Essays examining the origins, development, and achievements of charitable organizations in key US cities and regions. Once largely confined to the biggest cities in the mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes states, philanthropic foundations now play a significant role in nearly every state. Wide-ranging and incisive, the essays in American Philanthropic Foundations: Regional Difference and Change examine the origins, development, and accomplishments of philanthropic foundations in key cities and regions of the United States. Each contributor assesses foundation efforts to address social and economic inequalities, and to encourage cultural and creative life in their home regions and elsewhere. This fascinating and timely study of contemporary America’s philanthropic foundations vividly illustrates foundations’ commonalities and differences as they strive to address pressing public problems.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the relations between US philanthropic foundations (in particular the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and the League of Nations. Generations of students and scholars have learned that the US, having played a key role in the creation of the League of Nations in 1919, did not join the organization and stood aloof from its activities during the whole interwar period. This book questions this idea and argues that, even though the US was not a de jure member of the League of Nations, the financial, human, and intellectual investment of foundations brought about the de facto integration of the US within the League system and also modified the latter’s architecture. The book describes the Americanization of the League and shows how it resulted from three strategies pursued throughout the interwar period: that of US foundations, that of the Secretariat, and that of the US federal government. The book also shows the limits of this Americanization and analyzes the role of the European experts in the coproduction of the postwar international order together with the US government. This book will be of interest to historians and political scientists, as well as undergraduate and graduate students in interdisciplinary programs of international relations.

Foundations play an essential part in the philanthropic activity that defines so much of American life. No other nation provides its foundations with so much autonomy and freedom of action as does the United States. Liberated both from the daily discipline of the market and from direct control by government, American foundations understandably attract great attention. As David Hammack and Helmut Anheier note in this volume, "Americans have criticized foundations for... their alleged conservatism, liberalism, elitism, radicalism, devotion to religious tradition, hostility to religion—in short, for commitments to causes whose significance can be measured, in part, by the controversies they provoke. Americans have also criticized foundations for ineffectiveness and even foolishness." Their size alone conveys some sense of the significance of American foundations, whose assets amounted to over $530 billion in 2008 despite a dramatic decline of almost 22 percent in the previous year. And in 2008 foundation grants totaled over $45 billion. But what roles have foundations actually played over time, and what distinctive roles do they fill today? How have they shaped American society, how much difference do they make? What roles are foundations likely to play in the future? This comprehensive volume, the product of a three-year project supported by the Aspen Institute's program on the Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy, provides the most thorough effort ever to assess the impact and significance of the nation's large foundations. In it, leading researchers explore how foundations have shaped—or failed to shape—each of the key fields of foundation work. American Foundations takes the reader on a wide-ranging tour, evaluating foundation efforts in education, scientific and medical research, health care, social welfare, international relations, arts and culture, religion, and social change.

America's grantmaking foundations have grown rapidly over the course of recent decades, even in the face of financial and economic crises. Foundations have a great deal of freedom, enjoy widespread legitimacy, and wield considerable influence. In this book, David Hammack and Helmut Anheier follow up their edited volume, American Foundations, with a comprehensive historical account of what American foundations have done with that independence and power. While philanthropic foundations play important roles in other parts of the world, the U.S. sector stands out as exceptional. Nowhere else are they so numerous, prominent, or autonomous. What have been the main contributions of philanthropic foundations to American society? And what might the future hold for them? A Versatile American Institution considers foundations in a new way. Previous accounts typically focused narrowly on their organization, donors, and leaders, and their intentions—but not on the outcome of philanthropy. Rather than looking at foundations in a vacuum, Hammack and Anheier consider their roles and contributions in the context of their times and their economic and political circumstances.

This book focuses on the influence of philanthropic foundations in global development, and on how the global south has engaged with them.