Only some of the many groups that have been supported by Carnegie Corporation are discussed in this article, but those that are represent the many areas of social justice that were impacted and shaped by Pifer’s vision for guiding the Corporation, which plays out today in Carnegie Corporation’s commitment to such issues as advancing education and voting rights. Other examples include the Corporation’s concern with promoting civic participation, which has included a wide range of projects to increase voter and civic engagement in the U.S., particularly efforts to assist immigrants through the various phases of the citizenship process, a continuum that includes naturalization, voter registration and voter education. The need for ongoing support of these efforts has been documented by many studies, such as the one conducted by MyVote1, a project of the Corporation-supported Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. The MyVote1 hotline took calls from voters across the nation in the 2004 election and from those in three states in the 2005 election. Results showed that the most frequent complaints of voters were lack of basic information about whether they were registered to vote and where they should go to cast their ballots on Election Day.

“The Corporation has had a long history in removing barriers to civic participation,” says Geri Mannion, who leads the Corporation’s U.S. Democracy grantmaking. She adds, “Many of the grantees described in this report—for example, the legal defense funds—continue to work on these issues with Corporation funding, although some of the program directions and grantees have changed over the years. While much progress in voting and civil rights has been made since the Corporation’s initial grantmaking in this area forty years ago, the 2000 and subsequent election cycles illustrate that the U.S. continues to be challenged in ensuring all citizens’ votes are counted. The Corporation’s recent focus on youth, immigrants and traditionally disenfranchised communities continues its commitment to encouraging the political and civic involvement of those most shut out or disillusioned by the current political system.”

Committed to the belief that the United States also needed to focus on preparing its future leaders—and ensuring that they represented all segments of American society—Alan Pifer saw the education of the nation’s children as central to this concern. That was among the reasons for Pifer’s 1972 launch of the Carnegie Council on Children. Headed by noted author and social psychologist Kenneth Keniston, the panel of Carnegie Council leaders from across the nation included Marian Wright Edelman, who in 1973 founded the Children’s Defense Fund, formerly the Washington Research Project; www.childrensdefense.org. Corporation support of the Washington Research Project began in 1969 and of the Children’s Defense Fund in the early 1970s. Ellen Lagemann, author of a history of Carnegie Corporation of New York² writes, “Edelman enjoyed unusual respect within the Corporation and played an unusual role... they [Carnegie Corporation] invested a great deal of money in projects with which she was involved (more than $3.2 million between 1970 and 1982), asked her to serve on the Carnegie Council on Children, and generally listened with care to what she thought.” Staffing the council was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who served as a research associate with the panel. The Council spent four years exploring the forces that shape children’s lives from conception to age nine and, in 1977, published All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), which helped establish an agenda for high-quality programs for all children, with a special concern for disadvantaged youngsters.

²ibid.

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