Editors’ Note: Michael Lipsky tells the story of a small Ford Foundation grant, made by Norm Collins in 1986, that led to the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and paved the way for Ford’s Honoring Contributions in the Governance of American Indian Nations awards program. This post … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Andrew Hart reviews Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology, with a particular focus on what the book might (or might not) tell us about the relationship between philanthropy and inequality. French economist Thomas Piketty’s latest book, Capital and Ideology (Capital et idéologie, 2019), arrived in English in mid-March, when people with office jobs were … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Maoz Brown details the history of outcome evaluation in the human services, summarizing an argument he recently made in the December 2019 issue of Social Service Review. The entire issue, on social work history, is worthy of attention from historians of philanthropy. It contains, for instance, important contributions on the Russell Sage Foundation-funded … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: John Picton examines the politics behind the British government’s (disappointing) emergency funding package directed to the nation’s charities. The COVID-19 health crisis has led to a funding crisis in the British charity sector. Face-to-face fundraising is impossible, charities have had to close their shops, and the value of investment and reserve funds is … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Ted Lechterman and Rob Reich introduce their chapter on political theory in the third edition of The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook (Stanford University Press). For other posts in HistPhil‘s forum on the Research Handbook, see here. Many scholars study what nonprofits do, by describing, analyzing, or predicting their behavior and performance. Fewer … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Sarah Reckhow introduces her chapter on “Politics, Philanthropy, and Inequality” in the newly published third edition of The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, and ties it to the charitable response to the Covid-19 crisis. For other posts in HistPhil‘s book forum on the Research Handbook, see here. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has tested … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Rhodri Davies looks to the history of philanthropy’s responses to epidemics and other crises in Europe over the last five centuries for insights on the themes that might help us understand how it is likely to do so today. Those working in civil society may feel as though they don’t have the luxury … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Paul Brest introduces his chapter in the newly published third edition of the Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, on outcome-oriented philanthropy. For other posts in Histphil‘s forum on the Handbook, see here. Introduction: The Essence of Outcome-Oriented Philanthropy My chapter in the Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook chronicles the rise of the contemporary … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Claire Dunning and Christof Brandtner introduce their chapter in the new 3rd edition of The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook (Stanford University Press, 2020). Read posts from other contributors to the Handbook, including an introduction to this forum, here. Look around any city block, and chances are you’ll see a nonprofit organization. The … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Aaron Horvath and Walter Powell introduce their chapter in the third edition of the Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook (Stanford University Press, 2020), edited by Powell and Patricia Bromley. The Handbook, first published in 1987 and then revised in 2006, has long served as an important resource for the sector. But this edition … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Ryan Schlegel takes a look back at grantmaking during the Great Recession and reflects on what lessons it might hold for funders confronting the economic crisis unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic. For more on HistPhil‘s coverage of the Covid-19 crisis, see here. The first quarter of 2020 was one of the all-time worst … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Jon Dean introduces his forthcoming book, The Good Glow: Charity and the Symbolic Power of Doing Good (May 2020). Starting with the basic premise that people tend to think positively of other people whom they perceive to be altruistic and kind, Dean argues that such seemingly charitable people are imbued with a certain … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: An early critic of philanthrocapitalism and the Gates Foundation – arguing in No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy (2015) that in the age of philanthrocapitalism “[g]iving more” had become “an avenue for getting more” – Linsey McGoey introduces her newest book, The Unknowers: How Strategic … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis argues that the Covid-19 crisis is a moment to challenge the 5% payout orthodoxy by appreciating its historical contingency. For HistPhil’s other posts on the crisis, see here. Over the last decade, as the public has confronted a steady stream of crises—economic, political, ecological—advocates have steadily called on foundations … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Caroline Shenaz Hossein responds to Lucy Bernholz’s recent blog post predicting shifting philanthropic trends– a “rebirth of mutual aid”– during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hossein argues that “any general trends towards mutual aid in the U.S. should be understood, not simply or principally as a return to earlier giving habits, but also as an … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Ellen P. Aprill comments on how President Trump’s recent decision to donate his salary to the Department of Health and Human Services fits into her latest research project on the boundaries between private charitable donations and public funds. On March 3, President Trump’s Press Secretary, Stephanie Grisham, announced on Twitter that, consistent with … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: The following is an interview between HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey and the Berggruen Institute’s Vice President of Programs, Nils Gilman, which took place over email this week. An intellectual historian by training and author of Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America (2004), Gilman discusses how his orientation as a historian has shaped … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Eric John Abrahamson continues HistPhil‘s forum marking the 50th anniversary of the Tax Reform Act of 1969. In 1969, Texas Rep. Wright Patman and other members of Congress believed that a significant number of donors who created private foundations had little interest in philanthropy. Faced with high estate tax rates that would force … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: HistPhil takes a brief break from our forum on the Tax Reform Act of 1969 for a post by Thomas Adam complicating the historical association between the growth of democracy and the surging of civil society. Alexis de Tocqueville’s dictum that Americans formed associations for addressing social problems while the French and English … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Karen Ferguson adds her perspective to HistPhil‘s forum on the Tax Reform Act (TRA) of 1969. The controversy surrounding the campaign to decentralize the New York City school system in 1968, and especially the pilot project in Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood, helped fuel Congressional opposition to philanthropic activism that saw expression in the … Continue reading
