Philanthropy is a concept of fluid meaning but in general terms refers to the promotion of others’ welfare, most commonly by donating significant sums of money. In some definitions, charity is linked to alleviating the symptoms of a problem, while philanthropy tends towards addressing its root cause. For instance, to give a hungry man a fish is charity but to give him a rod and teach him to fish is philanthropy. There are three principal mechanisms for enabling the philanthropist to put their money to work: by giving it to a third party to use; by establishing an endowment (a financial gift administered by a charity for a specific purpose, like funding a scholarship); or to establish a foundation of their own to focus on their chosen projects.
Philanthropy is nothing new. In 347 BCE, for instance, we know that Plato bequeathed his worldly goods to a nephew with the express intention of providing funds for the ongoing support of the academy Plato had founded. Later, Aristotle wrestled with what we might consider the philanthropist’s fundamental conundrum: ‘To give away money is an easy matter and in any man’s power. But to decide to whom to give it and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in every man’s power nor an easy matter.’
Modern philanthropy
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, philanthropy has been given an overhaul, spearheaded by two of the richest individuals in the world, the American investor Warren Buffett and the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates. ‘If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity,’ Buffett has said, ‘you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.’ The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, meanwhile, has pledged billions of dollars to initiatives such as the global eradication of polio. They have also done much to secure the future of philanthropy through the ‘Giving Pledge’, which calls on billionaires to give away at least half of their fortune. As of 2016, approaching 150 billionaires had taken the pledge.
From the West to the East, there are long traditions of charitable giving, along with state and privately sponsored initiatives to help the poor and needy. However, philanthropy as we know it today can be said to date from the 19th century. As President Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, John Gardner, once observed: ‘Wealth is not new. Neither is charity. But the idea of using private wealth imaginatively, constructively, and systematically to attack the fundamental problems of mankind is new.’
Philanthropy became associated with distinct political causes, such as the slavery abolition movement. It was also boosted by an array of industrial trailblazers who opted to use their wealth for the general good. The likes of George Cadbury, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Dunant, John Paul Getty, W. K. Kellogg, George Peabody, J. D. Rockefeller and Joseph Rowntree accumulated huge riches before re-disbursing them, driven by such noble aims as to promote ‘the well-being of mankind throughout the world’ (Rockefeller) and ‘the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding’ (Carnegie). The latter believed that ‘he who dies rich dies disgraced’.