1st Edition

Golden Donors A New Anatomy of the Great Foundations

By Waldemar A. Nielsen Copyright 2002
    482 Pages
    by Routledge

    482 Pages
    by Routledge

    The world of the golden donors - the rich and influential philanthropic foundations - is quite likely the least known and yet most pervasive of all the invisible money and power networks in America. Nielsen explores the 36 largest of the 22,000 currently active foundations. He takes the reader inside each of the giants to analyze its people, policies, and performance. From the most famous, Ford and MacArthur, to the most obscure, Mabee and Moody, the author lets in daylight and lets out the bats as well as the butterflies. Golden Donors is a journey through 36 flefdoms, each of which controls upwards of $250 million dollars, beyond the reach of the IRS, in order to encourage medical research, support cultural and artistic endeavors, and not least, to buttress immensely expensive educational institutions. Which of the great foundations in recent years have been spectacular successes and which are failures? Is today's leadership in the third-stream economy equal to the task? Are foundations, seedbeds or killing grounds of new social and political ideas? And what is the federal government, and a variety of administrations, doing to help or harm this new economy? Nielsen provides many surprising and some quite startling answers for the millions of Americans whose lives the golden donors directly or indirectly affect. When Golden Donors first appeared, A. Bartlett Giamatti praised it as an historical guide, a shrewd critique, and an impassioned warning. "This remarkable book on the nation's largest foundations must be ready by anyone concerned with America's unique not-for-profit sector and the quality of our national life." Kingman Brewster saw the book as "a revealing mirror held up to the faces of big philanthropy...a must book for foundation creators and leaders." Thornton F. Bradsahw said, "Golden Donors describes the large American foundations, what they are how they got that way, and wherein lies their strength and their potential. The book is wise, witty, and perceptive - indispensable reading."

    I: The Backdrop; 1: The Money and the Men; 2: Reform, Rejuvenation, anda New Dilemma; 3: The Changing Political Context; II: A Gallery of Portraits; 4: The Prototypes: Ford and Rockefeller; 5: The Big Newcomers: MacArthur and Robert Wood Johnson; 6: The Liberal Activists: Carnegie, Edna McConnell Clark, and William Venn; 7: The Evolution of Two Dynasties: The Pews and the Mellons; 8: California Comes on Strong: Kaiser, Hewlett, Irvine, Weingart, Keck, and Hilton; 9: The Community Foundations, An Important Variant: Cleveland, Neiv York, and San Francisco; 10: The Major Mid Westerners: Kellogg, Kresge, Lilly, and Mott; 11: The Horse Latitudes: Sur dna, Duke, and Sloan; 12: The Southwest—Rich Land, Poor Land: Houston, Brotem. Moody, Make, and No Me; 13: The Nonidentical Minnesota Twins: McKnight and Bush; 14: A Pair From the Press: Hearst and Gannett; III: Patterns and Prospects; 15: Pattems; 16: A Prescription; 17: Epilogue: Double Crisis, Double Challenge

    Biography

    Waldemar A. Nielsen