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New Works in the Field

Alice O’Connor on Erica Kohl-Arenas’ THE SELF-HELP MYTH (2016)

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Editors’ Note: Alice O’Connor reviews Erica Kohl-Arenas’ The Self-Help Myth: How Philanthropy Fails to Alleviate Poverty (University of California Press, 2016). Kohl-Arenas recently participated in the inaugural HistPhil Exchange with Linsey McGoey. Erica Kohl-Arenas opens her important and sharply-observed new book with a field note from her visit to organized philanthropy’s grand palaver, the Annual Meeting … Continue reading →

New Works in the Field / Philanthropy and Historical Research / Philanthropy and the State

A Review of Rhodri Davies’s PUBLIC GOOD BY PRIVATE MEANS (2016)

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Editors’ Note: On HistPhil earlier this year, Rhodri Davies discussed his new book, Public Good by Private Means: How philanthropy shapes Britain (2016). Here, Andrew Purkis reviews the manuscript.    This is a delightful series of wise reflections about key issues for philanthropy, particularly in the UK, informed by a historical perspective. It contributes more to stimulating thinking about the future … Continue reading →

Philanthropy and Historical Research / Philanthropy and the State

How the State Learned to Give Like a Foundation

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Editors’ Note: Claire Dunning continues HistPhil’s forum on philanthropy and the state. Philanthropy often takes cues from the state. As much as philanthropists celebrate their nimbleness and independence, they operate, of course, within a regulatory framework. Scholars have charted the ways in which philanthropies—from across the political spectrum—have positioned themselves vis-à-vis governments to compensate for … Continue reading →

New Works in the Field / Philanthropy and Historical Research

How 19th Century Indian Philanthropy Changes the Narrative of American Giving

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Editors’ Note: Anelise Shrout contributes a new post on 19th century Cherokee and Choctaw transnational philanthropy and how it re-shapes our understanding of the giving of marginalized groups. The people gathered at Fort Gibson in the Western Cherokee Nation in March of 1847 were a diverse group. Cherokees, U.S. soldiers, local missionaries and traders passing through … Continue reading →

HistPhil Exchange

The Possibility of the Free Gift, the Dramaturgy of the Program Officer, and the Revival of the Walsh Commission: A HistPhil Exchange

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Editors’ Note: This is the first installment of HistPhil Exchange, our new series in which the editors ask two members of the HistPhil community to trade emails and discuss prominent issues in their work. (We were inspired by Slate‘s “Breakfast Table” posts). We hope it will be the first of many. The participants in this inaugural … Continue reading →

Current Events and Philanthropy / Philanthropy and the State

Charity’s No Stranger to Political Advocacy

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Editors’ Note: Andrew Purkis concludes this week’s focus on governmental reform of charities within the UK, as part of HistPhil’s forum on philanthropy and the state. The other two pieces on this subtopic were authored by Rhodri Davies and Peter Grant. England has a proud history of non-party political campaigning for charitable causes, with roots deep in the … Continue reading →

Current Events and Philanthropy / Philanthropy and the State / Philanthropy in the News

Crisis and Response: What History Tells us about the Challenges Facing UK Charities

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Editors’ Note: Rhodri Davies continues this week’s focus on governmental reform of charities within the UK, as part of HistPhil’s forum on philanthropy and the state. The charity sector in the UK is currently going through a torrid time. A series of issues with the way charities operate and fundraise have recently come to the … Continue reading →

Current Events and Philanthropy / Philanthropy and the State / Philanthropy in the News

Charities in the Firing Line

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Editors’ Note: As part of HistPhil’s forum on philanthropy and the state, this week we bring you a series of posts on the situation in the UK, where a series of controversies in the charitable sector has led to calls for increased governmental regulation. Peter Grant opens the discussion. Both charities in general and fundraisers in particular have … Continue reading →

Philanthropy and the State

Welfare Reform and the Relationship between Foundation Funding and State-level Policy

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Editor’s Note: Jennifer Mosley and Joseph Galaskiewicz continue HistPhil’s forum on philanthropy and the state. Philanthropic foundations are independent when it comes to revenue. That seemingly neutral fact has led to two assumptions that govern how we tend to think about their interaction with the policy environment. First, foundations are typically seen as having unusual … Continue reading →

Oral History/Testimonies

The Filer Commission and the Birth of NCRP

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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 →

Philanthropy and the State

Philanthropy and the State: Divisions of Labor and Authority

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Editors’ Note: For the last weeks, HistPhil has hosted a forum on the Green Revolution and we thank its contributors: Gary Toenniessen, Marci Baranski, Helen Anne Curry, Gilbert Levine, Ruth Levine, Tore Olsson, and Jonathan Harwood. With the below piece, Emma Saunders-Hastings launches the new forum on philanthropy & the state. She argues that the distribution of public authority (rather than division of labor) should … Continue reading →

New Works in the Field / Philanthropy and Historical Research

Tata Philanthropy and the Making of Modern India

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Editors’ Note: Scholars have often engaged the rise of modern philanthropy in the developing world through the tensions between indigenous traditions and cosmopolitan practices. Mircea Raianu explores the place of Tata philanthropy in modern India to complicate that dichotomy. What is the relationship between corporate philanthropy and the modern nation-state? Or, to put it another way, … Continue reading →

New Works in the Field / Philanthropy and Historical Research / Philanthropy and the State

The Social Benefits of Philanthropy & Charity

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Editors’ Note: Below, Rhodri Davies discusses his new book, Public Good by Private Means: How philanthropy shapes Britain (2016). It is easy to take for granted the idea of charity as an accepted public good and to picture the not-for-profit sector as having incrementally yet inevitably developed towards its current form. However, my new book, Public Good by … Continue reading →

Conferences / Philanthropy and Historical Research

Dialoging with Indiana’s Past: Philanthropy in a State-wide Context

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Editors’ Note: Gregory Witkowski introduces the Hoosier Philanthropy Conference, which will take place February 18-19. The Hoosier Philanthropy Conference: Understanding the Past, Planning the Future (follow us February 18-19 on Twitter at #INPHIL200) aims to integrate practice and scholarship, providing an avenue for a constructive exchange between scholars and philanthropy and nonprofit professionals throughout the … Continue reading →

Current Events and Philanthropy / Philanthropy and Historical Research

Historical Context to $2.1 Million Grant to Women’s Philanthropy Institute

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Editors’ Note: In early January, Inside Philanthropy announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had gifted $2.1 million to the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Below, the Institute’s Director Debra Mesch and Associate Director Andrea Pactor provide some historical perspective to the grant.   While the history of women’s activism through philanthropy is … Continue reading →

The Green Revolution

A Practitioner’s History of the Green Revolution

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Editors’ Note: Gary Toenniessen, who worked for more than four decades on agricultural policy for the Rockefeller Foundation, continues HistPhil’s forum on the Green Revolution. When I joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 1971, I quickly learned from my experienced colleagues the value of history as a resource for program development. The Foundation’s cooperative work in Mexico was … Continue reading →

Current Events and Philanthropy / Philanthropy and Inequality

Let Down at the Ford Foundation

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Editors’ Note: Against the backdrop of Ford Foundation President Darren Walker’s announced efforts to address inequalities on the global stage, HistPhil hosted a conversation this past August on the ability of philanthropy to address societal-wide inequities. At the Ford Foundation offices in NYC earlier this month, Walker discussed further his vision for the organization with Stanford political scientist Rob Reich (The … Continue reading →

The Green Revolution

Why Wheat? Borlaug and his Cosmopolitan Wheat Varieties in the Green Revolution

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Editors’ Note: In the latest post in HistPhil’s forum on the Green Revolution, Marci Baranski explains the special place wheat played within the  Green Revolution, and why that history might not necessarily work as a model for future programs of agricultural development. Very recently, wheat overtook rice as the highest acreage food crop in the … Continue reading →

New Works in the Field / The Green Revolution

Raising Yields and Losing Genes

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Editors’ Note: Helen Anne Curry continues HistPhil‘s forum on the Green Revolution. Here, she argues that the history of the Rockefeller Foundation’s involvement in the conservation of crop biodiversity offers insight into how the foundation navigated the science and politics of a problem that it had itself contributed significantly to generating.  In 1943, the Rockefeller Foundation … Continue reading →