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The Cybernetics of Philanthropy: The Early Roots of Philanthropic Systems Thinking
Archives and Knowledge Management / Philanthropy / Philanthropy and Historical Research

The Cybernetics of Philanthropy: The Early Roots of Philanthropic Systems Thinking

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Editors’ Note: Genevieve Shaker and William Plater shine a light on a forgotten 1974 essay by the “polymath scientist” Heinz von Foerster on the cybernetics of philanthropy, exploring where it came from and what it anticipated, in a post based on their 2024 article in Philanthropia. Far-ranging conversations were taking place in the 1960s and … Continue reading →

The Signers and “Civil Society”: Ben Franklin was One Among Many
Current Events and Philanthropy / Nonprofits and Historical Research

The Signers and “Civil Society”: Ben Franklin was One Among Many

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Editors’ Note: John Tyler and Brian Baird discuss their research on the varied associational commitments of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and what that suggests about the important place of associational life in celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. Now that the main celebrations of our Nation’s 250th birthday have … Continue reading →

Prudential Pluralism, Historical Perspective, and the Defense of Civil Society (Part II)
Shrinking Space for Global Civil Society

Prudential Pluralism, Historical Perspective, and the Defense of Civil Society (Part II)

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Editors’ Note: Benjamin Soskis examines the emerging trans-ideological coalition in defense of civil society in the U.S., the commitment to “prudential pluralism” that fuels it, and the conception of history on which it stands. Part I can be read here; the full essay can be read here. IV. Besides the 2013 IRS controversy, the other … Continue reading →

Prudential Pluralism, Historical Perspective, and the Defense of Civil Society (Part 1)
Shrinking Space for Global Civil Society

Prudential Pluralism, Historical Perspective, and the Defense of Civil Society (Part 1)

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Editors’ Note: Benjamin Soskis examines the emerging trans-ideological coalition in defense of civil society in the U.S., the commitment to “prudential pluralism” that fuels it, and the conception of history on which it stands. The full essay can be read here. If this is a time of peril for U.S. civil society, it is also … Continue reading →

Authoritarianism in US State Policy and its Impact on Nonprofit Civil Liberties
Shrinking Space for Global Civil Society

Authoritarianism in US State Policy and its Impact on Nonprofit Civil Liberties

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Editors’ Note: Beth Gazley and Jennifer Alexander use an authoritarian framework to explain recent state government actions intended to restrict nonprofit activity in the US. This piece is based on a 2025 article appearing in Nonprofit Policy Forum. Unstable democracies have longstanding experience with governmental restrictions on civil society activity. Now these repressive efforts are … Continue reading →

Nathan Straus: From Macy’s Magnate to International Humanitarian
History of Jewish philanthropy / New Works in the Field / Philanthropy

Nathan Straus: From Macy’s Magnate to International Humanitarian

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Editors’ Note: Andrew Fisher shines light on a lesser-known philanthropic titan of the turn of the last century, Nathan Straus. This post is adapted from the prologue of Fisher’s recently published book, Nathan Straus: From Macy’s Magnate to International Humanitarian (Rutgers University Press, 2026). It is reprinted with the publisher’s kind permission. I came to … Continue reading →

Philanthropic Archives: A Literature Review and Call to Action
Archives and Knowledge Management

Philanthropic Archives: A Literature Review and Call to Action

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Editors’ Note: Katherine Badertscher introduces a recent article she published with Huitan Xu in The Foundation Review on “Philanthropic Archives and Legacy.” In 2024, my colleague Huitan Xu and I investigated the feasibility of creating a single “legacy library” to house archival material of individual philanthropists and foundations—a single repository for scholars, practitioners, donors and … Continue reading →

Bill Clinton’s Philanthropic Legacy: An Appraisal
Current Events and Philanthropy / New Works in the Field / Philanthropy / Philanthropy and the State / Philanthropy in the News

Bill Clinton’s Philanthropic Legacy: An Appraisal

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Editors’ Note: David Callahan reviews Bill Clinton’s memoir, Citizen: My Life After the White House (Knopf, 2024). When Jimmy Carter died in late 2024 at 100, many accolades focused on his decades of philanthropic work after leaving the White House. No former president is more closely associated with charitable good deeds than Carter, whose long … Continue reading →

A Lightning Strike of a Lineage: Six Lessons for today’s funders from the Garland Fund
Radical Fund Book Forum

A Lightning Strike of a Lineage: Six Lessons for today’s funders from the Garland Fund

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Editors’ Note: Deepak Bhargava continues HistPhil’s book forum on John Witt’s The Radical Fund. Is it possible for foundations to do more than ameliorate the bad effects of systems that are fundamentally unfair? Philanthropy is often accused of working downstream of social problems — dealing with symptoms rather than root causes.  Philanthropy’s fiercest critics go … Continue reading →

Reconsidering ‘Patriotic Philanthropy’ in the Second Trump Administration
Current Events and Philanthropy / Philanthropy and Democracy / Philanthropy and the State / Philanthropy in the News

Reconsidering ‘Patriotic Philanthropy’ in the Second Trump Administration

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Editors’ Note: Maggie Lemos and Guy-Uriel Charles revisit their 2018 California Law Review article on ‘patriotic philanthropy’ in the light of Trump 2.0. In 2018 we published an article in the California Law Review about a phenomenon that we called ‘patriotic philanthropy,’ a practice in which very rich individuals donate large sums of money to … Continue reading →

Rethinking Who Really Cares: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Simple Act of Charity
New Works in the Field

Rethinking Who Really Cares: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Simple Act of Charity

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Editors’ Note: Jeffrey M. Berry, James M. Glaser, and Deborah J. Schildkraut outline the findings on the relationship between political ideology and charitable giving from their recent book, Everyday Democracy: Liberals, Conservatives, and Their Routine Political Lives (University of Chicago Press, 2025). (Project research assistant Alex Landy is also pictured on the computer screen in … Continue reading →

The Dirtbag Billionaire and the Purpose Trust
Current Events and Philanthropy / New Works in the Field / Nonprofit legal history / Philanthropy in the News

The Dirtbag Billionaire and the Purpose Trust

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Editors’ Note: Dana Brakman Reiser reviews David Gelles’s Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away (Simon & Schuster, 2025). In debates and conversations about corporate social responsibility and social enterprise, few players enjoy the reverence accorded to Patagonia and its founder, Yvon Chouinard. Journalist David Gelles’ new … Continue reading →

Union Exemption: Connecting Labor and Nonprofit History
New Works in the Field / Nonprofit legal history / Nonprofits and Historical Research

Union Exemption: Connecting Labor and Nonprofit History

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Editors’ Note: John Miles Branch discusses his article on the history of debates regarding the union exemption for nonprofits, recently published in Modern American History. “They want to change the world. They would also like a raise,” announced a New York Times headline in April 2023. Unions organizing nonprofit workers, like the Office and Professional … Continue reading →

The Muslim Social: Neoliberalism, Charity, and Poverty in Turkey
New Works in the Field

The Muslim Social: Neoliberalism, Charity, and Poverty in Turkey

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Editors’ Note: Gizem Zencirci introduces her book, The Muslim Social: Neoliberalism, Charity, and Poverty (Syracuse, 2024), which recently received the 2025 Outstanding Book Prize from ARNOVA (Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action). Since coming to power in early 2000s, Turkey’s governing party, the Islamic-conservative AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development … Continue reading →

From Chocolate to ChatGPT: What Hershey’s Century-Old Philanthropy Reveals About OpenAI’s New $130 Billion Foundation
Current Events and Philanthropy / Philanthropy / Philanthropy in the News

From Chocolate to ChatGPT: What Hershey’s Century-Old Philanthropy Reveals About OpenAI’s New $130 Billion Foundation

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Editors’ Note: Peter Kurie discusses the parallels between two American nonprofits that control major for-profit corporations: the OpenAI Foundation, on paper now the wealthiest charitable organization in the U.S., and the Hershey Trust, the subject of his 2018 book, In Chocolate We Trust. (This post has been revised to reflect greater clarity on the organizational … Continue reading →

Could a Garland Fund 2.0 Upend America Today?
Radical Fund Book Forum

Could a Garland Fund 2.0 Upend America Today?

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Editors’ Note: David Pozen continues HistPhil’s book forum on John Witt’s The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America (Simon & Schuster, 2025). A version of this post originally appeared on the Balkinization blog, which is conducting a forum on Witt’s book as well, with some outstanding contributions by … Continue reading →

What is Civil Society, and why should we care?: Farrell on Gellner on the conditions of liberty
Shrinking Space for Global Civil Society

What is Civil Society, and why should we care?: Farrell on Gellner on the conditions of liberty

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Editors’ Note: This post from Henry Farrell originally appeared on his Substack, Programmable Mutter. There are many possible stories about why American political conservatism is such an intellectual trainwreck. Here’s one. Conservatives used at least nominally to argue that it was important to protect civil society from the depredations of government, and many genuinely believed … Continue reading →

When the Tax Code (and Private Foundations) Nudged Americans Toward Nonviolence
Radical Fund Book Forum

When the Tax Code (and Private Foundations) Nudged Americans Toward Nonviolence

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Editors’ Note: This post, from John Witt, inaugurates HistPhil’s book forum on Witt’s recently published The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America (Simon & Schuster, 2025), which chronicles the influence of the American Fund for Public Service, established in 1922. As Witt argues, the Garland Fund, as it … Continue reading →

Resisting the Hierarchy of Evidence: Philanthropic Foundations and the Rise of RCTs
New Works in the Field

Resisting the Hierarchy of Evidence: Philanthropic Foundations and the Rise of RCTs

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Editors’ Note: Nicole P. Marwell and Jennifer E. Mosley discuss their new book, Mismeasuring Impact: How Randomized Controlled Trials Threaten the Nonprofit Sector (Stanford University Press, 2025). Recent scholarship has offered varying interpretations of what the appropriate function of foundations should be within a democracy. One dominant perspective highlights foundations’ contributions as drivers of social … Continue reading →