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Philanthropy 20121117 104334

In the 19th century, the word "philanthropy" was loosely associated with "doing good" but also derogatorily with "do-gooders". In the 20th century, large private foundations established by industrial titans professionalized philanthropy and focused on addressing root causes rather than just symptoms of social issues. By the late 20th century, "philanthropy" began to regain prominence as new tech billionaires established even larger foundations at younger ages and popularized philanthropic initiatives.

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53 views2 pages

Philanthropy 20121117 104334

In the 19th century, the word "philanthropy" was loosely associated with "doing good" but also derogatorily with "do-gooders". In the 20th century, large private foundations established by industrial titans professionalized philanthropy and focused on addressing root causes rather than just symptoms of social issues. By the late 20th century, "philanthropy" began to regain prominence as new tech billionaires established even larger foundations at younger ages and popularized philanthropic initiatives.

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finance

In 19th century America, the word "philanthropy" and its versions were known to drift in meaning and worth, commonly to be associated with "doing good" and-derogatorily-"dogooders"-e.g., Thoreau, in Walden. In the 20th century American philanthropy matured, with the development of very large private foundations put together by titans of industryRockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, et al.-and later in the century with the professionalization of the niche led and backed up by those great foundations. The sheer size of their endowments directed their attention to dealing with the causes and instruments, as distinct from the symptoms and expressions, of social challenges and cultural opportunities. The word "philanthropy" came to be associated exclusively with its most obvious manifestations, foundations and grant-making. Professional fundraisers almost never used the word, always making reference to their individual charity employers rather than to philanthropy in general or as a cultural sensation. The increasing popularity of the profession by social scientists or past social science majors were known to focus professional attention on technical and stepby-step issues rather than substantive values, on means rather than ends, on questions of how rather than why. Many industry experts considered the word "philanthropy" to sound unnecessarily pretentious, pompous, pedantic, and in any case meaningless because the Classical view had been lost entirely, with the decline of the humanities and the classics in education. Then at the turn of the 21st century, the word "philanthropy" began to re-enter the American vernacular. In 1997 a Massachusetts project of foundations, companies and donors to increase charitable giving via donor education was centered on a Catalogue for Philanthropy. In 1998 leading national grantmakers funded a collaborative mission to increase charitable giving through regional programs. Wealth creators in the new high-tech global economy, having amassed great fortunes exceeding even those of the previous century, were turning to second careers in philanthropy at earlier ages, creating even larger foundations. Individual philanthropy began to be chic, attracting superstars from popular arts. Commercial movies and television acquired the word and idea, and a leading Classically American philanthropic initiative by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the "Giving Pledge", used the word with multinational publicity. In scholarship, the 20th century rise to popularity by the social sciences targeted focus on academic social concepts and ideals-"civil society"-and technical jargon-the "third sector" and "nonprofits". In ARNOVA (the Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Action), the related academic society, scholars with humanistic training and orientation created a compact but thriving community of often younger individuals. The breakthrough of the word "nonprofit" can be tracked by its appearance in increasing numbers of dissertation titles: 1 in 1959, 7 in the '60s, 49 in the '70s, 238 in the '80s and on up. By the early 21st century the word "nonprofit" was usually recognised as synonymous with philanthropy, though practitioners found it disadvantageously negative in fundraising and worthless to donors. In 2011 its factual relevance was tested by the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory (MPD),

which learned that fewer than 10% of "nonprofits" are philanthropies. philanthropy, finance, property

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