Editors’ Note: Gara LaMarche reflects on lessons learned from leadership positions at two of the nation’s largest foundations, Open Society Foundations and the recently sunset Atlantic Philanthropies. I’ve been helping foundations and rich individuals redistribute their wealth to non-profits and social movements for nearly twenty-five years, and almost all of that time there has been … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: As regular readers of HistPhil will know, we ordinarily publish the work of scholars who write, or reflect on, the history of philanthropy. We have occasionally published comments of practitioners or observers who have something important to say to an audience of those interested in the history of philanthropy. The following post is … Continue reading
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: Last Week, Pablo Eisenberg, for decades one of the nation’s leading progressive critics of foundations, wrote an important op-ed in the Chronicle of Philanthropy calling for six reforms necessary to strengthen the nonprofit sector in the Trump era. One of those involved changes to Independent Sector, transforming it into “a new powerful coalition solely of charities.” In making … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: The following post, a personal reflection from Amanda Moniz, which also introduces themes from her new book, From Empire to Humanity, originally appeared on the OUPBlog under the title “How can history inform public policy today?” As a historian of philanthropy, I have wrestled with how to bring historical perspectives to my own gifts … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Pablo Eisenberg provides a first-hand account of the improbable creation of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy out of the Filer Commission on Private and Public Needs. In retrospect, it seems surprising that the Filer Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, established in 1973, the most prestigious study of its kind in … Continue reading
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