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.
The Rockefeller Foundation Makes its First Foray into Environmentalism
A short-lived environmental research program in the 1970s was an early foray into climate change funding.
Early 20th Century Reforms of Medical Education Worldwide
Working to change US medical education was one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s biggest endeavors in the 1910s and 1920s, extending from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to Beijing, China.
Sex Problems as Social Problems: The Bureau of Social Hygiene, 1911-1934
When Dr. Katherine Bement Davis was named general secretary of the Bureau in 1917, her appointment transformed the organization to take into deeper account women’s sexuality.
Building the Hale Telescope
A 20-year-long project, funded by Rockefeller philanthropies, took technologies enabling astronomy to an unprecedented scale.
“For Initiative and for Experiment”: The International Education Board, 1923-1938
Incorporated in 1923 with funding from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the IEB built a major scientific network in Europe and the US in only five years.
The Women Pioneers of Global Nursing Education Who Built the Rockefeller Foundation Program
A massive program in nursing education extended to 53 schools across the globe. But it never became a top priority of the foundation that supported it.