|
|
 |
|
| From the Editor: Worthy Notions |
The Benefits of Beneficence
Dwight Cass
02/02/2004
|
When Edwardian social reformer Ellen Key described philanthropy as "a savory fumigation burning at the mouth of a sewer, seeking to make the air more endurable to passers-by," she was expressing a widely held belief. Wealthy benefactors of her time often approached their charities with buckets of reputational whitewash in hand, and left little good behind. Key’s cynicism about the motives and efficacy of the Ladies Bountiful at the turn of the last century made her an effective champion of state-supported child welfare programs.
 But Key’s derisive view overlooked the fundamental changes occurring in the world of philanthropy at that time. The efforts of a number of leading families, like the Carnegies, the Rockefellers and the Mellons, set philanthropic precedents and established charitable pursuits as an accepted—and expected—activity of successful industrialists. One hundred years later, this legacy has proven its value both to our society and to the health and cohesion of our families.
Charitable donations today are no economic nuance: In 2002 they exceeded the total amount invested in mutual funds. Charitable donations represented nearly 2 percent of our $11 trillion economy. Clearly, this is not solely the result of dilettantism or the leavings of social climbers, as caricaturists often portray it.
Nor is philanthropy a stagnant domain. Its landscape has changed dramatically in the last decade as the newly affluent have quickly outpaced legacy money foundations in both the size of their giving and the business acumen they apply to their charitable projects. Bill and Melinda Gates, Michael and Susan Dell, Philip and Donna Berber and Theodore and Joan Waitt are some of the computer, software and Internet entrepreneurs who find themselves topping the lists of the country’s most active philanthropists.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
