In a Democracy, Is That Really a Social Problem?
Money Well Spent (2nd Edition) Forum

In a Democracy, Is That Really a Social Problem?

Editors’ Note: Adding to HistPhil’s forum on Money Well Spent, HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey considers the democratic importance of pushing back against Paul Brest and Hal Harvey’s commitment to value neutrality throughout the book, and particularly in their discussion of social problems. Relating her historical work on Carnegie Corporation’s response to Black nationalism in the 1920s, Morey stresses: “As democratic citizens—as human … Continue reading

Money Well Spent in Historical Context
Money Well Spent (2nd Edition) Forum

Money Well Spent in Historical Context

Editors’ Note: Continuing HistPhil’s forum on the second edition of Paul Brest and Hal Harvey’s Money Well Spent (2018), David C. Hammack places the book’s first and second publications, respectively in 2008 and 2018, within a sweeping 300-year history of philanthropic manuals in the United States.  With the 2008 publication of Money Well Spent: A Strategic Plan for … Continue reading

Metaphors of the Market and the Moment
Money Well Spent (2nd Edition) Forum

Metaphors of the Market and the Moment

Editors’ Note: Contributing to HistPhil’s forum on Paul Brest and Hal Harvey’s Money Well Spent (2018), Lily Geismer places in historical context the authors’ emphasis on strategic philanthropy. Geismer concludes her analysis by suggesting that, as “the nation and world confront both new and persistent crises, it seems an important moment to consider the power and possibilities in looking to practices … Continue reading

Miles to Go
Money Well Spent (2nd Edition) Forum

Miles to Go

Editors’ Note: With this post, Paul Brest and Hal Harvey launch HistPhil’s forum on the second edition of their book, Money Well Spent (2008, 2018). In a separate post, HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey introduces the forum and its contributors. Below, Brest and Harvey reflect on changing intellectual currents among philanthropists and philanthropic organizations since their book’s first publication in 2008; and … Continue reading

Introducing HistPhil’s Forum on MONEY WELL SPENT
Money Well Spent (2nd Edition) Forum

Introducing HistPhil’s Forum on MONEY WELL SPENT

Editors’ Note: HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey introduces HistPhil‘s forum on the second edition of Paul Brest and Hal Harvey’s Money Well Spent (2018), published earlier this summer. With this new edition, Morey reasons that it is “a great moment to engage critically and historically with the book, both as a cultural artifact in the practice of philanthropy and as a … Continue reading

Revisiting “Disciples or Demigods”: The Case For and Against Anonymous Giving Now and a Quarter Century Ago
History of Anonymous Giving

Revisiting “Disciples or Demigods”: The Case For and Against Anonymous Giving Now and a Quarter Century Ago

Editors’ Note: Paul Schervish wraps up HistPhil‘s forum on anonymous giving, with a reflection on groundbreaking research on the topic he conducted a quarter century ago. In 1994 I published “The Sound of One Hand Clapping: The Case for and against Anonymous Giving.”[1] The basis for the article was a series of interviews I had done … Continue reading

The Unevenness of Archives
Philanthropy and Democracy / Philanthropy and Education / Philanthropy and Historical Research / Philanthropy and Inequality

The Unevenness of Archives

Editors’ Note: With a lens on the funding of black education in early twentieth-century United States, Melissa Wooten discusses how wealth inequality among charitable givers and racialized tendencies in public memory lead to inequities in the archives, and thus too, to writing histories privileging the philanthropic acts of the wealthy over the less wealthy and of whites … Continue reading