Editors’ Note: The following post, from HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis, continues our forum on “charity vs. philanthropy.” It is adapted from a monograph Soskis wrote last year, “Both More and No More: The Historical Split Between Charity and Philanthropy” for the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. One of the more fascinating elements of … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Benjamin Soskis
Hudson Institute Event for Linsey McGoey’s NO SUCH THING AS A FREE GIFT (2015)
Editors’ Note: Last Thursday in Washington D.C., HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis attended the Hudson Institute’s event for Linsey McGoey’s No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy. Below, he provides a synopsis of the event along with an analysis of McGoey’s presentation. Last Thursday, the Hudson Institute hosted an event for … Continue reading
Social Velocity’s Q&A with HistPhil
Several weeks ago, Social Velocity’s Nell Edgington sent us a series of questions asking us to compare and contrast past and present American philanthropy. She has now posted our responses on Social Velocity’s blog. Please visit her site and check out this latest post: “Learning from Philanthropy’s Past: An Interview with the HistPhil Blog.” In this Q&A, Stan discusses two … Continue reading
History of Philanthropy at NYU’s Philanthropy & the Law Annual Conference
Yesterday and today, NYU School of Law’s National Center on Philanthropy and the Law is holding its annual conference, this year on the topic of “Elasticity of the Boundaries: What Is (and Isn’t) Charitable.” HistPhil‘s own Stanley N. Katz delivered an opening paper on the history of those boundaries, “Should We Kill the Goose that Laid the … Continue reading
What’s Ahead for HistPhil
HistPhil‘s forum on education and philanthropy will be wrapping up in the next few weeks, but we have some exciting plans for the months ahead that we’d like to share with you–and would love your help with. First, we’ll be hosting a forum on the split between philanthropy and charity, featuring posts from Jeremy Beer, … Continue reading
Upcoming Philamplify Debate on Reform Strategies in Education
Next Tuesday, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy will host their first Philamplify debate on “Reform Strategies in Education.” Philamplify is the novel evaluative tool that NCRP designed, using some of the principles of crowd-sourcing, in which the NCRP performs a deep investigation into a single foundation, but also opens up the process to the … Continue reading
An Update on Open Philanthropy’s History of Philanthropy Project
Editors’ Note: Next week, this site will begin a discussion on philanthropy & education. In the meantime, HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis provides an update on his work with Open Philanthropy’s history of philanthropy project. Several years ago, GiveWell, a nonprofit that evaluates charities and advises donors on effective giving, began to consider how historical inquiry might help them … Continue reading
A Call for Contributions on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge
As part of HistPhil‘s education theme, we’d like to run a post, or a number of posts, on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which can be regarded as a precedent for some of the major educational philanthropic interventions of the current moment. If you are doing work on the Challenge, or know a scholar, researcher or … Continue reading
Shifting Focus: From Inequality to Education
With Erica Kohl-Arenas’ recent piece, HistPhil‘s forum on inequality comes to an end. This is not to say that our attention toward the issue will wane; we still welcome contributions and discussions on the topic. But at the start of September, we’ll be moving on to a focus on another theme: the history of the … Continue reading
Does Ford’s Announcement Signal a New Gospel of Wealth?
Editors’ Note: HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis continues the Philanthropy & Inequality Forum with the below post. One of the welcome, immediate consequences of the Ford Foundation’s recent announcement that it would focus its grant-making on eradicating inequality has been the flood of excellent writing on the subject of philanthropy and inequality that it has provoked—at HistPhil and elsewhere. I’ve … Continue reading
What does philanthropy look like?
On Monday, we will begin a discussion on philanthropy & inequality. In the meantime, though, here is a light-hearted call for suggestions on a “stock” image for HistPhil: You may have noticed that HistPhil has been using photos of our contributors to accompany posts. We thought that as we develop a community of scholars and practitioners all interested … Continue reading
What it means to think historically about philanthropy
Broadly conceived, HistPhil is dedicated to encouraging the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors to think historically about their work. What, precisely, this means in practice is still something of an open question. Two recent op-eds have helped me in approaching an answer. In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Tom Watson celebrates the Ford Foundation’s recently announced commitment … Continue reading
OHSU Meets Knight’s $500 Million Challenge Grant: A Historical Reflection
The big news from Oregon Health and Science University is that they have met Phil Knight’s $500 million challenge grant. To celebrate, take a look at the recent article that Benjamin Soskis, a HistPhil co-editor, wrote for the Chronicle of Philanthropy on the history and contemporary significance of challenge grants. Challenge grants are “in many respects, … Continue reading
Philanthropic History and a Healthy Heterodoxy
Yesterday, the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s Kevin Bolduc directed our attention to a recent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review that he considered “ripe for historical insight.” HistPhil is never one to back away from a challenge—to say nothing of the fact that this was precisely the sort of conversation between historians, practitioners, and … Continue reading
Q&A with Historian Olivier Zunz
Editors’ Note: In our introduction to the blog, we said that the site will be structured around certain themes and that we would start off with a discussion on the state of the field. HistPhil’s Stan Katz launched this dialogue last week by asking how a historical perspective can inform our understanding of the Clinton Foundation; providing an example of how this field … Continue reading
Introducing HistPhil: A New Blog on the History of Philanthropy
Modern philanthropy has long had an ambivalent relationship with its own history. On the one hand, every decade or so has brought tidings of a New Philanthropy, or sometimes even of a New, New Philanthropy, a designation that promotes a virtuous discontinuity with the giving that had marked the benighted old days. Centuries ago, such … Continue reading
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