According to an old saying, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." In 22 brief and insightful essays, Richard B. Gunderman shows us that the key to more rewarding giving can be found by looking beyond mere donations of money. Exploring the ethical core of sharing and examining its importance for both those who receive and those who give, here is a book to deepen our understanding of what it means to share.

This is the biography of a ruling-class woman who became a major American philanthropist. The wife of robber-baron Russell Sage (partner of Jay Gould) and in her husband's shadow for 37 years, Olivia Sage took on the mantle of active, reforming womanhood in New York voluntary associations. When Russell Sage died in 1906, he left her a vast fortune. Already in her 70s, she took the money and put it to her own uses. An advocate for the rights of women and the responsibilities of wealth, for moral reform and material benefit, Sage used the money to fund a wide spectrum of progressive reforms...

Growing Civil Society investigates the role of voluntary action and nonprofit organization in contemporary America. Key to the book is the concept of "third space," which provides an important tool for the construction of civil society. The third space is not independent from society's major institutions, but exists in dynamic interdependence with them, linking individuals in their home bases of family and community to the larger governmental and economic structures within which all citizens, workers, and consumers learn to find their way in modern society.

In the contemporary United States, third parties are being relied upon to deliver social services that were once chiefly the responsibility of government. Among the new philanthropic associations that have arisen in this environment are voluntary groups known as giving circles. Their purpose is to bring people together to pool resources and then collectively decide how to distribute them. Giving circles have been seen as the most democratic of philanthropic mechanisms, working to meet social needs and solve community problems, while enhancing the civic education and participation of their...

In 19th-century Leipzig, Toronto, New York, and Boston, a newly emergent group of industrialists and entrepreneurs entered into competition with older established elite groups for social recognition as well as cultural and political leadership. The competition was played out on the field of philanthropy, with the North American community gathering ideas from Europe about the establishment of cultural and public institutions. For example, to secure financing for their new museum, the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized its membership and fundraising on the model of German...

The essays in this book reflect pioneering efforts to study the global movement of ideas and institutions. They deal with topics of significant contemporary importance: initiatives to address the AIDS epidemic in East Africa; to protect the peoples and ecosystems of the Amazon; to advance the "truth and reconciliation" process in South Africa and in other areas of great conflict; to promote "civil society" in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; to advocate for environmental protection in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Japan; and to spread Rotary Clubs and encourage "social...

Wealth and the Will of God looks at some of the spiritual resources of the Christian tradition that can aid serious reflection on wealth and giving. Beginning with Aristotle--who is crucial for understanding later Christian thought--the book discusses Aquinas, Ignatius, Luther, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. Though the ideas vary greatly, the chapters are organized to facilitate comparisons among these thinkers on issues of ultimate purposes or aspirations of human life; on the penultimate purposes of love, charity, friendship, and care; on the resources available to human beings in this...

According to an old saying, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." In 22 brief and insightful essays, Richard B. Gunderman shows us that the key to more rewarding giving can be found by looking beyond mere donations of money. Exploring the ethical core of sharing and examining its importance for both those who receive and those who give, here is a book to deepen our understanding of what it means to share.

Religious Giving considers the connection between religion and giving within the Abrahamic traditions. Each contributor begins with the assumption that there is something inherently right or natural about the connection. But what exactly is it? To whom should we give, how much should we give, what is the relationship between our giving and our relationship to God? Writing for the introspective donor, congregational leader, or student interested in ways of meeting human needs, the authors focus on the philosophical or theological dimensions of giving. The contributors' goal is not to report...

One of the most influential philanthropists of the early 20th century, Edwin Rogers Embree was the scion of generations of abolitionists and integrationists. He ably served the Rockefeller Foundation and when Julius Rosenwald created a foundation for his philanthropic activity, he called on Embree to be its head. The Rosenwald Fund is best known for constructing more than 5,300 schools for rural black communities in the South. In the 1940s, Embree became more personally engaged with race relations in the U.S. He chaired Chicago's Commission on Race Relations, helped create Roosevelt...