Topic: Issues in Philanthropy
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“Investment Philanthropy” Investing for Social Good, a Century Ago
An early twentieth-century foundation tried using its endowment to support for-profit projects that also would achieve a social goal.
A “Constructive and Important Failure”: A Foundation Funds Job Training in the 1970s and 1980s
Prompted by Reagan-era budget cuts, a new program serving low-income single parents receiving public aid failed to meet its constituents’ needs.
From Populist Crusade to Comprehensive Regulation: the Tax Reform Act of 1969
Is private wealth an obstacle to democracy? Fifty years ago, Congress thought so.
“A very small number of men control all the money and the ideas”: Women Revolutionize Population Programs in the 1970s
Women and technocratic elites clashed at the 1974 World Population Conference. At stake was women’s control over their own bodies.
The Irish Language Debate: Nationalism and Rockefeller Foundation Medical Education Reform in the Irish Free State
Ireland’s independence revived the nationalist campaign for mandatory Irish language. The debate discouraged Rockefeller Foundation funders.
Centering Women’s Rights in the Population Field: The Ford Foundation and Sexual Health in the 1990s
A 1994 meeting moved women’s empowerment front and center for grantmaking in global population.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s Rural Reconstruction Program in 1930s China
In the 1930s, an ambitious program to reshape China was cut short by war, but offered a model for community development.
Documenting Injustice: Recording the Histories of the Japanese American Incarceration
The origins and legacy of a research project conducted in the American concentration camps for Japanese Americans.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s University Development Program
Launched in the 1960s, this program provided financial support for more than two decades to strengthen universities in the Global South.
Legitimizing the Social Sciences: The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial in the 1920s
What began as a philanthropic fund to honor its namesake became an early force in the social sciences.