Philanthropy as ‘a laboratory’

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Saturday 8 December 2018

One month and 117 years ago today, Andrew Carnegie was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews. Announcing the results of the election, the then Principal, Sir James Donaldson, highlighted that ‘Mr Carnegie was a thoroughly good man; he was a wise man; he was a man of great intellectual power and culture’ (The Times, 9th November 1901). Thus, it seems appropriate that for today’s image of philanthropy we turn to the Carnegie Corporation of New York and its President Vartan Gregorian. Highlighting foundations’ potential to act as incubators, he says:

“Philanthropy is like a laboratory with which you can experiment in order to try and do permanent, lasting and measurable good in the world.”

As such, Vartan considers philanthropy to be a way to overcome cynics’ lethargy and negativity:

“Cynics always will question every motivation. And they can find plenty of evidence to question. If you give, they say you are giving because you like fame. If you don’t give, they say what a miserly person you are. If you give anonymously, they say what a show-off you are. There’s no room for anybody to hide from cynics. But life is not determined by cynics. Life is determined by activists, idealists, revolutionaries of thought and action. And cynics can only judge. In other ages, cynics become irrelevant people. Look back in history: politics is a cynical game because it consists of compromises. But philanthropists have tried to transcend those compromises in order to act as incubators of social change.”

The Times [London, England], “University Intelligence.”, 9 Nov. 1901: 14

Carnegie Corporation of New York (2010), In His Own Words. A Q&A with Vartan Gregorian Part 2 of 5: Foundations as Incubators, https://www.carnegie.org/media/filer_public/88/b1/88b1a360-ee5b-4a24-b3ea-112bcae4e0a5/ccny_essay_2010_vgpart2.pdf

 

Drawing on some of the findings from our ‘Images of Philanthropy’ Initiative, each entry in this accompanying blog series introduces one image that has been put forward in an academic or non-academic context to depict or characterise an aspect of philanthropy in its different forms and expressions.

For further information about the ‘Images of Philanthropy’ Initiative, please contact Dr Tobias Jung.

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