Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT IS PHILANTHROPY & HOW DOES IT DIFFERS FROM CHARITY?

For purposes of the Danville Regional Foundation, philanthropy is the pursuit of efforts designed to improve the systems that develop and fulfill individuals, families and communities. Philanthropy operates at many levels, from international to local, across public, private (for-profit), and nonprofit sectors.

Philanthropy is related to but distinct from charity. Charity focuses on reducing the impact of social dysfunctions, like poverty, rather than philanthropy that seeks to address causes. Charity is a product of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim traditions that assume the poor will always be with us. Philanthropy is a product of social optimism and Modernism, beginning in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Philanthropy-------------------------------------------------------------- Charity

Illustration 1

As suggested by Illustration 1, these ideas are best seen as a continuum, rather than distinct. Two foundations may fund the same project. One sees it as an end in itself, like helping poor children, while another sees it as part of a larger strategy of systems change. Both ends of the continuum are important contributors to making our society a better place.

HOW DID PHILANTRHOPY BEGIN?

Philanthropy has strong roots in religious beliefs, in the history of mutual assistance, in democratic principles of civic participation, in pluralistic approaches to problem solving and in American traditions of individual autonomy and limited government.

The hardships of early settlers to North America, where government was weak and distant, forced people to join together to govern themselves, to help each other and to undertake community activities, such as building schools and churches and fighting fires. Out of these experiences grew a tradition of citizen initiatives and individual efforts to promote the public welfare. Later, immigrants supported communities by giving through churches and forming groups to help the poor as well as organizing associations to assist each other in their new homeland. Native Americans and African Americans also had deeply rooted giving practices.

Religious leaders encouraged their members to give to the poor and to the charitable works of their churches. Giving to needy people in their communities, to the poor in other lands, to the victims of natural disasters and to their churches was a strongly felt obligation for many people. Religious beliefs are still an important motivation for being involved in philanthropy.

WHO WERE EARLY PHILANTRHOPISTS?

Benjamin Franklin, the inventor and statesman of the colonial era, was an early philanthropist. He gave to improve his community and to provide opportunities for people to help themselves. He founded local civic organizations such as the volunteer fire company and institutions such as the Pennsylvania hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia public library.

During the early years of the twentieth century, several civic and business leaders ? including Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller and Margaret Olivia Sage organized their philanthropic giving in the new form, like the business corporations that were then so successful. The new corporate organizational structure permitted more flexibility than charitable trusts, the traditional mode of giving featured in English law. Boards of Directors, rather than trustees, were responsible for overseeing their operations.

Carnegie was said to believe that by winning wealth, a person became an agent of civilization, and philanthropy became a tool for improving civilization while at the same time substituting for radical reforms. His philanthropy included starting public libraries and other agencies that would provide ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.

DESCRIBE A SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLE OF PHILANTHROPY

According to John Barry, author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, "Approximately 130 years ago, virtually no American medical schools required their applicants to demonstrate any qualification to gain admission - except the ability to pay tuition. Almost all medical schools were run as for-profit entities and were owned by faculty members. None had a regular requirement that students perform autopsies or see patients. Most doctors graduated from medical school after attending eight months of lectures. 'In 1870, even at Harvard, a medical student could fail four of nine courses and still get an M.D.'

In 1873, Johns Hopkins, a New England Quaker, died and left instructions for the founding of a new type of university. Over the objections of the presidents of Harvard, Yale, and Cornell, the trustees of Hopkins' estate moved to create an American university modeled after the best universities in Germany, filled 'with men consumed with creating new knowledge, not simply teaching what was believed'

Johns Hopkins University opened in 1876, and its medical school opened in 1893. By 1900, with strong collaboration from the Rockefeller Institute (founded by John D. Rockefeller), American medical practice was starting to undergo major reforms. The Rockefeller Institute championed the idea that doctors must make research an active component of their practice. In 1904, the American Medical Association began to inspect medical schools. In 1910, with support from another foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a report was issued calling for the closing of 120 of the approximately 150 medical schools in the United States. Many medical schools were seen as 'without redeeming features of any kind... [having] general squalor... clinical poverty'

By the time the United States entered World War I, the transformation was well under way, and the best medical schools in America were beginning to surpass the best in Europe in the quality and quantity of research and education. In less than 30 years, a small group of farsighted leaders, using ideas imported from other regions of the world and other fields transformed the teaching and practice of medicine.