Topic: Issues in Philanthropy
Featured
“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 Commonwealth Fund and the “Insanity Defense”: Unexpected Outcomes
Our understanding of the insanity defense relies on a book that was an unintended outcome of a Commonwealth Fund grant.
Timeline: Foundations and the Walker Art Center
Decades of foundation involvement has helped this American cultural organization to grow, thrive, and innovate.
A Hand in Urban Design: Rockefeller Foundation Support for Renowned Urbanist Jane Jacobs and New York’s Lincoln Center
One small grant gave enduring voice to one of the most famous critiques of postwar urban renewal, while another huge grant went to an opposing cause.
The Rockefeller and Ford Foundations Navigate Civil War in Nigeria
What happened to a massive agricultural development program when war broke out?
The Birth of the Modern MBA
Why would an American foundation transform the field of business education?
Can Data Drive Social Change? Tackling School Segregation with Numbers
In the years before Brown v. Board, a philanthropic fund hoped research and data would turn the tide on attitudes toward segregation.
Supporting Economic Justice? The Ford Foundation’s 1968 Experiment in Program Related Investments
How the largest US foundation began supporting market-based projects in the late 1960s.