tocqueville

If proponents of participatory philanthropy are looking to attract receptive conservatives to their cause, it may be impossible if participatoriness comes to be—or even to seem—just another mechanism to rationalize tax-incentivized philanthropy in furtherance of one particular ideological or partisan political end. If conservative philanthropy is honestly and self-critically looking to exemplify anti-elitism in and improve its grantmaking, however, it would more aggressively explore options to humbly check what might be its own elitism and increase participatoriness in that grantmaking.

The research fellow talks about Alexis de Tocqueville, whether “civil society” and the “nonprofit sector” are the same thing, and what his new Philanthropy Roundtable research on government funding of nonprofit entities has to say both to their leaders and to policymakers, if anything.

A compilation of interesting and insightful thinking from the last six of 13 recorded discussions so far this year about grantmaking and giving.

The Indiana University professor talks to Michael E. Hartmann about the challenges of interpreting survey data about trust in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector and, the historical “paradox of nonprofit trustworthiness,” and the relationship between civil society and the state writ large—as well as, writ smaller and looking ahead, that between exempt nonprofitdom and the tax system.

The Indiana University professor talks to Michael E. Hartmann about the degree to which trust, or lack of it, in wealth and the wealthy may or may not have played a role in the creation of Big Philanthropy at the beginning of the last century, through to the 1969 Tax Reform Act that essentially still structures the nonprofit sector, to today. He also discusses the growth of nonprofits in the urban context, as well as some ramifications of that growth.

Conceptions of civil society among populist conservative writers and thinkers and in magazines and journals open to populist conservatism.

Observations on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “The Commons” debate about whether philanthropy can bring America together.

Nonprofits no longer have the influence they once did to bridge divides.

Is there a “Charity, Inc.” and if so, what could perhaps be done about it?

The American Institute for Economic Research senior research fellow talks with Michael E. Hartmann about the perverse incentives of the tax system on nonprofits, what hypothetically would happen to the third sector absent tax-incentivization, whether progressive Big Philanthropy might do damage to it along with Big Government, and encouraging more bottom-up experimentation in addressing social ills.

The American Institute for Economic Research senior research fellow talks with Michael E. Hartmann about his research, why Tocquevillian voluntary association became such a beneficial part of America’s social contract, the relationship between volunteerism and governmental and individual sovereignty, and the detrimental effect that enlarged government and its taxation had on voluntariness.

In 1994, the Bradley Foundation’s then-president described the “Bradley Project on the 90s,” led by Bill Kristol, and its call for a “new citizenship” that helped form the foundation’s grantmaking program.

Newly out in paperback, Joel Kotkin’s book on the coming “neo-feudalism”—comparing current class conditions to those of the Middle Ages—correctly characterizes the current status and a current role of foundations.

As shown in and by Sanford, Mich., starting one year ago, it’s often when massive devastation is visited on a population that it discovers its true character.

In philanthropy, for example, personal giving almost doubled from 1929 to 1964, then turned back downward from 1964 to 1996, according to new book by Robert D. Putnam with Shaylyn Romney Garrett. What to do about all this? Where to turn?

Joel Kotkin’s new book on the coming “neo-feudalism”—comparing current class conditions to those of the Middle Ages—correctly characterizes the current status and a current role of foundations.

As shown in and by Sanford, Mich., it’s often when massive devastation is visited on a population that it discovers its true character.