Early in the twentieth century, concerns about poor children led a rag-tag alliance of progressive politicians, early feminists, and dissident philanthropists to promote what they called mothers’ pensions—direct government aid Read more…
“To hasten the abolition of war, the foulest blot upon our civilization.” That was the utopian aim when Andrew Carnegie handed over a $10 million startup grant in 1910 to Read more…
Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington went on to become the best-known African American of his generation, primarily as the leader of the Tuskegee Institute, which prepared thousands of black Read more…
When John Rockefeller put up a million dollars to create the General Education Board, his mission was to improve public education in the Southern states—particularly high schools. In many places Read more…
A difficult upbringing under a fanatical father turned John Muir into a loner and wanderer who spent long stretches isolated from other people in remote places. Once he had formulated Read more…
In 1895, with the help of private philanthropy, Jane Addams published Hull House Maps and Papers, a collection of articles calling public attention to the Chicago housing and working conditions Read more…
The long, hard campaign to ban slavery was the first, and still largest, triumph of public-policy philanthropy in the U.S. When it began in earnest in the 1830s, private donations Read more…
Led by a mix of evangelical pastors and funded by Lewis Tappan and other public-minded philanthropists, the American Missionary Association was created in upstate New York in 1846. It promulgated Read more…
In 1839, a group of Africans captured by Spanish slavers and then sold into bondage in Cuba rose against the crew of the ship transporting them. They eventually came to Read more…
The powerful religious and moral revival in America during the early 1800s, known as the Second Great Awakening, spawned an outpouring of voluntary giving and the creation of many new Read more…
Despite the enormous amount of money sloshing through Silicon Valley, and the high-profile giving of families like the Packards, Hewletts, and Moores, our tech heartland has traditionally been a comparatively Read more…
Campus protestor and student activist Drummond Pike took a position in 1970 at a youth group funded by the Ford Foundation. There he met philanthropists looking for ways to use Read more…
The area where John Olin invested more donated resources than any other—the Law and Economics movement—was a matter of abiding personal interest for the philanthropist. Olin became persuaded that studying Read more…
Public debate over the Tax Reform Act of 1969 stirred up some basic questions about and criticisms of the role of private philanthropy in America. Several public figures decided it Read more…
In 1972, Ford Foundation president McGeorge Bundy pledged “to investigate grantmaking possibilities in the area of women’s rights and opportunities.” Between that moment and the end of the 1970s, dedicated Read more…
After backing Ronald Reagan’s Presidential bid in 1968, beer magnate Joseph Coors concluded that an intellectual infrastructure for shaping public policies was just as important as good candidates. Liberals already Read more…
In 1970, RESIST, a Massachusetts-based funder that had supported draft resistance and opposition to the Vietnam War, awarded what is believed to be the first foundation grant to a gay Read more…
Environmental conservation was a part of the Ford Foundation’s program as early as 1952, when it provided seed money to Resources for the Future to conduct economic research on nature Read more…
Upon deciding to make a major push for black rights during the 1960s, the Ford Foundation started funding the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (see 1967 entry). It quickly Read more…
In 1967, the Carnegie Corporation announced formation of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, headed by Clark Kerr, who had just been fired as president of the University of California Read more…