Editors’ Note: Damon Circosta and Kristin A. Goss celebrate the philanthropic legacy of Joel Fleishman, their colleague at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, who passed away on September 30, 2024. Photo credit: Chris Hildreth for Duke University.

Joel Lawrence Fleishman, a towering figure in the world of philanthropy, public policy, and higher education, passed away on September 30, 2024, at the age of 90.

A professor of law and public policy at Duke University for more than 50 years, Fleishman was an influential scholar; a visionary organization builder and thought leader; and a devoted teacher, mentor, and connector of people. As his fellow Duke faculty members, we witnessed and benefited from our colleague’s abundant generosity.

Fleishman wore many hats throughout his long and storied career: founding director of what is now Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy; prolific author of works on the moral and strategic dilemmas of elite philanthropy; steward of charitable money; trusted advisor to foundations and nonprofits; and quiet confidant to leaders across all sectors of society.

Fleishman’s passing marks a significant moment for those studying the history and evolution of philanthropy. His groundbreaking work on foundation transparency and impact measurement reshaped how many elite donors do their work. He had a legendary knack for identifying and nurturing talented people and then putting them together to magnify their work. He helped everyone – from foundation presidents to first-year college students – develop a vision for contributing to the public good. At every stage of his life, he collected friends. At his funeral, one eulogist remarked that “Friends of Joel” is the world’s largest exclusive club.

Fleishman began his academic career in the late 1960s at Yale University, where he produced a study funded by the Ford Foundation analyzing the emerging field of public policy studies. This report’s findings served as the basis for the establishment of Duke’s Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs (now the Sanford School), which Fleishman founded in 1971 (with grants from Ford and the Alfred E. Sloan Foundation) and which he directed until 1983. These privately supported academic endeavors helped fuel Fleishman’s interest in foundations as engines for innovation and human progress. He would go on to dedicate his long life to philanthropy, both as a personal pursuit (he endowed a foundation in his parents’ name) and as a career that included raising and giving away hundreds of millions of dollars, seeding organizations to support and study the philanthropic sector, and critically examining philanthropy’s fraught relationship with democracy.

From the early 1980s through the early 1990s, Fleishman spearheaded Duke’s first major capital campaign, raising $500-million and catapulting the university into higher education’s top tier. This experience honed Fleishman’s skills raising money from wealthy people and led to a 10-year engagement helping a billionaire businessman give his fortune away. As president of the Atlantic Philanthropic Service Company, the US arm of Chuck Feeney’s charitable empire, Fleishman worked alongside Atlantic Philanthropies’ founding president Harvey Dale to oversee a massive anonymous grantmaking program. Among other endeavors, Atlantic constructed a knowledge infrastructure for the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. In the US, grants went toward creating philanthropy-studies centers at universities, a research fund to support the work of nonprofit-organization scholars, a charitable statistics center to allow researchers to map the scope and activities of US civil society, and an online database that provided easy access to millions of nonprofit informational tax returns. Fleishman’s strategy was to use philanthropic funds to study philanthropy itself, laying the groundwork for the emerging field of philanthropic studies. The grantmaking program also supported philanthropic networks and support organizations to help philanthropy’s practitioners learn from one another. From 1983-2015, Atlantic’s Effective Nonprofits & Philanthropy Program distributed $1.7-billion to more than 250 organizations in the US, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, among other countries.

After decades of raising and giving away money, Fleishman came to understand philanthropy’s enormous (and largely hidden) positive impact, as well as its pathologies and uneasy relationship with democracy. These insights inspired him to write (or co-write) three books. In his 2007 work, The Foundation: A Great American Secret, Fleishman argued that while foundations were capable of great good, they often operated with a level of opacity that was detrimental to their effectiveness and public trust. He wrote: “Foundations are a significant part of our civil society, but they are the least understood part, and, ironically, the least subject to external oversight.” This push for transparency, especially coming from an insider, was revolutionary at a time when many foundations operated with little public scrutiny.

Fleishman’s work helped spark a movement toward more open and accountable philanthropic practices as well as a more strategic approach to societal problems. Before his work, many foundations operated on good intentions and anecdotal evidence of success. Fleishman argued that foundations should be held to higher standards. In his 2011 book, Give Smart: Philanthropy that Gets Results, co-authored with Bridgespan Group co-founder Thomas J. Tierney, Fleishman laid out a framework for strategic philanthropy. He emphasized the importance of clear goal setting, data-driven decision making, and continuous learning and adaptation. In his 2017 book, Putting Wealth to Work, Fleishman explored the dilemmas of short-term vs. long-term approaches to philanthropic giving. As more and more mega-donors were pledging to disburse their wealth during their lifetimes, Fleishman laid out the case for a “both-and” strategy that would also leave room for perpetual foundations to care for future needs.

This focus on results and impact has since become a cornerstone of modern philanthropic practice, influencing how foundations operate and how they are evaluated. But Fleishman was also deeply concerned with the big philosophical questions that elite philanthropy raises, including how to square its unaccountable, unrepresentative power with the aspirations of an equality-minded democracy. He argued that while philanthropy could be a formidable force for good, it needed to do more to justify its influence, including by being more effective and accountable. Fleishman’s critical-but-friendly perspective on the role of philanthropy in society has become increasingly relevant in recent years, as the policy ambitions of large philanthropic foundations and billionaire donors have grown, and US governing institutions have lost public trust and the political will to solve big problems. Fleishman’s work fundamentally changed how we think about and practice philanthropy. He set a high standard for scholarly engagement with the sector and showed that it was possible to be both an advocate for philanthropy and a critical observer of its practices.

Although he never practiced law in the conventional sense, Fleishman held both a JD and an LLM degree and thus brought legal expertise to his understanding of public policy and democratic institutions. This interdisciplinary perspective allowed him to examine philanthropy not just as a form of charitable giving, but also as a powerful force shaping society and public policy. One of Fleishman’s most significant contributions was his persistent advocacy for ethics in the professions, including philanthropy.

Fleishman was an institution builder, a scholar, and a public intellectual. But in each of these roles, he also was a teacher and connector. At Duke, his Center for the Study of Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society has hosted a seminar series that, over more than two decades, has become a cornerstone for critical discussions on foundation effectiveness. The series, known as the Foundation Impact Research Group (FIRG), has brought together scholars, foundation leaders, and practitioners to examine and debate key issues in philanthropy, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement in the field. Often these seminars have been followed by legendary dinners, where Fleishman’s knowledge of fine wine and ability to bring together an eclectic group of thinkers fostered a community that endures to this day.

Fleishman was also a remarkable classroom teacher. Although his syllabi sometimes stretched to more than 70 pages, students stood in line to take his courses on philanthropy, civil society, and the law. He taught undergraduates and graduate students for more than 50 years, “retiring” from “regular teaching” only one year ago. He continued to mentor former students throughout their careers.

In an era of intense polarization, Fleishman brought people together. In an era of retreat into ideologically homogeneous echo chambers, he listened and learned from those with whom he disagreed. In an era of online engagement, he believed in deep human connection and the power of a shared meal. His contributions to philanthropy and society more broadly are hard to overstate. He will be missed.

-Damon Circosta and Kristin A. Goss

Damon Circosta, is an Adjunct Instructor at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University and the Executive Director of the A.J. Fletcher Foundation. Kristin A. Goss is Susan B. King Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy.