Editors’ Note: Sylvia Brown chronicles her experience grappling with the relationship between the legacy of the Brown Family and her own commitment to philanthropy. In 1989 my father sold his most valuable possession, a Colonial-era bookcase-on-desk, to pay for the restoration of our family home in Providence, Rhode Island. The desk fetched $12.1 million at … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: This post, from Bruce A. Kimball and Daniel R. Coquillette, is adapted from their book, On the Battlefield of Merit: Harvard Law School, the First Century (Harvard University Press, 2015), which was awarded the Peter Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Prize by the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Associations in 2017. … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: HistPhil‘s forum on Paul Brest and Hal Harvey’s Money Well Spent (2008, 2018) has included contributions from Lily Geismer, David Hammack, Erica Kohl-Arenas, Tiffany Willoughby-Herard and HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey. As suggested in the opening essay to this forum, these scholars have engaged critically and historically with the book, both as a cultural artifact in the practice … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Concluding HistPhil‘s forum on Money Well Spent, Tiffany Willoughby-Herard reflects on the text, her scholarship on race and philanthropy, and her lived experiences in everyday life. Alluding to Money Well Spent’s subtitle, “A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy,” Willoughby-Herard recommends that the “best plan ‘for smart philanthropy’ would speak to the collective rather than the individual. And rather than solving … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Erica Kohl-Arenas continues HistPhil‘s forum on Paul Brest and Hal Harvey‘s Money Well Spent (2008, 2018). Focusing on the authors’ analysis of philanthropic strategy and social change, Kohl-Arenas provides “some brief historical accounts to show how funders’ inability to solve the problems they set out to address is not necessarily due to lack of strategy—as Brest and … Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Editors’ Note: Against the backdrop of the UK government’s new Civil Society Strategy, Rhodri Davies provides broader historical context to UK debates on civil society, the state, and welfare needs. The UK government recently launched its major new Civil Society Strategy, billed as the first attempt in 15 years to outline a holistic vision for the relationship … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Roger Colinvaux continues HistPhil’s forum on anonymous giving with a post that places the controversies over “dark money” contributions into historical and legal context. The IRS is a partisan political punching bag, perhaps no more so than in the area of regulation of nonprofit organizations. Over the past five years, there have been … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Rebecca W. Rimel, president and CEO of The Pew Charitable Trusts, remembers H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, the Philadelphia philanthropist who passed away at the age of 88 on August 5th. When my dear friend Gerry Lenfest decided to embark on a second career as a full-time philanthropist, he was asked what challenges he most … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Last August, I shared with readers my syllabus for a graduate seminar on the history of philanthropy. In a similar spirit, I am including below an undergraduate version of that class which I will be teaching this fall. Of course, and as always, please feel free to reach out with feedback and suggestions both on … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Sarah Flew continues HistPhil‘s forum on anonymous giving. This post is based on Flew’s article, “Unveiling the Anonymous Philanthropist: Charity in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Victorian Culture 20, issue 1 (March 2015), 20-33. Whilst researching philanthropy in London in the nineteenth century, I became fascinated by the small proportion of individuals who … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Brian D. Goldstein introduces his recent work, The Roots of Urban Renaissance: Gentrification and the Struggle Over Harlem (Harvard, 2017). The January 29, 1977 front page of the New York Amsterdam News offered grim news to any Harlemites hoping to own part of the land they inhabited. “Harlem Commonwealth Council Fails to Sell Shares to Residents,” … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: David Callahan adds to HistPhil‘s forum on anonymous giving. The world of philanthropy is becoming less transparent, and that’s not a good thing. Recent years have seen the rapid growth of a shadow giving system that funnels billions of dollars in gifts in ways that leave no fingerprints. The disclosure rules that have governed … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Sean Parnell continues Histphil‘s forum on anonymous giving, making the affirmative, historical case. Modern discussions of anonymous philanthropic giving tend to focus on supposed malefactors such as the libertarian brothers Charles and David Koch, progressive George Soros, or the general threat that so-called “dark money” poses to our free society.[1] Often lost in these … Continue reading
