is an interaction between donors and recipients that revolves around an effort to match what donors have to give to recipients with what recipients have to give to donors. Much of this matching tends to be talked about as donors giving concrete resources to recipients and recipients giving nonmaterial or intrinsic rewards to donors. This is true enough for much of the current practice of philanthropy. However, our definition of philanthropy as a social relation and how it gets carried out in the more mutual donor and recipient strategies indicates that there is more to it than this. When philanthropy is practiced at its best, donors are given material opportunities— and not just psychic rewards—through their relation to recipients. In turn, recipients are given various kinds of nonmaterial resources—in addition to material support—such as respect, empowerment, and esteem when philanthropy is recognized and carried out as a reciprocal social relation. In this chapter we have taken the first step toward conceptualizing philanthropy as a reciprocal relation and toward laying out a range of strategies that donors and recipients use in that relation to orient and guide their behavior. It is the task of future research to specify the conditions and circumstances that increase the use of the strategies that are most open to bringing recipients into philanthropy as mutual partners. Notes 1. Andrew Herman and Paul G. Schervish, “Varieties of Philanthropic Practice among the Wealthy.” Paper presented at Annual Spring Research Forum of INDEPENDENT SECTOR, New York, Mar. 19—20, 1987; Paul G. Schervish and Andrew Herman, Final Report: The Study on Wealth and Philanthropy. Submitted to the T. B. Murphy Foundation Charitable Trust, Boston College, 1988. 2. See, for example, Fundraising Review, Feb. 1982 through Dec. 1987; Jerald Panas, Mega-Gifts: Who Gives Them, Who Gets Them. Chicago: Pluribus Press, 1984; Michael Seltzer, Securing Your Organization’s Future. New York: Foundation Center, 1987. 3. Susan A. Ostrander, “Voluntary Social Service Agencies in the United States.” Social Services Review, Sept. 1985, 59, 435—454; “Elite Domination in Private Social Service Agencies: How It Happens and How It Is

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Titles I and V

Challenged.” In Thomas R. Dye and G. William Domhoff (eds.), Power Elites and Organizations. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1987; “Private Social Services: Obstacles to the Welfare State?” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (formerly Journal of Voluntary Action Research), 1989, 1. 4. Peter Dobkin HaIl, “Abandoning the Rhetoric of Independence: Reflections on the Nonprofit Sector in the Post-Liberal Era”; Susan A. Ostrander, “Introduction” and “Toward Implications for Research, Theory, and Policy on Nonprofits and Voluntarism”; and Jon Van Til, “The Three Sectors: Voluntarism in a Changing Political Economy.” In Susan A. Ostrander, Stuart Langton, and Jon Van Til (eds.), Shifting the Debate: Public/Private Sector Relations in the Modern Welfare State. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1987. See also Paul G. Schervish, “Bringing Recipients Back In: Philanthropy as a Social Relation.” Paper presented at INDE PENDENT SECTOR Academic Retreat, Indianapolis, June 7–8, 1988; and Jon Van Til, Mapping the Third Sector. New York: Foundation Center, 1988. 5. Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1985; Paul G. Schervish, Andrew Herman, and Lynn Rhenisch, “Towards a General Theory of the Philanthropic Activities of the Wealthy.” Paper presented at Annual Spring Research Forum of INDEPENDENT SECTOR, New York, Mar. 13–14, 1986. 6. Schervish and Herman. 7. Joseph Galaskiewicz, Gifts, Givers, and Getters: Business Philanthropy in and Urban Setting. New York: Academic Press, 1986; Susan A. Ostrander, Women of the Upper Class. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984; Michael Useem, The Inner Circle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. 8. Schervish and Herman. 9. Schervish and Herman. 10. James K. Hickey and Elizabeth Kochoo, Prospecting: Searching Out the Philanthropic Dollar. (2nd ed.) Washington, D. C.: Taft Corporation, 1984; Jeanne B. Jenkins and Marilyn Lucas, How to Find Philanthropic Prospects. Ambler, Pa.: Fundraising Institute, 1986. 11. Jenkins and Lucas, p. 16. 12. Education Funding Research Council, Proven Tips and Secrets for Winning Grant $$. Arlington, Va.: Government Information Services, 1987, p. 36. 13. Education Funding Research Council, p. 46. 14. Marquis Academic Media, Grantsmanship: Money and How to Get It. (2nd ed.) Chicago: Marquis Academic Media, 1987. 15. Susan A. Ostrander, “Why Philanthropy Neglects Poverty: Some Thoughts from History and Theory.” In Virginia A. Hodgkinson, Richard Lyman, and Associates, The Future of the Nonprofit Sector: Challenges, Changes and Policy Considerations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Titles I and V The following is taken from the the text of Titles I and V of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101–336) (ADA), as amended, as these titles appear in volume 42 of the United States Code, beginning at section 12101. This act recognizes the years of voluntary action of people interested in justice for individuals with disabilities. An Act To establish a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America assembled, that this Act may be cited as the “Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.” *** Findings and Purposes SEC. 12101. [Section 2] (a) Findings.—The Congress finds that(1) some 43,000,000 Americans have one or more physical or mental disabilities, and this number is increasing as the population as a whole is growing older; (2) historically, society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals with disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such forms of discrimination against individuals with disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive social problem; (3) discrimination against individuals with disabilities persists in such critical areas as employment, housing, public accommodations, education, transportation, communication, recreation, institutionalization, health services, voting, and access to public services; (4) unlike individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age, individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of disability have often had no legal recourse to redress such discrimination; (5) individuals with disabilities continually encounter various forms of discrimination, including outright intentional exclusion, the discriminatory effects of architectural, transportation, and communication barriers, overprotective rules and policies, failure to make modifications to existing facilities

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and practices, exclusionary qualification standards and criteria, segregation, and relegation to lesser services, programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other opportunities; (6) census data, national polls, and other studies have documented that people with disabilities, as a group, occupy an inferior status in our society, and are severely disadvantaged socially, vocationally, economically, and educationally; (7) individuals with disabilities are a discrete and insular minority who have been faced with restrictions and limitations, subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment, and relegated to a position of political powerlessness in our society, based on characteristics that are beyond the control of such individuals and resulting from stereotypic assumptions not truly indicative of the individual ability of such individuals to participate in, and contribute to, society; (8) the Nation’s proper goals regarding individuals with disabilities are to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for such individuals; and (9) the continuing existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination and prejudice denies people with disabilities the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities for which our free society is justifiably famous, and costs the United States billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses resulting from dependency and nonproductivity. (b) Purpose.—It is the purpose of this chapter— (1) to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities; (2) to provide clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards addressing discrimination against individuals with disabilities; (3) to ensure that the Federal Government plays a central role in enforcing the standards established in this chapter on behalf of individuals with disabilities; and (4) to invoke the sweep of congressional authority, including the power to enforce the fourteenth amendment and to regulate commerce, in order to address the major areas of discrimination faced day to day by people with disabilities. . . .

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Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response A Pastoral Letter on Stewardship from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops November 1992 The following excerpt from the pastoral letter of November 1992 on stewardship and the letter on common good of June 1993 from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops reflect American Catholic and, more broadly, Christian philanthropic views during the late twentieth century. As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. –1 Pt 4:10

Introduction Three convictions in particular underlie what we say in this pastoral letter: 1. Mature disciples make a conscious, firm decision, carried out in action, to be followers of Jesus Christ no matter the cost to themselves. 2. Beginning in conversion, change of mind and heart, this commitment is expressed not in a single action, nor even in a number of actions over a period of time, but in an entire way of life. It means committing one’s very self to the Lord. 3. Stewardship is an expression of discipleship, with the power to change how we understand and live out our lives. Disciples who practice stewardship recognize God as the origin of life, the giver of freedom, the source of all they have and are and will be. They are deeply aware of the truth that “the Lord’s are the earth and its fullness; the world and those who dwell in it” (Ps 24:1). They know themselves to be recipients and caretakers of God’s many gifts. They are grateful for what they have received and eager to cultivate their gifts out of love for God and one another.

The Challenge In some ways it may be harder to be a Christian steward today than at times in the past. Although religious faith is a strong force in the lives of many Americans, our country’s dominant secular culture often contradicts the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition. This is a culture in which destructive “isms”—materialism,

Stewardship

relativism, hedonism, individualism, consumerism— exercise seductive, powerful influences. There is a strong tendency to privatize faith, to push it to the margins of society, confining it to people’s hearts or, at best, their homes, while excluding it from the marketplace of ideas where social policy is formed and men and women acquire their view of life and its meaning.

The Choice Christians are part of this culture, influenced by it in many ways. In recent decades many Catholics in particular have entered into the mainstream of American society. This has been a remarkable achievement. Often, though, this process also has widened the “split” between faith and life which Vatican II saw as one of “the more serious errors of our age.”1 Thus American Catholicism itself has taken on some of the less attractive values of the secular culture. For example, although religious people often speak about community, individualism infects the religious experience of many persons. Parishes, dioceses, and church institutions appear impersonal and alienating in the eyes of many. Evangelization is not the priority it should be. How to use people’s gifts and charismas, how to empower the laity, how to recognize the role of women, how to affirm racial, cultural, and ethnic minorities, how to overcome poverty and oppression— these and countless other issues remain vexing questions, as well as opportunities. Also, while many Catholics are generous in giving of themselves and their resources to the Church, others do not respond to the needs in proportion to what they possess. The result now is a lack of resources which seriously hampers the Church’s ability to carry out its mission and obstructs people’s growth as disciples. This pastoral letter recognizes the importance of church support, including the sharing of time, talent, and treasure. But it stipulates church support in its broader context—what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. This also is the context of stewardship. Generous sharing of resources, including money, is central to its practice, and the church support is a necessary part of this. Essentially, it means helping the Church’s mis-

sion with money, time, personal resources of all kinds. This sharing is not an option for Catholics who understand what membership in the Church involves. It is a serious duty. It is a consequence of the faith which Catholics profess and celebrate. This pastoral letter initiates a long-term, continuing process encouraging people to examine and interiorize stewardship’s implications. At the start of this process it is important to lay out a comprehensive view of stewardship—a vision of a sharing, generous, accountable way of life rooted in Christian discipleship—which people can take to heart and apply to the circumstances of their lives. Concentrating on one specific obligation of stewardship, even one as important as church support, could make it harder—even impossible—for people to grasp the vision. It could imply that when the bishops get serious about stewardship, what they really mean is simply giving money.

The Vision Jesus’ invitation to follow him is addressed to people of every time and condition. Here and now it is addressed to us—Catholic citizens of a wealthy, powerful nation facing many questions about its identity and role in the waning years of a troubled century, members of a community of faith blessed with many human and material resources yet often uncertain about how to sustain and use them. As bishops, we wish to present a vision that suits the needs and problems of the Church in our country today and speaks to those who practice Christian stewardship in their particular circumstances. What we say here is directed to ourselves as much as to you who read these words. As bishops, we recognize our obligation to be models of stewardship in all aspects of our lives. We must be stewards in our prayer and worship, in how we fulfill our pastoral duties, in our custody of the Church’s doctrine, spiritual resources, personnel, and funds, in our lifestyle and use of time, and even in such matters as the attention we give to personal health and recreation. As we ask you to respond to the challenge of stewardship, we pray that we also will be open to the grace to respond. We pray that the Holy Spirit, whose gracious action conforms us to Jesus Christ and to the Church, will enlighten us all and help us to renew our

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commitment as the Lord’s disciples and as stewards of his bountiful gifts.

The Plan of the Pastoral Letter The pastoral letter proceeds according to the following plan. I. The Call. Stewardship is part of discipleship. But Christian discipleship begins with vocation, the call to follow Jesus and imitate his way of life. The letter therefore begins with vocation. Then it presents a very general overview of stewardship, considered in the context of discipleship, noting that people first of all are stewards of the personal vocations they receive from God. Discipleship and the practice of stewardship constitute a way of life that is both privileged and challenging. II. Jesus’ Way. Next, the pastoral letter focuses more closely on the idea of stewardship, relying on the teaching and life of Jesus to probe its meaning. It considers the implications for disciples of Jesus engaged in stewardship. One of these is that all are called to evangelize, to share the good news with others. And what is the reward to which good stewards can look forward? The answer is perfect fulfillment in God’s kingdom—a kingdom already present, real but imperfect, in this world, which Jesus’ Disciples help bring to its full reality by the practice of stewardship. III. Living as a Steward. Having reflected in general terms upon Christian life considered from the point of view of discipleship and stewardship, the letter turns to the content of this way of life. It considers the content of life in relation to two human activities that are fundamental to the Christian vocation. The first is collaborating with God in the work of creation. The second is cooperating with God in the work of redemption. Both lie at the very heart of Christian stewardship in its deepest meaning. IV. Stewards of the Church. The pastoral letter next considers the community of faith, the people of God, which is formed by the new

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covenant in and through Christ. Each member of the Church shares in responsibility for its mission; each is called to practice stewardship of the Church. Christians also are called to look outward and to place themselves at the service of the entire human community, especially those who are most in need. The eucharist is both the sign and the agent of this expansive communion of charity. V. The Christian Steward. The letter closes with a brief portrait or profile of the Christian steward, drawn from the New Testament. In a special way, the Blessed Virgin is the model of Christian discipleship and of the practice of Christian stewardship as it is understood here. Do we also wish to be disciples of Jesus Christ and to live in this way? Who is a Christian disciple? One who responds to Christ’s call, follows Jesus, and shapes his or her life in imitation of Christ’s. Who is a Christian steward? One who receives God’s gifts gratefully, cherishes and tends them in a responsible and accountable manner, shares them injustice and love with others, and returns them with increase to the Lord. VI. Genesis tells us that God placed the first human beings in a garden to practice stewardship there—“to cultivate and care for it” (Gn 2:15). The world remains a kind of garden (or workshop, as some would prefer to say) entrusted to the care of men and women for God’s glory and the service of humankind. In its simplest yet deepest sense, this is the Christian stewardship of which the pastoral letter speaks . . .

The Common Good: Old Idea, New Urgency (June 1993) A joint statement of the general secretary of the United States Catholic Conference, Monsignor Robert Lynch, with Reverend Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, and Rabbi Henry Michelman, executive vice president of the Synagogue Council of America.

The Common Good

In holy and infinite love, God has created us for community and has called us to covenants of justice and the common good. The word of God is addressed to communities, to cities, to nations, to the whole family of nations, so that all earth’s peoples may become one people. The will of God is forsaken whenever a nation fails to nurture and sustain the dignity and rights of all its people.

The Renewal of Promise As Jews and Christians standing on the common ground of faith in one holy and loving God, we commit ourselves to the renewal of our nation’s general welfare and its promise to all our people. We seek to articulate a fresh and empowering vision of the common good, a vision which inspires public action to meet the basic human needs of all our sisters and brothers. We judge this moment especially to be filled with great promise for such renewal of the national bond, which extends to every person in our land. The return of our national confidence must quicken our responsiveness not only to our budget deficits but more profoundly to our growing social deficits. It is these that have most dramatically rent the fabric of life for our people. Too often, genuine focus on the common good has been missing from our national dialogue, lost in a confusing clash of individual aspirations and narrow appeals. The common good is frequently diminished and sometimes destroyed by powerful currents in our national life, including • Social forces such as excessive individualism, materialism, and consumerism, which suggest that we are what we have and which permit us to remain indifferent to those who are most in need of our active concern • Economic forces in cities, suburbs, and rural communities which condemn 20 percent of our children to poverty, which tolerate the lack of decent work for millions, which foster a growing chasm between haves and have-nots, and which promote the choice of short-term gains over long-term investment

• Cultural forces such as irresponsible sexual behavior, the plagues of sexism and ageism, and escalating crime and violence which corrode human lives and deplete human resources, undercut family and community life, and threaten our moral integrity • Political forces which, dominated by special interests, too often promote narrow causes with little regard for broader national interests • The forces of racism, which leave us vulnerable to the bitter consequences of discrimination, intolerance, and polarization The common good is an old idea with a new urgency. It is an imperative to put the welfare of the whole ahead of our own narrow interests. It is an imperative which we fervently hope will guide our people and leaders at this new moment. It is an imperative for a national embrace of responsibility and sacrifice, of compassion and caring as building blocks for meaningful lives and for a healthy society. We believe we can and must do better.

A Heritage for the Common Good Jews and Christians share a common heritage in Hebrew Scripture, which proclaims that God’s covenant of righteousness is devoted to the creation and preservation of community. Beyond this shared heritage, we celebrate a rich diversity of societal visions in our several faith traditions. Judaism has ever taught a vision of moral solidarity and social justice that transcends and transforms individual conduct. The Exodus experience yet promises a future of liberation, a new and alternative community grounded in equity and uniquely marked by active compassion for the poor and the dispossessed. The towering imperative of Leviticus 19 continue to demand that a holy people find its most worthy guidelines for action in imitation of the deeds of God. A holy people empowers the poor, extends legal protections to all regardless of rank or status, demands that the marketplace be girded with honesty, and responds with active concern and respect to the disabled. It is out of the encounter with the divine that the people

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recognize their responsibility not only to God but to each other. Christian Orthodoxy, in its Eastern and Oriental expressions, holds a vision of the commonwealth which is rooted in the power of radiant tradition, of a profound historical consciousness of human solidarity, throughout all generations. God’s gift of salvation is radically social, compassionate, even cosmic, binding the faithful in loving kinship with the whole creation. The incarnations the revelation of true humanity in the oneness of all life and death, all joy and suffering, all despair and hope. At the center of Orthodox life is the liturgy with its vivifying disclosure that authentic selfhood is experienced only in communion. True personhood requires the disavowal of egoistic individualism. The Orthodox Church is called to energetically pursue harmony with public institutions in order to promote the welfare of all the people. For centuries the social teachings of Roman Catholicism have offered a rather explicit interpretation of the common good as a normative principle. In scholastic moral theology, papal encyclicals, the Second Vatican Council, and pastoral letters, the common good has been a guiding principle for Catholic involvement in politics, economics, human relations, and international affairs. The U.S. Catholic bishops’ 1986 pastoral letter Economic Justice for All set forth these imperatives: I. ”Human dignity can be realized and protected only in community . . . and requires a [broad] commitment to the common good.” II. “The common good demands justice for all, the protection of the human rights of all.” III. “The obligations to provide justice for all means that the poor have the single most urgent economic claim on the conscience of the nation.” IV. “As individuals and as a nation, therefore, we are called to make a fundamental option for the poor.” V. “The prime purpose of this commitment to the poor is to enable them to become active participants in the life of society.” Pope John Paul II has identified the virtue of solidarity as “a firm and persevering determination to com-

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mit oneself to the common good” (On Social Concern [Sollicitudo Rei Socialis]). The reforming spirit of Protestantism generated covenantal visions of commonwealth, social contract, and republican government founded upon natural rights and common consent. In Europe and later on this continent Protestant theology has addressed itself not only to the life of the Church but to the society as well. A century ago the Protestant Social Gospel arose in protest against the weakness and corruption of government in the face of the inhumanities of uncontrolled industrialization, urbanization, and monopoly capital. This attack upon “the superpersonal forces of evil” sprang from a conception of social salvation in a recovery of the biblical image of the kingdom of God, a realm requiring economic democracy as well as political democracy. Matthew’s Gospel provided a basic text. The ethical and moral questions of judgment are addressed to nations as well as to individuals. Nations, too, must answer whether they have responded compassionately to people who were hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, prisoners, or strangers (Mt 25:31–46). Prophets of the Social Gospel sought common ground among the divided Churches for the sake of social justice and became founders of the modern ecumenical movement. African American Protestants have conceived the Church as the prime community-nurturing and community-building institution. They have exalted the highest ethical and spiritual qualities of nationhood inspired by a vision of the beloved community. Consistently they have called our nation to fidelity to its historic covenant of unity in diversity. While sharing some of White America’s Protestant history, African American Churches—nurtured in the biblical affirmation of freedom and separated from White society even after the abolition of slavery— became the dominant social institutions in segregated American society. The civil rights movements of the twentieth century was born in the thousands of worshipping communities throughout the nation. The 1963 rally at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial was, for the African American Churches, confirmation of their long commitment to social justice, political and economic free-

The Common Good

dom, and the rights of individuals in a pluralistic society. The experience and affirmations of African American Churches currently have increasing influence within the community of Churches which seeks both social justice and personal piety. These communitarian visions of our several faith traditions testify to the shared conviction that our faithfulness will generate action for the common good. Such visions, which emerge from classical philosophy as well as from Western political ethics, have been enhanced by commitment to the common good. But all too often our lack of active fidelity to our own teaching has obstructed the common good. We acknowledge the complicity of our religious institutions in the brokenness of our society and our world. The pursuit of the common good is therefore not simply an agenda for public policy, but also a necessary guide for wise choices in our families, Churches, synagogues, businesses, unions, and communities. The religious community is called to proclaim these values and to support its members as they work in every aspect of ministry for moral, spiritual, and community renewal. In worship, spiritual formation, pastoral care, and advocacy we seek to build real community and promote the values which strengthen the commonweal. To grapple with social justice requires a diligent quest for the meaning of justice itself. For Jews and Christians, our primary conception of justice comes from the very character of a holy and loving God: • Justice is human action that joins God’s active involvement in human history. • Justice is the structure of human rights and responsibilities that best expresses God’s covenant love in society. • Justice and love are indispensable partners in the structures of society—political, legal, economic, social. Justice is equity—not arithmetical equality; but fairness in all relationships of persons and groups; fairness that condemns inequalities of opportunity; fairness with a special commitment toward the poor, the weak, the marginalized, and the oppressed.

The indivisibility of justice and love is sealed by the Hebrew word at the heart of biblical testimony to the will of God: Shalom—the potential of mutual welfare, health, wholeness, harmony, and ultimately peace—is God’s gift to the community and in all its relationships. That potential must be actualized by human beings as both children and partners of God.

Advocacy for the Common Good It is in the service of and guided by the vision of God’s shalom that our various communities have been led to ministries of service and vocations of public advocacy in the past. Acting individually and sometimes together we have sought to provide food, shelter, child care, counseling, jobs programs, health clinics, elderly and disabled services, solace, succor, and strength to neighbors in need. The involvement of our own vast networks of volunteers has taught us much about the extent of need in our society and of the dignity of those in need. Together religious institutions have historically witnessed to the whole nation as a part of the exercise of religious freedom. Though such efforts must now be intensified, they cannot substitute for just public policy reflective of the common good. That is why people of faith now have come to call for the establishment of policies, programs, and governmental action that seek to secure justice and promote the general welfare. This religiously motivated commitment to the common good does not mean that we always find full unity in applying these principles on specific and complex matters of public policy. Rather, in the notion of shalom we find a common calling to action and advocacy which will be shared not only within but beyond our own communities. We believe men and women of goodwill throughout the country share this vision of a holistic approach to social welfare as a matter of human rights as well as human need. But our vision must extend far beyond a view of human rights that tends to focus exclusively on individual civil and political liberties. Rather, we must include as well claims to economic and social rights among our people and responsibilities to one another and to society to advance the dignity and well-being of all.

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Without such a comprehensive ideal of human rights and responsibilities, the common good is obstructed, forestalling public policies urgently needed for the promotion of the general welfare. Corporately we understand our vocation to be to: • Speak out for those who cannot speak for the rights of all the destitute • Speak out, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the poor and needy (Prv 31:4–9)

Renewal of the Debate Making common appeal to the biblical foundation of creation, covenant, and community, we offer a provisional public theology of the common good, whose moral core is social justice, human dignity, and human rights. We believe that this appeal will strike a deep and responsive chord not only within people of faith but among many persons throughout our society. For everywhere such persons share in the recognition that: • Millions of our children enter life with deficient prenatal care and continue their precarious development with inadequate health care, nutrition, education, and family support. Child care continues to be costly, scanty, and of uneven quality. Family life itself has been ravaged by economic, moral, and social pressures, lack of affordable services for children and the elderly, and a profound sense of social insecurity. • Millions of our disadvantaged young adults are seemingly trapped in a life without a future in which dropping out of school, unemployment, inadequate job training, teenage pregnancy, street violence, drugs, and welfare dependency provide a dehumanizing struggle for survival. • Millions of working adults have suffered declining real income and lack of health coverage at a time when even those with insurance have seen family budgets impelled by escalating health care costs. At least 10 million adults remain unemployed. In the past decade, homelessness has become the fate of perhaps a million or more

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Americans, including terns of thousands of families. • Millions of disabled persons and elderly persons, mostly single women, are living in poverty. Most older Americans are without adequate resources to cope with long-term care, chronic or catastrophic illness, and disability. Government must always seek the general welfare of the people and pursue the common good. But government alone cannot address so large a question. Rather, in our democracy individuals and institutions from every sector of the society need to view their rights within the context of their responsibilities. The voluntary capacity and history of America’s institutions provide a rich legacy upon which we must draw. Our history as a people has given evidence of this remarkable tradition. In partnership with government we must call anew upon our traditions of community care and concern. Governmental programs must supplement and undergird but not supplant the efforts of individuals and families to participate fully in the social, cultural, and economic life of our land. No less must institutions find appropriate partnerships with government to shoulder democracy’s responsibility to its citizens so that they may enjoy the blessings of liberty. Each institution must examine its own purposes and capacity for such involvement. As people of faith we will be guided by Scripture’s injunction to heed the cry of the widowed and orphaned, the afflicted and the homeless. Infant voices, in the sighs of the discontented, and in the plaintive voice of the stranger at the gate we find the imperative to action and advocacy. We do not in these reflections make specific reference to the continuing need of our nation to pursue the common good on a global basis or to protect God’s creation and preserve our environment. These vital matters are ongoing priorities for our religious bodies, but not the focus of these reflections. We seek to contribute to a fresh debate over the renewal of the general welfare. We do not offer specific policy proposals, but rather basic values and general directions, coupled with a sense of urgency. Our faith

The Common Good

communities must continue to strengthen our ongoing efforts to engage our constituencies in study, dialogue, and action in pursuit of the common good. Let then the leaders of our nation heed this call and pursue its directions with urgency and creativity.

A Call to Commitment The challenge of pursuing the common good is both concrete and complex. Not fitting the partisan categories of our day, such a pursuit calls upon our national leaders to join us to affirm old values and pursue new policies. Through such a process we will all be expected to exercise more personal responsibility and broader social responsibility. We are now being asked to embrace greater restraint and discipline in our lives and more compassion within the broader society. More than anything else, the call to the common good is a reminder that we are one human family, whatever our differences of race, gender, ethnicity, or economic status. In our vision of the common good, a crucial moral test is how the weakest are faring. We give special priority to the poor and vulnerable since those with the greatest needs and burdens have first claim on our common efforts. In protecting the lives and promoting the dignity of the poor and vulnerable, we strengthen all of society. To this task, the religious community brings strong values; deep convictions; extensive experience in meeting human needs; and enduring relationships across national, racial, ethnic, and political lines. Moreover we bring 100 million adherents who are both people of faith and participants in this democracy. We also bring an agenda that we believe is at the heart of building real community and pursuing the common good in our nation, an agenda which is of compelling importance to believers and nonbelievers alike: • Priority for the poor. In all debate over economic policy, poor children and their families must be of paramount concern. Our nation must offer concrete economic opportunity and wise investment to secure the future of the most powerless in our midst and our future as well.

• Focus on basic human dignity and needs. The absence of decent work and housing, of an equitable and effective system of education, and especially of affordable and universal health care, undermines the well-being of millions. The search for the common good must prevail over the powerful defenders of the status quo in these crucial tests for community. • Genuine reform of the welfare system. True welfare reform attacks poverty, not the poor. We call for policy changes which will empower the poor to move beyond privation and dependency toward economic independence. Even as the religious community strengthens our own profound involvements in efforts to help those in need, we seek proactive policy reform to offer opportunity for decent work to support families and to combat poverty. • Respect for diversity. Discrimination still weakens our nations and diminishes each of us. We need to forge a national consensus that racism, anti-Semitism, and all other forms of discrimination have no place in our society. • New politics of community. We must grow beyond polarization and gridlock as we seek to evaluate each new policy proposal by the manner in which it enhances the pursuit of the common good. We urge that partisanship yield now to the renewed will of our American community; that we can no longer tolerate a society which closes its eyes to the well-being of all of its people. • A commitment to empowerment. As we advocate reshaping national policy and restructuring our national agenda, we continue to believe that there is no substitute for efforts of families, neighborhoods, churches, synagogues, and other organizations to help individuals meet their local needs. These mediating institutions do often exercise far more creativity and effectiveness than distant bureaucracies and impersonal agencies.

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Our call therefore is for full and active partnership, people and government, government and people, to bring to bear both justice and loving kindness in responding to the needs of our people. Our agenda derives from the values inherent within our faiths, not from any partisan political positions. Our agenda reflects our common convictions about the moral measure of community. Our pursuit of the common good, therefore, is a reflection of who we are, what we believe, and what we have experienced. We assert that the common ground that we have found in pursuing the common good is not only a moral imperative, but an essential religious calling. Reference: Pastoral Letters and Statements of the United States Catholic Bishops. 1989–1997. Vol. 6. Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference.

Walter and Elise Haas Fund The following president’s statement and the comments of the executive director of the Walter and Elise Haas fund are taken from the Haas Foundation annual report of 2002. It captures the character of family foundation leadership transfers at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

President’s Statement When Walter and Elise Haas established their family foundation in 1952, they created a vehicle intended not only to carry out their contemporary charitable interests but also to facilitate a tradition of philanthropic giving over time. Now some fifty years later, as the baton has passed to our generation – that of the grandchildren – we can look back with pride on the accomplishments of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund over that time period. Cumulatively, the Fund has awarded over $150 million in grants to more than 2000 organizations in seven fields of activity: arts and humanities, community service and citizenship, education, environment, human services, Jewish life, and professional ethics. The grants have ranged from large capital undertakings, such as construction of new buildings for the Haas

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School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to programs that have played an important role in expanding arts education in local schools, provided employment training for former welfare recipients, enhanced local parks, improved training and retention of public school teachers, and supported young social entrepreneurs working with Jewish organizations. Through its first half-century, both the programs and governance of the Fund have evolved in important ways. Following the initial period under the direct supervision of the founders, the Fund became professionally staffed in 1983 under the guidance of my aunt, uncle, and father: Rhoda Goldman, Walter Haas, Jr., and Peter Haas. Rhoda served as president of the Fund from 1983 until her death in 1996. In a short period, we mourned the losses of both Rhoda and her brother, Walter, Jr., who passed away in 1995. Rhoda and Walter were eminent figures in philanthropy who made lasting contributions to the work of the Fund. The other member of that generation was my father, Peter Haas, who became president of the Fund in 1996. After six years of leadership, my father decided to step down as president – he remains a member of the board – and I was elected to succeed him as the fourth president of the Fund. I am honored to be able to help carry on this wonderful family tradition along with other members of my generation. We hope to move our work forward in the spirit of the founders and those who followed them. As significant is another area of transition. Bruce Sievers has announced his decision to move on to new aims and challenges. Bruce has led the Fund as its only executive director for 19 years. To a large extent the Fund’s accomplishments can be attributed to Bruce’s professional leadership; deep knowledge of philanthropy and how it can be used to address the most important social and cultural needs; and his ability to work with, inspire, and develop the staff of the Fund. Beyond that, all who know Bruce, respect his passion, his genuine personality, and his sense of values and high integrity. We want to express our gratitude for Bruce’s extraordinary contributions to the betterment of the work of the Fund and wish him enormous future success.

Walter and Elise Haas Fund

As the Fund has grown over time, the primary fields of the Fund’s activity have built upon the original philanthropic interests of the founders adapting to changing social needs. The Fund has placed increasing emphasis on strategic goals within each area of activity. As we begin the 21st century, we look forward to new opportunities and innovative ways to increase the efficacy of our work. Besides completing the search for a new executive director, the tasks ahead will include conducting an overall review of program priorities and strategies of the Fund. Recent events remind us that challenges of the future loom as great or greater than those of the past, and we will seek to live up to them. Peter E. Haas President

Executive Director’s Report Times of change – whether organizational or personal – offer rare opportunities for taking stock. The 50th anniversary of the founding of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, celebrated during the past year, became an important time of transition for the foundation. As noted in the president’s statement, Peter Haas, Sr., who has served as a trustee since the Fund’s creation, stepped down as president after a six year term. Peter Haas, Jr. was elected to fill the post and lead the Fund as president going forward. The founders’ legacy and family continuity will be sustained under the leadership of the third generation. For me personally, the year also became an important time of transition. On the occasion of my sixtieth birthday, having served nearly 10 years as the Fund’s executive director, I announced that I will make a major life change in mid-2002. After having had the good fortune to serve almost two decades as executive director of the Fund, I am looking forward to pursuing some new aims: writing, teaching, and engaging in other ways in the nonprofit field. As I reflect upon my tenure with the Fund, I am struck by the extraordinary privilege it has been to have been able to work with a preeminent family in philanthropy in a position that has allowed me to engage on a daily basis with an abundant flow of innovative ideas, deeply dedicated people, laudable social values, and optimistic aspirations for social change. The

world of philanthropy is one in which just coming to work every day can be an exhilarating experience. And it has been an even greater stroke of fortune to have been able to serve as the director of a private foundation that has both the freedom and resources to contribute to this mix. The challenge to this work, of course, lies in the attempt to apply those resources as wisely and respectfully as possible in complex fields of human endeavor. Foundations evolve over time. The history of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund reflects the growth of a family philanthropic tradition, from its early years of the fifties as a vehicle for the personal charitable interests of two people, Walter and Elise Haas, who cared deeply about their community, to establishing a formal foundation structure in 1983, to developing focused funding agendas in seven distinct program areas throughout the past two decades. During that period the board composition evolved from the initial five – the two founders and their three children – to the three children alone, to its current make-up of one child of the founders and five of their grandchildren. The program has evolved concurrently, building from its primary focus on support of key community institutions of the fifties to the development of program priorities over time that seek to connect the founders’ legacy to major contemporary social needs. The Walter and Elise Haas fund will certainly continue to transform itself as it seeks to address the challenges of the new century. In my years as executive director of the Fund, I have thrived in an environment that allowed me to serve with an extraordinary philanthropic family and a great professional staff. I also have been the beneficiary of association with an abundance of wonderful individuals, organizations, and causes. It would be easy to write pages about the highlights of both, but I will limit myself to three overall observations: • Walter and Elise Haas and their descendants represent a great tradition of family philanthropy that contributes fundamentally to the growth and vitality of civil society of the San Francisco Bay Area. Through the generations the family has demonstrated extraordinary generosity and

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an abiding commitment to the well-being of their community and the nonprofit sector as a whole. • One of the most important social benefits of the work of this foundation (and, I would suggest, to that of foundations in general) lies in championing a set of values – pluralism, compassion, concern for the common good, and voluntarism – even more than services rendered or problems solved. • The best philanthropy, in my view, proceeds from a rather unpredictable combination of inspiration, opportunity, and a sense of “seizing the day.” Stan Katz, an eminent historian of philanthropy, wonderfully articulated this point in a recent lecture at Georgetown University. Criticizing a tendency toward a fixation on “deliverables” and “benchmarks” found in one strand of modern philanthropy, he calls for renewed emphasis on foundation support for work that pursues fundamental problems and big ideas in ways that may not be visible for decades. Such funding has the potential to yield the most important social benefits over the long term. • This last observation points to both the excitement and limitations of foundation life. Philanthropy seeks to address social issues that are age-old and extraordinarily difficult – what one writer has referred to as “wicked problems.” Those charged with administering foundation resources want to insure that funds are used with sufficient sophistication and rigor to make a demonstrable impact on at least some portion of these problems. Although understandable – who does not want to see results from funds expended? – the drive toward narrowly defined results can have unintended, adverse effects on grant recipients by requiring them to reduce and shorten their horizons of accomplishment. In my experience foundations do best when they seek to engage in an open-ended give

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and take with the nonprofits they fund rather than adopting the quid-pro-quo stance of results-oriented investors. But this is a part of a longer debate that will continue to animate the field. Hard as it will be to say goodbye to what has been an important part of my life, I will look back with pride on the accomplishments of the Fund and with gratitude for all that I have gained from the trustees and my colleagues in the field. The Walter and Elise Haas Fund has touched many lives, and it will touch many more as it grows and develops in new ways in its second half-century. Bruce R. Sievers Executive Director Reference: Reprinted with permission from the foundation.

On the Meaning and Usage of the Word ‘Philanthropia’ S. Tromp De Ruiter (translated and edited by Marty Sulek, 2002) Little is known about S. Tromp de Ruiter, a Dutch scholar who most likely spent time at the University of Leipzig studying classical philology. Through his comprehensive edit of the English translation of On the Meaning and Usage of the Word ‘Philanthropia’, Marty Sulek has made available to the English-reading public one of the most detailed histories of the development of the concept of philanthropy. Dr. R. Hirzel, in chapter 4 of the book Plutarch [Leipzig 1912], where he deals with the humane character of Plutarch, begins: “In the long line of philanthropists, which reaches to our time and includes men of very different types, between Prometheus, the first ‘friend of mankind,’ and Christ the ‘philanthropist’, in whose name the Byzantines built monasteries, our Plutarch maintains his position with honour.” Behind these words not only clearly lie the terms philánthrôpos and philánthrôpía, which, if I may say, suffuse

On the Meaning and Usage of the Word ‘Philanthropia’

the human race from the perfect regions of heaven and carry men back up into the sublime regions, but also most clearly what the differences are between “philánthrôpía” and “humanitas,” which, despite their differences and the attractive play of the words, are very closely connected with each other. Dr. S. Lorenz deals more fully with the progress of the idea of philánthrôpías1 almost up to the time of the Scipios; because truly he would belong among the philosophers if he claimed to scrutinize almost all of antiquity. May it be granted to me, partly taking the same way and partly a different route, to make my argument about the meaning and use of the word philánthrôpía in Greek literature. I have followed the use of this word among the main authors from before the time of Christ; I have added many quotations from papyri and from inscriptions. Finally I have examined the works of Philo and Plutarch and several passages of Christian authors. The first philánthrôpos in Greek literature is the god Prometheus, “who is too much of a philánthrôpos,”2 benefactor of the human, “who gives them the very best of morals, and provides them with the opportunity to emerge from wildness to a higher degree of life and humanity.”3 Kratos speaks the following words to the chained up Prometheus [Aeschyl. Prom. Desm. v. v. 8 sqq.]: “these are the sins the gods must punish him for, to learn to respect the domination of Zeus and to give up the attitude of philánthrôpou.” This was the first time the word philánthrôpos occurred. Then Hephaestos says [ib. v. 28]: “You got into so much trouble because of your philánthrôpou behavior.” In the prologue, Prometheus himself laments his unfortunate situation: “Look at me, the unlucky god who is chained up for exaggerated affection for the mortal beings.” So philánthrôpía here originates from a god. We can’t find the word philánthrôpos before the second half of the 5th century B.C. It doesn’t occur in Homer and the other epic poets. The form philánthrôpía doesn’t fit into hexameter, though the idea of philánthrôpías is not unfamiliar to the epic. Let us examine this with respect to a few words.

In Homer you can only rarely find compound words with the prefix philo-. In total, I have found thirteen, and five of them are nonce words: philokértomos (he who loves mocking), philoktéanos (greedy), philopaígmôn (he who loves playing), philophrosúnê (benevolence, friendship), philopseudês (he who loves lies). In the hymns you can find the following four: philókrotos (he who loves noise), philokúdês (he who loves glory), philolêîos (he who loves plunder), philostéphanos (he who loves wreaths/glory). In addition, there are: philêretmos (he who loves rowing), philommeídês (he who loves to smile), philóxeinos (hospitable), philoptólemos (he who loves war). Besides these, there are about 280 words in Greek with the prefix philo- or phil-. The scholar SCHNEIDEWIN emphasizes excessively that the epic poems give no evidence of the ancient culture at all.4 You hardly can find the word philánthrôpías, but there are many passages where one detects the manifest knowledge of humanity. In a passage of the Iliad you can read the word philophrosúne, which is almost the same as philanthrôpías. Ulysses warns Achilles of his father’s, Peleus’ words [I, 255 sq.] “you have a brave heart. Affection (philophrosúnê) is better.” P 671 Menelaus praises Patroklos’ companion for his qualities: “everybody knows that he is worthy of affection,” by the use of the word meílichos, which means almost the same as philánthrôpos. Briseis [T 300] mourns for Patroklos like this: “I mourn for you, you reckless man who died; you were always worthy of affection (meílichon).” Penelope says about cruel and rude people [t 329 sqq]: “for him, who himself is cruel and knows cruelty, every mortal wishes pain for the rest of his life, and even after his death he will be ridiculed.” In Homer, the inhuman characters are clearly expressed and described. Consider king Echetos [s 85 sqq], the cruel race of the Cyclops [i 105 sqq., 166 sqq.], and the barbarous nation of the Lapithae [f 295 sqq., A 262 sqq., M 127 sqq.]. On the other hand, Axylos’ hospitality is praised [Z 14 sq]:

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“he was much liked by the people, because he received everybody in his house by the roadside.”5 Moreover, how much attention was paid towards those implorers, strangers, those who were searching for protection, the beggars! What strength there was in the knowledge of beneficence! A strong fear of respect proliferated.6 The philánthrôpos god is horrified by the epic poem, where divine might turns into power and not into love. Though the mercy of the gods is mentioned in several passages, it seems like the suddenly awakened gods only do good to people they especially like. This kind of divine mercy usually lasts only for a short time, and occurs at the right time. The human fate is hard, and everybody tolerates his own fate “voluntarily, but not with willing mind – silently.” Philoloitos, an ordinary man says too frankly [n 201]: “Father Zeus, there is no god who is more destructive than you!” The inhumanity of the gods is mentioned jokingly by Hephaestos [A 573 sqq.]. It seems pitifully stupid to him to spoil the happiness of a divine feast by arguing with each other about human beings. A philánthrôpos god doesn’t fit into this company. It is more for the Zeus who gave the order to chain up the god whose crime was philanthrôpía, “to make him learn to respect the power of Zeus and to give up his philanthrôpou attitude.” The next location where we can read the word philanthrôpou in Greek literature, is Aristophanes’ Peace v. 392 [v. L.] almost 30 years after the above mentioned passage of Aeschylus, where the choir speaks to Mercury (a.k.a. Hermes): “Oh you philanthrôpótate (most philanthropic) of all gods, you most generous.” Here is the philánthrôpos god again. Before 385 B.C. there’s another god called philánthrôpos, Eros in Plato’s Symposium [189 D]: “The philanthrôpótatos (most philanthropic) of all gods, helper and physician to human beings.” We have to add from Plato’s Legg. IV 713 D: “the god who is philánthrôpos,” where that god is called philánthrôpos who takes care of human beings. The word philanthrôpías first occurs in Plato, Euthyphro 3 D and in Xenophon, Memor. IV, 3, 7; It would be difficult to decide which is earlier. According to Plato, Socrates addresses Euthyphro with the words: “Perhaps you do not wish to show

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yourself too openly and teach your own wisdom; I, however, am afraid I will appear to squander whatever I know through philanthrôpías, by saying it to every man, not only without pay, but happily too, if anyone is willing to listen to me.” In this quotation, philanthrôpía simply means benevolence. I am not able to agree with Dr. Lorenz, who on p. 15 of the work mentioned above thinks that Socrates in this passage “jokingly ascribes this virtue to himself as if he were a god,” and that Socrates therefore thinks that it develops from God, as indeed we discovered in the passages praised above. It will easily be seen that this matter was not understood in this way by those who follow in the time of Plato. Socrates is called “demotikòs kai philánthrôpos” (democratic and philanthropic) by Xenophon [Memor. I, 2, 60] – virtues which were later so much praised among citizens – who makes this reference to him as a man, not as a god. Xenophon [Memor. IV, 3, 7] describes Socrates debating with Euthydemos. Socrates demonstrates that humans are objects of care to the gods, which is shown by the many benefits they confer on mankind. Then Euthydemos says, “Absolutely, and these things are philánthrôpa.” [ibid. §5]. Then Socrates continues, “The gods also gave us fire.” And Euthydemos answers, “This too is surpassing in philanthrôpía.” Here philanthrôpías again means divine love towards human beings. The philánthrôpos Prometheus served as an example for this love. This first meaning of the word expresses – in my opinion – the unique difference between the signification of the words philanthrôpías and humanitatis. The words humanitas and humanus originate from the meaning of homo,7 which signify “how much power the human mind contains in relation to the most excellent things” [Cic. De legg. I, 16].8 The presence and development of this meaning is quite clear in some places in Terentius. Let me cite the following: Adelph. 934 “if you were a human”; ib. 107 “if you were a human”; 734 “to pretend is really a human feature; 736 “these are more human features.” In some places, the following can be read: Andria 236 “is this deed or venture human?” Hecyra 553 “to dissimulate ourselves is human, isn’t it?” Andria 113 “I thought that these all are duties of human talent and placid soul.”9


All these originate from the word homo; there is no humanitas in a god. Here, the Greek verse called the basic feeling of ancient humanity10 by MAX SCHNEIDEWIN fits: “Be aware of being human, and always remember it!” [Phil. 195] Humanitas would be translated into Greek as anthrôposyne, but this word does not exist.11 Anthrôpótês appears very rarely: Anthrôpismós occurs only twice:12 Diog. L. Il, 70: “it’s better to be [Aristippus sc.] than uneducated. These have no money, the others have no ánthrôpismoú” Epiph. [vol. II. p. 137 B]: “these are not the forms of error but of the most true ánthrôpismoú.” It is obvious enough that the meaning of the word philanthrôpía is wider. About the usage of the adjective, we must note that the forms ánthrôpeios, ánthrôpinos and ánthrôpikós exist, and the adverbial forms ánthrôpínôs, ánthrôpikôs, ánthrôpeíôs occur twice: Thucyd. V. 103 “to escape by human means”; Aristoph. Ran. 1058 “talk in a human manner.” The adverbs ánthrôpeios and ánthrôpinos (or ánthrôpikós) – as far as I know – usually mean ‘human,’ so they are equal to the genitive forms ánthrôpou or ánthrôpôn. At certain places they seem to have superfluous value. STEPHANUS i.v. adds the following: “sometimes ánthrôpínos seems to occur instead of philanthrôpôs, and often means kindness, how we treat other people humanely. In Greek, one says ánthrôpinós krêsthai, ánthrôpínôs metakheirízesthai.” The adjective ánthrôpeios can be found especially in tragic poets and often in Thucydides. The adverb ánthrôpinos seems to be preferred by comic poets, and it has been used in prose since Plato. The form ánthrôpikos often appears in Aristotle. Let’s briefly look at the whole so-called family tree of the word philanthrôpía; the nouns are the following: philanthrôpía, philánthrôpos, philánthrôpon, philanthrôpeuma,13 philanthrôpion.14 The adjectives are: philánthrôpos, áphilánthrôpos15. The verbs: philanthropéô, transitive and intransitive, and philanthrôpeúmai. The adverbs: philanthrôpôs and philanthrôpínôs. So much for this. Let’s return to our main line. At the above mentioned places in Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Plato and Xenophon16 we saw that god is philán-

thrôpon; and that humans act “out of philanthrôpías” in Plat. Euthyphr. 3 D. It’s conspicuous that we can add another locus of Plato sc. Def. 412 E, where philanthrôpía is defined as: ‘the ability of personality to accommodate to humanity.’ A huge amount of material on this subject is provided in the works of Xenophon, where the humanitas of gods passes to mortal gods of earth, the principals of humanity, especially to Cyrus, the Persian king who is the incarnation of the perfect king for Xenophon, and his special virtue is philanthrôpía.17 In Cyrop. I, 2, 1 Cyrus is described as “with regard to his looks the most beautiful, his soul philanthrôpótatos (most philanthropic) and most loving of learning and most loving of honour”; VIII, 2, 1: “He always proved – as much as it was possible – the philanthrôpían of his soul.” He tells how this virtue of Cyrus appeared [I, 4, 1]: “Cyrus, because of his philanthrôpían and love of honour, thought it to be important to arrange for everything that his boyhood friends asked.” His kindness is praised by Xenophon with gentle words. Cyrus was “a very kind person in company, his character was very affectionate already as a child.” Then he says: “many, too, owed to his philanthrôpían many a favour at the hands of his grandfather.” [IV, 2, 10] The adult Cyrus proved his humanity by inviting his friends to feasts: military praefects, centurions, sometimes soldiers of lower rank: “his share of the served dishes was the same as that of the invited guests” [III, 1, 30]. He would do similar things thinking: “it’s kinder to offer food and drink to the people than any other benefaction” [VIII, 2, 2]. During the meal or in company he conversed with his friends, was glad or sad together with them. He provided good physicians and medicines for them. When Gobryas saw Cyrus sending dishes to those friends who couldn’t be present, he said: “I thought that you were prominent by excelling in strategy, but now I think that you are more prominent because of your philanthrôpía than your strategy” [VIII, 4, 7]. Cyrus proved his humanity by treating the captives very humanely. The rules of war declare that the captives are the victor’s property. According to the chief rule of war, in a captured town, the young men were killed, and women and children were carried off as slaves. At Il.

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IX, 593 sq. you can read: “The men are killed, the town bursts into flames, children, other inhabitants and deeply belted women are carried off.” The word kataskáptein (to destroy totally) means even worse things. What disasters were the people’s fate in Plataia, Corinth and on the Island of Melos! The ruination of these cities is described by Thucydides quite dryly [I. 106, III. 52, V. 84].18 People seem to have become friendlier around the end of the 5th century B.C.19 Perhaps this altered feeling is demonstrated by Cyrus’ words: “the law constant for everybody, that whenever a town is occupied by invaders, all the citizens and goods belong to the winner. Thus, you don’t get possession of them unfairly, but you won’t be spoiled by your philanthrôpía, if you leave something for them” [Cyrop. VII, 5, 73]. What a new kind of attitude is this! But if we examine it more closely, it will be manifest that Cyrus benefits from it. It’s not accidental that Xenophon says: “Nothing is more ours, than us for ourselves” [Cyrop. IV, 3, 10], and this sentence is universal. As the French say: “charité bien ordonné commence par soiméme” (proper charity begins with oneself ). On the other hand, Cyrus’ opinion harmonizes with this. He seemed humane, “knowing that people are pleased by it, like dogs.” He did it in order to gain the ears and eyes of his people all over his great empire, in order that he could maintain it. No wonder that Cyrus chose and won his friends with this consideration. Friendship was praised for its utility in antiquity. A friend is “a useful jewel” [Xen. Memor. II. 4.]. Everybody must do as much good to his friends as he can, “because friends don’t extradite him that easily.”20 It’s worth examining the opposite side of this feeling alongside the feature of humanity. To love one’s friends and hate one’s enemies was ingrained in the ancient Greeks from birth. The goddess Athena’s words occur to me: “Isn’t the sweetest laughter to laugh at our enemies?”[Soph. Ai. 79.] In Xenophon [Cyrop. I, 4, 25], Astyages hopes that Cyrus will become a man “who will be able to do good to his friends and make his enemies sad.” Socrates says to Chaerecrates: “it seems to be the greatest honour to a man to be quicker than his enemies when it comes to harming them, and quicker than his friends in the case of benefactions” [Memor. II, 3, 14]. He says

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the following too: “the eminence of a man is to overcome his friends in benefactions, and his enemies in evil deeds” [Memor. II, 6, 35]. The dying Cyrus says: “I achieved that my friends are happy because of me and my enemies are slaves” [Cyrop. VIII, 7]. His last words are: “Remember my death and be able to do good to your friends and to control your enemies.” This kind of humanity is not unlimited. But when he considers that he will die, and that when buried he’ll be a part of Mother Earth (Tellus) that is kind to everyone, he is happy because he’ll be able to be useful to the people even after his death: “What can be happier than to merge into the soil that is mother of all beauty and good? I’ve always been a philánthrôpos, and now I’m glad to merge into the benefactor of human beings” [Cyrop. VIII, 7, 25]. I dwelt longer on this subject, because it seems to me that Xenophon eternalized not only the memory of a great king but also a so-called great philanthrôpou. The humanitas of king Cyrus agrees with the definition of humanitas that can be found in Diogenes Läertius [III, 98]: “There are three kinds of philanthrôpías: the first originates from greeting, where some people address everyone coming from the opposite direction and greet them by reaching out their hand; the second is, when you help every poor person, and the third is when some people love to have a feast. The first philanthrôpías is ruled by addressing and greeting, the second by benefactions, and the third by the happiness of being together.” Xenophon endows king Agesilaus with the same regal virtue. The cities he couldn’t conquer by force, he tamed by humanity. In Agesil. I, 22 we can read: “After having devastated the city walls, he tamed the city with philanthrôpía. The same king was “very kind21 to his friends but to his enemies the cruelest” [XV, 4]. In addition, there is another meaning of philanthrôpía in Xenophon. In Oeconom. XV, 4 Ischomachos, while praising the utility of agriculture, which he glorifies and considers its fruits, he says: “And now Socrates, hear the philanthrôpían of this craft.” The art of agriculture is called “the most useful craft and the most pleasant one” and all things that are “pleasant for the people originate from it.” The word philanthrôpías means here utility and profit, and this


meaning begins to appear in Cyrus’ last words mentioning the kindness of the soil.22 A bit later [Oeconom. XIX, 17] the same Ischomachos says: “I’ve always said that agriculture is so philánthrôpós and pleasant, that those who see it or hear of it immediately know it well.” The meaning of philanthrôpías here is transferred from human beings to inanimate objects. I’m not sure if the so-called “philanthropy” of agriculture was born in a poet’s mind that often endows inanimate things with human features, or if it was due to the former religious cult of Mother Earth, that the philanthropy of soil could rise that high. The beneficence of this ancient goddess was invoked and celebrated in many ways, though the word philanthrôpías cannot be found in her cult.23 Xenophon mentions the philanthropy of animals,24 too, as a true admirer of animals. Xenophon thinks that if someone wants to train a colt, he must ensure that the colt is gentle,25 tame and philánthrôpos [De re equestri II, 3]. If the animals are kept well, “it is necessary that they not only love humans, but that they long for them.” In another place, [De venatione III, 9]26 the subject is dogs that love human beings. Many hunting dogs give up chasing wild animals because of aversion to the hunt, but many dogs because of philánthrôpon. At the same place [VI, 25] we can read that hunting dogs must be excited to chase the wild according to their nature: “the philánthrôpon must be excited very much, the martial less, the level between this two in moderation.” In Aristotle, de animal. 617 b, the snipe and 630a jackal are called philánthrôpoi. Plutarch [Sertor. c.XI] calls the fawn “tame and philánthrôpos”; de soli. Animal. II, 982 F, the dolphin. It’s remarkable that this notion of love for human beings – I’d rather call it affection – appears in the name of a certain flower called philánthrôpos – it’s our “kleefkruid” – because it sticks to human beings.27 There is another place in Xenophon: de Vectigal. III. 6: the luck of a city is supposed to grow if bankers and traders arriving in the port are welcome and given presents that are called xénia and proedría. Due to this hospitality they return more gladly and that is beneficial for trade. This can be appropriated to future civic costs, “namely it is necessary not to spend more on

similar increases of profit but on philánthrôpa resolutions and care.” The question is what these philánthrôpa resolutions are? The Thesaurus L. Gr. omits the explanation of these words. PASSOW adds: “benefiting psephísmata (resolution) to those who wish well for others.” GILBERT in Handbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer p. 344 mentions that the resolution was adopted by the public assembly of Athens concerning a man, who was given redemption by the citizens or citizenship, voting by tiles. It’s obvious from the context, that here we read about single resolutions that provide benefits. Taking the meaning of humanity as our starting point, the idiom philánthrôpon resolution can be translated into Latin with the words “beneficium” or “privilegium.” The word’s meaning is wider in this case, because it doesn’t mean a benefit provided by a city to her own citizen, but to any person. So the word tà philánthrôpa means more often benefit, privilege. Let’s illustrate it with an inscription from the 3rd Century B.C. [Dittenb. 563]: “The Athenians granted friendly terms and good relationship to the people of Teos, and that all former philanthrôpou resolutions be permanent.” On a Delphic inscription from around the same time, we can read: “the philánthrôpa that has been available to Delphi for so long, is refused in the case of the Sardesians” [Dittenb. 548]. In a resolution from Ithaca from the year 207 B.C. it is mentioned: “All the philánthrôpa of the city available to every guest and benefactor” [Dittenb. 558]. On a papyrus from the 3rd Century B.C. [Petr. II. 32, 1] we find this: “Namely, if it happens, they will be satisfied with the philanthrôpon you give.” On another papyrus of the same age, we can read: “the philánthrôpa you gave” [Soc. 554, 35]. But that is enough. After having clarified the usage in Xenophon, let’s summarize the meanings of “philanthropy” that we have found so far. In the middle of the 4th century B.C. “philanthropy” means divine affection towards human beings, then – especially – between humans. If referring to the “philanthropy” of agriculture, the word means utility and profit, and it is easy to extract the meaning of benefaction and privilege. It also means animal affection towards human beings and a kind attitude towards the defeated.

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After the 4th century, this notion is exhibited by the so-called just city, and it spreads due to human communication. The virtue of the supreme being becomes the virtue of officials, judges, and citizens. The orator Isocrates,28 a contemporary of Xenophon, and a follower of the sophists Prodicus and Gorgias – also similar to Xenophon – portrays a king who says, concerning the features of a king [II, 15]: “in addition, he must be philánthrôpon and patriotic.”29 It’s said that a just king governs with “affection towards the gods and philanthrôpôs” [IX. 43], and so behave the Athenians towards other nations [IV, 29]. He says that the glory of king Philip will live forever, if the Greeks receive “philanthrôpía and benevolence” [V, 114] and “philanthrôpía and kindness” [ib., 116] from him. “Malevolence” and “misanthropy” universally mean some kind of crime for Isocrates [XV, 315]. The words “philánthrôpos and philópolis (he who loves his city), philanthrôpía and eünoia (benevolence)” refer to the true Greek way of thinking. In former times, the silent philanthropy of the people was determined by the close bonds of the city, called the pólis. It is easy to realize how extensive this silent philanthropy had grown, if we recall Plato’s words [de legg. I, p. 625 E]: “in fact, every war made by one town against another, was an undeclared war.” Ancient philanthropy included relatives, family members, friends and citizens, and was not mixed up with benevolence towards everybody.30 The words philanthrôpía and eünoia fit perfectly with what the scholar REITZENSTEIN said [o.l. p. 11.]: “that the cultivation of the intellect and heart are indissolubly bound together.” So the kind and benevolent man is called eúgnômôn, the opposite of ágnômôn who is inhuman and cruel. Aeschines says [I, 137]: “I declare that affection towards good and wise men is an experience of a philanthrôpou and noble soul.” In the middle of the 4th century B.C., the words eünoia and praótes (kindness) were often connected with the word ëleos, especially in the administration of justice. The word philanthrôpías does not appear in Lysias and other ancient speakers. But Demosthenes says [XIII, 17]: “you must be fearful in battles, and philanthrôpous in trials.”31

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In another place [XX, 165] he says, “we think that philanthrôpía is in opposition to envy, justice with evil,” where there seems to be no dividing line between “philanthropy” and justice. Let’s examine the following words of the same author: “What kind of law is full of so much injustice and misanthropy?” [XVIII, 112] and: “Hear now, O Athenian men, the law of philanthrôpías, that is never resigned to arrogance towards servants” [XXI, 48]. The accuser tries to achieve that the sinner could obtain neither “forgiveness, nor philanthrôpía, nor favor” [Dem. XXI, 148]. In the same speech [43] “forgiveness and philanthrôpía,” XXV, 81 “pity, leniency and philanthrôpía” are artistically connected. So philanthrôpía and pity dissolve into each other, and by this step, philanthrôpías gains new content. The speakers themselves used to praise this virtue that is singularly implanted in the people of Athens.32 FR. MARX says in the speech that can be found in Zur Geschichte der Barmherzigkeit im Abendlande [On the History of Mercy in the Occident] [p.13.]: “If we are to believe the assertion of the Athenians, the remaining Greeks and the barbarians, then the noble flower of compassion flourished nowhere as sincerely as it did on the shores of the Ilissos, in the violet-filled meadows of Athens.” A certain poet of Alexandria praises the city of Athens: “They have no pity on anybody but the citizens.”33 An Attic tale praises the Athenian soil as an asylum for tortured and tried people. Oedipus in Coloneus of Sophocles, Supplices and Heraclides of Euripides are works that praise the philanthropy of the Athenian people. The leader Phokion is reported saying: “You can’t divide the altar from the temple, nor pity from human nature.”34 Pausanias I, 17, 1 says: “There are many other symbols – but not representing all – on the Athenian agora, and here is the altar of Eleos, too, who is considered by the Athenians – singularly amongst all Hellenes – as the most useful of all gods regarding human life and changes in things.” The question is understandable: can that kind of god be found in Greek religion, where the god Panteleimon was unknown, because almost all states of mind are usually demonstrated with a god’s image?35 By the way, it is also admirable that in the middle of the 4th century B.C., the word philanthrôpías was


commonly used in connection with the meaning of the word ëleos (pity). Efforts to awaken the judges’ pity was wide-spread in trials in the 5th century B.C.36 Examining Demosthenes’ speeches, it is obvious that this word was flowering. The golden age of the word is clear in Isocrates, Demosthenes, Polybius and later in Plutarch.37 In a short time, philanthropy became a virtue with which you could win the favor of the people. If someone wanted to be prominent among the citizens in respect, he had to be “philánthrôpos and friendly” [Dem. XVIII, 268], “philánthrôpos and humane” [XXIV, 24] or “moderate and philánthrôpos” [XXI, 128], the opposite is a “savage and violent,” “rude and violent” person.38 In Aristotle [de rep. Ath. XVI,8] we can read the following about Peisistratos: “He had all features in his character that are called humane and he was philánthrôpon.” The same is praised in Socrates by Xenophon [Mem. I, 2, 60]. First of all, he who wins the palm of philanthropy appears generous in procuring offices. Demosthenes [XVIII, 264] says: “What kind of law is full of so much injustice and misanthropy that if someone gives from his own and does something philánthrôpon and generous then he’ll be deprived of benevolence?” “The philánthrôpon and generous deed” is philanthropy which is characterized by gifts and benefactions, and so we see the meaning of the word philanthropy widen39 and increase with the meaning of doni, muneris and beneficii (Latin: donation, duty and benefaction). Demosthenes [VIII, 70] writes about himself: “I can mention trierarchías, xoregías or contribution to the redemption of captives and other similar philanthrôpías.” These philanthrôpíai are letourgíai (civil services) i.e., munera debita in Latin, which means compulsory duties, and here approaches the meaning of muneris. The same author uses the word eünoia (benevolence) with similar content [XIX, 282]: “What civil service, what contribution, what risk, what participation was the city given by these people?” In papyruses the word philánthrôpa is mentioned meaning compulsory amount, tax or toll. The scholar WILCKEN40 puts “xénia (grant), letourgiká and

philánthrôpa” among “compulsory donations for specific purposes.” In a papyrus from the 2nd century B.C. we can find [TEB. 73, 3]: “the posted orders about philanthrôpôn.”41 Let’s get back to Demosthenes. He [XVIII, 5] would hardly tolerate it if the Athenians lacked benevolence and humanity, because here “eünoia” and “philanthrôpía” are closely connected. Reading his harsh words written to Aeschines, it’s easy to understand how much he had their friendship at heart [ib. 209]: “Besides, oh you damned and pedantic person who wants to rob me of the timês (honour) and philanthrôpías you gave . . .” Timê (respect, honour) and philanthrôpía are connected again ib. 316. So the meaning of philanthrôpía is widened by honour. This meaning of honour or grant does not occur in inscriptions in fixed form. The words philanthrôpíai or philánthrôpa (i.e., honours or grants) occur very often at that time. I can quote several examples: in referring to the Athenians, a grant is mentioned in connection with a certain Charmion, [DITTENB. Syll. I. Gr. (1917) 537, soon after the 2nd century B.C.]: “that at every convenient time the philánthrôpa must be arranged by worthy people now and later” As the decision of Amphictyonia is announced to the delegation of Telos, we can read [DITT.564; 205–201 B.C.]: “The things given by the people of Athens seem to be philánthrôpa and honour for the people of Telos. The Amphictyonia . . . found it advisable to favor the people of Telos and the people from the area, and everything that was given even to the Dionysial artists is philánthrôpa and honouring.” The Tenosian inhabitants’ decree about the famous doctor Apollonios of Miletos begins [DITT. 620, 188 B.C.]: “Since Apollonios of Miletos, Heracles’ son seemed to be worthy of the philanthrôpôn voted for him by the people.” This speech coincides with the words of Xenophon discussed above.42 About the Arcadian Thisoa, who was restored by Philopoimen, among others, we can read the following [DITT. 623 B, 189/7 B.C.]: “All the other philánthrôpa of the Thisoans are available for them in like manner to other benefactors of Thisoa or those who are connected with them by hospitality.”

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In an inscription in Delphi [128/7 B.C.] many Attic poets are presented “official hospitality, oracle out of turn and other philánthrôpa that are now voted for them.” In all these places, the word philánthrôpa means donations that are given for reason of honour. In public life in the middle of the 4th century B.C., the word philanthrôpía becomes an important feature of communication, since it is used not only for the praise of gods, kings and officials, but for individual citizens, especially Athenians, whose city was once called by Pindar the “support of Hellas.” Demosthenes contrasts the cruel and vile Thebans (“the cruelty and villainy of Thebans”) with the humane and just Athenians (“the philanthrôpía of Athenians, and that they always want just things”) [XX, 109], and he says the same about the Spartans [XVI, 16]: “perhaps after a long time they’ll become philánthrôpoi.” Moreover, Demosthenes is afraid that Athenians will perish for their own philanthropy. His glorious – not to say ridiculing – words [Prooem. 16]: “I wish that you, oh Athenian citizens, had the habit of philanthrôpía towards everybody, and treated yourselves the same way.” It would be beautiful to take the risk for someone else without any self-love, but he thinks that the characteristic feature of wise men is “to take care as much of themselves as of other people’s cases, to seem not only philánthrôpoi but thoughtful, too.” I think no Athenian would compete for the appearance of humanity knowing the true meaning of humane hostility described by Demosthenes [XXV, 51]. So the word philanthrôpía endured with a mixed meaning, and became some kind of common humanity. That’s the origin for the idioms philanthrôpôs krêsthaí tini or philanthrôpía krêsthai prós tina or philanthrôpôs diakeîsthai prós tina i.e., ‘to treat someone humanely.’ This virtue no longer refers only to human beings, but to inanimate objects as well, as we saw in Xenophon.43 In Isocrates we can find : “to speak and act pleasantly and philanthrôpôs” [XV, 132] and “philánthrôpoi conditions”; similarly, gentle, attractive words are called “philánthrôpoi lógoi.” In Aeschines [II, 15] we can read: “then he changed his tone to philanthrôpían.”44 First the humanity of judges was invoked in trials, then we could hear the humane and kind words of the

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accused, the philánthrôpoi lógoi to arouse the judges’ mercy. Demosthenes [XXI, 75] says: “Namely, he is reported to be convicted by one vote, and that happened due to the fact that he neither begged before any of the judges nor referred to their philánthrôpon.” But he could not use kind words concerning public welfare, and he says [Prooem. XXIII]: “I know that everybody likes praise more than reproaches. I think there is no need to say the things we find useful, chasing this philanthrôpían.” Isocrates probes more deeply into this false humanity saying [XV, 133]: “You can see that many people’s character is ruled by desires, and they prefer those who provide pleasures to those who do good, and those who cheat them with their splendor and philanthrôpías to those who serve with their greatness and nobility.” This humanity that is suspicious by all appearances is called “pretended philanthrôpía.” In Aristotles’ opinion [perì áretôn 1251 b 2] it belongs to unjust deeds like “denunciation” and “bragging.” Incidentally, humane words, in Greek called “philanthrôpía through words” had great honour. The Macedonian Phillip used to win the Athenians’ goodwill with kind and humane communication, and this way he could achieve more than using armed forces.45 Diogenes L. has already mentioned this kind of humanity, citing the definition “philanthrôpía belonging to greeting/addressing.” Summarizing the meanings of the word philanthropy from the end of the 4th century B.C., we can say: philanthrôpía is humanity which is not only the virtue of kings and caesars, but of judges too, and later every citizen who must be “friendly, humane, generous and philánthrôpoi.” The words philanthrôpía, pity, forgiveness and benevolence are more and more often connected. From here, philanthrôpía means good deed, honourarium (tímên), unsolicited amount (philánthrôpon) compulsory fee (lêtourgían) or tax. Later philanthrôpía means the common humanity that appears in kind words and grants. So the notion that was originally ethical, became step by step – so to say – aesthetical. First philan-


thrôpía referred to human nature, then to forms of politeness (in Greek: to prepon). Philanthrôpía became a must for polite people, “de la nation si savante et si polie” (“of such a learned and polite nation”). So the development of the meaning is contrasted to the word humanitas in Latin.46 Following the age of Hellenism, we can only find some smaller changes.47 I’ll mention some inscriptions that show no new meaning of philanthropy. In an inscription from the 3rd century B.C. [DITT. 693], concerning mutual friendship among various citizens: “showed the philánthrôpa existing for a long time from the craftsmen towards the city of Thespis and from Thespis towards the craftsmen.” Another inscription about the renewed alliance between Delphi and Sardes: “The philánthrôpa (plural form of philánthrôpon) available to the Delphians are denied to the people of Sardes” [DITT. 548] More often we find the words “deny the available philánthrôpa,” or “according to the available philanthrôpois,” where philánthrôpa signifies friendships (amicitias), alliances (societates) or conditions of peace. C. Manlius Volso wrote to the people of Heracleos these and other things [DITT. 618; 188 B.C.]: “We were given philánthrôpa and credit by you.” M. Valerius praetor to Teios [DITT. 601; 193 B.C.]: “We try to increase your share of philánthrôpa.” Acarnanes donates to the Spartans “other privileges and as much philánthrôpa as other benefactors and people connected with hospitality . . .” [DITT. 669; 2nd century B.C.] Inhabitants of Gytheos accept the Cloatians as brothers with honour and decree: “Let there be as much honour and philánthrôpa for them as for others connected with hospitality . . .” [DITT. 748; 71 B.C.]; this clause appears very often. In a resolution of the Thisbean senate, we can read: “they decided to give written philánthrôpa” [DITT. 646; 170 B.C.]. To welcome in a friendly manner is “philanthrôpôs dékesthai,” “the delegates were welcomed in a philanthrôpôs (friendly) manner” [inscr. Delph. 180 B.C.]. In Monumentum Ancyranum we can read [IX, 9]: “The fallen soldiers who were taken back to their city, were given what is called philanthrôpou,” where philánthrôpon is remuneration (beneficium), as it often

is in papyruses.48 That is why the word philanthrôpeîn can signify “recompense” (“beneficio afficere”). In an inscription from 2nd century B.C. [DITT. 90, 12]: “he treated his troops pephilanthrôpêken (humanely/generously).” In a Theban papyrus from the 1st century B.C., people “who were given pephilanthrôpeménoi (remuneration/humane treatment)” are mentioned. Then the word philanthrôpía, just like philánthrôpon49 is narrowed to the meaning of a so-called “salary” or “mercenary’s pay.” The scholar ERICH ZIEBARTH in his book entitled “Aus dem Griechischen Schulwesen” [Teubner 1914], p. 117 discusses a certain Straton, principal of a gymnasium in Pergamon, whose eager work is praised in declaration.50 It mentions that he took care that his teachers’ salary increased or at least was paid on time; and that is explained in the declaration as follows: “who were elected by the state, getting their philanthrôpías . . . and gaining eternal honour for themselves, because they are well off . . .” Other words meaning ‘compensation’ occur along with philanthrôpon in many papyruses, adds the scholar WILCKEN correctly [Ostraka I, p.401, §211]. The historian Polybius mentions nothing new about the usage of the word “philanthropy.” Many times we can read in him about the ancient humanity of the kings, as in V, 11, 6: “the task of the tyrant is to rule those who do wrong by fear, the task of a king is to lead and rule over those who do good, loving him for his good deeds and philanthropían voluntarily.” He tells how Antiochos promised to sign an armistice [V, 66, 2] “and contribute to every kind of philánthrôpa, referring to everyone,” where philánthrôpa means friendships or conditions of peace again.51 Humanity towards captives is the meaning of philanthrôpía in l, 79, 8 and 11. There are mentions of renewed friendships [IV, 26, 8]: “What was said was accepted benevolently, and the former philánthrôpa that already their ancestors had, were renewed with Philip.” We can read about almost the same renewal of an alliance in XXIV, 5, 7; XXVIII, 1, 7; 16, 7.

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Hannibal is reported to exclaim [XV, 19, 5]: “Shouldn’t he worship the fate, falling to his knees, who is submitted to such philanthrôpôn.” Forgiveness and philanthrôpía – well-known words for the administration of justice52 – are connected in l, 81,8. Then again [XXXIII, 18, 3]: “accepting philanthrôpôs (humanely).” That is what I could add from the works of Polybius. In the Alexandrian Philo, the word philanthrôpías often appears, especially in the writing “on philanthrôpías” in which he demonstrates quite verbosely that Jews have a totally humane character.53 With this author, the word philanthrôpías is connected to the following words: “benevolence, generosity [vol. I, p. 213], kindness [I, 194; V, 106; 213; 214; 301; 325], justice, love of goodness, hate of crime [IV, 202], wisdom, manliness, justice [III, 196], justice [IV, 305; V, 102], pity [V, 225], fairness [IV, 167; V, 112], mercy [V, 293], equity [V, 71], sympathy [V, 78], simplicity [V, 286], loyalty [V, 284], affection [IV, 257], kindheartedness [IV, 119; VI, 169]” and also mentioned are “the philanthrôpía of the legislator [V, 287]; of the law [V, 118; 131]; law full of philanthrôpías [V, 32]; philanthrôpía through the law [V, 105]”54 The words in VI, 169, must be mentioned, because here is described a kind of philanthropy that is more like our notion of philanthropy than the universal ancient idea of philanthropy: “The sun starts to shine on the new moon with recognizable splendor, and its special beauty strikes the eye of the beholder. It seems to be the visible teaching of goodness and philanthrôpías, which means not to envy private goods but, imitating the happy and lucky changes of the sky, concentrates on home affairs, acting in harmony and being pleased with worthy things.” Philanthrôpía [V, 279] is called by Philon “the closest sister and twin of piety.” The word “philanthropy” is used more often in Plutarch, whose works offer an abundant source for our investigation. The scholar HIRZEL in his book praised above, calls Plutarch the “apostle of philanthropy” and a man born for respect.55 In fact, affection (caritas) was religion in Plutarch’s environment, giving himself up to it was his feature,

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and studying it first entailed treating creatures humanely. In fact, he says in Vita Catonis Maioris [c.V]: “Since he took care of philanthrôpou, he was kind and pious, because he prepared himself (for this).” The same rules are usually given by Pythagorean writers, from where Plutarch borrows this [De Sol. An. P. 959 F]: “taking care of kindness towards animals in view of philánthrôpon and mercy”56. He speaks about the bitter fate of those “whose philánthrôpon and affection towards beauty has already died.” At another place, he complains [De Esu carn. I, 7, p.996 A]: “Besides these, doesn’t it seem marvelous to be accustomed to philanthrôpían?” You can find various meanings of the word philanthrôpías in this author. Again, the philanthropy of gods who are called “benevolent and philánthrôpoi” appears [De Stoic. Rep. C.38, p. 1051 E]. When he describes how the Stoics criticize Epicurus for denying divine providence, their opinion is expounded [De comm. not. p. 1075 E]: “They think and imagine that the gods are not only immortal and glad, but philánthrôpon and provident and useful,” and Plutarch adds this as his own opinion: “and that’s true.” This author is the first of those who is said to “consider gods not phílornin (‘bird-loving’) but philánthrôpon” [De genio Socr. P. 593 A]. In Numae Vita [c. 4] it is said clearly and skillfully: “Somewhere it is said that the god is not horse- or bird-loving, but as philánthrôpon likes to be together with good people and doesn’t like to be angry with them and despise the company of wise and good men.” As for the “philanthropy” of kings, we can sketch it with another citation [De Alex. M. Fort. aut Virt. p. 333 F]: “The good harvest of fruits is provided by constant temperature and the tenuity of the surrounding air, and the increase of arts and noble characters by the benevolence, providence and philanthrôpía of the king.” The Greek “philanthropy” doesn’t seem to differ widely from the Roman “humanitas” that is described by GELLIUS as follows [N.A. XIII, 17(16)]: “erudition and education in good arts. Those who really want and achieve it are the most humane possible.” In Vitis Plutarchi the “philanthropy” of heroes is often praised. Artaxerxes is said to be [p. 172 B] not less “regal and philánthrôpon” to accept small presents kindly than to give big grants.


Philip warns Alexander to always remember to be “philanthropic” [Reg. et Imperat. Apophthegmm. p. 178 B]. A provident man in the republic is called “generous, philánthrôpos, loving his city, and provident” [An seni sit ger. resp. p. 796 E). We can read this about Cleomenes [cap. 32]: “He spent a lot on philanthrôpías and assistance for people escaped from Hellas to Egypt.” Solon’s father’s family riches were cut into pieces due to “some philanthrôpíai and expressions of gratitude” [V. Sol. cap. 2], which fits into these words of Epicharmus [fr. 31]: “You aren’t philánthrôpos, you are ill, you are happy if you can pass it.” Plutarch seems to like the word “philanthropy” so much that he sometimes adds it to other authors’ words.57 He uses it not only to mean nature that is humane, generous, friendly, kind, peaceful in the case of human, but also inanimate objects, and uses it in other various and common meanings. And so “philánthrôpos wine” is mentioned [V. Cleom. p. 810 B], and the vigor of wine can be found [De san. praec. p.132 D]: “neither benevolent nor philánthrôpos.”58 In Vita Numae [p. 64 E], pleasant entertainment is “philánthrôpos pleasure.” Aemilius Paulus, because of his humanity, orders Perseus to be taken into a better prison, which is called by Plutarch “departure to a pleasant place and a more philanthrôpotéran environment” [p. 274 F]. Plutarch writes that Scipio did not care about serious things, but he lived a “philánthrôpon life.” “The hearth, the pottery, hospitality” were called “amongst each other philanthrôpótata (the most philanthropic) and primal company” [VII Sap. Conv. p. 158 C]. The “hospitality and philanthrôpíai” of Cimon and Lucullus are reported to be excellent [V. Cim. c.3.]. “Philánthrôpos meals” are praised by Plutarch in Consolatione ad uxorem cap. 6. In Caite, the “philánthrôpos resort” for Cicero was where he could hide from the summer sun [V. Cic. 47, p.885 B]. Things that had names sounding bad were reported in another place to be substituted with more pleasant words by some Athenians [V. Sol. c. 15, p. 86 B]; so a “whore” is “hetaira,” “toll” is called “agree-

ment,” “prison” is “residence”; so also Solon’s “resolution abrogating debts” was a “philanthrôpeuma deed.” These words are called by the author “useful and philánthrôpa words.” I wonder why Plutarch doesn’t mention Aeschines here, who calls it philanthrôpían when someone is together with his lover [I, 171]! So some Athenians, as Plutarch says [V. Alcib. c. 16, p. 199 A], to hide the deficient deeds of Alcibiades “use kind words to cover their mistakes.” He ordered the son he had from the girl Melia to be educated: “and this was called a philánthrôpon deed, too.” In Vita Demetrii “the benevolent and philánthrôpos talk” of Ptolemaios is praised [c.5, p. 891 A]. Soon after [p. 891 D] a case of mutual presentation is called “the closing of a philanthrôpeúmatos deed.” The word philanthrôpía has a special meaning in Vita Lycurgi [c. 16, p. 50 C], where it refers to the education of Spartan children. Their severe discipline usually hardens the body; they aren’t able to have a bath and smear themselves “except some days when they had a share in philanthrôpías like these.” Philanthrôpía belongs here to physical culture. De Musica [c. 12, p. 1135 D] mentions a kind of new measure that is called “philánthrôpos and useful.” I omit citing many similar examples. Plutarch describes beautifully the humane character of the young Apollo [Consol. ad Apoll. c. 34, p. 120 A]: “He loved his father, mother and relatives, just as he loved wisdom, so he was a philánthrôpos.” Equal is the following example of a dead daughter [Consol. ad ux. c. 2., p. 608 D]: “Her nature combined cordiality and kindness, and showed happiness and understanding of philanthrôpou.” The scholar HIRZEL [o.l. p. 29] says: “whoever has a glimpse of Plutarch’s circle of friends and family through his writings has the impression of looking into the holy place of philanthropy, that it was provided with all the attractions of grace, joy, and kindness that the Greek of that time understood by this word.” No wonder that in Plutarch, the author with a humane mind, the word sunanthropeîn (live worthily of man) first occurs that may recall Antigone who “grew up not hating together (sunékthein) but loving together (sumphileîn).”

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An honest and good man is reported to want “to act together humanely (sunanthrôpeîn) with many others” [Praec. ger. reip. c. 31, p. 823 B]. “Philanthropy” was the essence of things for Plutarch. I don’t know if Plutarch was led by the opinion of philosophers to this cult of philanthropy, but he seems to have this idea deep in his mind already from home, where he was trained for “proper and philánthrôpon conduct.” The places cited in Plutarch seem to prove that the word and notion of philanthropy was well-known and widely used by this author. It is easy to understand that the same primal meaning remained, and the additional senses are less significant. To the philanthropy of gods, kings, leaders, and men are added the philanthropy of animals,59 wine, water, and meals. Later, everything that is useful and that people like shows the nature of philanthropy. Philanthrôpos never means the same as “ánthrôpophilês” (charitable). Meanwhile, the state of philanthropy is not far from excellence and respect for human nature, so it seems to be closely connected with the Latin word humanitas. The adjective philánthrôpos becomes stunted in its meaning, seeming to bear the meanings “pleasant,” “fine,” “charming,” “beautiful.” Before we examine some writings of the centuries A.D., let’s look at some inscriptions from the same age. In a senate’s decree about Mytileneans [45 A.D., DITT. 764] this is mentioned: “To recall favor, benevolence and alliance, to address brave and kind men . . . they were allowed to post the senate’s former philánthrôpa (benefactions) engraved in bronze, whenever they wanted” [DITT. 764]60 A doctor is praised by the Magnesians in an inscription from the year 54 A.D.: “Helping every citizen with philanthrôpôs” [DITT. 807]. An inscription from 238 A.D. contains a fragment of a letter by general Gordianos who appears as a “unique dictator”: “The clever Diogenes of Tyros came to this appointment due to his philanthrôpías.” [DITT. 888] In an Eleusian inscription, one Damasias – a propertied man – is praised: “He was an honest man and was philanthrôpôs to every inhabitant” [DITT. 1904].

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In an inscription from the 3rd or 4th century A.D., we can read the following about the acquisition of a grave near Nicomedia: “granted with freedom by my philanthrôpôn masters from the town. I gave the duties I’ve fulfilled by the person who paid me.” [DITT. 1231] Emperor Julian is called, in an inscription of Magnesia, the “singular and greatest and philanthrôpótatos (most philanthropic) king” [DITT. 906 B]. In papyruses of the 2nd and 3rd century A.D., the emperor and the regal prefect is usually called “Your Philanthrôpía,” after the 4th century A.D. “Philanthrôpía of Yours.” The form “I ask your Philanthrôpías” was also used, among others. Septimius Severus and Caracalla in Ox. pap. [IV, 705, 21] are also addressed as “O, you very philanthrôpótatoi Dictators.” In a papyrus from the 5th [Masp. 89, 31] and 6th [Masp. 294, 28] century A.D., the “philanthrôpía of the saviour” is mentioned, meaning the love of Christ. In a papyrus from the 2nd century A.D. we find nomina kai philánthrôpa [B. 1074, 2] meaning rights and privileges. In another place of the same age: dinaia kai philánthrôpa [B 1074, 6] meaning prerogative rights or honours and privileges. So the privileges given to Jews in the Roman Empire were called díkaia, dikaiômata or philánthrôpa,61 and these words frequently occur in Josephus. In a Byzantine papyrus [B. 798, 6] we can read: “let’s pray to the philanthrôpô god.” Christ is called “philánthrôpos benefactor” [Masp. 2,3; 6th century A.D.]. In Ox. 925, 2 [5th century] we find: “the almighty god, the saint, the truly philánthrôpos and the creator.” In another place, S. B. [arab.] can be found: “in the name of the merciful and philanthrôpou god,” and this can be read in seven other papyruses. As for the Christian authors, first we have to examine The New Testament. Surprisingly the word philanthrôpía can be found only twice here, and the adverbial form philanthrôpôs occurs only once. We can read the following about the centurion Julius who led the apostle Paul home [Act. Apostol. XXVII, 3]: “Treating Paul philanthropôs (humanely), he led him to his friends.” The verb philanthrôpôs krêsthai (treat humanely) was already widely used in antiquity.62 Later, Paul and his people were ship-


wrecked, drifted to the Maltese shores and – so the writing says – were welcomed by the barbarians [Act. Apostol. XXVIII, 2]: “The barbarians showed much philanthrôpían towards us.” The third place is the Epistle of Titus, III, 4: “When the kindness and philanthrôpía of our Saviour appeared,” which demonstrates the author being a literary expert, as does the following: “he has saved us by his mercy (ëleos)” [v.5], and earlier [v. 1 sq]: “they are ready to show every kind of good deeds, showing kindness towards the people.” It’s hardly credible that Plutarch would have said it in another way! In Christian authors of that time we have seen that philanthropy flourishes in God; moreover we see philanthropy praised by other writers of the Roman Empire.63 In the ecclesiastic Origen [IV, 83, 26], Christ is said to have undergone death for us “dia philanthrôpían” (on account of benevolence). It is also said [IV, 25, 6]: “He had to die because of philanthrôpían (benevolence).” In another passage the author speaks of the love of the Father, who gave his son [III, 2, 11]: “The philánthrôpos (loving) God sends his prophet.”64 The philanthropy of kings, however, seems to be given priority by the philosophers. I shall not go into this in any more detail. Before I end this discussion, I would like to add a few points. The various meanings of the Greek word philanthropy, which we have examined, most often seem to fit the Latin word humanitas, especially when philanthropy has turned out to be “a certain propitiousness and benevolence common among all men” and that humanity is added to the disposition toward clemency and mercy, when humanity and agreeableness are equally joined together with philanthrôpía and praótês (gentleness). But I know that Roman benevolence (humanitas), as I have said, never rose to the regions of the divine. The word philanthropy brings that divine nature with it from its origins, which remarkably has never been obliterated through the ages, but in fact has become its glory and ornament. Human truth, however, as noted by Terence in the words: “homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto” (“I am a man, and I judge nothing

human to be alien to me”) [Heaut. Tim. 77] in Greek is not “tò philánthrôpon” but “tò ánthrôpinon” (from ánthrôpos – ‘man’). That the Cynics, and among them especially Antisthenes, greatly pushed the philanthropy of the gods, as is conjectured by Dr. LORENZ [op. cit., p. 19], who also thinks that the Cynic together with the Stoics are special champions of philanthropy, seems to me rather dubious. Whether that author always carefully distinguished between the use and the idea of the word philanthrôpía, you have correctly doubted.65 It seems to me quite clear that the use of that word and the force of the idea has been increased no more by the philosophers than by the orators. I prefer to think the Pythgoreans the supporters of philanthropy rather than the Cynics and Stoics, however they may have been praisers of this “earthly” virtue, since they were accustomed to make light of compassion also.66 The philanthropy of the Stoics lack vigor equally with Providence, Platonic love smells equally fishy as Aristotles’ philanthropy, rather experience and mind and doctrine than heart and soul. The Pythagoreans taught that philanthropy had to be drilled into men. Iamblichus [Vita VI, 30] said concerning Pythagoras: “They thought that, after death, Pythagoras became a good and philanthrôpótaton (most beneficial) spirit among the gods.” Pythagoras is said to have taught: “In philanthrôpía (benevolence) toward each other one practices fellowship towards brothers.” The scholar WILHELM NESTLE thinks in the criticism of Lorenz’s dissertation67 that the word philanthropy keeps its meaning when spread to literature, and even approaches the meaning of the word philósophos. I wouldn’t dare deny that this has happened. I don’t understand what kind of arguments made the famous WILAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORF deprive the Greeks of “humanity.”68 In another place he says, “it could be – to say it politely – a human error.” The words “characteristic manner” and “very soon” seem to differ from reality. The word philanthropon first means ‘grant, or some kind of property’ in a papyrus from the 2nd century A.D.69 By the way, I think the word philanthropy means that feature of the Greeks that is included in words

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philostorgía (gentle affection) and philophrosúnê (benevolence, friendly affection), virtues which increase first moderately, and then root and widely spread opposite to every kind of barbarism and love of one’s own property. The various inhumanities are – as we know – judged by Thucydides’ memorable words [III, 45]: “as individual and as a commonwealth they commit crimes, and there is no law that would hold them back.” – LEOP. SCHMIDT70 expounds on the philanthropy of Greeks with the following words: “Hellenic thought ascribes such a high value to love; therefore the word philanthropy, expressing the ability and tendency to love, contains high praise; therefore, the description of “loveless” – philóstorgos – provides such a frightening image.” The commandment of love (caritatis), the foundation of the Christian religion71 was unknown in the Greek religion. Yet there are lots of ancient tales where pure love is praised. I strive for the highest, paying attention to the following places in Homer [Od. VIII, 546]: “he treats strangers and those who seek protection like brothers. Because the stranger and poor man is of Zeus, / and even a small benefaction is pleasant for him.” [Od. VI, 207 sq.]72 This word started to spread and become known slowly from the land of Phaeacs. The commandment of philanthropy caught the heart of many people, “instilling kind affection in every heart.” This commandment was foretold by poets, wisemen, oracles, “divine men,” who used to borrow from each other and forward this divine commandment. The words “born not to hate but to love” touches the human soul like a melodic and gentle sound. Pericles, speaking in a public meeting, appears in Thucydides [II, 37, 3] telling the Athenians to obey the unwritten laws and first of all those that are for helping people infected with injustice. Thucydides describing the Athenian pestilence [II, 51] – as he doesn’t conceal the manifestations of inhumanity – mentions examples of bright humanity that are said “to be considered as excellent deeds.” We see the Athenian philanthropy to be so advanced in Plutarch that they loved even their enemies

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[Praec. Ger. Reip. III, 4, p.799 C]: “The Athenian people are easy to irritate, easily tend to pity, . . . as people tend easily to help despised and pitiful people . . . fearful towards monarchs, then humane towards the hostile.” What could be more pleasant than these words of the same author [V. Sol. c. 7]: “in fact, the soul has some innate love in itself, and just as recognizing, thinking and memory is in it, so is love.” – Then the perfect time has arrived, “the fullness of time” as it is called,73 as divine splendor has spread over humanity. A new law is proclaimed, “philánthrôpos nómos,” the essence of which can be summarized with the following words: “love one another with brotherly affection,”74 “bear one another’s burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”75 ê=_ ô=_ x=_ Notes: 1. Inaugural Dissertation, Leipzig 1914 2. Luc. de sacrif. 6. 3. Cf. Dr. P. GROENEBOOM, Aeschylus’ Prometheus [Gron. 1928], p. 14. 4. Die Antike Humanitat [Berlin 1897], p. 13. 5. Cf. _ 29, 171; _ 135; _ 207; _ 322; N 627. LORENZ incorrectly states, o. l. p. 9 that the knowledge of philanthrôpon appears first in Aeschylus 6. Cf. _ 83–88, u 20, _ 28. I omit examining the meaning of the words homo and humanus, cf. WALDE, Lat. Etymol. Wb. s.v. 7. A. MEILLET, Esquisse d’une Histoire de la Langue Latine [1928], p. 41. 8. Cf. REITZENSTEIN, Werden und Wesen der Humanitat im Altertum [1907], p. 18. 9. Cf. Plaut. Most. 814 10. O. l. P. 29. Cf. Men. 761:__ 11. Cf. LIDDELL-SCOTT, A Greek-English Lexicon [Oxford 1925], s.v. 12. Cf. o. l. s. v. Thesaurus L. Gr. s. v. M. SCHNEIDEWIN, o. l. pg. 26 13. At Plutarch: benefaction, benvolence 14. i.e., benefaction or remuneration, salary, recovery of services; cf. Ulp. Pand. l. 14. 2. 15. First appears at Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi, cap. XVII p 1098 D 16. Aeschyl. Prom, 11; 28. Aristoph. Pac. 392. Plat. Conv. p. 189d, Legg. IV, p. 713d. Xenoph. Memor. IV, 3, 7. 17. Cf. LORENZ o. l. p. 15 sq.

Sec. 170.—Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts

18. Cf. J. BURCKHARDT, Griech. Kulturgeschichte, l, p. 298 19. Cf. LEOP. SCHMIDT, Ethik der alten Griechen II, p. 280 sq. 20. Cf. Xen. Oecon. I, 4; Conviv. IV, 46. LEOP. SCHMIDT, o.l.II, c.8. 21. The adjectives prãos (‘kind’) and philánthrôpos are very often connected. 22. LORENZ o.l. p. 16 23. Cf. LORENZ o.l. p. 10 24. O.l. p. 12 sq. 25. Cf. Above p. 281, 1. 26. It’s not important, that perhaps Xenophon is not the real author of this work. It was surely written in the IV. Century B.C. Cf. CHRIST-SCHMID, Gesch. d. Gr. L, l(6) p. 516 27. Dioscurides 3, 104. Plinius 27, 5, 15; 24, 19, 116. 28. Cf. LORENZ o.l. p. 17. 29. About this place, cf. CHRIST-SCHMID,o.l. II, l(6), 5. 30. Cf. GELLIUS, N.A. XIII, 16. 31. LORENZ, o. l. p. 20 sq. 32. Cf. LEOP. SCHMIDT, o.l.II, p. 277. A. BOECKH, Staatsh. d. A. I, 308. 33. CALLIM. fr. 21 [Schneider]. 34. STOB. FLORIL. I, 52. 35. Cf. ROSCHER, M. L., s. v. Personifikationen (personifications). 36. Cf. MARX, o.l. p. 17. 37. At Isocrates philanthrôpía 4 loci philánthrôpos 4 loci adverbial form 4 loci At Demosthenes philanthrôpía 32 loci philánthrôpos 28 loci adverbial form 10 loci At Polybius philanthrôpía 4 loci philánthrôpos 7 loci adverbial form 2 loci At Plutarch philanthrôpía 11 loci philánthrôpos 40 loci adverbial form 3 loc 38. Isocr. XV, 315. 39. Cf. of Aristophanes I.l. above p. 274 40. Griechische Ostraka, p. 409; p. 402 we can read: “Since this philánthrôpa of the sitologues with regard to the contracting parties is cashed in, these “love gifts” are imposed as an obligation on the tax payers, like a regular duty.” 41. Cf. v. HERWERDEN, Lex. Gr. supplet. et dial. s.v. philánthrôpon 42. Xenoph. de Vectigal. III, 6; see above pp. 282 sq 43. Oecon. XV, 4; XIX, 17. De reg. eq. II. 3. De ven. III, 9. De vectig. III, 6. See above pp. 281 sqq.

44. Cf. Polyb. VIII, 15, 11: “philanthrôpía through words” 45. Cf. Demosth. XVIII, 231: “through philanthrôpía that he pretended.” See above about king Agesilaos p. 281. 46. Cf. REITZENSTEIN, o.l. p. 11 47. Cf LORENZ, o.l. p. 31. 48. PREISIGKE,Wörterbuch der Gr. Pap. k. (1925) translates philanthropon “[n.a.], [n.a.], [n.a.].” 49. In the age of Ulpianus even philanthrôpion appears, as Pand. I, 14, 2; Dig. 50, 14, 2. 50. Cf. Ath. Mitt. 32, 1907, 279 sq. 51. See above p. 292 Cf. POLYB. X, 38, 3. 52. See above p. 285 53. Ed. LEOP. COHN and P. WEDLAND, vol. V. § 51–174. CF. LORENZ, o.l. p. 47 54. CF. JOANNES LEISEGANG, Index in Phil. Alex. s.v. 55. O.l. p. 25. 56. Cf. LORENZ, o.l. p. 46. 57. Compare Plut. De Adul. Et Am. p. 69 A and Xenoph. Anab. II, 6, 11. De Superst. p. 171 E and Plat. Cratyl. p. 403 E. 58. Xenoph. Conviv. II, 24 wine “stirs up happiness like oil stirs up fire.” 59. Cf. above p. 282. 60. Cf. DITT. i. 674; 932 61. Cf. JEAN JUSTER, Les juifs dans l’empire Romain [1914] I, p. 222. 62. See above p. 290. 63. Cf. LORENZ, o.l. p. 46 64. Cf. EUSEBIUS IV, 64, 5. LORENZ o.l. p. 44 contributes many passages. 65. See above p. 273, 2. 66. Cf. HIRZEL, o.1., p. 25. 67. Berl. Philol. Wochenschrift 1916, Sp. 878. 68. LEXIS, die reform des höheren Schulwesens in Preuszen (1902), 171/2. 69. Griech. Tragödien II, (1900) 27, ann. l. 70. Eth. d. a. Gr. II, p. 275. Cf. CHRIST.SCHMID, o.l. II, I(6), p. 6. 71. Cf. A. NYOREN, Eros und Agape, l. p. 11 sqq. 72. Cf. FR. MARX, Zur Geschichte der Barmherzigkeit im Abendlande [1917], p. 12. 73. Ep. ad Gal, IV, 4. 74. Ep. ad Rom. XII, 10. 75. Ep. ad Gal. VI, 2.

Sec. 170.—Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts The following excerpts are sections from the Internal Revenue Code of the United States, which reflect the legal sta-

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tus of nonprofit organizations and how philanthropic gifts are to be considered for federal tax purposes. (a) Allowance of deduction (1) General rule There shall be allowed as a deduction any charitable contribution (as defined in subsection (c)) payment of which is made within the taxable year. A charitable contribution shall be allowable as a deduction only if verified under regulations prescribed by the Secretary. (2) Corporations on accrual basis In the case of a corporation reporting its taxable income on the accrual basis, if(A) the board of directors authorizes a charitable contribution during any taxable year, and (B) payment of such contribution is made after the close of such taxable year . . .. (b) Percentage limitations (1) Individuals In the case of an individual, the deduction provided in subsection (a) shall be limited as provided in the succeeding subparagraphs. (A) General rule Any charitable contribution to— (i) a church or a convention or association of churches, (ii) an educational organization which normally maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly enrolled body of pupils or students in attendance at the place where its educational activities are regularly carried on, (iii) an organization the principal purpose or functions of which are the providing of medical or hospital care or medical education or medical research, if the organization is a hospital, or if the organization is a medical research organization directly engaged in the continuous active conduct of medical research in conjunction with a hospital, and during the calendar year in which the contribution is made such organization is committed to spend such contributions for such research before January 1 of the fifth calendar year which begins after the date such contribution is made, (iv) an organization which normally receives a substantial part of its support (exclusive of income

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received in the exercise or performance by such organization of its charitable, educational, or other purpose or function constituting the basis for its exemption under section 501(a)) from the United States or any State or political subdivision thereof or from direct or indirect contributions from the general public, and which is organized and operated exclusively to receive, hold, invest, and administer property and to make expenditures to or for the benefit of a college or university which is an organization referred to in clause (ii) of this subparagraph and which is an agency or instrumentality of a State or political subdivision thereof, or which is owned or operated by a State or political subdivision thereof or by an agency or instrumentality of one or more States or political subdivisions, (v) a governmental unit referred to in subsection (c)(1), (vi) an organization referred to in subsection (c)(2) which normally receives a substantial part of its support (exclusive of income received in the exercise or performance by such organization of its charitable, educational, or other purpose or function constituting the basis for its exemption under section 501(a)) from a governmental unit referred to in subsection (c)(1) or from direct or indirect contributions from the general public, (vii) a private foundation described in subparagraph (E), or (viii) an organization described in section 509(a)(2) or (3), shall be allowed to the extent that the aggregate of such contributions does not exceed 50 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for the taxable year. (B) Other contributions Any charitable contribution other than a charitable contribution to which subparagraph (A) applies shall be allowed to the extent that the aggregate of such contributions does not exceed the lesser of— (i) 30 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for the taxable year, or (ii) the excess of 50 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for the taxable year over the amount of charitable contributions allowable under subparagraph (A) (determined without regard to subparagraph (C)). If the aggregate of such contributions exceeds the limitation of the preceding sentence, such excess shall


be treated (in a manner consistent with the rules of subsection (d)(1)) as a charitable contribution (to which subparagraph (A) does not apply) in each of the 5 succeeding taxable years in order of time. (C) Special limitation with respect to contributions described in subparagraph (A) of certain capital gain property (i) In the case of charitable contributions described in subparagraph (A) of capital gain property to which subsection (e)(1)(B) does not apply, the total amount of contributions of such property which may be taken into account under subsection (a) for any taxable year shall not exceed 30 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for such year. For purposes of this subsection, contributions of capital gain property to which this subparagraph applies shall be taken into account after all other charitable contributions (other than charitable contributions to which subparagraph (D) applies). (ii) If charitable contributions described in subparagraph (A) of capital gain property to which clause (i) applies exceeds 30 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for any taxable year, such excess shall be treated, in a manner consistent with the rules of subsection (d)(1), as a charitable contribution of capital gain property to which clause (i) applies in each of the 5 succeeding taxable years in order of time. . . . (D) Special limitation with respect to contributions of capital gain property to organizations not described in subparagraph (A) (i) In general In the case of charitable contributions (other than charitable contributions to which subparagraph (A) applies) of capital gain property, the total amount of such contributions of such property taken into account under subsection (a) for any taxable year shall not exceed the lesser of— (I) 20 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for the taxable year, or (II) the excess of 30 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for the taxable year over the amount of the contributions of capital gain property to which subparagraph (C) applies. For purposes of this subsection, contributions of capital gain property to which this subparagraph applies shall be taken into account after all other charitable contributions.

(ii) Carryover If the aggregate amount of contributions described in clause (i) exceeds the limitation of clause (i), such excess shall be treated (in a manner consistent with the rules of subsection (d)(1)) as a charitable contribution of capital gain property to which clause (i) applies in each of the 5 succeeding taxable years in order of time. (E) Certain private foundations The private foundations referred to in subparagraph (A)(vii) and subsection (e)(1)(B) are— (i) a private operating foundation (as defined in section 4942(j)(3)), (ii) any other private foundation (as defined in section 509(a)) which, not later than the 15th day of the third month after the close of the foundation’s taxable year in which contributions are received, makes qualifying distributions (as defined in section 4942(g), without regard to paragraph (3) thereof ), which are treated, after the application of section 4942(g)(3), as distributions out of corpus (in accordance with section 4942(h)) in an amount equal to 100 percent of such contributions, and with respect to which the taxpayer obtains adequate records or other sufficient evidence from the foundation showing that the foundation made such qualifying distributions, and (iii) a private foundation all of the contributions to which are pooled in a common fund and which would be described in section 509(a)(3) but for the right of any substantial contributor (hereafter in this clause called ‘‘donor’’) or his spouse to designate annually the recipients, from among organizations described in paragraph (1) of section 509(a), of the income attributable to the donor’s contribution to the fund and to direct (by deed or by will) the payment, to an organization described in such paragraph (1), of the corpus in the common fund attributable to the donor’s contribution; but this clause shall apply only if all of the income of the common fund is required to be (and is) distributed to one or more organizations described in such paragraph (1) not later than the 15th day of the third month after the close of the taxable year in which the income is realized by the fund and only if all of the corpus attributable to any donor’s contribution to the fund is required to be (and is) distributed to one or more of such organizations not later than

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one year after his death or after the death of his surviving spouse if she has the right to designate the recipients of such corpus. (F) Contribution base defined For purposes of this section, the term ‘‘contribution base’’ means adjusted gross income (computed without regard to any net operating loss carryback to the taxable year under section 172). (2) Corporations In the case of a corporation, the total deductions under subsection (a) for any taxable year shall not exceed 10 percent of the taxpayer’s taxable income computed without regard to— (A) this section, (B) part VIII (except section 248), (C) any net operating loss carryback to the taxable year under section 172, and (D) any capital loss carryback to the taxable year under section 1212(a)(1). (c) Charitable contribution defined For purposes of this section, the term ‘‘charitable contribution’’ means a contribution or gift to or for the use of— (1) A State, a possession of the United States, or any political subdivision of any of the foregoing, or the United States or the District of Columbia, but only if the contribution or gift is made for exclusively public purposes. (2) A corporation, trust, or community chest, fund, or foundation— (A) created or organized in the United States or in any possession thereof, or under the law of the United States, any State, the District of Columbia, or any possession of the United States; (B) organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals; (C) no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual; and (D) which is not disqualified for tax exemption under section 501(c)(3) by reason of attempting to

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influence legislation, and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. A contribution or gift by a corporation to a trust, chest, fund, or foundation shall be deductible by reason of this paragraph only if it is to be used within the United States or any of its possessions exclusively for purposes specified in subparagraph (B). Rules similar to the rules of section 501(j) shall apply for purposes of this paragraph. (3) A post or organization of war veterans, or an auxiliary unit or society of, or trust or foundation for, any such post or organization— (A) organized in the United States or any of its possessions, and (B) no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. (4) In the case of a contribution or gift by an individual, a domestic fraternal society, order, or association, operating under the lodge system, but only if such contribution or gift is to be used exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals. (5) A cemetery company owned and operated exclusively for the benefit of its members, or any corporation chartered solely for burial purposes as a cemetery corporation and not permitted by its charter to engage in any business not necessarily incident to that purpose, if such company or corporation is not operated for profit and no part of the net earnings of such company or corporation inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. For purposes of this section, the term ‘‘charitable contribution’’ also means an amount treated under subsection (g) as paid for the use of an organization described in paragraph (2), (3), or (4). (d) Carryovers of excess contributions (1) Individuals (A) In general In the case of an individual, if the amount of charitable contributions described in subsection (b)(1)(A) payment of which is made within a taxable year (hereinafter in this paragraph referred to as the ‘‘contribu-


tion year’’) exceeds 50 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for such year, such excess shall be treated as a charitable contribution described in subsection (b)(1)(A) paid in each of the 5 succeeding taxable years in order of time, but, with respect to any such succeeding taxable year, only to the extent of the lesser of the two following amounts: (i) the amount by which 50 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for such succeeding taxable year exceeds the sum of the charitable contributions described in subsection (b)(1)(A) payment of which is made by the taxpayer within such succeeding taxable year (determined without regard to this subparagraph) and the charitable contributions described in subsection (b)(1)(A) payment of which was made in taxable years before the contribution year which are treated under this subparagraph as having been paid in such succeeding taxable year; or (ii) in the case of the first succeeding taxable year, the amount of such excess, and in the case of the second, third, fourth, or fifth succeeding taxable year, the portion of such excess not treated under this subparagraph as a charitable contribution described in subsection (b)(1)(A) paid in any taxable year intervening between the contribution year and such succeeding taxable year. (B) Special rule for net operating loss carryovers In applying subparagraph (A), the excess determined under subparagraph (A) for the contribution year shall be reduced to the extent that such excess reduces taxable income (as computed for purposes of the second sentence of section 172(b)(2)) and increases the net operating loss deduction for a taxable year succeeding the contribution year. (2) Corporations (A) In general Any contribution made by a corporation in a taxable year (hereinafter in this paragraph referred to as the ‘‘contribution year’’) in excess of the amount deductible for such year under subsection (b)(2) shall be deductible for each of the 5 succeeding taxable years in order of time, but only to the extent of the lesser of the two following amounts. . . . (e) Certain contributions of ordinary income and capital gain property (1) General rule

The amount of any charitable contribution of property otherwise taken into account under this section shall be reduced by the sum of— (A) the amount of gain which would not have been long-term capital gain if the property contributed had been sold by the taxpayer at its fair market value (determined at the time of such contribution), and (B) in the case of a charitable contribution— (i) of tangible personal property, if the use by the donee is unrelated to the purpose or function constituting the basis for its exemption under section 501 (or, in the case of a governmental unit, to any purpose or function described in subsection (c)), or (ii) to or for the use of a private foundation (as defined in section 509(a)), other than a private foundation described in subsection (b)(1)(E), the amount of gain which would have been long-term capital gain if the property contributed had been sold by the taxpayer at its fair market value (determined at the time of such contribution). . . . (5) Special rule for contributions of stock for which market quotations are readily available (A) In general Subparagraph (B)(ii) of paragraph (1) shall not apply to any contribution of qualified appreciated stock. . . . (C) Donor may not contribute more than 10 percent of stock of corporation. . . . (8) Substantiation requirement for certain contributions (A) General rule No deduction shall be allowed under subsection (a) for any contribution of $250 or more unless the taxpayer substantiates the contribution by a contemporaneous written acknowledgment of the contribution by the donee organization that meets the requirements of subparagraph (B). (B) Content of acknowledgement An acknowledgement meets the requirements of this subparagraph if it includes the following information: (i) The amount of cash and a description (but not value) of any property other than cash contributed. (ii) Whether the donee organization provided any goods or services in consideration, in whole or in part, for any property described in clause (i).

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(iii) A description and good faith estimate of the value of any goods or services referred to in clause (ii) or, if such goods or services consist solely of intangible religious benefits, a statement to that effect. For purposes of this subparagraph, the term ‘‘intangible religious benefit’’ means any intangible religious benefit which is provided by an organization organized exclusively for religious purposes and which generally is not sold in a commercial transaction outside the donative context. (C) Contemporaneous For purposes of subparagraph (A), an acknowledgment shall be considered to be contemporaneous if the taxpayer obtains the acknowledgment on or before the earlier of— (i) the date on which the taxpayer files a return for the taxable year in which the contribution was made, or (ii) the due date (including extensions) for filing such return. (D) Substantiation not required for contributions reported by the donee organization Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to a contribution if the donee organization files a return, on such form and in accordance with such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, which includes the information described in subparagraph (B) with respect to the contribution. . . . (9) Denial of deduction where contribution for lobbying activities No deduction shall be allowed under this section for a contribution to an organization which conducts activities to which section 162(e)(1) applies on matters of direct financial interest to the donor’s trade or business, if a principal purpose of the contribution was to avoid Federal income tax by securing a deduction for such activities under this section which would be disallowed by reason of section 162(e) if the donor had conducted such activities directly. No deduction shall be allowed under section 162(a) for any amount for which a deduction is disallowed under the preceding sentence. . . .

Sec. 501.—Exemption from Tax on Corporations, Certain Trusts, Etc. (a) Exemption from taxation

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An organization described in subsection (c) or (d) or section 401(a) shall be exempt from taxation under this subtitle unless such exemption is denied under section 502 or 503. (b) Tax on unrelated business income and certain other activities An organization exempt from taxation under subsection (a) shall be subject to tax to the extent provided in parts II, III, and VI of this subchapter, but (notwithstanding parts II, III, and VI of this subchapter) shall be considered an organization exempt from income taxes for the purpose of any law which refers to organizations exempt from income taxes. (c) List of exempt organizations The following organizations are referred to in subsection (a): (1) Any corporation organized under Act of Congress which is an instrumentality of the United States but only if such corporation— (A) is exempt from Federal income taxes— (i) under such Act as amended and supplemented before July 18, 1984, or (ii) under this title without regard to any provision of law which is not contained in this title and which is not contained in a revenue Act, or (B) is described in subsection (1). (2) Corporations organized for the exclusive purpose of holding title to property, collecting income there from, and turning over the entire amount thereof, less expenses, to an organization which itself is exempt under this section. Rules similar to the rules of subparagraph (G) of paragraph (25) shall apply for purposes of this paragraph. (3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which


does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. (4) (A) Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, or local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes. (B) Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to an entity unless no part of the net earnings of such entity inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. (5) Labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations. (6) Business leagues, chambers of commerce, realestate boards, boards of trade, or professional football leagues (whether or not administering a pension fund for football players), not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. (7) Clubs organized for pleasure, recreation, and other nonprofitable purposes, substantially all of the activities of which are for such purposes and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder. (8) Fraternal beneficiary societies, orders, or associations— (A) operating under the lodge system or for the exclusive benefit of the members of a fraternity itself operating under the lodge system, and (B) providing for the payment of life, sick, accident, or other benefits to the members of such society, order, or association or their dependents. (9) Voluntary employees’ beneficiary associations providing for the payment of life, sick, accident, or other benefits to the members of such association or their dependents or designated beneficiaries, if no part of the net earnings of such association inures (other than through such payments) to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. (10) Domestic fraternal societies, orders, or associations, operating under the lodge system—

(A) the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to religious, charitable, scientific, literary, educational, and fraternal purposes, and (B) which do not provide for the payment of life, sick, accident, or other benefits. (11) Teachers’ retirement fund associations of a purely local character, if— (A) no part of their net earnings inures (other than through payment of retirement benefits) to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, and (B) the income consists solely of amounts received from public taxation, amounts received from assessments on the teaching salaries of members, and income in respect of investments. (12) (A) Benevolent life insurance associations of a purely local character, mutual ditch or irrigation companies, mutual or cooperative telephone companies, or like organizations; but only if 85 percent or more of the income consists of amounts collected from members for the sole purpose of meeting losses and expenses. (B) In the case of a mutual or cooperative telephone company, subparagraph (A) shall be applied without taking into account any income received or accrued— (i) from a nonmember telephone company for the performance of communication services which involve members of the mutual or cooperative telephone company, (ii) from qualified pole rentals, (iii) from the sale of display listings in a directory furnished to the members of the mutual or cooperative telephone company, or (iv) from the prepayment of a loan under section 306A, 306B, or 311 [1] of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 (as in effect on January 1, 1987). (C) In the case of a mutual or cooperative electric company, subparagraph (A) shall be applied without taking into account any income received or accrued— (i) from qualified pole rentals, or (ii) from the prepayment of a loan under section 306A, 306B, or 311 [1] of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 (as in effect on January 1, 1987). (D) For purposes of this paragraph, the term ‘‘qualified pole rental’’ means any rental of a pole (or other

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structure used to support wires) if such pole (or other structure)— (i) is used by the telephone or electric company to support one or more wires which are used by such company in providing telephone or electric services to its members, and (ii) is used pursuant to the rental to support one or more wires (in addition to the wires described in clause (i)) for use in connection with the transmission by wire of electricity or of telephone or other communications. For purposes of the preceding sentence, the term ‘‘rental’’ includes any sale of the right to use the pole (or other structure). (13) Cemetery companies owned and operated exclusively for the benefit of their members or which are not operated for profit; and any corporation chartered solely for the purpose of the disposal of bodies by burial or cremation which is not permitted by its charter to engage in any business not necessarily incident to that purpose and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. (14) (A) Credit unions without capital stock organized and operated for mutual purposes and without profit. (B) Corporations or associations without capital stock organized before September 1, 1957, and operated for mutual purposes and without profit for the purpose of providing reserve funds for, and insurance of shares or deposits in— (i) domestic building and loan associations, (ii) cooperative banks without capital stock organized and operated for mutual purposes and without profit, (iii) mutual savings banks not having capital stock represented by shares, or (iv) mutual savings banks described in section 591(b) [2] So in original. Probably should be followed by a period. (C) Corporations or associations organized before September 1, 1957, and operated for mutual purposes and without profit for the purpose of providing reserve funds for associations or banks described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of subparagraph (B); but only if 85 percent or more of the income is attributable to

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providing such reserve funds and to investments. This subparagraph shall not apply to any corporation or association entitled to exemption under subparagraph (B). (15) (A) Insurance companies or associations other than life (including interinsurers and reciprocal underwriters) if the net written premiums (or, if greater, direct written premiums) for the taxable year do not exceed $350,000. (B) For purposes of subparagraph (A), in determining whether any company or association is described in subparagraph (A), such company or association shall be treated as receiving during the taxable year amounts described in subparagraph (A) which are received during such year by all other companies or associations which are members of the same controlled group as the insurance company or association for which the determination is being made. (C) For purposes of subparagraph (B), the term ‘‘controlled group’’ has the meaning given such term by section 831(b)(2)(B)(ii). (16) Corporations organized by an association subject to part IV of this subchapter or members thereof, for the purpose of financing the ordinary crop operations of such members or other producers, and operated in conjunction with such association. Exemption shall not be denied any such corporation because it has capital stock, if the dividend rate of such stock is fixed at not to exceed the legal rate of interest in the State of incorporation or 8 percent per annum, whichever is greater, on the value of the consideration for which the stock was issued, and if substantially all such stock (other than nonvoting preferred stock, the owners of which are not entitled or permitted to participate, directly or indirectly, in the profits of the corporation, on dissolution or otherwise, beyond the fixed dividends) is owned by such association, or members thereof; nor shall exemption be denied any such corporation because there is accumulated and maintained by it a reserve required by State law or a reasonable reserve for any necessary purpose. (17) (A) A trust or trusts forming part of a plan providing for the payment of supplemental unemployment compensation benefits, if—


(i) under the plan, it is impossible, at any time prior to the satisfaction of all liabilities, with respect to employees under the plan, for any part of the corpus or income to be (within the taxable year or thereafter) used for, or diverted to, any purpose other than the providing of supplemental unemployment compensation benefits, (ii) such benefits are payable to employees under a classification which is set forth in the plan and which is found by the Secretary not to be discriminatory in favor of employees who are highly compensated employees (within the meaning of section 414(q)), and (iii) such benefits do not discriminate in favor of employees who are highly compensated employees (within the meaning of section 414(q)). A plan shall not be considered discriminatory within the meaning of this clause merely because the benefits received under the plan bear a uniform relationship to the total compensation, or the basic or regular rate of compensation, of the employees covered by the plan. (B) In determining whether a plan meets the requirements of subparagraph (A), any benefits provided under any other plan shall not be taken into consideration, except that a plan shall not be considered discriminatory— (i) merely because the benefits under the plan which are first determined in a nondiscriminatory manner within the meaning of subparagraph (A) are then reduced by any sick, accident, or unemployment compensation benefits received under State or Federal law (or reduced by a portion of such benefits if determined in a nondiscriminatory manner), or (ii) merely because the plan provides only for employees who are not eligible to receive sick, accident, or unemployment compensation benefits under State or Federal law the same benefits (or a portion of such benefits if determined in a nondiscriminatory manner) which such employees would receive under such laws if such employees were eligible for such benefits, or (iii) merely because the plan provides only for employees who are not eligible under another plan (which meets the requirements of subparagraph (A)) of supplemental unemployment compensation benefits provided wholly by the employer the same benefits (or a portion of such benefits if determined in a

nondiscriminatory manner) which such employees would receive under such other plan if such employees were eligible under such other plan, but only if the employees eligible under both plans would make a classification which would be nondiscriminatory within the meaning of subparagraph (A). (C) A plan shall be considered to meet the requirements of subparagraph (A) during the whole of any year of the plan if on one day in each quarter it satisfies such requirements. (D) The term ‘‘supplemental unemployment compensation benefits’’ means only— (i) benefits which are paid to an employee because of his involuntary separation from the employment of the employer (whether or not such separation is temporary) resulting directly from a reduction in force, the discontinuance of a plant or operation, or other similar conditions, and (ii) sick and accident benefits subordinate to the benefits described in clause (i). (E) Exemption shall not be denied under subsection (a) to any organization entitled to such exemption as an association described in paragraph (9) of this subsection merely because such organization provides for the payment of supplemental unemployment benefits (as defined in subparagraph (D)(i)). (18) A trust or trusts created before June 25, 1959, forming part of a plan providing for the payment of benefits under a pension plan funded only by contributions of employees, if— (A) under the plan, it is impossible, at any time prior to the satisfaction of all liabilities with respect to employees under the plan, for any part of the corpus or income to be (within the taxable year or thereafter) used for, or diverted to, any purpose other than the providing of benefits under the plan, (B) such benefits are payable to employees under a classification which is set forth in the plan and which is found by the Secretary not to be discriminatory in favor of employees who are highly compensated employees (within the meaning of section 414(q)), (C) such benefits do not discriminate in favor of employees who are highly compensated employees (within the meaning of section 414(q)). A plan shall not be considered discriminatory within the meaning of this subparagraph merely because the benefits

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received under the plan bear a uniform relationship to the total compensation, or the basic or regular rate of compensation, of the employees covered by the plan, and (D) in the case of a plan under which an employee may designate certain contributions as deductible— (i) such contributions do not exceed the amount with respect to which a deduction is allowable under section 219(b)(3), (ii) requirements similar to the requirements of section 401(k)(3)(A)(ii) are met with respect to such elective contributions, (iii) such contributions are treated as elective deferrals for purposes of section 402(g) (other than paragraph (4) thereof ), and (iv) the requirements of section 401(a)(30) are met. For purposes of subparagraph (D)(ii), rules similar to the rules of section 401(k)(8) shall apply. For purposes of section 4979, any excess contribution under clause (ii) shall be treated as an excess contribution under a cash or deferred arrangement. (19) A post or organization of past or present members of the Armed Forces of the United States, or an auxiliary unit or society of, or a trust or foundation for, any such post or organization— (A) organized in the United States or any of its possessions, (B) at least 75 percent of the members of which are past or present members of the Armed Forces of the United States and substantially all of the other members of which are individuals who are cadets or are spouses, widows, or widowers of past or present members of the Armed Forces of the United States or of cadets, and (C) no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. (20) an organization or trust created or organized in the United States, the exclusive function of which is to form part of a qualified group legal services plan or plans, within the meaning of section 120. An organization or trust which receives contributions because of section 120(c)(5)(C) shall not be prevented from qualifying as an organization described in this paragraph merely because it provides legal services or indemnification against the cost of legal services unassociated with a qualified group legal services plan.

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(21) (A) A trust or trusts established in writing, created or organized in the United States, and contributed to by any person (except an insurance company) if— (i) the purpose of such trust or trusts is exclusively— (I) to satisfy, in whole or in part, the liability of such person for, or with respect to, claims for compensation for disability or death due to pneumoconiosis under Black Lung Acts, (II) to pay premiums for insurance exclusively covering such liability, (III) to pay administrative and other incidental expenses of such trust in connection with the operation of the trust and the processing of claims against such person under Black Lung Acts, and (IV) to pay accident or health benefits for retired miners and their spouses and dependents (including administrative and other incidental expenses of such trust in connection therewith) or premiums for insurance exclusively covering such benefits; and (ii) no part of the assets of the trust may be used for, or diverted to, any purpose other than— (I) the purposes described in clause (i), (II) investment (but only to the extent that the trustee determines that a portion of the assets is not currently needed for the purposes described in clause (i)) in qualified investments, or (III) payment into the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund established under section 9501, or into the general fund of the United States Treasury (other than in satisfaction of any tax or other civil or criminal liability of the person who established or contributed to the trust). . . . (22) A trust created or organized in the United States and established in writing by the plan sponsors of multiemployer plans if— (A) the purpose of such trust is exclusively— (i) to pay any amount described in section 4223(c) or (h) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and (ii) to pay reasonable and necessary administrative expenses in connection with the establishment and operation of the trust and the processing of claims against the trust, (B) no part of the assets of the trust may be used for, or diverted to, any purpose other than—


(i) the purposes described in subparagraph (A), or (ii) the investment in securities, obligations, or time or demand deposits described in clause (ii) of paragraph (21)(B). . . . (23) Any association organized before 1880 more than 75 percent of the members of which are present or past members of the Armed Forces and a principal purpose of which is to provide insurance and other benefits to veterans or their dependents. (24) A trust described in section 4049 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (as in effect on the date of the enactment of the Single-Employer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1986). (25) (A) Any corporation or trust which— (i) has no more than 35 shareholders or beneficiaries, (ii) has only 1 class of stock or beneficial interest, and (iii) is organized for the exclusive purposes of— (I) acquiring real property and holding title to, and collecting income from, such property, and (II) remitting the entire amount of income from such property (less expenses) to 1 or more organizations described in subparagraph (C) which are shareholders of such corporation or beneficiaries of such trust. For purposes of clause (iii), the term ‘‘real property’’ shall not include any interest as a tenant in common (or similar interest) and shall not include any indirect interest. (B) A corporation or trust shall be described in subparagraph (A) without regard to whether the corporation or trust is organized by 1 or more organizations described in subparagraph (C). (C) An organization is described in this subparagraph if such organization is— (i) a qualified pension, profit sharing, or stock bonus plan that meets the requirements of section 401(a), (ii) a governmental plan (within the meaning of section 414(d)), (iii) the United States, any State or political subdivision thereof, or any agency or instrumentality of any of the foregoing, or (iv) any organization described in paragraph (3).

(D) A corporation or trust shall in no event be treated as described in subparagraph (A) unless such corporation or trust permits its shareholders or beneficiaries— (i) to dismiss the corporation’s or trust’s investment adviser, following reasonable notice, upon a vote of the shareholders or beneficiaries holding a majority of interest in the corporation or trust, and (ii) to terminate their interest in the corporation or trust by either, or both, of the following alternatives, as determined by the corporation or trust: (I) by selling or exchanging their stock in the corporation or interest in the trust (subject to any Federal or State securities law) to any organization described in subparagraph (C) so long as the sale or exchange does not increase the number of shareholders or beneficiaries in such corporation or trust above 35, or (II) by having their stock or interest redeemed by the corporation or trust after the shareholder or beneficiary has provided 90 days notice to such corporation or trust. . . .. (26) Any membership organization if— (A) such organization is established by a State exclusively to provide coverage for medical care (as defined in section 213(d)) on a not-for-profit basis to individuals described in subparagraph (B) through— (i) insurance issued by the organization, or (ii) a health maintenance organization under an arrangement with the organization, (B) the only individuals receiving such coverage through the organization are individuals— (i) who are residents of such State, and (ii) who, by reason of the existence or history of a medical condition— (I) are unable to acquire medical care coverage for such condition through insurance or from a health maintenance organization, or (II) are able to acquire such coverage only at a rate which is substantially in excess of the rate for such coverage through the membership organization, (C) the composition of the membership in such organization is specified by such State, and (D) no part of the net earnings of the organization inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. A spouse and any qualifying child (as defined in section 24(c)) of an individual described in subpara-

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graph (B) (without regard to this sentence) shall be treated as described in subparagraph (B). (27) (A) Any membership organization if— (i) such organization is established before June 1, 1996, by a State exclusively to reimburse its members for losses arising under workmen’s compensation acts, (ii) such State requires that the membership of such organization consist of— (I) all persons who issue insurance covering workmen’s compensation losses in such State, and (II) all persons and governmental entities who selfinsure against such losses, and (iii) such organization operates as a non-profit organization by— (I) returning surplus income to its members or workmen’s compensation policyholders on a periodic basis, and (II) reducing initial premiums in anticipation of investment income. (B) Any organization (including a mutual insurance company) if— (i) such organization is created by State law and is organized and operated under State law exclusively to— (I) provide workmen’s compensation insurance which is required by State law or with respect to which State law provides significant disincentives if such insurance is not purchased by an employer, and (II) provide related coverage which is incidental to workmen’s compensation insurance, (ii) such organization must provide workmen’s compensation insurance to any employer in the State (for employees in the State or temporarily assigned out-of-State) which seeks such insurance and meets other reasonable requirements relating thereto, (iii) (I) the State makes a financial commitment with respect to such organization either by extending the full faith and credit of the State to the initial debt of such organization or by providing the initial operating capital of such organization, and (II) in the case of periods after the date of enactment of this subparagraph, the assets of such organization revert to the State upon dissolution or State law does not permit the dissolution of such organization, and

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(iv) the majority of the board of directors or oversight body of such organization are appointed by the chief executive officer or other executive branch official of the State, by the State legislature, or by both. (d) Religious and apostolic organizations The following organizations are referred to in subsection (a): Religious or apostolic associations or corporations, if such associations or corporations have a common treasury or community treasury, even if such associations or corporations engage in business for the common benefit of the members, but only if the members thereof include (at the time of filing their returns) in their gross income their entire pro rata shares, whether distributed or not, of the taxable income of the association or corporation for such year. Any amount so included in the gross income of a member shall be treated as a dividend received. (e) Cooperative hospital service organizations . . .. (f ) Cooperative service organizations of operating educational organizations . . .. (g) Definition of agricultural For purposes of subsection (c)(5), the term ‘‘agricultural’’ includes the art or science of cultivating land, harvesting crops or aquatic resources, or raising livestock. (h) Expenditures by public charities to influence legislation (1) General rule In the case of an organization to which this subsection applies, exemption from taxation under subsection (a) shall be denied because a substantial part of the activities of such organization consists of carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation, but only if such organization normally— (A) makes lobbying expenditures in excess of the lobbying ceiling amount for such organization for each taxable year, or (B) makes grass roots expenditures in excess of the grass roots ceiling amount for such organization for each taxable year. (2) Definitions For purposes of this subsection— (A) Lobbying expenditures The term ‘‘lobbying expenditures’’ means expenditures for the purpose of influencing legislation (as defined in section 4911(d)).


(B) Lobbying ceiling amount The lobbying ceiling amount for any organization for any taxable year is 150 percent of the lobbying nontaxable amount for such organization for such taxable year, determined under section 4911. (C) Grass roots expenditures The term ‘‘grass roots expenditures’’ means expenditures for the purpose of influencing legislation (as defined in section 4911(d) without regard to paragraph (1)(B) thereof ). (D) Grass roots ceiling amount The grass roots ceiling amount for any organization for any taxable year is 150 percent of the grass roots nontaxable amount for such organization for such taxable year, determined under section 4911. (3) Organizations to which this subsection applies This subsection shall apply to any organization which has elected (in such manner and at such time as the Secretary may prescribe) to have the provisions of this subsection apply to such organization and which, for the taxable year which includes the date the election is made, is described in subsection (c)(3) and— (A) is described in paragraph (4), and (B) is not a disqualified organization under paragraph (5). (4) Organizations permitted to elect to have this subsection apply An organization is described in this paragraph if it is described in— (A) section 170(b)(1)(A)(ii) (relating to educational institutions), (B) section 170(b)(1)(A)(iii) (relating to hospitals and medical research organizations), (C) section 170(b)(1)(A)(iv) (relating to organizations supporting government schools), (D) section 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) (relating to organizations publicly supported by charitable contributions), (E) section 509(a)(2) (relating to organizations publicly supported by admissions, sales, etc.), or (F) section 509(a)(3) (relating to organizations supporting certain types of public charities) except that for purposes of this subparagraph, section 509(a)(3) shall be applied without regard to the last sentence of section 509(a). (5) Disqualified organizations

For purposes of paragraph (3) an organization is a disqualified organization if it is— (A) described in section 170(b)(1)(A)(i) (relating to churches), (B) an integrated auxiliary of a church or of a convention or association of churches, or (C) a member of an affiliated group of organizations (within the meaning of section 4911(f )(2)) if one or more members of such group is described in subparagraph (A) or (B). (6) Years for which election is effective An election by an organization under this subsection shall be effective for all taxable years of such organization which— (A) end after the date the election is made, and (B) begin before the date the election is revoked by such organization (under regulations prescribed by the Secretary). (7) No effect on certain organizations With respect to any organization for a taxable year for which— (A) such organization is a disqualified organization (within the meaning of paragraph (5)), or (B) an election under this subsection is not in effect for such organization, nothing in this subsection or in section 4911 shall be construed to affect the interpretation of the phrase, ‘‘no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation,’’ under subsection (c)(3). (8) Affiliated organizations (i) Prohibition of discrimination by certain social clubs Notwithstanding subsection (a), an organization which is described in subsection (c)(7) shall not be exempt from taxation under subsection (a) for any taxable year if, at any time during such taxable year, the charter, bylaws, or other governing instrument, of such organization or any written policy statement of such organization contains a provision which provides for discrimination against any person on the basis of race, color, or religion. The preceding sentence to the extent it relates to discrimination on the basis of religion shall not apply to—

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(1) an auxiliary of a fraternal beneficiary society if such society— (A) is described in subsection (c)(8) and exempt from tax under subsection (a), and (B) limits its membership to the members of a particular religion, or (2) a club which in good faith limits its membership to the members of a particular religion in order to further the teachings or principles of that religion, and not to exclude individuals of a particular race or color. (j) Special rules for certain amateur sports organizations (1) In general In the case of a qualified amateur sports organization— (A) the requirement of subsection (c)(3) that no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment shall not apply, and (B) such organization shall not fail to meet the requirements of subsection (c)(3) merely because its membership is local or regional in nature. (2) Qualified amateur sports organization defined For purposes of this subsection, the term ‘‘qualified amateur sports organization’’ means any organization organized and operated exclusively to foster national or international amateur sports competition if such organization is also organized and operated primarily to conduct national or international competition in sports or to support and develop amateur athletes for national or international competition in sports. (k) Treatment of certain organizations providing child care For purposes of subsection (c)(3) of this section and sections 170(c)(2), 2055(a)(2), and 2522(a)(2), the term ‘‘educational purposes’’ includes the providing of care of children away from their homes if— (1) substantially all of the care provided by the organization is for purposes of enabling individuals to be gainfully employed, and (2) the services provided by the organization are available to the general public. (l) Government corporations exempt under subsection (c)(1) For purposes of subsection (c)(1), the following organizations are described in this subsection:

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(1) The Central Liquidity Facility established under title III of the Federal Credit Union Act (12 U.S.C. 1795 et seq.). (2) The Resolution Trust Corporation established under section 21A of the Federal Home Loan Bank Act. (3) The Resolution Funding Corporation established under section 21B of the Federal Home Loan Bank Act. (m) Certain organizations providing commercialtype insurance not exempt from tax (1) Denial of tax exemption where providing commercial-type insurance is substantial part of activities An organization described in paragraph (3) or (4) of subsection (c) shall be exempt from tax under subsection (a) only if no substantial part of its activities consists of providing commercial-type insurance. (2) Other organizations taxed as insurance companies on insurance business In the case of an organization described in paragraph (3) or (4) of subsection (c) which is exempt from tax under subsection (a) after the application of paragraph (1) of this subsection— (A) the activity of providing commercial-type insurance shall be treated as an unrelated trade or business (as defined in section 513), and (B) in lieu of the tax imposed by section 511 with respect to such activity, such organization shall be treated as an insurance company for purposes of applying subchapter L with respect to such activity. (3) Commercial-type insurance For purposes of this subsection, the term ‘‘commercial-type insurance’’ shall not include— (A) insurance provided at substantially below cost to a class of charitable recipients, (B) incidental health insurance provided by a health maintenance organization of a kind customarily provided by such organizations, (C) property or casualty insurance provided (directly or through an organization described in section 414(e)(3)(B)(ii)) by a church or convention or association of churches for such church or convention or association of churches, (D) providing retirement or welfare benefits (or both) by a church or a convention or association of churches (directly or through an organization de-


scribed in section 414(e)(3)(A) or 414(e)(3)(B)(ii)) for the employees (including employees described in section 414(e)(3)(B)) of such church or convention or association of churches or the beneficiaries of such employees, and (E) charitable gift annuities. (4) Insurance includes annuities For purposes of this subsection, the issuance of annuity contracts shall be treated as providing insurance. (5) Charitable gift annuity For purposes of paragraph (3)(E), the term ‘‘charitable gift annuity’’ means an annuity if— (A) a portion of the amount paid in connection with the issuance of the annuity is allowable as a deduction under section 170 or 2055, and (B) the annuity is described in section 514(c)(5) (determined as if any amount paid in cash in connection with such issuance were property). (n) Charitable risk pools (1) In general For purposes of this title— (A) a qualified charitable risk pool shall be treated as an organization organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes, and (B) subsection (m) shall not apply to a qualified charitable risk pool. (2) Qualified charitable risk pool For purposes of this subsection, the term ‘‘qualified charitable risk pool’’ means any organization— (A) which is organized and operated solely to pool insurable risks of its members (other than risks related to medical malpractice) and to provide information to its members with respect to loss control and risk management, (B) which is comprised solely of members that are organizations described in subsection (c)(3) and exempt from tax under subsection (a), and (C) which meets the organizational requirements of paragraph (3). (3) Organizational requirements An organization (hereinafter in this subsection referred to as the ‘‘risk pool’’) meets the organizational requirements of this paragraph if— (A) such risk pool is organized as a nonprofit organization under State law provisions authorizing risk pooling arrangements for charitable organizations,

(B) such risk pool is exempt from any income tax imposed by the State (or will be so exempt after such pool qualifies as an organization exempt from tax under this title), (C) such risk pool has obtained at least $1,000,000 in startup capital from nonmember charitable organizations, (D) such risk pool is controlled by a board of directors elected by its members, and (E) the organizational documents of such risk pool require that— (i) each member of such pool shall at all times be an organization described in subsection (c)(3) and exempt from tax under subsection (a), (ii) any member which receives a final determination that it no longer qualifies as an organization described in subsection (c)(3) shall immediately notify the pool of such determination and the effective date of such determination, and (iii) each policy of insurance issued by the risk pool shall provide that such policy will not cover the insured with respect to events occurring after the date such final determination was issued to the insured. An organization shall not cease to qualify as a qualified charitable risk pool solely by reason of the failure of any of its members to continue to be an organization described in subsection (c)(3) if, within a reasonable period of time after such pool is notified as required under subparagraph (E)(ii), such pool takes such action as may be reasonably necessary to remove such member from such pool. (4) Other definitions For purposes of this subsection— (A) Startup capital The term ‘‘startup capital’’ means any capital contributed to, and any program-related investments (within the meaning of section 4944(c)) made in, the risk pool before such pool commences operations. (B) Nonmember charitable organization The term ‘‘nonmember charitable organization’’ means any organization which is described in subsection (c)(3) and exempt from tax under subsection (a) and which is not a member of the risk pool and does not benefit (directly or indirectly) from the insurance coverage provided by the pool to its members.

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(o) Treatment of hospitals participating in provider-sponsored organizations An organization shall not fail to be treated as organized and operated exclusively for a charitable purpose for purposes of subsection (c)(3) solely because a hospital which is owned and operated by such organization participates in a provider-sponsored organization (as defined in section 1855(d) of the Social Security Act), whether or not the provider-sponsored organization is exempt from tax. For purposes of subsection (c)(3), any person with a material financial interest in such a provider-sponsored organization shall be treated as a private shareholder or individual with respect to the hospital.

Sec. 509.—Private Foundation Defined (a) General rule For purposes of this title, the term ‘‘private foundation’’ means a domestic or foreign organization described in section 501(c)(3) other than— (1) an organization described in section 170(b)(1)(A) (other than in clauses (vii) and (viii)); (2) an organization which— (A) normally receives more than one-third of its support in each taxable year from any combination of— (i) gifts, grants, contributions, or membership fees, and (ii) gross receipts from admissions, sales of merchandise, performance of services, or furnishing of facilities, in an activity which is not an unrelated trade or business (within the meaning of section 513), not including such receipts from any person, or from any bureau or similar agency of a governmental unit (as described in section 170(c)(1)), in any taxable year to the extent such receipts exceed the greater of $5,000 or 1 percent of the organization’s support in such taxable year, from persons other than disqualified persons (as defined in section 4946) with respect to the organization, from governmental units described in section 170(c)(1), or from organizations described in section 170(b)(1)(A) (other than in clauses (vii) and (viii)), and (B) normally receives not more than one-third of its support in each taxable year from the sum of— (i) gross investment income (as defined in subsection (e)) and

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(ii) the excess (if any) of the amount of the unrelated business taxable income (as defined in section 512) over the amount of the tax imposed by section 511; (3) an organization which— (A) is organized, and at all times thereafter is operated, exclusively for the benefit of, to perform the functions of, or to carry out the purposes of one or more specified organizations described in paragraph (1) or (2), (B) is operated, supervised, or controlled by or in connection with one or more organizations described in paragraph (1) or (2), and (C) is not controlled directly or indirectly by one or more disqualified persons (as defined in section 4946) other than foundation managers and other than one or more organizations described in paragraph (1) or (2); and (4) an organization which is organized and operated exclusively for testing for public safety. For purposes of paragraph (3), an organization described in paragraph (2) shall be deemed to include an organization described in section 501(c)(4), (5), or (6) which would be described in paragraph (2) if it were an organization described in section 501(c)(3). (b) Continuation of private foundation status For purposes of this title, if an organization is a private foundation (within the meaning of subsection (a)) on October 9, 1969, or becomes a private foundation on any subsequent date, such organization shall be treated as a private foundation for all periods after October 9, 1969, or after such subsequent date, unless its status as such is terminated under section 507. (c) Status of organization after termination of private foundation status For purposes of this part, an organization the status of which as a private foundation is terminated under section 507 shall (except as provided in section 507(b)(2)) be treated as an organization created on the day after the date of such termination. (d) Definition of support For purposes of this part and chapter 42, the term ‘‘support’’ includes (but is not limited to)— (1) gifts, grants, contributions, or membership fees, (2) gross receipts from admissions, sales of merchandise, performance of services, or furnishing of fa-


cilities in any activity which is not an unrelated trade or business (within the meaning of section 513), (3) net income from unrelated business activities, whether or not such activities are carried on regularly as a trade or business, (4) gross investment income (as defined in subsection (e)), (5) tax revenues levied for the benefit of an organization and either paid to or expended on behalf of such organization, and (6) the value of services or facilities (exclusive of services or facilities generally furnished to the public without charge) furnished by a governmental unit referred to in section 170(c)(1) to an organization without charge. Such term does not include any gain from the sale or other disposition of property which would be considered as gain from the sale or exchange of a capital asset, or the value of exemption from any Federal, State, or local tax or any similar benefit. (e) Definition of gross investment income For purposes of subsection (d), the term ‘‘gross investment income’’ means the gross amount of income from interest, dividends, payments with respect to securities loans (as defined in section 512(a)(5)), rents, and royalties, but not including any such income to the extent included in computing the tax imposed by section 511. Reference: U.S. Internal Revenue Code. 2002. Title 26—Various Sections, http://uscode.house.gov/title_26.

Madigan (Ryan) v. Telemarketing Associates: Supreme Court Case Could Hurt Charities’ Rights and Responsibilities to Educate Public on Important Issues Protection of free speech has long been a foundation of fund-raising practice in the United States. The summary of the INDEPENDENT SECTOR’s position on the 2003 Supreme Court case of Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates (previously known as Ryan v. Telemarketing Associates) is illustrative of the debate on how much First

Amendment protection should be offered charitable solicitations. After the enclosed release excerpted here, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the State of Illinois could press a fraud case against Telemarketing Associates and this overturned the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss the case on First Amendment grounds. Ryan v. Telemarketing Associates The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an Illinois case that challenges long established precedents about regulation of charitable solicitation and could set a dangerous precedent that would prevent honest, responsible charities from educating the public about their issues and causes. INDEPENDENT SECTOR, together with 55 nonprofit organizations, filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to protect charities’ rights and responsibilities to educate the public and build support around important issues. The brief condemns unscrupulous fundraising practices, emphasizes the constitutionally acceptable avenues available to regulators to prosecute fraud and abuse committed in the name of charity, and asks the court to reaffirm its earlier rulings that charitable solicitation speech is protected under the First Amendment. In filing the brief, Peter Shiras, interim president and CEO of INDEPENDENT SECTOR, said, “Charitable organizations—and the fundraisers that they employ—should be held to the highest standards of transparency and accountability, but that can be done without threatening legitimate First Amendment freedoms. INDEPENDENT SECTOR believes that a reversal of the Illinois decision could set a harmful legal precedent that would jeopardize the operations of organizations that fight cancer, prevent child abuse, educate our youth, inform the public on critical issues, and carry out a host of other important activities.”

Past Supreme Court Rulings on Charitable Solicitations and the First Amendment Soliciting charitable contributions almost always involves educating and convincing others about the importance of a particular issue or community need and the ways a particular nonprofit organization will address that need. In three separate cases in the

855


1980s, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the integral relationship between fund raising activities and efforts to advance a nonprofit’s philosophy and purpose. INDEPENDENT SECTOR filed amicus briefs in all of these cases supporting the decisions ultimately reached by the Court. The Supreme Court’s decisions in these cases—commonly known as “Schaumburg,” “Munson,” and “Riley”—established that: 1. Charitable solicitation speech is entitled to the highest constitutional protection under the First Amendment because it is inextricably intertwined with “informative and persuasive speech.” 2. Because charitable solicitations often involve advocacy or efforts to educate the public, “there is no nexus between the percentage of funds retained by the fundraiser and the likelihood that the solicitation is fraudulent.” Riley, 487 U.S. at 793, 101 L. Ed. 2nd at 687, 108 S. Ct. at 2675. The Court also ruled that speech cannot be compelled and thus nonprofits or their agents cannot be required to disclose their fees or the costs of fundraising during the course of a solicitation unless asked by the prospective donor.

The Ryan Case In 1991, the Attorney General of Illinois filed a civil suit against a professional for-profit fundraising company, Telemarketing Associates, soliciting charitable contributions on behalf of the nonprofit organization VietNow National Headquarters. The essence of the Attorney General’s claim is that Telemarketing Associates committed fraud and breached their fiduciary duties because they retained a high percentage of the funds raised and because they did nor disclose the percentage of the total contributions that would be paid to Telemarketing Associates when they told donors about the charitable purposes for which donations were sought. The contract between the two organizations states that Telemarketing Associates will receive 85 percent of the gross contributions in return for fundraising and other services.

856

The Supreme Court of Illinois upheld lower court decisions stating that high fundraising costs could not be used as the basis for prosecution of fraud. The Illinois Court further found that Telemarketing Associates had complied with the term of their contracts with VietNow and that the Attorney General had nor shown that Telemarketing Associates made affirmative misrepresentations to potential donors about the purposes for which charitable contributions were sought. Therefore, the Illinois Supreme Court determined that the only basis for civil suit was the Attorney General’s use of a percentage-based test of fundraising costs, which violates the First Amendment protections for charitable solicitation speech.

Why This Case Is Important to All Responsible Charities INDEPENDENT SECTOR believes that this case should deeply concern the nonprofit community because a reversal of the Illinois Supreme Court decision could set a dangerous legal precedent that would prevent honest, responsible charities from educating the public about their issues and causes. The Illinois Attorney General’s case would give individual state and local officials the authority to decide, after the fact, whether a particular nonprofit’s fundraising costs were excessive. The nonprofit or its fundraiser could be subjected to expensive legal action based on the individual views of different stare and local officials, and thus divert funds from accomplishing the mission of the organization. As the Illinois Supreme Court said in issuing its decision: “ . . . this case has far-reaching implications for all fund-raisers. If a complaint such as the one at issue in this case was allowed to proceed, all fund-raisers in this state would have the burden of defending the reasonableness of their fees, on a case-by-case basis, whenever in the Attorney General’s judgment the public was being deceived about the charitable nature of a fundraising campaign because the fund-raiser’s fee was too high. Fund-raisers, therefore, would be at a constant risk of incurring litigation costs, as well as civil and criminal penalties, which could produce a substantial chilling

Madigan (Ryan) v. Telemarketing Associates

effect on protected speech, based on nothing more than a ‘loose inference that the fee might be too high’” In its earlier rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court has already established that fundraising costs are not an accurate measure of fraud. Fundraising activities are frequently used to generate volunteers, policy advocates,

and future donors and supporters. These returns are often more valuable than the dollars raised by a single fundraising effort . . . Reference: INDEPENDENT SECTOR. 2003. Supreme Court Case Could Hurt Charities’ Rights and Responsibilities to Educate Public on Important Issues: Ryan v. Telemarketing Associates. Washington, DC: Fact Sheet.

857

Index AAFRC. See American Association of Fundraising Counsel Abernathy, David, 76 Abolitionists civil rights movement, 73 Forten, James, 161 Franklin, Benjamin, 164 public intellectuals, 395 Tappan, Arthur and Lewis, 463–464 Underground Railroad, 475–476 See also Antislavery movement Accountability, 3–7 anonymous donations, 26 arts and culture organizations, 112 Bacon’s contribution to, 41–42 charity watchdogs, 68–70 civil society, 80 E-philanthropy, 139 governance of nonprofits, 191–192 government oversight of nonprofits, 358 government role in nonprofit organizations, 199–200 institutional foundations, 262–263 legal and fiduciary responsibility of nonprofit boards, 196–197 malfeasance in United Way, 151–152 nonprofit governing boards, 339–344 nonprofit management, 349–350 responsive philanthropy, 416 venture philanthropy, 489–490 See also Charity watchdogs Accounting, 346, 350 Acculturation, 28 “An Act to Incorporate Seton Hall College,” 631–632

“An Act to Incorporate The Rockefeller Foundation” (May 1913), 694–695 Action intellectual, 471 Activism environmental justice movement, 137–138 Tuckerman’s activism for wage increases, 474 See also African American activists; Civil rights movement; Women activists Adams, John, 424 Adams, John Quincy, 394 Addams, Jane, 7–9 “A Modern Lear,” 654–658 on charitable effort, 664–667 financial support for Hull-House, 438 fundraising for Hull-House, 167 Kelley, Florence, and, 294–295 as public intellectual, 397 women’s impact on philanthropy, 522 An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in American, upon Slave-Keeping (Rush), 423 Administration. See Nonprofit management Adoptive philanthropy, 804 Advancing Philanthropy, 38 Advocacy and nonprofit organizations, 9–11 government-nonprofit sector relationship, 201 grantseeking, 211 infrastructure organizations for nonprofits, 260–262 INGOs, 267 NAACP, 331–333

859

Native American rights, 337 responsive philanthropy, 415–416 social change funds, 450 social movements and philanthropy, 453–456 think tanks, 471–472 volunteering, 495 Aeronautics, 216 Affinity groups, 268, 352–353 AFL (American Federation of Labor), 477, 693–694 AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations), 479 AFP. See Association of Fundraising Professionals African American activists Bethune, Mary McLeod, 47–49 Garvey, Marcus Mosiah Jr., 176–178 Johnson, Charles S., 288–289 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 296–297 Patterson, Frederick Douglass, 368–369 Randolph, Florence Spearing, 726–730 Terrell, Mary Eliza Church, 469–471 Truth, Sojourner, 473 Washington, Booker T., 503–505 Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 509–510 African American philanthropy, 11–14 Cuffe, Paul, 107–109 Forten, James, 161–162 McCarty, Oseola, 314 Moorland, Rev. Jesse E., 319–320 Walker, Madam C. J., 502–503 women of color in nonprofits, 521

Index

African Americans African colonization of, 108, 161, 177–178, 460 “The American Anti-Slavery Society: Constitution,” 597 Civil Rights movement, 73–76, 400, 632–633 common good justifying slavery, 88 “Cooperation among Negro Americans” (Du Bois), 674–682 environmental justice movement, 136–138 Ford’s philanthropy, 158 importance of individual dignity, 397–398 mutual benefit organizations, 325, 327–328 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 331–333 Preamble and Rules of the Philadelphia Free African Society, 588–589 Red Cross nurses, 22 Saint Katharine Drexel’s support of, 125–126 tidewater intellectuals’ view of, 393 union movement, 478 YMCA, 527, 528 See also Slavery African Institution, 109 African Lodge No. 459, 11 Age of donors, 31 Agency advocacy, 9 Agenda-based strategy, 809–810 Agnew, Spiro T., 400 Agriculture Ford Foundation’s support of, 160 INGO stimulation of agricultural economies, 267 labor unions, 478 Rockefeller support of, 420 AHP Connect, 35 AIDS movement, 23, 201 AIP Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report, 21 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), 338 Alcoholics Anonymous, 326, 428–429 Alcott, Louisa May, 636–641 Alicia Patterson Foundation, 217 Allen, Paul, 178 Allen, Richard, 73, 588–589 Alliance for Nonprofit Management, 14 Almsgiving anonymous giving, 24–25 history of European foundations, 144

860

“Islamic Laws Concerning Charity,” 706–708 Islamic zakat (alms-tax), 272 Lowell’s opposition to, 310–311 sadaqah (Islamic freewill charitable offering), 272–273 Alternative funds, 14–17, 152 Altgeld, John, 295 Altruism, 18 blood and organ donation, 49–52 establishing foundations, 230 grassroots associations, 212 motives for volunteering, 493 prosocial behavior, 387, 388–389 reciprocity and, 409–410 theories of the nonprofit sector, 359 wealth and philanthropy, 507 Alumnae associations, 426, 518 Alumni associations, 342, 515–516 Alumni Fund (Yale), 515 American Alumni Council, 105, 405 American Anti-Slavery Society, 161, 364, 395 The American Anti-Slavery Society: Constitution, 597 American Association for Community Organization, 150 American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) and AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy, 19, 168 American Baptist Education Society (ABES), 419 American Baptist Home Mission Society, 418–419 American Birth Control League, 428 American Cancer Society, 150–151, 348 American Child Health Association, 245 American Civil War Barton, Clara, 42 Dix, Dorothea, 120 Higginson’s service during, 225 Howe’s advocacy of integration, 246 Little Women, 636–641 Peabody, George, 370–371 Peabody Education Fund, 633–635 postwar Catholic orphanages, 62 public intellectualism, 395 Rockefeller’s entrepreneurial success, 417 Sanitary Commission, 395–396, 481–482, 629–631 service clubs, 432 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 308 Underground Railroad, 475–476 American College Public Relations Association (ACPRA), 105, 405 American Colonization Society (ACS), 109

American Council of Learned Societies, 268 American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA), 19–21 American Express Company, 63, 83 American G.I. Forum, 175 American Heart Association, 151 American Humanics program, 352 American Indian College Fund, 337–338, 461 American Indian Defense Fund, 337 American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), 5 American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP), 5–6, 21, 69 American International Association for Economic and Social Development, 420 American Legion, 326 American Lung Association, 348 American Medical Association, 221 American Missionary Association, 289 American Moral Reform Society, 161 American Museum of Natural History, 361 “American Philanthropy and the National Character” (Curti), 113 American Philosophical Society, 164 The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere, 774–798 American Prospect Research Association. See Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement American Red Cross, 21–23 Barton, Clara, 42 blood donor program, 168 federated fundraising, 151 Sanitary Commission, 629–631 September 11 fundraising, 140, 200 volunteer statistics, 493 War Council, 168 workplace fundraising, 150 American Relief Administration, 245 American Revolution. See Revolutionary War American School for the Deaf, 173 American Smelting and Refining, 216 American Society of Association Executives, 316–317 American Trust Publications (ATP), 281 Americans for the Arts, 111 The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Titles I and V, 813–814 America’s Charities, 152 America’s First Fruits, 171, 405, 568–569 America’s Museums: The Belmont Report, 110–111

Index

America’s Second Harvest, 158 AmeriCorps, 404 Amistad case, 464 Amnesty International, 266 Ancient civilizations grassroots associations, 212 history of American foundations, 229 history of philanthropy, 234, 236–237 mutual benefit organizations, 324 stewardship, 457–458 Anderson, James, 60, 409 Anderson, Marian, 461 Andover House, 437 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 112, 316 Annenberg, Walter H., 480 Annuities, 19–20, 61, 381, 667–668 Anonymous giving, 23–26 Eastman, George, 127–128 Jewish tradition, 236 Lilly, Eli, 304 Pew Charitable Trusts, 373 Anti-intellectualism, 394 Anti-movements, 708–709 Anti-Semitism, 287 Antilynching activities, 331, 509–510 Antislavery movement American Anti-Slavery Society, 161, 364, 395 Howe, Samuel Gridley, 246, 247 Responsibility in the Management of Societies, 614–623 Seneca Falls Declaration, 623–625 See also Abolitionists Antismoking campaign, 452 Antisocial behavior of grassroots associations, 215 Antoninus Pius, 143 AOL Time Warner Foundation, 140 Apartheid, 774 An Apology for Poetry (Sydney), 308 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 87, 88, 507, 553–561 Aramony, William, 151–152 Aristotle, 140–141, 143, 549–553 Arnold, Matthew, 308 ARNOVA. See Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action Arrow, Kenneth, 50–51 Art and the Color Line, 461 Arthur, George, 290 “Articles of Incorporation of the George Gund Foundation,” 732–733 Arts alternative funds, 16 confraternities, 96 cultural policy and philanthropy, 109–112

European foundations, 146 Greek theater, 238 Guggenheim support for, 216–217 Harlem Renaissance, 288 Higginson’s support of, 225–226 Hogg, Ima, 243–244 Lilly, Eli, 304 literature and philanthropy, 306–308 Lowell Institute, 309–310 Mellon’s support of, 315–316 Rockefellers’ support of, 419–420 The Arts in America report, 112 Asarco, 216 Ashoka, 267 Asian American philanthropy, 26–33 Asian Pacific American funds, 17 Aspen Institute/Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, 33–34 Aspen peaks, 33 Assembly, freedom of, 583–587, 588 Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), 19, 34–35, 169, 351 Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), 35–36, 232 Association for Volunteer Administrations (AVA), 36, 36–37 Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), 37–38 American Association of Fundraising counsel and AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy, 19 code of ethical standards, 172 fundraising as a profession, 171 fundraising strategies, 169 nonprofit management education, 351 public relations and philanthropy, 405 Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), 52 Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA), 38–39 Association of Volunteer Bureaus, 36 Association on American Indian Affairs, 337 Associations, as institutions of civil society, 79 Atlanta Compromise, 504 Atwater, Dorrence, 42 Atwood, Albert W., 709–717 Audubon Society, 133, 135 Augustine, 87, 240 “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Practice Makes Perfect?,” 574–577 Avalon Foundation, 316 Aviation, 368–369

A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust (E&C), 316 Ayledotte, Frank, 217 Ayrshire Collieries Coal Corporation, 191 Aztec Eagle, 175 Bacon, Leonard, 41–42, 614–623 Baden-Powell, Robert, 309 Bag lady syndrome, 524 Baird, Robert, 44 Bakker, Jim and Tammy, 344 Baltimore Museum of Art, 176 Banker, James R., 96 Banking sector community development banks, 90 Goodrich’s innovations, 191 Higginson, Henry Lee, 225–226 Mellon family, 316 Peabody, George, 371 Rockefeller, David, 420 Banting, Frederick, 231 Baptist Association, 302 Bar-Tal, Daniel, 387, 388 Barber, Frederick Courtenay, 168 Barber Scotia, North Carolina, 517 Barnett, Samuel, 437 Baron, Stephen, 441, 442–443 Barton, Clara, 21–22, 42–43 Basil the Great, 144 Basileas, 144 Battingham, Forster, 115 Battle Creek Sanitarium, 295 Baumol, William, 110 Bayley, James Roosevelt, 631 Bayou Bend, Houston, Texas, 244 Bayway Community Center, Elizabeth, New Jersey, 419 Beckett, Samuel, 307, 308 Bede, 269 Beecher, Catherine, 44 Beecher, Edward, 44 Beecher, Henry Ward, 44 Beecher, Lyman, 43–44 Behavior-change programs, 452–453 Belgium, 145, 186 Bellamy, Edward, 485 Bellows, Henry, 481 The Belmont Report, 110–111 Benevolence, 393 Benevolent Empire, 414 Benevolent societies, 44–46 Bacon, Leonard, 41–42 history of philanthropy, 235–236 “Preamble and Rules of the Philadelphia Free African Society,” 588–589 “Responsibility in the Management of Societies,” 614–623

861

Index

Benevolent societies, cont. women’s giving circles, 522–523 Benezet, Anthony, 46–47 Bentham, Jeremy, 88 Berle, Adolf Augustus, 343 Best Practices in Youth Philanthropy (Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth), 531 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 47–49 Bethune-Cookman College, 48 Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, 5, 69, 261 Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Guide, 5 Bigotry, legalized, 422 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 178–180, 231, 480 Bills of rights Donor Bill of Rights, 19, 38, 208–209 G,I, Bill of Rights, 326 grantmakers and grantseekers, 208–209 Biomedical industry, 22 Bishop, Charles Reed, 369 Black Codes, 632–633 Black nationalism, 176–178 Black Panthers, 75 Black separatism, 74, 75, 297, 400 Black Star Line, 177 Black United Fund, 15, 16, 151, 152 Black women’s club movement, 509–510 Blackwell, Elizabeth, 481 Blaine, Anita, 438 Blau, Peter, 388 Blind, education for the, 246–248 Blood and organ donation, 22–23, 49–52, 168 Bloodletting, 423 Blue Cross-Blue Shield, 290 Blue Cross Hospital Insurance, 221 Boards of nonprofits. See Governance of nonprofits BoardSource, 52, 196–197, 256 Bollingen Foundation, 316 Bonding social capital, 441–442 Bonifacius, or Essays to Do Good (Mather), 164, 313–314, 570–574 Bonnin, Gertrude Simmons, 337 “The Book of Seeds” (Maimonides), 553 Booth, Ballington, 52–53 Booth, Evangeline, 53–55 Booth, Maud, 52–53 Booth, William, 426–427 Borochoff, Daniel, 21 Boston Symphony, 225–226 Boulding, Kenneth, 376 Bourdieu, Pierre, 440 Bowen, Anthony, 527

862

Bowen, Louise DeKoven, 438 Bowen, William, 110 Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Putnam), 440 Bowling leagues, 326 Boy Scouts of America, 317 Boycotts, 295 Boys Club of America, 245–246 Brace, Charles Loring, 55–56 Braille, 247 Brain trust, 398–399 Brandeis, Louis, 478 Bread and Roses project, 478 Brewster, Mary M., 501 Bridging social capital, 441 Bridgman, Laura, 247, 248 Britain’s friendly societies, 165–166 Brokering philanthropy, 805 Brook Farm Association, 600–601 Brookings, Robert Somers, 56 Brookings Institution, 56, 478 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 478 Brotherly love, 564–568 Brower, David, 133 Brown, Charles Brockden, 392 Brown, Elizabeth, 493 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 74, 290, 400 Bryan Mullanphy Fund, 231 Bryn Mawr School for Girls, 175–176, 478, 518, 722 Buchanan, James, 191 Buck Trust, 122 The Bulletin, 39 The Bulletin of the American Fund Raising Counsel, Inc., 19 Burial societies, 324, 681–682 Bush, George W., 67–68, 199–200 Business Committee for the Arts, 110, 420 Business leagues, 326, 328, 384 Business sector. See Corporate sector Byrd, Robert, 159 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 308 Byzantine Empire, 240–241, 270 Calvin, John, 457, 458 Calvinism, 390–391, 463–464 Campbell, Joan Brown, 816–822 Campus Charters program, 220 Campus Compact, 57–58 Canadian philanthropy, 58–59 Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA), 58 Underground Railroad, 475 women volunteers, 521

Cancer research, 420 Cannery Row (Steinbeck), 308 Capital, charity as, 242 Capitalism foundations and, 230 moral philosophy and philanthropy, 321–322 replacing mercantilism, 393–394 union movement and philanthropy, 477–479 Capitalization of charity, 242 CARE, 267 Careers in Fundraising (Wagner), 353–354 Caritas, 430 Carnegie, Andrew, 59–61 Brookings, Robert Somers, 56 The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 667–668 The Gospel of Wealth, 645–654 as public intellectual, 396–397 reciprocity, 409 stewardship concept, 457, 459 support of Tuskegee Institute, 662–663 Tuskegee Institute and, 504, 724–725 union strikes, 477 views on poverty, 7 Carnegie Corporation of New York, 205, 230, 232, 290, 790 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 231 Carnegies Peace Foundation, 56 Carson, Emmett D., 417 Carson, Rachel, 133 Carter, Jimmy, 75, 220 Carter, Rosalyn, 220 Carver, George Washington, 504 Casinos, 338 Castro Revolution, 184 Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, 210 Catholic philanthropy, 61–63 “The Common Good: Old Idea, New Urgency,” 816–822 confraternity, 95–97 Drexel, Saint Katharine, 125–126 early roots of, 229 English Reformation, 241–242 global nonprofit sector, 184 history of philanthropy, 240–241 right to choose private schools, 708–709 Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann, 435–437 Seton Hall College, 631–632 “Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response,” 814–816 United Way’s funding of Womens Way, 450

Index

Catholic Worker movement, 115–116, 156 Catholic Worker newspaper, 115, 116 Cause-related marketing and sponsorships, 63–64 CEDES (Centro de Estudios en Estado y Sociedad), 65 Cellar, Gutter, and Garret Brigade, 53 Center for Arts and Culture, 112 Center for Venture Philanthropy, 489 Center on Philanthropy, 64–66, 257, 352, 400–401 A Century of Dishonor ( Jackson), 283 Cereal, 295–296 Certification for fundraisers, 351–355 Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), 34–35, 38, 351 Certified Public Accountants (CPA), 5 “The Chair of Philanthromathematics” (Henry), 689–692 Chaney, James, 75 Le Chapelier Act (1791), 145 The Charitable Behavior of Americans, 256 Charitable Choice, 66–68 “Charitable Effort” (Addams), 664–667 Charitable gift planning. See Planned giving Charitable giving barriers to women’s giving, 524–525 Canadian philanthropy, 58–59 Christian tradition, 271 contemporary philanthropy, 101–102 donor intent, 120–123 The Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), 561–563 Islamic tradition, 270 law of charity, 299–304 Maimonides’s eight levels of, 553 “Summa Theologica,” 553–561 “The Use of Money,” 577–583 wealth transfer figures, 506–507 See also Motives for charitable giving Charitable intent. See Donor intent Charitable organizations, 184 Charitable remainder annuity trusts, 381 Charitable sector. See Nonprofit sector Charities Review Council, 69 Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest, 256 Charity Navigator, 6 Charity organization societies, 149, 261–262, 310–311, 378 Charity Rating Guide, 5–6 Charity Sunday, 62 Charity watchdogs, 68–70 American Institute of Philanthropy, 21

governance in nonprofits and higher education, 343 history of American foundations, 232 INDEPENDENT SECTOR, 255–256 NASCO, 333 See also Accountability Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, 36, 91, 443 Charles V, 145 Charleston Principles: On Charitable Solicitations Using the Internet, 139, 333 Chaskin, Robert J., 445 Chautauqua, 324 Chavez, Cesar, 70–72, 478 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 594–596 Chicago Conservator newspaper, 510 Chicago Race Relations Commission, 288 Chief Executive Leadership Award, 106 Child Welfare Foundation. See W.K. Kellogg Foundation Children Brace’s pioneering of foster care, 55–56 foundations and unions, 478 Gates foundations’ support of, 178–180 Hogg contributions, 244 Kellogg’s philanthropy, 295–296 Lucile Packard’s involvement with children’s health, 366, 367 patronage in philanthropy, 654–658 prosocial behavior, 386–387 settlement programs for, 501 youth and philanthropy, 529–531 Children’s Aid Society, 55 Children’s Hospital of Stanford University, 367 Chorlton Twist Company, 362 Christian Mission, 426–427 Christian Science Monitor, 269 Christian Socialism, 378 Christian tradition anonymous giving, 23, 24–25 Catholic philanthropy, 814–816 common good, 87–89 Gates on Rockefeller philanthropy, 718 history of philanthropy, 234, 239–240 incipient foundations in imperial Rome, 144 “A Modell of Christian Charity” (Winthrop), 564–568 philanthropy and the Good Samaritan, 373–379 “Responsibility in the Management of Societies,” 614–623

Salvation Army, 426–427 Social Gospel, 400 stewardship, 457, 458–459 “The Common Good: Old Idea, New Urgency,” 816–822 “The Use of Money” (Wesley), 577–583 tithing, 412–413 view of Islam, 269–272 YMCA, 527–529 See also Evangelists; Religion A Christmas Carol (Dickens), 307 Chronicle of Philanthropy, 259 Chrysostom, John, 96 Church-state separation Beecher, Lyman, 44 faith-based organizations, 199–200 Founding Fathers, 394 free transportation as issue in Everson v. Board of Education, 730–732 law of charity, 299–303 Mennonites, 569 Churches. See Catholic philanthropy; Christian tradition; Religion Cincinnati Milling Machine Company, 150 Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College, Ohio, 518 Circle of Excellent Awards Program, 106 Cisco Foundation, 140 City Year, 83 Civic authority, 79–80 Civic engagement, 78–79 Civic leagues, 384 Civic participation by Asian Americans, 33 Civic responsibility, 80–81 CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, 72–73, 256, 266 Civil Rights Act (April 9, 1866), 632–633 Civil Rights Act (1964), 331, 734–735 Civil rights movement, 73–76 African American philanthropy, 12 Chavez, Cesar, 70–72 community foundations, 94 environmental justice movement and, 136 Indian Rights Fund, 337 Julius Rosenwald Fund, 290–291 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 296–297 Latino civil rights movement, 174 NAACP, 331–333 public intellectuals on philanthropy, 399–400 union labor and, 478 Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 509–510

863

Index

Civil society, 76–81 global nonprofit sector, 183–184, 185 international fundraising, 263–264 international NGOs, 264–267 nonprofit sector, 356 See also Government sector; Nonprofit sector Civil Society Index, 72 Civil War. See American Civil War Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 404, 434 Clark, Margaret, 388 Clay, Henry, 109 Clerc, Laurent, 173 Clergy education, 514 governance of higher education, 342 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 296–297 Mather, Cotton, 313–314 Moorland, Rev. Jesse E., 319–320 Randolph, Florence Spearing, 726–730 Tuckerman, Joseph, 473–474 Cleveland Federation of Charities and Philanthropies, 149–150 Cleveland Foundation, 92, 190 Cleveland Trust Company, 189–190 Clients, responsibility towards, 142 Clinton, Bill, 72, 472 Co-optation of movement organizations, 455 Coal industry, 191 Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations, 255–256 Cobb, Sara B., 353 Cockaigne, 485 Cocke, Charles Lewis Cocke, 517 “The Codicil of the Will of Benjamin Franklin” (1789), 589–591 Coeducation, 516–517 Coercive philanthropy, 176 Coit, Stanton, 437 Coleman, James, 440, 445–446 Collectives, 98–100 Collectivistic liberalism, 794 College Endowment Funding Plan, 369 College Settlement, 437 College of William and Mary, Virginia, 167, 341 Colonial America governing boards, 339 law of charity, 299–300 Native American philanthropy, 336 public intellectuals on philanthropy, 390–392 Winthrop, John, 512–514 Colonization of blacks in Africa, 108, 161, 177–178, 460

864

Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 477, 783 A Colored Woman in a White World (Terrell), 470 Columbia Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind, 173 Columbia University, New York, 341 Columbus Foundation, 91 Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), 151, 416 Commercialism in the nonprofit sector, 81–87 Commerciality doctrine, 483 Commission-based fundraising, 168 Commission for Relief Belgium (CRB), 245 Commission of Inquiry and Advice in Respect of the Sanitary Interests of the United States Forces (Sanitary Commission), 395–396, 481–482, 629–631, 778 Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy. See Peterson Commission Commission on Industrial Relations, 695–697 Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. See Filer Commission Committee on Gift Annuities. See American Council on Gift Annuities Committees of governing boards, 198–199 Common Cause, 399 Common Chest, 24 Common good, 87–89 “The Common Good: Old Idea, New Urgency,” 816–822 Common labor, 362–363 Commons, the, 79, 356, 430–431 Commonwealth newspaper, 247 Communal living, 362 Communism, 77, 185, 229, 477–478 Communitarian institutions, 78, 359 Community Associations Institute, 325 Community building among African American communities, 177 Asian American philanthropy, 26–33 Franklin’s contributions to, 164 friendly societies, 166 Hispanic philanthropy, 227–228 Jewish philanthropy, 284–285, 286 Native American philanthropy, 336–337 service clubs, 432–433

social capital and, 440–446 supporting hospitals, 224 “True and False Philanthropy,” 612–614 YMCA, 527–529 youth and philanthropy, 529–531 Community chests, 149, 439 Community development and organizations, 89–91, 306, 445 Community Development Society, 89–90 Community Foundation of Silicon Valley, 442 Community foundations, 91–95 donor-advised funds, 124 federated fundraising, 149–153 grantseeking, 209 history of American foundations, 230 responsive philanthropy, 416 youth and philanthropy, 529–530 Community Health Charities, 152 Community service, 57–58, 492 Community Service Organization (CSO), 71 Community Shares, 152 Community trusts, 189–190 Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, 185–186, 263, 429–430 Compassion, 373–379 Comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs), 90 Comprehensive Education and Training Act (CETA), 110 Compulsory Education Act (1922), 708–709 Computers, 178–180 Comte, Auguste, 18 “The Concentration of Wealth: Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations” (1915), 695–697 Conference of Black Churchmen, 75 Conferences, professional fundraisers’, 352 Confraternity, 95–98, 144, 241 Congregationalists, 514 Congress, U.S. Combined Federal Campaign, 416 income tax deduction, 465 Peterson Commission, 371–372 political factions of nonprofits, 385 Unrelated Business Income Tax, 482–483 Connections journal, 39 Conservationists Benezet, Anthony, 47 Mellon, Paul, 315–316 Muir, John, 322–324 Olin, John Merrill, 361–362 Rockefeller, Laurance S., 420

Index

Conservative agenda on contemporary philanthropy, 101 Constantine, 144, 229, 240 Constitution, U.S. abolishing the poll tax, 331 First Amendment, 588, 635–636 Fourteenth Amendment, 632–633 Prohibition (Eighteenth Amendment), 298 Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 591–594 The Constitution of the Brook Farm Association, 600–601 Constitution of the General Assembly and for State, National Trade District and Local Assemblies of the order of the Knights of Labor, 693–694 Consulting firms, 353 Consumer cooperatives, 98–100 Consumption philanthropy, 803–804 Contemporary philanthropy, 100–103 Continental Congress, 164 Contraception, 427–428 Contract failure, 130 Contract law, 300–304, 394 Contracting nonprofits for public service, 201–202 Contributory philanthropy, 804–805 Controversy and social change funds, 449–450 Cook, James, 369 Cook, Lyle, 169 Cookman Institute, 48 Coolidge, Calvin, 216 Cooper, Peter, 7, 103–104 Cooper Union, 103–104 Cooperating Collections, 162 “Cooperation among Negro Americans” (Du Bois), 674–682 Cooperative fundraising, 480 Cooperatives, 98–100 Cornell University, New York, 518 Corporate foundations, 209, 230, 251–253, 732–733 Corporate giving, 104–105 Dayton family, 116–117 ethics and donor intent, 141–142 federated fundraising, 149–153 tax advantages, 304 Corporate partnerships, INGOs as, 265 Corporate sector business leagues, 326, 328, 384 cause-related marketing and sponsorships, 63–64 commercialism in the nonprofit sector, 81–87 community foundations, 92

corporate giving, 104–105 Dayton family, 116–117 Global Sullivan Principles governing corporate behavior in South Africa, 774 mutual benefit organizations, 326, 328 nonprofit collaboration, 83, 348 source of food for antihunger charities, 156 Unrelated Business Income Tax, 482 Corporate social responsibility (CSR), 104, 388–389 Corruption international nongovernmental organizations, 266 nonprofit governing boards, 343–344 U.S. Sanitary Commission, 481 See also Scandals Cosmetics industry, 502–503 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), 19, 105–106, 169, 352, 405 Council on Foundations (COF), 68, 91, 94, 106–107, 232, 260 Counting House (Quaker), 391–392 Covenant Church program, 219–220 Covenant House, 344 Covenant of Grace, 390–391 Covenant of Works, 390–391 Credit cards, 63, 83 Crime and punishment, 485 Crimean War, 481 The Crisis journal, 74, 332 Croly, Herbert, 398 Cuba, 184 Cuffe, Paul, 12, 107–109 Cultural identification, 27, 284–287 Cultural policy and philanthropy, 109–112 Culture. See Arts; Museums Curry, J.L.M., 663 Curti, Merle Eugene, 112–113 Cutlip, Scott M., 167 Cy Pres. See Donor intent Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, 216 Dart Group, 117 Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, 301–302, 591–594 Dartmouth College v. Wooster, 301–302. See also Law of Charity Darwin, Charles, 323 Databases on philanthropy accountability and, 3–6 Foundation Center, 162 Giving USA, 19

GuideStar, 217–218 National Center for Charitable Statistics, 334–335 Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), 317, 461 David and Lucile Packard Foundations, 36, 365, 367 Davis, Michael, 290 Day, Dorothy, 115–116 Dayton, Bruce, 117 Dayton, Kenneth, 117 Dayton family, 116–117 Dayton-Hudson Corporation, 116 Dayton-Hudson Foundation, 117 Dead-hand philanthropy, 165, 242, 276, 721–722 Deaf education, 173–174, 246–248 Death threats, 509 Debt relief, 267 Decatur, Stephen Sr., 161 Declaration of Independence, 423 Default rule for donor intent, 122 Defense Secretary, 366 Deferred giving, 380 Defoe, Daniel, 164 DeForest, Robert, 781 Democracy in America (Tocqueville), 394, 597–600 Democratic theory, 385–386 Democratization, 160–161, 265, 266 Denmark, 145, 146 Department stores, 298 Dependency on charity, 310–311 Derivative philanthropy, 806 Descriptive approach to nonprofit governance, 194–195 Detroit Institute of Arts, 159 Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, 371 Developartners, 35 Developing countries, 178–180, 263–264, 495–497 Developmental psychology, 387–388 Dewey, John, 434 Dickens, Charles, 307 Dickinson, Emily, 283 The Difficult Art of Giving (Rockefeller), 684–689 Dillon, Douglas, 372 Dime-stores, 298 Diocesan charitable bureau, 62 Direct lobbying, 10 Direct mail fundraising, 117–119 Disabled individuals, 501, 813–814 Disaster relief, 21–23, 426–427 Discrimination anti-Catholic education movement, 708–709 anti-Semitism, 287

865

Index

Discrimination, cont. Civil Rights Act (1964), 734–735 Girard Will Case, 303 Wells-Barnett’s anti-lynching campaign, 509 Distopian literature, 486 Distribution of goods, 129–132 Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 9, 119–120, 604–605, 625–629 Domestic fraternal societies, 45, 166 Domestic skills, 311–312 Domesticity, 511–512 Dominican order, 241 Donee Group, 154, 415 Donor-advised funds, 124–125, 449 Donor Bill of Rights, 19, 38, 208–209 Donor intent, 120–124 governing boards’ responsibilities towards, 341 John M. Olin Foundation, 361–362 law of charity, 299–304 research on recipients’ issues, 798–812 Smithsonian Institution bequest, 439–440 See also Motives for charitable giving Donor-option program, 450, 451 Donor-oriented strategies, 805–806 Donors ascendancy, 801–802 Dorr Foundation, 231 Douglass, Frederick, 470 Draft dodging, 323 Drapier’s Letters (Swift), 308 Drexel, Saint Katharine, 125–126 Du Bois, W.E.B., 74, 332, 397–398, 461, 510, 674–682 Dubourg, William, 436 Dulany, Peggy (Rockefeller), 421 Dunant, Jean Henri, 22 Durant, Henry, 518 Duronio, Margaret A., 353 Dyer, Delwyn A., 36 Dynastic families, 277 E-philanthropy, 138–140 E-volunteering, 494 Eagle Staff Fund, 338 Earned income, 82 Earth Shares, 152 Easley, Ralph C., 790 East London Christian Mission, 426–427 Eastern Association on Indian Affairs, 337 Eastman, George, 127–128 Eastman Kodak Company, 127–128 E&C (A.W. Mellon Education and Charitable Trust), 316 Economic inequalities, 100–103

866

Economic issues arts and culture, 111 development and systems of civil society, 78 economic reform, 56 household giving affected by economic conditions, 259 Islamic waqf (trust), 279 nonprofit sector’s economic contribution, 357–358 support of grassroots associations, 213 wealth and philanthropy, 505–508 Economic Policy Institute, 478 Economic Statistics Branch of the United Nations, 491 Economic theories of nonprofits, 128–132 Economics, 457 Edison Institute, 158–159 Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 443 Education Addams, Jane, 7 advocacy and public education, 260 alumni associations, 515–516 A.W. Mellon Education and Charitable Trust, 316 Barton’s support of free public education, 42 Benjamin Franklin’s bequest for, 589 Brookings’s transformation of Washington University, 56 Campus Compact, 57–58 The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 667–668 Center on Philanthropy, 64–66 “The Chair of Philanthromathematics” (Henry), 689–692 coeducation, 516–517 contemporary philanthropy, 101 Cooper, Peter, 103–104 Council for Advancement and Support of Education, 105–106 for the deaf and blind, 173–174, 246–248 determining levels of giving, 257–258 Eastman’s anonymous donations for, 127–128 equal pay for teachers, 244 European foundations, 146 First Fruits fundraising for Harvard College, 171, 405, 568–569 foundation funding for, 231 Franklin, Benjamin, 164 free transportation as issue in Everson v. Board of Education, 730–732

as fundamental goal of philanthropy, 686 fundraising training, 169 Gates on Rockefeller philanthropy, 719–720 Girard Will Case, 605–612 governing boards, 339–340, 341–342, 343 Guggenheim Foundation, 217 of Hawaiians, 369–370, 641–643 Hebrew home school, 215–216 Higginson’s support of, 225–226 of Hispanics, 226–227 Indian Rights Fund, 337 institutional foundations, 262–263 International Society for Third-Sector Research, 268–269 Islamic endowments funding, 278 Islamic Society of North America, 280–281 Jewish philanthropy, 287 labor reform, 478 Lilly Endowment, 305–306 McCarty’s support of, 314 McCormicks’ support of, 315 nonprofit management education, 351–354 Owen’s educational reforms, 362 Peabody Education Fund, 370–371, 633–635 private education, 708–709 professional nonprofit management, 85 Saint Katharine Drexel’s schools for African and Native Americans, 125–126 service learning, 433–435 Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann, 435–437 Seton Hall College, 631–632 social capital and, 445–446 special education for disabled children, 501 Stanford, Leland and Jane, 456–457 “True and False Philanthropy,” 612–614 Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 591–594 youth and philanthropy, 530 See also Education of African Americans; Education of women Education of African Americans Benezet’s support of, 46–47 Bethune, Mary, 48–49 Cuffe’s integrated school, 108 Du Bois on, 678–681 higher education for women, 517 Jim Crow period, 12 Julius Rosenwald Fund, 288–290, 422

Index

private and public education, 46–47 public school segregation, 74 Raising Money (Washington), 658–664 Rockefeller support for, 419 Saint Katharine Drexel’s schools for African and Native Americans, 125–126 Tuskegee Institute, 658–664 United Negro College Fund, 368–369, 480 Washington, Booker T., 503–505 Education of women Catholic education of girls, 61 coeducation, 516–517 Garrett, Mary Elizabeth, 175–176 Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, 311–312 women, higher education, and philanthropy, 514–519 women’s funds, 16 women’s giving circles benefiting, 523 Effective Fund-raising Management (Kelly), 353 Effectiveness of grassroots associations, 213 of nonprofits and governing bodies, 195 Egoism, 18, 493 Eisenberg, Nancy, 388 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 244, 289 El-Pomar Foundation, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 530 Electronics industry, 365–368 Eleemosynary corporations, 591–594 Eli Lilly and Company, 304 Eliot, Charles, 671–674 Elite theory, 386 Elizabethan Common Law, 605–612 The Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), 561–563 Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses (1601), 145, 184, 229, 241–242, 299–300 Ellison, Ralph, 307 Emancipation League, 247 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 396 Embree, Edwin, 290–291 Emergency Food Assistance Program, 155 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 395, 601–603 Emma Willard and Her Pupils, 426 Emma Willard Association, 426 Employment alternative funds in the workplace, 14–16 Chavez, Cesar, 70–72 child labor, 478

determining levels of giving, 257–258 health services organizations, 222–223 HP Way of management, 366–367 human services, 249 labor force of the global nonprofit sector, 186 Lowell’s support of unions, 311 nonprofit volunteers, 345 nonprofits as major employers, 357–358 Owen’s labor reforms, 362 sweatshops, 295 Tuckerman’s activism for wage increases, 474 union movement and philanthropy, 477–479 Washington’s philosophy on black education and training, 504–505 women nonprofit workers, 520 Empowerment philanthropy, 803–804 Encyclopedia of Associations, 45 Endowments educational, 721–723 Islamic endowments, 270, 271–272, 273 Lilly Endowment, 305–306 Rockefeller philanthropy, 717–721 Stanford University, 456–457 women’s colleges, 517–519 Engineers, 365–368 England, 229. See also Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses (1601) Enlightenment, 181–182, 185, 423 Entitlements, 322 Entrepreneurial success Cuffe, Paul, 108–109 Eastman, George, 127–128 Goodrich, Pierre Frist, 190–191 Guggenheim, Meyer, 216 Hewlett-Packard, 365–368 Hispanics, 226–227 International Harvester Company, 315 Kresge, S.S., 297–298 Owen family, 362 Peabody, George, 370–371 Pew, Joseph Newton, 373 Rockefeller, John D., 417–418 Rosenwald, Julius, 422 Tappan, Arthur and Lewis, 463–464 Walker, Madam C.J., 502–503 Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA), 136, 137 Environmental justice movement, 136–138 Environmental movement, 132–138 environmental funds, 16 federated fundraising, 152

Muir, John, 322–324 Packard Foundation, 367 social purpose enterprises, 84–85 stewardship concept, 459 ePhilanthropy Foundation, 139 Epicurus, 143 Equity, 80 Erikson, Erik, 401 Ernst, Max, 217 An Essay Upon Projects (Defoe), 164 Essays to Do Good (Mather). See Bonifacius, or Essays to Do Good Ethics and philanthropy, 140–143 accountability, 3–7 anonymous donations, 26 common good, 87 corporate giving model, 105 E-philanthropy, 139 international fundraising, 264 moral philosophy and philanthropy, 320–322 National Society of Fund Raisers, 37–38 Native American philanthropy, 336–337 for professional fundraisers, 172 Ethnicity Asian American philanthropy, 26–33 determining comtemporary philanthropic trends, 102 expanding the personnel of foundations, 232 Hispanic philanthropy, 226–228 Islamic philanthropy, 269–280 Jewish philanthropy, 284–287 mutual benefit organizations, 325 Native American philanthropy, 336–339 European foundations, 143–147 European Values Survey (EVS), 495 Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), 6, 69 Evangelical United Front, 395 Evangelists Bacon, Leonard, 41–42 Beecher, Lyman, 43–44 Booth, Ballington and Maud, 52–53 Salvation Army, 426–427 Tappan, Arthur and Lewis, 463–464 Everson v. Board of Education, 730–732 Exchange philanthropy, 806 Factory inspections, 295 Fair Deal, 398 Faith, Emerson on, 601–603 Faith-based organizations, 66–68, 70, 131, 199–200

867

Index

Family foundations David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 365, 367–368 Dayton family, 116–117 Ford Foundation, 160–161 grantseeking, 209 history of American foundations, 230 Islamic trusts, 274–280 Kaiser Family Foundation, 223, 478 Lilly Endowment, 305–306 Mellon Foundation, 315–316 Phelps-Stokes Fund, 460 Rockefeller family, 418–422, 517 Walter and Elise Haas Fund, 822–824 women’s roles in, 520 Family involvement in Hispanic philanthropy, 227 Family Limitation (Sanger), 428 Family planning, 421, 427–428 Family support, social capital as, 441 Farm workers, 70–72 Federal Election Committee (FEC), 358 “The Federalist No. 10” (Madison), 583–587 “Federalist Paper #10,” 384 Federated fundraising, 149–153, 265, 284 Fees and charges for nonprofits, 82 Felkins, Patricia K., 445 Fellowship Corporation, 295 Female Association for the Relief of Women in Reduced Circumstances, 215 Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, 216 Femme converte doctrine, 519 Fertile Crescent, 270–271 FEX. See Funding Exchange foundations Fidelity Gift Fund, 259 Fiduciary responsibility of governing boards, 197 Field, John, 441, 442–443 Filene, Edward A., 478 Filer, John H., 153, 255, 261 Filer Commission (Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs), 153–155 commission report, 742–774 Council on Foundations, 107 cultural policy and philanthropy, 111 Dayton family funds, 116–117 INDEPENDENT SECTOR, 255 infrastructure organizations for nonprofits, 261 Peterson Commission, 372 responsive philanthropy, 415 Rockefeller family and, 421 Financial Accounting Standards Boards (FASB), 4–5 Financial aid, 129–130

868

Financial reporting by charities, 333, 334 First Amendment (1878), 588, 855–857 First Nations Development Institute, 338 First Unitarian Church v. Los Angeles County, 733–734 Fisk University, Tennessee, 289 Fixed-fee fundraising, 168 Flash philanthropy, 140 Fleishman, Joel, 69 Fletcher v. Peck, 301 Flexner Report (1910), 231, 342–343 Food and antihunger charities, 155–158, 327–328, 432 Food Research and Action Center, 158 Food-stamp program, 156 For-profit firms, 129–131, 140, 346, 420 Ford, Edsel, 158–160 Ford, Henry, 158–160 Ford Foundation, 160–161 community foundations, 94 creation of, 159–160 cultural policy and philanthropy, 111 environmental movement, 137 history of American foundations, 233 labor union analysis, 478 Native American Rights Fund, 337 Ford Motor Company, 158–161 Foreign investment capital, 370 Formula grants, 403 Forten, James, 161–162 Foster care, 55–56 Foundation Center, 162, 232, 253, 257 Foundation payout, 162–163 Foundations “The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere,” 774–798 arts and culture, 111 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 178–180 Council on Foundations, 106–107 David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 365 Elizabethan era, 241–242 environmental justice movement, 137–138 environmental movement support, 134–136 European foundations, 143–147 Ford Foundation, 160–161 George Gund Foundation, 732–733 Giving and Getting: Philanthropy as a Social Relation, 798–812 government oversight of nonprofits, 358 grantmaking, 204–209

grantseeking, 209–210 history of American foundations, 229–233 human services, 251–253 institutional foundations, 262–263 John M. Olin Foundation, 361–362 Julius Rosenwald Fund, 289–291 late-nineteenth-century establishment of, 396–397 Native American foundations, 338 Peabody Education Fund, 633–635 Peterson Commission’s analysis of, 371–372 Pew Charitable Trusts, 373 political factions of nonprofits, 385 Renaissance philanthropy, 241 Rockefeller’s early efforts, 419 Russell Sage Foundation, 682–683 social change funds, 447–451 social movements, 454–455 union movement and, 477–479 waqf (Islamic endowed freewill offering), 273–274 See also Community foundations; Family foundations; Grantmaking; Institutional foundations; Nonprofit sector; Trusts; individual foundations Foundations, Private Giving, and Public Policy: Report and Recommendations of the Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy, 372 Foundations and the labor movement. See Union movement and philanthropy Founding Fathers, 392–394 Four-P Continuum, 206 Fourier, Charles, 486 Fox, George, 391 France, 145, 229 Francis of Assisi, 96 Franciscan order, 241 Frankenstein (Shelley), 307 Franklin, Benjamin, 164–165 advent of intellectual life in colonial America, 392 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 574–577 codicil to the will of, 589–591 mortmain philanthropy, 722 mutual benefit organizations, 327 professional fundraising, 171 Franklin College, 424 Fraternal beneficiary societies benevolent societies and, 45 Knights of Labor, 693–694 membership associations, 317 mutual benefit organizations, 324, 325

Index

secret societies, 166 See also Friendly societies Fraternities and sororities, 12 Fraud, 855–857 Frederickson, George, 395 Free Enquirers, 363 Free Speech and Headlight weekly, 509 Freedom Corps, 404 Freud, Sigmund, 18 Friendly societies, 45, 165–167, 235, 324 Friendly Societies Acts (1974, 1992), 45, 165 Friendship, 553–561 Fugitive Slave Act (1793), 161 Fuller, Millard and Linda, 219 Fund Raisers: Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and Accomplishments (Duronio and Tempel), 353 Fund Raising Review, 19 Fund Raising School, 65, 169, 380 The Fund Raising School (TFRS), 352 Funders Concerned about Minorities and the Environment, 138 Funding Exchange foundations (FEX), 15, 16, 448 Fundraising, 167–171 alternative funds, 14–17 alumni associations, 515–516 America’s First Fruits, 171, 405, 568–569 Catholic charities, 62 cause-related marketing, 63–64 direct mail fundraising, 117–119 E-philanthropy, 139 federated fundraising, 149–153 grantmaking, 204–209 Hispanic donors, 228 history of the YMCA’s impact on, 528 human services, 251–253 international fundraising, 263–264 Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates, 855–857 Mount Holyoke College, 311 nonprofit-corporate connection, 83–84 pooling efforts for black education, 368 public funding of nonprofits, 201–202 public philanthropy, 402–404 public relations and philanthropy for nonprofits, 404–407 Raising Money, 658–664 revenue sources for global nonprofits, 188 settlement houses, 438–439 social change funds, 448–449, 449–450 trends in household giving, 256–260 UNCF’s cooperative fundraising, 480

women’s higher education, 518 youth and philanthropy, 529–531 Fundraising as a profession, 171–172 Gachukia, Eddah, 72 Gale Research, 316–317 Gallaudet, Thomas Hopkins, 173–174 Gallaudet University, 173 Gamble, James, 48 Gaming operations, 338 Gandhi, Mohandas (Mahatma), 400 Garcia, Hector Perez, 174–175 Garden Club of America, 244 Gardiner, C. Means, 343 Gardner, John W., 255, 390, 399 Garland Fund, 478 Garment workers, 693–694 Garrett, Mary Elizabeth, 175–176 Garrison, William Lloyd, 73, 161, 395, 597 Garvey, Marcus Mosiah Jr., 12, 176–178, 510 Gates, Frederick T., 168, 419, 717–721 Gates, William Gates, Sr., 179 Gates, William H., III, 178–180, 465 Gates Learning Foundation, 178 Gay and lesbian issues, 16, 430 Gender Equality Initiative, 72 General Education Board (GEB), 290–291, 368, 680–681 General Motors Foundations, 230 General-purpose foundations, 230 Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), 4–5 Generosity, 549–553 Geneva Convention, 42 Genovese, Kitty, 375 George Gund Foundation, 732–733 Georgia Female College, Georgia, 516 Georgia Pacific, 83 Germany, 145 GI Bill of Rights (1944), 326 Gibbs, Lois, 133 Gift annuities, 19–20, 381–382 The Gift (Hyde), 307–308 Gifts donor intent for, 120–123 ethics and philanthropy, 140–141 Internal Revenue Code on charitable contributions and gifts, 839–855 philanthropy and the Good Samaritan, 373–380 stewardship, 457–459 tax deductions on, 464–465 Girard, Stephen, 180–182, 302–303 Girard College, 180, 182 Girard Will Case, 302–303, 605–612 Girl Guides, 309

Girl Scouts of America, 309 “Give Five” campaign, 256 Giving. See Charitable giving; Motives for charitable giving Giving and Getting: Philanthropy as a Social Relation (Ostrander and Schervish), 798–812 Giving and Volunteering in the United States, 256, 258–259 Giving back, as philanthropic motivation. See Reciprocity Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector (Filer Commission), 154, 255 Giving USA, 19, 134, 209, 251, 256–257 Gladden, Washington, 668–671 Gleaners, 156 Glenn, John, 781 Global Nonprofit Institution Systems (GNIS), 491 Global nonprofit sector, 182–189 Global Sullivan Principles, 774 Global Village program, 220 God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (Vonnegut), 307 Goddard, Robert, 216, 217 Goff, Frederick Harris, 92, 189–190 Golden Rule, 401 Goldmark, Josephine, 478 Gompers, Samuel, 477 Good Samaritan, parable of the. See Philanthropy and the Good Samaritan Good Samaritan Laws, 375 The Good Society (Lippman), 399 Goodman, Andrew, 75 Goodrich, Pierre Frist, 190–191 Goodwill Industries, 84, 397 Gore, Albert, 372 The Gospel of Wealth (Carnegie), 60, 230, 397, 645–654 Gospels, 239–240 Governance of nonprofits, 191–199 global nonprofit sector, 183–184 governing boards, 339–340 international fundraising, 264 ISTR, 268–269 Lilly Endowment, 306 nonprofit management, 349–350 social change funds, 449 staffing, 358–359 systems of civil society, 78 Government failure theory, 359 Government-nonprofit sector relationship, 199–204 “The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere,” 774–798

869

Index

Government-nonprofit sector relationship, cont. changing trends in contemporary philanthropy, 102–103 charitable donations to higher education, 719–720 charity watchdogs, 68–69 cultural policy and philanthropy, 109–112 economic theory of nonprofits, 131 Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses, 299–300 Filer Commission report, 742–774 food and antihunger charities, 155 free speech and religion, 733–734 governance, 191–192 government as major philanthropic role for minorities, 397–400 government oversight of nonprofits, 358 grassroots associations, 213 human services and philanthropy, 248–253 increase in federal funding programs, 169 mutual benefit organizations, 328 youth and philanthropy, 530 See also Church-state separation; Union movement and philanthropy Government sector agency abuse of Native Americans, 283–284 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 594–596 curtailing role of foundations in seventeenth century Europe, 145 Elizabethan state, 241–242 interference in trusts, 591–594 lay governance, 342 versus private philanthropy, 322 public philanthropy, 402–404 replacing roles of friendly societies, 165 Tocqueville’s observations on democratic government and society, 597–600 Grace Dodge Hotel, Washington, D.C., 419 Grameen Bank, 266 Grand Canyon, 133 Grange movement, 325 Grantmaking, 204–209 alternative funds, 15, 16–17 Environmental Grantmakers Association, 136 environmental justice movement, 137–138 ethics and philanthropy, 141

870

European foundations, 143–147 Ford Foundation, 160–161 foundation payout, 162–163 government programs and public philanthropy, 403–404 INDEPENDENT SECTOR, 255–256 Native American public charities, 338 social change funds, 447–451 venture philanthropy, 489–490 youth and philanthropy, 529–531 “A Grantseeker’s Bill of Rights,” 208 Grantseeking, 209–211, 255–256, 798–812 The Grantsmanship Center, 352 GrantSmart website, 162 Grassroots associations (GA), 211–215 antilynching laws, 331 civil society as, 77 environmental justice movement, 136–138 global efforts, 184 Habitat for Humanity International, 219–220 INGOs, 265–266 lobbying, 10 Gratz, Rebecca, 215–216 Great Depression Booth, Evangeline, 54 community foundations, 92–93 consumer cooperatives, 100 financial federations, 150 food charities, 156 fundraising consultants, 168 health and nonprofits, 221 Julius Rosenwald Fund, 290 New Deal, 398–399 Great Riches (Eliot), 671–674 Great Society programs, 385, 398 Greco-Roman philanthropy, 237–239 Greece, ancient, 97, 308, 824–839 Greece, modern, 246 Green Revolution, 160 Greenacre Park, New York, 419 Greenbelt, Maryland, 100 Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, 158–159 Gregorian, Vartan, 180 Grenzebach, John, 19 Guatemalan immigrants, 227 Guggenheim family, 216–217 Guibert de Nogent, 269 GuideStar, 4, 45–46, 70, 112, 217–218, 261 Guilds, 95, 485–486 Gund, George, 732–733 Gwinn, Mary Mackall, 175–176 Haas, Walter and Elise, 822–824

Habitat for Humanity International, 219–220 Hale, Edward Everett, 439 Hale House, 439 Haleakala National Park, 420 Half Way Covenant, 391 Hall, Peter D., 327 Hamilton, Alexander, 393, 583–584, 722 Hampton Institute, 503–504, 659 Hanson, Abel, 38 Harlem Renaissance, 288 Harmon Gold Medal, 289 Harris, William B., 35 Harrison, Benjamin, 470 Harrison, Caroline Scott, 176 Harrison, William Henry, 394 Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, 217 Hart, Silas, 302 Hart Case. See Law of Charity Hartford Seminary, Connecticut, 516 Hartz, Louis, 394 Harvard College alumni organization, 515 alumni representation on governing boards, 342 direct mail fundraising, 117 fiduciary responsibility of trustees, 341 First Fruits program, 167, 171, 405, 568–569 governance mechanisms, 339–340 Higginson, Henry Lee, 225–226 Keayne’s bequests, 294 Mather, Cotton, 313 Harvard College and Massachusetts General Hospital v. Amory, 341 Hawaiians, 369–370, 641–643 Hawks, Roswell, 311 Haymarket People’s Fund, 455 Health and nonprofits, 220–225 federated fundraising, 150–151 health funds, 15 Kellogg’s contribution to children’s health, 295–296 public funding of nonprofits, 200–201 See also Hospitals; Medicine Health care for African Americans, 290 American Red Cross, 21–23 Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, 34–35 Canadian nonprofits, 58–59 settlement houses, 438 women’s giving circles benefiting, 523 See also Hospitals; Medicine Health Information Protection and Portability Act (1996), 224

Index

Health issues blood and organ donation, 22–23, 49–52, 168 Civil War Sanitary Commission, 395–396 Dorothea Dix’s efforts at asylum reform, 119–120, 604–605 environmentalism, 133 Gates foundations, 178–180 social capital and, 446 social marketing, 451–453 think tanks, 471–472 U.S. Sanitary Commission, 481–482 Health Maintenance Organization Act (1973), 222 Hebrew Sunday School, 215–216 Heffening, W., 271, 279 Hegel, G.W.F., 76, 185, 400 Henry, O., 689–692 Henry Ford Hospital, 158 Henry Street Settlement, 439, 501 Heritage Foundation, 472 Hero Fund, 61 Herodes Atticus, 144 Herrin, Judith, 271 Hewlett, William, 366–367 Hewlett Foundation, 137 Hewlett-Packard, 365 Higginson, Henry Lee, 225–226 Higher education, 514–519. See also Education; Education of African Americans The Higher Learning in America (Veblen), 342 Hill, Octavia, 378, 379 Hill-Burton Hospital Construction Act (1946), 221–222 Himmelfarb, Gertrude, 378, 379 Hispanic philanthropy, 226–229 Chavez, Cesar, 70–72 environmental justice movement, 136–138 Garcia, Hector Perez, 174–175 Hispanic funds, 17 mutual benefit organizations, 325 women of color in nonprofits, 521 Historical preservation, 158–159 History (Machiavelli), 97 History of American foundations, 229–233 History of philanthropy, 234–243 HIV/AIDS, 23 Hobbes, Thomas, 18, 96 Hofstadter, Richard, 394 Hogg, Ima, 243–245 Hogg Foundation for Mental Hygiene, 244 Hollins College, Virginia, 517

Hollis, Thomas, 341 Homeless citizens, 115–116 Homeowners associations, 325 Homestead Steel, 477 Honey Bee, 266 Hoover, Herbert Clark, 245–246, 289, 295–296, 398–399 Hospitals Byzantine Empire, 241 Catholic philanthropy, 61 Ford’s establishment of, 158 Franklin’s creation of, 164 Girard’s Bush Hill Hospital, 181 health and nonprofits, 220–224 Rockefeller on difficult in giving, 686 See also Health and nonprofits; Health care The House on Henry Street (Wald), 502 House Ways and Means Committee, 154 Housing construction, 219–220, 371, 378. See also Hull-House; Settlement houses Houston Child Guidance Center, 244 Houston Symphony Orchestra, 243–244 Howard University, Washington, D.C., 319–320 Howe, Julia Ward, 176 Howe, Samuel Gridley, 246–248 HP Way of management, 366–367 Huggins, George A., 20 Hull-House, 9 Charitable Effort, 664–667 creation of, 7 financial support for, 438 fundraising for, 167 Kelley, Florence, and, 294–295 settlement house movement and, 437 Twenty Years at Hull-House, 9, 397 women’s impact on philanthropy, 522 Hull-House Maps and Papers, 9 Human capital, 403–404 Human resources and nonprofits, 345 Human rights, 160–161, 266, 424 Human services and philanthropy, 248–254, 286–287 Humane Society of Philadelphia, 423 Humanitarian aid, 21–23, 264–267 Humanitarianism, 52–53 Hunger. See Food and antihunger charities Hunt, Morton, 379 Huntington, Collis P., 661–662 Hunton, William Alphaeus, 319 Hutchins, Robert Maynard, 290 Hyde, Lewis, 307–308 Idealism, 512 Identity crisis, 401

Ilchman, Warren E., 353 Ima Hogg Foundation, 244 Immigrants Asian Americans, 26–27 benevolent societies, 44–46 Benezet, Anthony, 46–47 Catholic philanthropy, 61 environmental justice movement, 136–138 friendly societies, 165–166 Gates’s opposition to, 718 Hispanic philanthropy, 227 mutual benefit organizations, 324 providing for orphans, 215 settlement houses, 439 “Summa Theologica,” 553–561 Imperfect duties, 321 In-house training for fundraising, 353 Incorporation of a charitable entity, 301–304 Independent Charities of America, 152 Independent foundations, 209 Independent sector. See Nonprofit sector INDEPENDENT SECTOR, 255–256 charity watchdogs, 68 Filer Commission, 154 fundraising strategies, 169 Hispanic philanthropy, 227 income tax deduction, 467 international nongovernmental organizations, 261 Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates, 855–857 NCCS, 334 public intellectuals, 399 responsive philanthropy and accountability, 416 trends in contemporary philanthropy, 101 India, 278 Indian Citizenship Act (1924), 337 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), 338 Indian Land Tenure Foundation, 338 Indian Rights Fund (IRF), 337 Indian Tribal Government Tax Status Act (1983), 338 Indigenous lands movement, 136 Indigenous peoples, 266. See also Native Americans Individual dignity, 397–398 Individual giving by household, 256–260 Individuality, 300 Industrial sector, 396–397, 695–705 Information resources, 261. See also Databases on philanthropy Information Return, 68

871

Index

Infrastructure organizations for nonprofits, 260–262 Inglis v. Trustees of the Sailor’s Snug Harbor, 302, 722 INGOs. See International nongovernmental organizations Inheritance taxes, 695–697 Inherited wealth, 698–705 The Inner Civil War (Fredrickson), 395 Inner Light of God, 391–392 Insane citizens. See Mentally ill citizens Inside ISTR journal, 268 Institut Marie Curie, 146 Institut Pasteur, 146 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), 111 Institute of Museum Services (IMS), 111 Institute on Philanthropy and Voluntary Service, 66 Institution of the Formation of Character, 362 Institutional foundations, 141–142, 162, 262–263 Insulin, 304 Insurance, health and life, 221, 224, 324, 325, 681–682 Intellectuals. See Public intellectuals on philanthropy Inter-American Democracy Network, 266 Inter-vivos charitable giving, 506 Internal Revenue Code (IRC), 384–385 benevolent societies, 45 foundation payout, 163 fraternal societies, 166–167 growth of nonprofit sector, 68 Sec. 170.–Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts, 839–855 tax advantages for corporate giving, 304 See also entries beginning with tax Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 3–5 charity watchdogs, 68 control of foundations, 231 Form 990s, 3–5, 21, 70, 334 NASCO oversight of nonprofits, 333 NCCS reporting form standardization, 334 political factions of nonprofits, 385 Unrelated Business Income Tax, 483 International Basic Economy Corporation (IBEC), 420 International Executive Service Corps, 420 International Fellowship Program, 160 International fundraising, 263–264 International Harvester Company, 315 International issues, 160–161

872

International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), 264–268 International organizations CIVICUS, 72–73 fundraising as a profession, 171 global nonprofit sector, 182–189 international NGOs, 264–267 U.S. foundations, 232 International Planned Parenthood Federation, 428 International Red Cross, 22, 42 International Save the Children Alliance, 265 International Service Agencies, 152 International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR), 232, 268–269 International Voluntary Agencies, 151 Internet E-philanthropy, 138–140 e-volunteering, 494 Foundation Center’s online journal, 162 fraternal societies, 166 GuideStar database, 217–218 impact on contemporary philanthropy, 102 information resources on nonprofits, 261 INGOs’ use of, 266, 267 ISTR, 268 NASCO’s Charleston Principles, 333 Invalids, role in Utopia, 485 Inventors, 103–104, 365–368 Investment Asian Americans, 30–31 foreign investment capital, 370 giving through investment funds, 259 philanthropy as investment rather than charity, 684–689 Investment in People (Embree and Waxman), 291 Invisible Man (Ellison), 307 Invisible Saints, 390–391 Iran, 271 Ireland, 146, 186 IRS. See Internal Revenue Service “Islam: Behind the Veil” (Christian Science Monitor), 269 “Islamic Laws Concerning Charity,” 706–708 Islamic philanthropy, 269–280 almsgiving, 413 anonymous giving, 23–24 early roots of philanthropy, 229 obligation to gave charity, 183 Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), 280–281 Israel, 186, 285, 287, 528

Issue advocacy, 9 Istook, Ernest, 201, 261 ISTR. See International Society for Third-Sector Research ISTR Report, 268 Italy, 145–146 Ivanhoe (Scott), 216 Jackson, Andrew, 394 Jackson, Blyden, 288 Jackson, Helen Maria (Fiske) Hunt, 283–284 Jackson, Jesse, 72 James, William, 401, 434 Japanese culture, 410, 420 Jarvie, James N., 528 Jay, John, 583–584 Jaycees, 318 Jefferson, Thomas, 181, 392–393 Jerusalem International YMCA ( JIA), 528 Jesup, Morris K., 663 Jewett, Sarah Orne, 176 Jewish Foster Home and Orphan Asylum, 215 Jewish philanthropy in American Society, 284–288 anonymous giving, 23, 24 “The Book of Seeds,” 553 “The Common Good: Old Idea, New Urgency,” 816–822 early philanthropy, 229 federated fundraising, 149 Good Samaritan and, 375 Gratz, Rebecca, 215–216 history of, 236–237 “Only Jews Solicited,” 705–706 Rosenwald, Julius, 422 service clubs, 432 Wald, Lillian D., 501–502 Jewish Service Corps, 286 Jim Crow, 74 Jimmy Carter Work Project, 220 Job-training programs, 156, 260 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 478 John Hay Whitney Foundation, 289 John M. Olin Foundation, 361 John Price Jones firm, 518 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 217 Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, 185–186, 263, 429–430 Johns Hopkins Medical School, 176 Johns Hopkins University, 371 Johnson, Andrew, 632–633 Johnson, Charles A., 65

Index

Johnson, Charles S., 288–289 Johnson, Elizabeth, 386–390 Johnson, Lyndon B., 110, 174, 385, 404 Johnson, Samuel, 393 Johnson, Tom L., 190 Jones, Absolom, 588–589 Jones, John Price, 168 Jones, Thomas Jess, 460–461 Joseph, James, 327–328 Journal of Social Issues, 389 Journalists, 509–510 Jubilee 2000, 267 Julius Rosenwald Fund, 12, 230–231, 288, 289–291, 422, 726 Jung, C.G., 316 The Jungle (Sinclair), 308 Junto Club, 164 Jupiter Stores, 298 Justice, 80–81, 136–138 Justinian, 144 Juvenile delinquents, 55 K-Mart, 298 Kaiser Family Foundation, 223, 478 Kamehameha schools, 369–370, 641–643 Kansas Endowment Association, 262 Kant, Immanuel, 141, 321 Karl, Barry D., 774–798 Katalysis, 266 Katz, Stanley N., 774–798, 824 Keayne, Robert, 293–294 Kelley, Florence, 7, 294–295, 501 Kellogg, Paul, 501 Kellogg, Will Keith, 295–296 Kelly, Kathleen S., 170, 353 Kennedy, Ethel, 72 Kennedy, Jacqueline, 244 Kennedy, John F., 385, 404, 480 Kennedy, Robert, 72 Kennedy Center, 244 Keppel, Fred, 461 Key, Francis Scott, 109 King, Elizabeth T., 175 King, Martin L. III, 76 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 74, 296–297, 399–400, 735–737 King, W.L. Mackenzie, 477 King Lear, 654–658 Kiwanis Club, 317, 433 Knights of Columbus, 96, 706 Knights of Labor, 693–694 Koran, 270, 706–708. See also Islamic philanthropy Kotler, Philip, 451 Kresge, Sebastian S., 297–298 Ku Klux Klan, 317, 635–636 “The Ku Klux Klan: Organization and Principles,” 635–636

Kula Ring, 410 Labor force. See Employment Labor unions. See Union movement and philanthropy Laird, Melvin, 366 Lake, Thomas A., 306 Land mines, 267 Land use and ownership Britain’s Statute of Charitable Uses, 563–564 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 594–596 endowments for women’s colleges, 517–519 Fletcher v. Peck, 301 Islamic endowments, 273, 278–279, 279–280 Kamehameha schools, 369–370 Native American rights, 337 New Harmony experiment, 362 public lands to benefit the mentally ill, 625–629 state control over state-created property, 301–302 stewardship, 458 Laney, Lucey Craft, 48 Lathrop, Julia, 7 Latinos. See Hispanic philanthropy Lauglo, Jon, 446 Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund, 478 Law of charity, 299–305 Lawrence, William, 167–168 Laws Concerning Gifts to the Poor (Maimonides), 553 Lawson, Charles E., 19 Lawyers Goff, Frederick Harris, 189–190 Goodrich, Pierre Frist, 190–191 Kelley, Florence, 294–295 Stanford, Leland, 456–457 Lay governance, 342 Learning To Give initiative, 530 Legal accountability, 3–5 Legal advocacy, 9 Legal issues in Islamic philanthropy, 273–274 Legislative advocacy, 9, 10, 38, 283–284 Letters from a Man of Colour (Forten), 161 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 410 Leviathan (Hobbes), 96 Levy, Sidney, 451 Lewis, John L., 150 Liberal pluralism, 399 Liberality, principle of, 140–141, 550–552 The Liberator newspaper, 73, 161, 597 Liberia, 109, 460

Libertarianism, 320–321 Liberty Fund, 23, 191 Liberty Fund Basic Memorandum, 191 Liberty Hill Foundation, 137 Libraries advent of intellectual life in colonial America, 392 Carnegie’s support of, 60 Center on Philanthropy, 65 Franklin’s creation of, 164 Moorland’s creation of Negro library, 319–320 Peabody funding for, 371 Library Company of Philadelphia, 164 Liens, 275 Lifetime giving, 380–381 Lifetime split-interest gifts, 381–382 Lila Wallace Fund, 112 Lilly, Eli, 304, 305–306 Lilly Endowment, 305–306 Center on Philanthropy, 65 community foundations, 91 creation of, 305 National Committee on Planned Giving, 336 Lincoln, Abraham, 394, 481 Lions Club, 317, 433 Lippmann, Walter, 398 Liquidating foundations, 230, 289–291, 361–362, 422, 721 Literacy programs, 57 Literature and philanthropy, 306–308 “The Chair of Philanthromathematics,” 689–692 Harlem Renaissance, 288 Little Women, 636–641 Utopian thought, 483–487 Litigation donor intent, 120–123 fiduciary responsibility of a trustee, 341 institutional foundations, 262–263 Little Women (Alcott), 636–641 The Lively Experiment (Mead), 394 Loans, 144, 589–591 Lobbying advocacy and nonprofit organizations, 9–11 contraception, 428 for hospitals, 35 hunger lobby, 158 for Native American rights and conditions, 337 Lohmann, Roger A., 430 Long-Mendez, Chayo, 531 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 158–159 Longoria, Felix, 174 Longwood Foundation, 230

873

Index

“Looking Backward and Forward” (Randolph), 726–730 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 485 Love, Emerson on, 602–603 Low, Juliette Gordon, 309 Lowell, John, Jr., 309–310 Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 310–311, 643–645 Lowell Institute, 309–310 Lucile Salter Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, 367 Ludlow Massacre, 477, 783 Lynch, Robert, 816–822 Lynching, 331, 470, 509 Lyon, Mary Mason, 311–312, 517, 522 MacArthur Foundation, 443, 478 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 97 Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, 502–503 Madam Walker Theatre Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, 503 Madigan (Ryan) v. Telemarketing Associates, 855–857 Madison, James, 384, 392–393, 583–587 Magdalen Society, 204 Magnificence, 140–141 Maimonides, 24, 236, 553 Major Barbara (Shaw), 307 Malcolm X., 12, 75, 400 Mamluks, 277 Man the Reformer (Emerson), 601–603 Management, 366, 493–494. See also Nonprofit management Manufacturing industry, 696 March of Dimes, 151 March on Washington, 297 Marcus, George, 277 Marcus Aurelius, 143 Maritain, Jacques, 88–89 Market competition, 83 Marketing marketing mix, 452–453 nonprofits, 63–64, 130–131, 451 social marketing, 451–453 Marshall, John, 301–302, 303, 392–393, 591, 594 Marts and Lundy, 518 Marx, Karl, 77, 400, 485 Mary Baldwin College, Virginia (formerly Augusta Female Academy), 517 Masonic Order, 181, 325 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 339, 512–514 Massachusetts General Hospital, 341 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 127 Massachusetts Pauper System, 474

874

Massieu, Jean, 173 Mather, Cotton, 164, 313–314, 570–574 Maurin, Peter, 115 Mauzé, Abby Rockefeller, 419 Mayo, Elton, 478 MBO. See Mutual benefit organizations McCarty, Oseola, 13, 314–315 McCormick, Cyrus, 315, 438, 528 McCormick, Katharine Dexter, 428 McCormick, Nettie Fowler, 315 McCrorey, John G., 298 McGuffey, William Holmes, 612–614 McLean, John, 341 Mead, Sidney, 394 Meals on Wheels, 156 Medal of Freedom, 72, 175, 369 Mediated-engagement strategies, 804 Medicaid program, 222 Medical Education in the United States and Canada. See Flexner Report Medical research, 146 Medicare program, 222 Medicine pharmaceuticals, 304 Rockefeller-funded research, 418, 420 Rush, Benjamin, 423–424 U.S. Sanitary Commission, 481–482, 629–631 Wald, Lillian D., 501–502 See also Health and nonprofits; Health care Medieval charitable structures, 145, 240–241 Meeting House, Quaker, 391–392 Mellon, Paul, 315–316 Membership associations, 316–318 INGOs as, 265 mutual benefit organizations, 324–329 Sierra Club, 322–324 Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (Mather), 313 Memorandum Society, 312 “Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature,” 604–605 Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), 420 Mendicant orders, 241 Mennonites, 569–570 Mentally ill citizens Dix’s advocacy for, 119–120, 604–605 Gallaudet’s support of, 173 Howe’s advocacy for care for, 247, 248 Senate bill providing lands for, 625–629 Mentoring, 353 Mercantilism, 393–394 Meriam Report, 461

Message from the President of the United States Returning to the Senate the Bill Entitled “an Act Making a Grant of Public Lands to the Several States for the Benefit of Indigent Insane Persons,” with a Statement of the Objections Which Have Required Him to Withhold from It His Approval, 625–629 Methodism, 577 Methodist Episcopal Church, 692–693 Mexican Americans, 174–175 Mexican War, 247 Mfume, Kweisi, 76, 332 Michelman, Henry, 816–822 Michigan Community Foundations’ Youth Project, 529, 530–531 Michigan Community Health Project, 296 Micro start-up grants, 267 Microsoft Corporation, 178–180 Middle ages medieval charitable structures, 145 mutual benefit organizations, 324 stewardship, 458 Migrant workers, 70–72 Military aviation, 368–369 Militias, 318 Mill, John Stuart, 76, 321 Mill industry, 362–363 Mills, C. Wright, 399 The Mind of the Millionaire (Atwood), 709–717 Mining industry, 245–246 Minnesota Prospect Research Association, 39 Minnesota Research in Fund Raising Association, 39 Minorities African American philanthropy, 11–14 alternative funds, 16–17 Asian American philanthropy, 26–33 Black United Funds, 16 environmental justice movement, 136–138 Hispanic philanthropy, 226–228 NAACP advocacy, 331–333 social purpose enterprises, 84–85 See also African Americans; Ethnicity “A Minute against Slavery Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting” (1688), 569–570 Mission of the organization, 318–319, 346–349 Missionaries Bacon, Leonard, 41–42 Catholic philanthropy, 61–63

Index

Mount Holyoke College graduates, 311–312 Randolph’s sermon supporting, 727–730 Salvation Army, 53 See also Evangelists Mississippi College for Women, 516 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 75 Mississippi Freedom Summer, 75 Mixed industries, 83 Mixed trust, 276 Mixer, Joe, 169 Model Law Act (1986), 333 Model Standards of Practice for the Charitable Gift Planner, 20 “A Modell of Christian Charity” (Winthrop), 512, 564–568 The Modern Corporation and Private Property (Berle and Gardiner), 343 “A Modern Lear,” 654–658 Moe, Henry Allen, 217 Monasteries, 144. See also Nuns Monitoring organizations, 68–70 Monjardino, Carlos, 72 Monomorphic grassroots associations, 212 Monster Bank, 394 Monterey Bay Aquarium, 367 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 297 Montgomery Improvement Association, 74 Moody, Dwight L., 168 Moorland, Rev. Jesse E., 319–320 Moorland Foundation, 320 Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, 320 Moral philosophy and philanthropy, 320–322 The Difficult Art of Giving, 684–689 ethics and philanthropy, 142 moral education, 305–306, 378 moral issues affecting charitable giving, 508 moral perfection, 574–577 Native American philanthropy, 336–337 women improving social conditions, 682–683 women’s organizations addressing, 511–512 Moravians, 362 More, Hannah, 308 More, Thomas, 483–487 Morgan, John Pierpont, 60, 370–371 Morris, William, 485 Mortmain philanthropy, 165, 242, 276, 721–722

Motives for charitable giving anonymous donations, 25–26 Asian Americans’ survival, home, and community building, 27–33 establishing foundations, 230 Filer Commission findings, 154 history of philanthropy, 234 by household, 258–259 income tax deduction, 466–467 The Mind of the Millionaire, 709–717 motives for volunteering, 493, 497 philanthropy as investment rather than charity, 684–689 reciprocity, 409–411 religion as factor, 411–413 stewardship, 457–459 trends in contemporary philanthropy, 102 wealth and philanthropy, 507–508 welfare of mankind as objective, 780–782 women’s higher education, 518–519 Mott, Charles Stewart, 36, 91, 443 Mott, John R., 528 Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, 311–312, 516, 517, 518 Ms. Foundation, 16 Mueller Macaroni Company, 482–483 Muhammad, Elijah, 12, 75 Muir, John, 133, 322–324 Mullanphy, Bryan, 231, 722 Multinational corporations, 265 Munn, Pamela, 446 Museums The Belmont Report, 110–111 Museum of Modern Art, 419 Museum of Primitive Art, 419–420 Stanford University, 456–457 Muslim Students Association (MSA), 280–281 Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA), 281 Mustaz’afin Foundation, 278 Mutual benefit organizations, 324–329 African Americans, 11–12 Asian Americans, 28–29 benevolent societies and, 45 “Preamble and Rules of the Philadelphia Free African Society,” 588–589 volunteering and, 495 See also Self-help groups Mutual interest groups, 45 Mutualistas, 325 NAACP. See National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP v. Patterson, 75

Nader, Ralph, 133 NASCO. See National Association of State Charity Officials Nation of Islam, 12, 74, 75 National Alliance for Choice in Giving (NACG), 152, 448 National American Woman Suffrage Association, 176 National and Community Service Act (1990), 57–58, 530 National Association for Hospital Development (NAHD), 35 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 331–333 African American philanthropy, 12 Bethune’s receiving the Spingarn Medal, 48 inception of, 74 Julius Rosenwald Fund, 290 Madam C.J. Walker’s support of, 503 public intellectuals on philanthropy, 397–398 Terrell, Mary Eliza Church, 469–470 Wald, Lillian D., and, 501 Washington’s refusal to support, 505 Wells-Barnett’s support of, 510 National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), 333 National Association of Colored Women (NACW), 469, 470 National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO), 139, 333–334 National Association on Indian Affairs, 337 National Black United Fund (NBUF), 12, 415–416, 448 National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCSS), 4, 45, 256, 334–335 National Center for Nonprofit Boards (NCNB), 52, 256 National Charities Information Bureau, 334 National Civic Federation, 790 National Civic League, 443 National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), 70, 152, 154, 415–416 National Committee on Foundations and Trusts for Community Welfare, 94, 106 National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG), 20, 335–336, 381–384 National Congress of American Indians, 337 National Consumers League, 295 National Council of American Indians, 337

875

Index

National Council of Negro Women, 48 National Council on Philanthropy, 255–256 National Counsel on Negro Affairs, 48–49 National Endowment for Arts and Humanities Act (1965), 110 National Endowment for the Arts, 160, 403 National federations, 15 National foundations, 89–91 National Gallery, Washington, 315–316 National Health Agencies, 151, 152 National Medal on the Arts and Humanities, 111 National Negro Committee, 331 National Network of Grantmakers, 163, 416–417 National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summits, 136–137 National Science Foundation, 403 National Service Agencies, 152 National society, 775 National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR), 37, 169 National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE), 37, 38, 169, 171. See also Association of Fundraising Professionals National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE), 45 Native American foundations, 16–17 Native American philanthropy, 336–339 Native American Rights Fund, 337 Native Americans Benezet’s promotion of ethnic equality, 47 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 594–596 Cuffe’s mother and wife, 107, 108 environmental justice movement, 136–138 Jackson’s advocacy of, 283–284 Phelps-Stokes Fund, 460–461 Quakers’ refusal to fight, 392 Saint Katharine Drexel’s support of, 125–126 YMCA, 527 Naturalists, 322–324 Nature Conservancy, 83, 137 NCCS. See National Center for Charitable Statistics Needs-based strategy, 807–808 Negro conventions, 73 Negro Education in the United States, 461 Negro Factory Corporation, 177 The Negro in Chicago, 288 Neighborhood Funders Group, 479 Neighborhood Guild, 437

876

Neighborhood Play House, 501 Neighborhood Preservation Initiative, 445 Nepal, 266 Netherlands, 186 Network for Good, 261 Networking, 38–39 Networks, benefits of social capital through, 441 New Deal, 245, 398–399 The New Democracy (Weyl), 398 New Englander journal, 41 New England’s First Fruits (1643), 171, 405, 568–569 New Harmony, Indiana, 362, 363, 486 New Harmony Gazette, 363 New Lanark mills, 362–363, 486 New philanthropy, 507–508 The New Republic journal, 398 A New View of Society (Owen), 362 New-wave cooperative, 100 New World Foundation, 479 New York Community Trust, 92, 230 New York Fund, 92 New York State Colonization Society, 460 New York University, 482–483 Newcomb, Josephine Louise, 518 Newcomb College, Tulane, Louisiana, 518 Newsday newspaper, 217 Niagara Movement, 397 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 140–141, 549–553 Nielsen, Waldemar A., 306 Nightingale, Florence, 481 Nilo Kennel and Farms, 361 Nixon, E.D., 74 Nixon, Richard M., 75, 372, 400 Nobel Peace Prize, 9, 22, 297 Noblesse oblige philanthropy, 806 Nondistribution of profits, 129–132 Nongovernmental organizations (NGO) global nonprofit sector, 184–185 international NGOs, 264–267 nonprofit sector, 356 social movement philanthropy, 454 See also Nonprofit sector Nongovernmental sector, 356 Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC), 352. See also Nonprofit management education Nonprofit failure, 359 Nonprofit governing boards, 191–199, 339–334 Nonprofit infrastructure organizations. See Infrastructure organizations Nonprofit management, 344–351

Nonprofit Management Association, 14 Nonprofit management education, 351–355 Nonprofit Program Classification (NPC), 334 Nonprofit Research News, 34 Nonprofit sector, 355–360 Alliance for Nonprofit Management, 14 ARNOVA, 35–36 Aspen Institute, 33–34 Canada, 58–59 cause-related marketing and sponsorships, 63–64 charity watchdogs, 68–70 Civil Rights movement, 73–76 commercialism in, 81–87 Council for Advancement and Support of Education, 105–106 cultural policy and philanthropy, 109–112 donor-advised funds, 124 E-philanthropy, 138–140 economic theories of nonprofits, 128–132 ethics in philanthropy work, 142 The Federalist Papers, 583–587 global nonprofit sector, 182–189 Goodrich’s involvement with, 191 governance of, 191–199 government-nonprofit sector relationship, 199–203 grantmaking, 204–209 grassroots associations, 211–215 growth among Native Americans, 337 GuideStar database, 217–218 health and nonprofits, 220–224 Hispanic immigrants’ distrust of, 227–228 human services and philanthropy, 248–253 hunger lobby, 158 infrastructure organizations, 260–262 international NGOs, 264–267 Mather’s influence on, 570–574 membership associations, 316–318 mission of the organization, 318–319 mutual benefit organizations, 324–329, 327 NASCO oversight of, 333 nonprofit marketing, 63–64, 451 political perspectives of, 384–386 professional fundraising, 169 public philanthropy, 402–404 public relations and philanthropy, 404–407 religion as creating factor, 414 social capital and, 443–446

Index

venture philanthropy, 489–490 women and, 519–521 youth and philanthropy, 530 See also Fundraising Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, 34 Nonprofit Times 100, 259 Norm of reciprocity, 410 Normative approach to nonprofit governance, 192–194 North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), 281 Northern nongovernmental organizations (NNGOs), 265 Northwest Area Foundation, 338 Nozick, Robert, 486 NSFRE Journal, 38 Nuns, 62, 125–126, 708–709 Nurses, 501–502 Nurses Settlement, 501 Oberlin College, Ohio, 516 Obscenity laws, 427–428 Occupational health and safety movement, 136 O’Connell, Brian, 72, 255 “Of the Use which the Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life” (Tocqueville), 597–600 Office, public, 79 Officers of governing boards, 197–198 Ohio State University, 416 Oil industry, 373, 417–418, 694–695 Old Dominion Foundation, 316 Olin, John Merrill, 361–362 Olin Industries, 361 Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation, 361 Oliveira, Miguel Darcy de, 72 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 481 On Benefits (Seneca), 238–239 On-the-job training for fundraising, 353 On the Meaning and Usage of the Word ‘Philanthropia’ (Tromp de Ruiter), 824–839 “Only Jews Solicited,” 705–706 Operating foundations, 209, 230 Operation Missed Giving Web, 68 Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life magazine, 288 Opportunity-based strategy, 808–809 Optional foundations, 230 Organ donation. See Blood and organ donation Organizational structure of nonprofits, 358–359 Organized charity movement, 310–311, 643–645 Orphan Train, 55–56

Orphans and orphanages Catholic philanthropy, 61 Girard’s provisions for, 181–182, 605–612 Gratz’s establishment of, 215–216 imperial Rome, 143, 144 Orphan Train, 55–56 perpetual endowment, 723 Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann, 437 Orr, Susan Packard, 367, 368 Ostrander, Susan A., 798–812 Ould v. Washington Hospital for Foundlings, 304 Outright lifetime giving, 380–381 Outsourcing of nonprofits, 84 Oversight. See Accountability Owen, Robert, 362–363, 485, 486 Owen, Robert Dale, 363 Owen family, 362–363 Ownership of social change funds, 449 Paca Street School, Baltimore, Maryland, 436 Pacifism Addams, Jane, 9 Benezet, Anthony, 47 Day, Dorothy, 116 Mennonites’ exhortation against slavery, 569–570 Packard, David, 365–368 Packard, Lucile, 365–368 Pact, 266 Paepcke, Walter, 33 Pahlavi Foundation, 278 Palliative giving, 231 Pan-Africanism, 107–109 Paramilitary organizations, 318 Park, Robert E., 288 Parker, Theodore, 395 Partial-interest rule of law, 381 Passive foundations, 205 Pasta manufacturing, 482–483 Patman, Wright, 94, 372 Paton, Alan, 461 Patriotism, 612–614 Patron saints, 97 Patronage, 654–658 Patterson, Alicia, 217 Patterson, Frederick Douglass, 368–369, 461, 480 Pauahi Paki Bishop, Bernice, 369–370, 641–643 Payton, Robert L., 65, 390, 400–401 Peabody, George, 370–371, 528, 633–635 Peabody, Riggs and Company, 370–371 Peabody Education Fund, 370–371, 633–635, 663 Peace College, North Carolina, 517

Peace Corps, 404 Penitentes (penitential confraternity), 96–97 Penn, William, 459 Penner, Louis, 389 Peoples Loan and Trust, 191 Percy, Charles, 371 Peremptory foundations, 205–206 Perfect duties, 321 Performance and nonprofit management, 349–350 Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma, 110 The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects, 110 Perkins School for the Blind, 246, 248 Permanent Charity Fund of Boston, 92 Perpetual foundations, 230, 721–726 Personal-engagement strategies, 803–807 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996), 66, 250–251 Peterson, Peter G., 371–372 Peterson Commission, 153, 255, 371–373, 421, 737–741 Pew Charitable Trusts, 112, 373, 445 Pew family, 373 Pew Memorial Foundation, 373 Phalansteries, 486 Pharmaceuticals, 304 Phelps, Anson Greene, 460 Phelps, W.W., 342 Phelps-Stokes Fund, 338, 460–461 Philadelphia Academy, 164 Philadelphia Free African Society, 588–589 Philadelphia Orphan Asylum, 215 Philanthropic Giving Index, 65 Philanthropic institutions, 60–61 Philanthropic Research, Inc. (PRI), 217–218 Philanthropic sector. See Nonprofit sector Philanthropy and the Good Samaritan, 239–240, 373–380, 410, 735–737 Philanthropy News Digest, 162 Phillips, Wendell, 395 Philosophy of giving. See Moral philosophy and philanthropy Photography, 127–128 Physics of philanthropy, 505–508 Pierce, Franklin, 120, 625–629 Pierce, Lyman L., 167, 168, 171 Pierce, Neal, 529 Pierce v. Society of the Sisters, 708–709 Pifer, Alan, 206 Pincus, Gregory, 428

877

Index

“Plan of Organization of the Sanitary Commission, with Approval of Secretary Cameron,” 629–631 Planned communities, 100, 378. See also Settlement houses Planned giving, 19–20, 335–336, 380–384, 465 Plato, 143, 229 A Plea for the West (oration), 44 Plessy v. Ferguson, 74 Pliny the Younger, 143 Pluralism, 386, 399, 485, 794 Plutarch, 824–839 Policymaking “The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere,” 774–798 government-nonprofit sector relationship, 199–201 nonprofit human services and public policy, 250–251 public policy issues, 361, 389 think tanks, 471–472 Polish refugees, aid for, 245–246 Political activity advocacy and nonprofit organizations, 9–11 civil society, 76–81 foundation funding blunting the impact of the environmental movement, 135–136 history of philanthropy, 234–235 Hogg, Ima, 244 Hoover, Herbert Clark, 245–246 Islamic trusts, 277–279 John M. Olin Foundation, 361 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 296–297 literature fomenting, 308 NAACP, 331–333 of nonprofits, 201 Owen, Robert Dale, 363 political governance, 78 political reform, 73–76 Rockefeller family, 420 think tanks, 471–472 unions movement and philanthropy, 477–479 U.S. foundations’ involvement in international politics, 232–233 Washington, Booker T., 504–505 Political campaign advocacy, 9–10 Political perspectives of nonprofit organizations, 384–386 Poll tax, 331 Pollock, Jackson, 217 Polymorphic grassroots associations, 212 Population Communication International, 267

878

Population control, 485 Population Council, 421 Porter, Noah, 342 Portes, Alejandro, 441–442 Poverty Catholic mendicant orders, 241 Charitable Choice, 66–68 damaging effect of inheriting riches, 698–705 food and antihunger charities, 155–158 Hispanic poverty rate, 226 imperial Rome’s provision for, 144 Keayne’s bequests to Boston, 293–294 MBOs addressing, 327 Native American foundations addressing, 17 organized charity movement, 643–645 Owen’s proposed reforms, 362 philanthropy in spite of, 314 private charity for the virtuous poor, 423 Rockefeller family involvement, 421 settlement houses, 7, 9, 437–439 social capital and, 444–445 Tuckerman’s elevation of the poor, 473–474 union alliance to combat, 479 Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime (Nearing), 698–705 Power elite, 399 Pranksters, 246–248 “Preamble and Rules of the Philadelphia Free African Society,” 588–589 A Preface to Politics (Lippman), 398 Presbyterians, 514 Prescriptive foundations, 205 Preservationists, 322–324 Presidential Medal of Freedom, 72, 175, 369 President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH), 111 Preventive giving, 231 Prince Hall Freemasons, 11, 325 Principles and Rules (Lowell), 643–645 Principles of giving, 687–688 “Principles of Public Giving” (Rosenwald), 721–726 Prisoners Barton’s service to, 42 Garvey, Marcus, 177 Maud Booth’s advocacy of, 53 Private action, 322 Private education, 708–709 Private foundations alternative funds, 15 “The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere,” 794

funding human services, 253 infrastructure organizations for nonprofits, 257 Islamic trusts, 275 Jewish philanthropy, 284 See also Foundations Private funding of global nonprofits, 188 Private goods, 87 Privatization of human services, 250–251 Proactive foundations, 205 The Problem of Indian Administration, 461 Procura, 65 Professional development, 260–261, 325 Professional organizations, 326, 333, 352 Professionalization of fundraising, 84, 169–172, 263–264 Profile of AFP Members (AFP), 353 Program services for nonprofits, 82 Progressive movement, 294, 784–788 Progressive Policy Institute, 472 Prohibition, 298 Project grants, 403 The Promise of American Life (Croly), 398 Prophets of Perfection, 395 Proposal writing. See Grantseeking Prosocial behavior, 386–390 Prospect research, 39 Prostitutes, 204 Protected workshops, 84 Prudence, 581–582 Psychology, 386–389, 423 Public action, 322 Public benefit versus mutual benefit, 327–328 Public charities, Native American, 338 Public funding, 199–203, 249–250, 261. See also Government-nonprofit sector relationship Public good, 87, 402–404, 441 Public health. See Health care Public intellectuals on philanthropy, 390–402 Public interest groups, 45, 316–318 Public philanthropy, 402–404 Public policy issues, 361, 389 Public relations and philanthropy for nonprofits, 404–407 Public Relief and Private Charity (Lowell), 643–645 Public service, 57–58, 201, 317 Publicity firms, 405 Publius, 583–584 Pullman Porters Union, 74, 655–658 Puritans Keayne, Robert, 293–294 Mather, Cotton, 313–314

Index

public intellectuals on philanthropy, 390–391 Winthrop, John, 512–514 Putnam, Robert, 440 Qadri Pasha, 275 Quakers aiding fugitive slaves, 475–476 Benezet, Anthony, 46 Cuffe’s upbringing and acceptance by, 107–109 Franklin, Benjamin, 589 Hoover, Herbert Clark, 245–246 public intellectuals on philanthropy, 391–392 Qualifying distribution, 163 Queen and Parliament of Great Britain; the Statute of Charitable Uses an Act to Redress the Misemployment of Lands, Goods, Stocks, and Money Heretofore Given to Charitable Uses (1601), 563–564 Qur’an. See Koran Rabinowitz, Alan, 415 Race relations, 461 Race Relations Institute, 289 Race riots, 288, 297 Racial justice, 422 Racism against Asian Americans, 26–27 MBOs addressing, 327 Wells-Barnett’s efforts against, 509–510 Railroad industry porters’ unions, 74, 478, 655–658 railway ownership, 190 Stanford, Leland, 456–457 YMCA and, 527 Raising Money (Washington), 658–664 Ramona ( Jackson), 283 Randolph, A. Philip, 74, 478 Randolph, Florence Spearing, 726–730 Raybin, Arthur D., 19 Ready, Bill, 36 Reagan, Ronald, 75, 111, 416, 472 Reaper, mechanical, 315 Recipient-side philanthropic strategies, 807–810 Recipients, 798–812 Reciprocity, 409–411 Asian American philanthropy, 29–30 Packard, David and Lucile, 367 prosocial behavior, 387, 388–389 serial reciprocity, 376 service clubs, 432–433 settlement houses, 437–439

social capital, 441 wealth and philanthropy, 508 Reconciliation, 81 Reconstruction, 12, 73–74 Recreational clubs, 326–327 Red Bird, 337 Red Crescent, 22 Red Cross. See American Red Cross A Red Record (Wells-Barnett), 509 Reed, Deborah, 164 Reform foundation abuses, 372 Owen’s proposed educational and social reforms, 362–363 personal, 601–603 think tanks, 471–472 Regional networks, 268 Regulation in the healthcare industry, 224 Reinventing Fundraising: Realizing the Potential of Women’s Philanthropy (Shaw and Taylor), 523–524 Relationship building, 140 Relief societies, 675–676, 705–706 Religion and philanthropy, 411–415 African American philanthropy, 11–13 American decline, 301 anonymous giving, 23–26 Bacon, Leonard, 41–42 benevolent societies, 44–46 Brace’s pioneering of foster care, 55–56 Canadian nonprofits, 58–59 Catholic philanthropy, 61–63 Charitable Choice provision, 66–68 common good, 87–89 “The Common Good: Old Idea, New Urgency,” 816–822 confraternity, 95–97 contemporary philanthropy, 100–101 “Cooperation among Negro Americans,” 674–682 early roots of philanthropy, 229 The Elizabethan Poor Law, 561–563 Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, 6 food and antihunger charities, 155 free speech and religion, 733–734 free transportation as issue in Everson v. Board of Education, 730–732 freedom of religion, 414 gift annuities, 20 Girard’s opposition to religion in education, 182 giving as moral obligation, 141 grassroots associations, 212

Habitat for Humanity International, 219–220 health care, 221 Hispanic philanthropy, 227 history of philanthropy, 234, 236–240 Islamic philanthropy, 269–281 Jewish philanthropy, 284–287, 705–706 Kresge, S.S., 297–298 Lilly’s interest in, 305–306 Madam C.J. Walker’s support of churches, 503 McCormicks’ support of, 315 Mennonites’ exhortation against slavery, 569–570 “A Modell of Christian Charity,” 564–568 Mount Holyoke College, 311–312 Muir’s religions convictions and scientific education, 323 mutual benefit organizations, 325, 327 Native American philanthropy, 336–337 Owen family’s questioning of, 362–363 percentage rule of lobbying activity, 10 promoting altruism, 18 public intellectuals on philanthropy, 390–391 Randolph’s sermon supporting, 727–730 religious role of the nonprofit sector, 357 roots of the global nonprofit sector, 183 Salvation Army, 53–55 social capital and, 444 “The Social Creed of the Churches,” 692–693 stewardship, 457–459 “Summa Theologica,” 553–561 Tappans’ evangelism and anti-slavery activities, 463–464 theories of the nonprofit sector, 359 “The Use of Money,” 577–583 Winthrop’s personal struggles, 512 women, higher education, and philanthropy, 514 See also Christian tradition; Churchstate separation; Clergy; Evangelists; Islamic philanthropy Renaissance, 95–97, 241, 308 Report on the Conditions and Needs of the Mission Indians of California ( Jackson), 283 Reproductive rights contraception, 427–428 family planning, 421, 427–428

879

Index

Reproductive rights, cont. Lucile Packard’s support of, 367 Rockefeller support of, 421 Research “The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere,” 774–798 Curti, Merle Eugene, 112–113 Filer Commission, 153–154 Foundation Center, 162 infrastructure organizations for nonprofits, 260 International Society for Third-Sector Research, 268–269 National Center for Charitable Statistics, 334–335 philanthropy as a social relation, 798–812 on self-help groups, 431 on service learning, 434–435 social capital, 442–443 social change funds, 448 think tanks, 471–472 Research Papers, 154 Resource management, 399 “Responsibility in the Management of Societies” (Bacon), 614–623 Responsive philanthropy, 163, 415–417 Restitution, 387, 389 Restricted gift, 120 Retirement plans, 61, 667–668 Revenue finances of nonprofits, 358 government funding of nonprofits, 403–404 health services organizations, 222 international NGOs, 265 NAACP, 332–333 nonprofit human services, 249–250 nonprofit management, 345–346 Revenue Act (1913), 384 Revenue Act (1950), 477 Revolutionary War church-state separation, 340–341 Forten’s service in, 161 Franklin, Benjamin, 164 Girard’s smuggling, 180 law of charity, 299–301 public intellectuals, 392–393 Quakers’ abdication from, 392 Rush’s medical service, 423 Richmond, Mary, 397 Right of association, 75 Right of participation, 79 Risks in giving, 375–379 Ritter, Bruce, 344 Ritter, William C., 177 Rivera, Diego, 159

880

Robbins, Kevin, 486 Robert and Matthew Payton Philanthropic Studies Library, 65 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 478 Robertson, Dennis, 51 Robin Hood Was Right!, 16 Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society, 100 Rockefeller, Abby Aldrich, 419 Rockefeller, David, 110, 420 Rockefeller, John D. III, 153, 255, 371–372, 420 Rockefeller, John D. IV, 421 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 368, 419 Rockefeller, John Davidson, Sr., 417–418 black YMCAs, 528 controversy over foundation charter, 782–783 The Difficult Art of Giving, 684–689 ethics and philanthropy, 141 fundraising, 168 Goff, Frederick Harris, 189 history of American foundations, 230 stewardship concept, 459 “Thoughts on the Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions,” 717–721 Tuskegee Institute support, 504 United Negro College Fund, 480 Rockefeller, Laurance S., 420 Rockefeller, Nelson A., 419 Rockefeller, Winthrop, 420 Rockefeller, Winthrop, Jr., 421 Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 36, 110, 419, 421 Rockefeller family, 418–422, 517 Rockefeller Family Fund, 421 Rockefeller Foundation Act of Incorporation, 694–695 bailing out the Rosenwald Fund, 290–291 cultural policy and philanthropy, 111, 112 grantmaking, 205 history of American foundations, 230, 232 labor strikes, 477 Rockefeller Institute, 418 Rockwin Fund, 420 Roelofs, Joan, 486 Rogers, Julia, 175 “The Role of Philanthropy in a Changing Society,” 737–741 Roman Empire, 143–144, 229, 237–239, 271 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 48, 74, 290 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Bethune, Mary, and, 48 civil rights movement, 74

Civilian Conservation Corps, 404 cultural policy and philanthropy, 110 Hoover and, 245–246 Johnson, Charles S., and, 289 public intellectuals on philanthropy, 398–399 United Negro College Fund, 480 Roosevelt, Theodore, 9, 398, 504 ROPES process, 406–407 Rosen, Harry, 37–38 Rosenwald, Julius, 165, 422–423, 528, 721–726. See also Julius Rosenwald Fund Ross, Fred, 71 Rosso, Henry A., 65, 169 Rotary Clubs, 433 Rudney, Gabriel, 154 Rule of law, 80 Rush, Benjamin, 392, 393, 423–424 Ruskin, John, 378 Russell Sage Foundation, 425–426, 478, 682–683, 781 Ryan v. Telemarketing Associates, 855–857 Sadaqah (Islamic freewill charitable offering), 272–273, 706–708 Sage, Margaret Olivia Slocum, 425–426, 682–683, 781 Sage, Russell, 425–426, 682–683 Saguaro Institute, 442 Sail makers, 161 Sainte Marie, Buffy, 338 Salamon, Lester M., 317 Salem Academy, North Carolina, 516 Salem witch trials, 313 Salter, Lucile. See Packard, Lucile Salvadoran immigrants, 227–228 Salvation Army, 53–55, 426–427 Samaritans organization, 376 San Francisco earthquake, 216 San Francisco Foundation, 94, 122, 137 Sanger, Margaret, 427–428 Sanitary Commission. See U.S. Sanitary Commission Santa Rita Award, 244 Sasanian Empire, 270, 271 Scams, Good Samaritan, 375 Scandals Ludlow Massacre, 477, 783 malfeasance at United Way, 151–152 nonprofits and charity watchdogs, 68 prominent nonprofits, 344 See also Corruption Schaller, Henry, 65 Schenley Vineyards, 72 Schervish, Paul G., 430, 459, 798–812 Schiff, Jacob, 439, 501 Schmidt, Alvin, 166

Index

School meals system, 156 Schuller, Tom, 441, 442–443 Schwerner, Michael, 75 Scientific charity, 310–311 Scope of the global nonprofit sector, 186 Scott, Richard, 388 Scott, Walter, 216 Sea trading, 108–109 Sears, Roebuck, and Co., 422, 721 Sec. 170.—Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts, 839–855 Secret societies, 12, 635–636, 681–682, 693–694 Segregation Civil Rights Act (1964), 734–735 civil rights movement, 74 of Latinos, 174 NAACP efforts against, 332 Terrell’s fight for, 470–471 Self-help groups, 428–432 Habitat for Humanity International, 219–220 INGOs, 266 mutual benefit organizations, 326–327 organized charity movement, 310–311 Tuckerman’s activism for the poor, 474 unions as self-help organizations, 477 Self-study for fundraising, 353–354 Seminary movement, 516 Senate Finance Committee, 467 Seneca, 23, 238–239 Seneca Falls Declaration, 623–625 Senior citizens, 59 September 11, 2001, 23, 139–140, 257, 317 Serial reciprocity, 376, 409–411. See also Reciprocity Sermons, 726–730 Service, philanthropy of, 685–686 Service clubs, 432–433 Service learning, 433–435, 530 Service sector, 186–187, 220–224 Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann, 61, 435–437, 631–632 Seton, William Magee, 435–436 Seton Hall College, 631–632 Settlement houses, 294, 397, 437–439, 501–502. See also Hull-House Seven Generations Circle of Women, 523 Seventh Generation Fund, 338 Sexual relationships, 485 Seymour, Harold “Si,” 168 Shah of Iran, 278 Shakers, 362 Sharp, Granville, 108 Shaw, George Bernard, 307 Shelley, Mary, 307

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 308 Shirley, Eliza, 427 Shivers, Allan, 244 Sicard, Abbe, 173 Sierra Club, 133, 135, 322–324 Sierra Leone, 108–109 Significance in charitable giving, 508 Silent Spring (Carson), 133 Silverstein, Leonard L., 154 Simmons, John, 518 Simmons Female College, Massachusetts, 518 Simms, William R., 37–38 Simon, Herbert, 18 Simon, William H., 362, 445 Simple Wisdom for Rich Living (McCarty), 314 Sinclair, Upton, 308 Sisters of Charity, 435–437, 437, 631–632 Six S Association, 266 Sklar, Benjamin, 37–38 Slater Fund, 504, 663 Slavery, 11–12 The American Anti-Slavery Society: Constitution, 597 Barton’s support of “Negro rights,” 42 Benezet’s antislavery efforts, 46–47 Civil Rights movement, 73–76 common good justifying, 88 “Cooperation among Negro Americans” (Du Bois), 674–675 Howe’s antislavery activity, 246, 247 Mennonites’ exhortation against, 569–570 Rush’s efforts to abolish, 423–424 Sojourner Truth’s activism, 473 Underground Railroad, 475–476 Slee, J. Noah, 428 Small, Mary, 727–730 Smith, Adam, 76, 393 Smith, David Horton, 36, 388–389, 490 Smith, Gerrit, 395 Smith, Reginald Heber, 9 Smith, S.L., 289–290 Smith, Sophia, 518 Smith College, Massachusetts, 416, 518 Smith v. Barlow, 104, 116 Smithson, James, 439–440 Smithsonian Institution, 439–440 Smoking ban, 191 Snapshots, 34 Snug Harbor, 302, 722 Social action antilynching activities, 509–510 commercialization of nonprofits through social purpose enterprises, 84–85

common good, 87–89 responsive philanthropy, 415–416 Social action funds, 16 Social capital, 356–357, 403–404, 440–447 Social change funds, 447–451 Social Change Philanthropy in America (Rabinowitz), 415 Social clubs, 326–327 Social conservatism, 668–671 Social control, social capital as source of, 441 The Social Creed of the Churches, 692–693 Social exchange theory, 388–389 Social Gospel tradition, 397, 400, 692–693 Social institutions: systems of civil society, 78 Social justice, 80–81, 337 Social marketing, 451–453 Social movements, 183, 316, 734–735 Social movements and philanthropy, 453–456 Social policy, 774–798 Social psychology, 386–389 Social-purposes enterprise projects, 84–85, 346 Social reform “Charitable Effort” (Addams), 664–667 Civil Rights movement, 73–76 Kelley, Florence, 294–295 Kresge, S.S., 298 poverty and charity, 310–311 Seneca Falls Declaration, 623–625 Social relations, 455, 798–812 Social science, 792–794 Social services European foundations, 146 human services and philanthropy, 248–253 tzedakah (righteous giving), 285–286 Social settlement movement, 7–9, 664–667. See also Settlement houses Social work. See Addams, Jane Socialism, 294–295, 398, 485, 511 Socialist Party members, 115 Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, 47 Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, 436 Society of American Indians (SAI), 337 Society of Friends. See Quakers Society of Sisters, 708–709 Socrates, 238 Sodality, 95, 97

881

Index

Soldiers Field, 226 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection of Non-Objective Art, 216–217 Solow, Robert M., 51 “Some Random Reminiscences of Men and Events” (Rockefeller), 684–689 The Souls of Black Folk (Du Bois), 397–398 Soup kitchens. See Food and antihunger charities South Africa, 774 South African Council on Race Relations, 461 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 74, 76, 297, 332 Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (Wells-Barnett), 509 Sovereignty, 80, 338, 461 Soviet Union collapse, 265 Spain, 145 Speech, freedom of, 855–857 Spelman College, Georgia, 419, 517 Spingarn, Arthur B., 320 Spirituality as motive for giving, 507 Split-interest contributions, 380, 381–382 Split-interest gifts for survivors, 382–384 Sponsorships, 83 S.S. Kresge Foundation, 297–298 St. Ann’s Church for the Deaf, 173 Staff members, ethics and, 142 Staffing of nonprofits, 358–359 Stager, Henry, 527 Standard Oil, 417–418 Stanford, Jane Lathrop, 176, 456–457 Stanford, Leland, 456–457 Stanford Home for Convalescent Children, 366 Stanford University, 245, 246, 365–366, 456–457 Starr, Ellen Gates, 7 State Charities Aid Association (SCAA), 310–311 Statue of Liberty restoration fund, 63, 83 Statute of Charitable Uses Act (1601), 563–564 Staub, Ervin, 387, 388 Steinbeck, John, 308 Stewardship, 211, 236–237, 411, 457–459 “Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response,” 814–816 Stoddard, Salomon, 391 Stoics, 23 Stokes, Anson Phelps, 461 Stokes, Caroline Phelps, 460–461

882

Stokes, Olivia Eggleston Phelps, 460–461 Stonesifer, Patty, 178, 179 Story, Joseph, 182, 303 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 44, 308 Strategic plan of a nonprofit, 193–195, 203, 205–206, 346–349 Strikes, labor, 477 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 75 Suffrage, African Americans and Native Americans, 108, 331, 332 Suffrage, women’s Addams, Jane, 9 Garrett, Mary Elizabeth, 175, 176 higher education and, 516–517 Kelley, Florence, 295 mutual benefit organizations, 324 Sage, Margaret Olivia Slocum, 426 Seneca Falls, 395 Terrell, Mary Eliza Church, 469–471 Wald, Lillian D., 501–502 Wells-Barnett’s involvement, 509 Willard, Frances E., 511–512 Sufism, 277 Sulek, Marty, 824–839 Sullivan, Leon, 774 Sullivan Principles, 774 “The Summa Theologica” (St. Thomas Aquinas), 553–561 Sun Oil Company, 373 Super-X shotgun shell, 361 Support centers, 353 Support Centers of America, 14 Support groups, 326–327, 428–431 Supreme Court, U.S., 12 Amistad case, 464 claims against Leland Stanford’s estate, 457 contraception issue in Griswold v. Connecticut, 427 federated fundraising in the workplace, 151 Girard Will Case, 182 law of charity, 301–304 Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates, 855–857 membership associations, 317 Native American gaming laws, 338 right of association, 75 segregation, 470–471 states’ limiting philanthropy, 439–440 Surrey, Stanley S., 372, 465 Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, 257 Survival as philanthropic motivation, 27–29 Sustainable development, 265, 266

Sweatshops, 295 Sweden, 145, 146 Sweeney, John, 479 Sweet Briar College, Virginia, 518 Swift, Jonathan, 308 Swindlers, 689–692 Sydney, Philip, 308 Synergos Institute, 421 Taconic Foundation, 478 Taft, William Howard, 398 Taft-Hartley Act (1947), 150 “Tainted Money” (Gladden), 668–671 Takeovers, 116–117, 129 “Taking Fundraising Seriously” (symposium), 65 Talented tenth, 398 Talmud, 286 Tappan, Arthur, 463–464 Tappan, Lewis, 395, 463–464 Target Corporation, 116 Targeting audiences, 452–453 Tariff Act (1894), 384, 482 Task forces of governing boards, 198–199 Tax deduction and philanthropy, 464–469, 839–855 Tax-exempt sector accountability, 3–4 advocacy and nonprofits, 9–10 Canadian nonprofits, 58 community foundations, 91 described, 356 friendly societies, 165 government oversight of nonprofits, 358 healthcare organizations, 222 political factions of nonprofits, 384–386 union movement and philanthropy, 477 Unrelated Business Income Tax, 482–483 See also Nonprofit sector Tax Reform Act (1969) community foundations, 91, 94 Council on Foundations, 106–107 Filer Commission, 415 foundation payout, 163 international nongovernmental organizations, 261 nonprofit governing boards, 343 Peterson Commission and, 372 Tax Reform Act (1976), 385 Tax Reform Act (1986), 467 Taxes Council on Foundations, 106–107 documentation of grant requests, 211 donor-advised funds, 124

Index

economic theories of nonprofits, 128–132 Filer Commission study, 153–154 government involvement in nonprofits, 200–202 grassroots associations, 212 GuideStar database, 217–218 household giving, 258 Internal Revenue Service, 3–5 international fundraising, 264 Islamic endowments, 277–279 law of charity, 304 Peterson Commission’s analysis of foundation tax incentives, 371–372 planned giving, 380–384 Unrelated Business Income Tax, 482–483 zakat (Islamic alms-tax), 272 Taylor, Joseph, 518 Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF), 61, 667–668 Technical assistance centers, 353 Technology E-philanthropy, 140 e-volunteering, 494 Gates, William H., III, 178–180 Guggenheim aeronautics fund, 216 GuideStar database, 217–218 Hewlett-Packard, 365–368 NASCO’s Charleston Principles, 333 upgrading medical care, 221 Technoserve, 267 Telemarketing, 855–857 Television, 310 Tempel, Eugene R., 65, 353 Temperance movement Beecher, Lyman, 43 Kresge, S.S., 298 mutual benefit organizations, 324 Rush’s contribution to, 423 Tocqueville on, 599–600 Willard, Frances D., 511–512 Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, 66 Tenement housing, 460 Terman, Fred, 366 Terrell, Mary Eliza Church, 469–471 Terrorism. See September 11, 2001 Testamentary gifts, 382–384 Textile Workers Union, 477 Textron Corporation, 477 Theophrastus, 143 The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith), 393 Therapeutic philanthropy, 803–804 Think tanks, 471–472

Third sector, 356. See also Nonprofit sector Third-sector issues. See International Society for Third-Sector Research Thomas, M. Carey, 175–176 Thompson, Smith, 302–303 Thompson Cafeteria, 470–471 Thoreau, Henry David, 133 Thoughts on the Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions (Gates), 717–721 The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life (King), 735–737 TIAA-CREF, 61, 667–668 Tidewater intellectuals, 392–393 Tikun Olam (repairing a broken world), 286 Tilden, Samuel J., 304 Timberland, 83 Tinker Foundation, 232 Tithing, 116, 236, 412–413, 458, 707 Titmuss, Richard, 50–51 To Preserve an Independent Sector, 255 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 303, 324, 394, 597–600 Toleration Act (1819), 303 Tom Thumb locomotive, 103 Torah, 286 Toynbee Hall, 437 Transactions costs, 128 Transparency in nonprofits, 344 Transparency International, 266 Travelers’ fund, 231, 722 Treasury Department, U.S., 154 Treaties, 594–596 Trent, William, 480 Trickle Up, 267 Trilateral Commission, 366, 420, 472 Trobriand Islanders, 410 Tromp De Ruiter, S., 824–839 Troy Seminary, New York, 425, 516 “True and False Philanthropy” (McGuffey), 612–614 Truman, Harry S, 246, 289 Trust as motive for giving, 228, 377 Trust in nonprofits, 347 Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 301–302, 591–594 Trustees of the Philadelphia Baptists Association v. Hart’s Executors, 302 Trusteeship, 79 Trusts accountability of, 41 Benjamin Franklin’s bequests, 589–591 community trusts, 189–190 Dartmouth College, 591–594 donor intent, 120–123 Girard Will Case, 605–612

Islamic philanthropy and trusts, 272, 273–280, 276 law of trusts, 299–300 Lowell Institute, 309–310 “Responsibility in the Management of Societies,” 614–623 Smithsonian Institution, 439–440 Truth, Sojourner, 473 Tubman, Harriet, 475 Tucker, St. George, 393 Tuckerman, Joseph, 473–474 Turgot, A.J.R., 145 Tuskegee Airmen, 368–369 Tuskegee Female College, Alabama, 517 Tuskegee Institute, 289–290, 368, 504, 658–664, 724 Tuskegee Machine, 504–505 Twelve-step programs, 326–327, 428–429 Twentieth Century Fund, 478 Twenty Years at Hull-House (Addams), 9, 397 Two-Way Symmetrical Model of public relations, 406 Tzedakah (righteousness), 285–286. See also Jewish philanthropy in American Society ’Umar ibn al-Khattab, 273 UNCF. See United Negro College Fund Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 308 Underground Railroad, 12, 127, 475–477, 675 Undersea exploration, 367 UNICEF, 246 Unified Registration Statement (URS), 333 Union Community Fund, 152, 479 Union movement and philanthropy, 477–479 African American unions, 74 Knights of Labor, 693–694 membership associations, 316 mutual benefit organizations, 325, 326 National Farm Workers Association, 70–72 Owen’s reforms, 362–363 women’s unions, 502 workplace fundraising, 150 Union of International Associations (UIA), 265 Unitarian Church, 119–120, 473–474 United arts funds, 16, 152 United Farm Workers, 70–72 United Hebrew Charities, 432 United Nations INGOs, 267 United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), 246

883

Index

United Negro College Fund (UNCF), 368, 419, 461, 480 United War Work Campaign, 528 United Way alternative funds and, 14, 15 competing with community foundations, 94 federated fundraising in the workplace, 149–152 funding human services, 251–253 NCCS, 334 scandals, 344 success of social change funds, 448 United Way’s funding of Womens Way, 450 unresponsive philanthropy, 416 See also Federated fundraising Unitrusts, 381 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 12, 177 University of Chicago, 168, 419, 478, 723–724 University of Kansas, 262 University of Pennsylvania, 164 University of Rochester, New York, 127 University of Southern Mississippi, 314 University Settlement, 437 Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBI), 482–483 Unwed mothers, 53, 54 Up from Slavery (Washington), 504 Urban Institute, 334 Urban League, 12 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 480 U.S. Charities Regulatory Commission, 69 U.S. Congress. See Congress, U.S. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 155 U.S. Department of Labor, 492 U.S. Sanitary Commission (USSC), 395–396, 481–482, 629–631, 778 U.S. Supreme Court. See Supreme Court, U.S. U.S. Treasury Department, 467 U.S. v. One Package, 428 USAID, 480 “The Use of Money” (1744), 577–583 Utilitarian movement, 18, 141–142 Utopian experiments, 362–363, 600–601 Utopian thought, philanthropy in, 483–487 Values grassroots associations, 214–215 hard work, 297–298 Jewish philanthropy, 285–287

884

Van Til, Jon, 417 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 527 Varah, Chad, 376 Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historical Park, Texas, 244 Vassar Female Academy, New York, 517–518 Veblen, Thorstein, 342 Venture-capital giving, 231, 420 Venture philanthropy, 489–490 Veterans organizations, 326 Veterinarians, 368–369 Vetvier Network, 266 Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 302–303 VietNow National Headquarters, 856–857 Villa Lewaro National Historic Landmark, New York, 503 Violence, 297 Virgin Islands National Park, 420 Virtual Volunteering Project, 494 Virtue, moral, 549–553 Visible Saints, 390–391 Visiting Nurse Service, 501 Vital center model, 399 Vocational Guidance Services, 84 Voluntarism, 490–494 Asian Americans, 33 Beecher’s effect on public attitudes towards, 43–44 confraternities, 95–97 medieval Catholic philanthropy, 241 public philanthropy and, 403–404 self-help groups, 429–430 Utopian thought, 483–487 Voluntary accountability, 5–6 Voluntary sector. See Nonprofit sector Voluntas journal, 268 Volunteer management, 493–494 Volunteering, 494–499 Association for Volunteer Administrations, 36–37 Campus Compact, 57–58 Canadians, 59 colonial America, 300 contemporary philanthropy, 101 corporate volunteerism, 83, 104–105 Emerson on, 601–603 food and antihunger charities, 155 grassroots associations, 211–215 Habitat for Humanity International, 219–220 Hispanic philanthropy, 227 international fundraising, 263–264 levels in the global nonprofit sector, 186–188 membership associations, 317 nonprofit management, 345

prosocial behavior, 389 reciprocity, 410 religion is motivating factor, 412 Tocqueville on, 597–600 women as volunteers, 521 Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), 404 Volunteers of America, 53 Von Karman, Theodore, 216 Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr., 307 Voting rights. See Suffrage Voting Rights Act (1965), 75 Voucher systems for food charities, 156 Wage inequality, 520 Wagner, Lilya, 353–354 Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 307 Wald, Lillian D., 439, 501–502 Walden (Thoreau), 133 Walker, Madam C.J., 12, 13, 502–503, 522 Walsh Commission, 783 Walter and Elise Haas Fund, 822–824 Waqf (Islamic endowed freewill offering), 273–280. See also Islamic philanthropy War chest, 150 Ward, Charles Sumner, 167, 168, 171 Ward, Hill, Pierce and Wells, 168 Ward, Julia, 247 Ware, Henry, 341 Washington, Booker T., 289, 503–505, 510, 658–664 Washington, George, 392–393, 476 Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, 56 Watchdog organizations. See Charity watchdogs Watchdogs. See Charity watchdogs Waxman, Julia, 291 Wayside Inn, 158 Wealth and philanthropy, 505–509 Commission on Industrial Relations, 695–697 damaging effects of inherited wealth, 698–705 The Difficult Art of Giving, 684–689 responsibility of wealth, 709–717 women’s control of wealth, 519 Wealth distribution for Native Americans, 338 Wealth transfer model, 505–506 Webb, Beatrice and Sydney, 501 Webster, Daniel, 182 Webster, Noah, 393 Weidensall, Robert, 527 Welfare partnerships, 186–188 Welfare reform, 67

Index

Welfare Reform Act (1996), 66, 250–251 Welfare services. See Human services and philanthropy Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 518 Wells, Henry, 518 Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 509–510 Wells Seminary of New York, 518 Wesley, John, 457, 458, 577–583 Western Cartridge Company, 361 Weyl, Walter, 398 White, Walter, 74 White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999), 529, 531 White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, 67–68 White supremacy, 635–636 White-Williams Foundation, 204 Whitman, Walt, 308, 395 Widows, 435–437 Wiebe, G.D., 451 Wilbur, Cole, 367 Wilderness preservation, 322–324 Wilkins, Roy, 74, 75 “Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop,” 641–643 Willard, Emma, 425, 516, 522 Willard, Frances D., 511–512 William H. Gates Foundation, 178 Williams, Franklin Hall, 461 Williams, Indiana Fletcher, 518 Williams College, Massachusetts, 515–516 Wills and bequests fiduciary responsibility of trustees, 341 Franklin, Benjamin, 164–165, 589 Girard Will Case, 180–182, 605–612 history of philanthropy, 236 Keayne’s bequests to Boston, 293–294 law of charity and unincorporated charitable institutions, 301–302 McCormicks’ trust, 315 mortmain issues, 721–723 Pauahi Bishop, Bernice, 641–643 Peabody, George, 371 Phelps-Stokes Fund, 460 Smithsonian Institution establishment, 439–440 testamentary gifts, 383 Wilson, Carroll Atwood, 217 Wilson, E.O., 18 Wilson, Woodrow failure to support blacks, 505 Goff, Frederick Harris and, 190 Hoover and, 245 lynching, 331 opposing Roosevelt with New Freedom campaign, 398 Wald’s support of, 502 Winedale Inn, Texas, 244

Winthrop, John, 512–514, 564–568 Wischnewetsky, Lazare, 295 Wise Giving Alliance, 5 Witchcraft, 313 W.K. Kellogg Foundation, 36, 52, 91, 232, 296, 443, 529 The Woman Rebel (Sanger), 427 Woman’s Industrial Exchange, 175 “Woman’s Rights: The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” 623–625 Women, higher education, and philanthropy, 514–519 Women activists Addams, Jane, 7–9 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 47–49 Dix, Dorothea, 604–605 Jackson, Helen Maria (Fiske) Hunt, 283–284 Kelley, Florence, 294–295 Sanger, Margaret, 427–428 Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann, 435–437 Terrell, Mary Eliza Church, 469–471 Truth, Sojourner, 473 Wald, Lillian D., 501–502 Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 509–510 Willard, Frances D., 511–512 Women and nonprofit organizations, 519–521 Women philanthropists, 520, 523–524 Day, Dorothy, 115–116 Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 119–120 Drexel, Saint Katharine, 125–126 Garrett, Mary Elizabeth, 175–176 Gratz, Rebecca, 215–216 Hogg, Ima, 243–244 Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 310–311 Lyon, Mary Mason, 311–312 McCarty, Oseola, 314 McCormick, Nettie Fowler, 315 Packard, Lucile, 365–368 Pauahi Paki Bishop, Bernice, 369–370 Phelps Stokes sisters, 460–461 Sage, Margaret Olivia Slocum, 425–426, 682–683 Women’s Central Relief Association, 481 Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 511 Women’s College Coalition, 518–519 Women’s Funding Network, 16, 152, 415–416, 448, 455, 522 Women’s funds, 16–17, 152 Women’s giving circles, 522–523 Women’s impact on philanthropy, 522–525 Women’s issues Barton’s championing of women’s rights, 42

black women’s club movement, 509–510 Catholic education of girls, 61 cause-related marketing, 64 “Charitable Effort” (Addams), 664–667 cosmetics industry, 502–503 education for, 46 family planning, 427–428 fundraising as a profession, 171 Girls Scouts of America, 309 growth of Catholic sisterhood, 62 labor investigations, 478 Little Women, 636–641 moral progression of society, 682–683 Randolph’s sermon, 726–730 rights for women of color, 469–471 Salvation Army, 53 Seneca Falls Declaration, 623–625 support for post-Revolutionary War women, 215 will gifts, 236 women, higher education, and philanthropy, 514–519 working conditions and suffrage, 501–502 See also Education of women Women’s organizations, 511–512 Women’s Philanthropic Healthcare Fund, 523 Women’s Philanthropy Institute, 522, 525 Womens Way, 450 Woolman, John, 391 Woolworth, F.W., 298 Work force. See Employment Working class poor, 115–116 Working Group on Labor and Community, 479 Workplace philanthropy alternative funds, 14–16 cause-related marketing, 63–64 federated fundraising, 149, 150–151 friendly societies, 165–166 social change funds, 447–451 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 110 World Bank, 443 World Development Report, 178 World Neighbors, 266 World Values Survey (WVS), 495 World War I American Red Cross, 22 community foundations, 91 financial federations, 150 Goff ’s service on the Capital Issues Committee, 190

885

Index

World War I, cont. Goodrich’s service, 190˚Macy, John190 Hoover’s service during, 245–246 income tax deduction, 465 legitimation of foundations after, 783–784 origins of organized fundraising, 167 pacifist movement, 9 Salvation Army support for American troops, 54 spurring the cooperative movement, 100 YMCA relief efforts, 528 World War II community foundations, 94 consumer cooperatives, 100

886

evolution of fundraising, 168 federated fundraising, 150 Garcia’s service during, 174 growth of Hewlett-Packard, 366 healthcare coverage, 221 Hoover’s philanthropy during, 245 institutional foundations, 262 Tuskegee Airmen, 368–369 Wright, David, 445 Wright, Frances, 363 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 217 Wuthnow, Robert, 375–376, 431 Wyllie, Irvin G., 113 Xenophon, 238, 824–839 Yahoo!, 140

Yale University, 340–341, 342, 421 Yellow fever, 181, 423 Yemen, 277 Ylvisaker, Paul, 94, 140 YMCA, 167–168, 171, 503, 527–529 Yosemite National Park, 323 Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), 527 Youth and philanthropy, 55–56, 529–531 Youth Project, 478–479 Zakat (Islamic alms-tax), 272, 706–708 Zaltman, Gerald, 451 ZitkalaSa, 337 Zoroastrians, 270, 271–272

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