April 3, 2011

A 'Platinum Age’ for Philanthropy Requires Donors to Change Their Ways

Donors Must Change Their Ways if They Want Their Money to Make a Difference 1

Richard Freeda

The Tow Foundation, led by Emily Tow Jackson, bucks convention in its work on juvenile justice.

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close Donors Must Change Their Ways if They Want Their Money to Make a Difference 1

Richard Freeda

The Tow Foundation, led by Emily Tow Jackson, bucks convention in its work on juvenile justice.

By Leslie Crutchfield, John V. Kania, and Mark R. Kramer

Modern American philanthropy will soon celebrate its centennial anniversary. In June of 1911, the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie was granted a charter to create the Carnegie Corporation. Thus was born one of the first general-purpose American foundations. John D. Rockefeller, the oil baron, soon followed suit, and together those industrialists ushered in giving’s first modern Golden Age.

Since then philanthropy has grown—but never more so than in the past two decades: The