About Carnegie Corporation

It must be obvious to all who have come into contact with any aspect of America's nonprofit sector that this segment of our society is not a monolith. Even its diversity is diverse! This is certainly the case with the three institutional cultures that were the subject of this essay, namely, libraries—and by extension, museums with similar missions—universities, and philanthropy. Libraries and museums have been with us for a very long time; so have universities, for that matter, and so has charity. But as has been discussed, philanthropy—specifically, the "scientific" version that Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller championed—is primarily rooted in the 19th century, and, until recently, predominantly an American phenomenon. It is gratifying, though, to find that the notion of philanthropy and of civil society is beginning to spread across the world.

The three cultures highlighted here have distinct traditions and function in different ways, but there are also certain commonalities among them. For example, they are all dedicated to the preservation of cultural and historical legacies and to the creation of knowledge, to the advancement of learning and scholarship, to the promotion of the common good, and they all have faith in Progress, however one may define that concept. In our democratic society, all three stand for opportunity and for freedom. Today, they stand as living monuments, testaments to philanthropy—to the right of individuals to dedicate their private wealth to the common good, not only for the benefit of our society but for the international community, as well. In that regard, I am particularly proud of the fact that, along with many of our sister institutions, Carnegie Corporation's grantmaking is carried out across national and international borders and across political spectrums. We have supported and continue to support excellence, innovative ideas, sound scholarship, and the creation and dissemination of knowledge.

Of course, all the institutions that this essay deals with have one common goal: to promote knowledge and educate our citizens as well as to serve our society. All three help to provide Americans with a sense of ownership, of having a stake in the strength and vibrancy of our democracy and of our society. What they also have in common is that, as American institutions, they know that they owe their existence to the support of the public, either through government funding or contracts‹because citizens have made clear to their elected officials that they want these supports in place‹or through private generosity in the form of contributions both large and small. After all, it is the citizens of the United States who have made giving a right and also supported tax-exemption for giving. It is they, the public, who have institutionalized private generosity and hence, have the right to insist on transparency, accountability and integrity in both philanthropy and charity. More and more now, an invaluable combination of public/private funding is becoming the norm, at least in our country. The institutions highlighted in this essay can be seen as models for those partnerships.

One example of America's continuing commitment to the institutions that embody these cultures and their service in the name of what I've termed the knowledge business is our expenditures for education. The U.S. Department of Education currently (FY 2007) administers a budget of about $88.9 billion per year—$57.6 billion in discretionary appropriations and $31.3 billion in mandatory appropriations—and operates programs that touch on every area and level of education. [149] But that is only a portion of the public funding devoted to education: state and local expenditures on all levels of education in 2001-2, for example, were $594.6 billion. [150] Private philanthropy provides many billions more for both K-12 education as well as for colleges and universities. As Americans, in addition to our fiscal commitment to education—which is each generation's investment in the future of the next, as well as in the strength of our nation and its democracy—we should take pride in the fact that even with its many challenges, the educational system of the United States still offers remarkable opportunities to its citizens as well as to international students. And when it comes to our colleges and universities, there is no argument that many of them are still the greatest in the world.

It should be an additional source of pride that from 1862 on, with the advent of the Land-Grant Colleges Act (the Morrill Act) establishing institutions of higher education in every state, access to colleges and universities—which at one time was a pipe dream for the majority of Americans—has become a reality for increasing numbers of students. In fact, in this nation, through our public universities, we have democratized access to education and nationalized opportunity. Yet in the realm of education, where our nation has seen opportunities provided and promises fulfilled, there continues to be a dismaying disequilibrium. While more than 16.6 million individuals enrolled in four-year institutions of higher education in 2002, [151] just 54 percent of students entering four-year colleges in 1997, for example, had a degree six years later. [152]

What also ties together libraries, universities, and philanthropic organizations is their faith in the future and their common goal of educating our citizens and serving both our democracy and its institutions. They also believe in the power of private-sector philanthropy as an important form of participatory democracy—in fact, as one of the foundations of our society. In that connection, let us remember that while the concept of scientific philanthropy is relatively new, traditions of charity and nascent philanthropy trace their roots to the early years of our nation's independence. One of my favorite examples of how the American public recognized and praised the spirit of volunteerism that seemed to abound in the newly formed United States appears in the September 1787 edition of the Pennsylvania Herald, which carried laudatory letters to the editor about the large number of new voluntary associations that seemed to be springing up everywhere. One correspondent called the citizens' movement "a great leap forward in humanity." The new associations included a society for the gradual abolition of slavery, a society for the promotion of political inquiries, a society devoted to the medical relief of paupers, and the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.

It is important not to forget how deeply rooted public support for culture, learning, museums, libraries, and colleges and universities is in the early history of our country. The first museum established in America was—and is—the Charleston Museum, founded in 1773 to preserve and interpret the cultural and natural history of Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry. The first library was the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin and a group of his friends—but it was a subscription library; individuals had to buy "shares" in the library in order to borrow books. The first publicly supported municipal library that allowed people to borrow books was the Boston Public Library, established in 1848, though there were other libraries opened in the American colonies as early as the 1600s. Education, of course, has also long been publicly supported in our nation. Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was the first public university in the United States to award degrees. In fact, the university was anticipated by a section of the first state constitution drawn up in 1776 directing the establishing of "one or more universities" in which "all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted." State support, it directed, should be provided so that instruction might be available "at low prices." [153]

Today, philanthropy continues to be a unique hallmark of our nation and our people. The most recent results reported by Independent Sector in a 2001 survey of giving and volunteering show that 44 percent of adults volunteered and 89 percent of households made contributions. Taken altogether, in that one year alone, these voluntary efforts translate into $239 billion in gifts and nearly 15.5 billion hours of volunteer work. Indeed, philanthropic giving is increasing, rising by about 5.5 percent in 2005 over the previous year. [154] This generosity, in part, helps to support the nation's more than 4,000 colleges and universities, its 17,500 museums and over 117,000 libraries, including 9,000 public libraries.

What is perhaps most heartening about American philanthropy is its nature: it is a diverse tapestry woven from the contributions of individuals, families, corporations, foundations, nonprofit organizations and institutions, as well as others. It also transcends classes, ethnic groups, races, and ideologies and, in doing so, is truly representative of our nation's pluralism and deep-seated independence. Alphabetically, organizations supported by the public and dedicated to the public good range from Accountants for the Public Interest to the YWCA. It is this kind of public spirit and a belief in each other that we must look to for the antidote to the cynicism that so often, nowadays, seems to be invading our national life.

Indeed, philanthropy without optimism, without faith that solutions to problems can be found, without faith in the future, would be impoverished and diminished. This is especially true nowadays, when our society is rampant with corrosive cynicism. (I can understand the benefits of skepticism, but not cynicism—just as I can understand agnosticism, but not nihilism.) Cynicism offers no help for dealing with the myriad issues we are facing as we move forward through the 21st century. In an increasingly globalized society, unfortunately, there are no longer "isolated problems" that are confined to one continent, one region, one country alone. What happens to people anywhere eventually affects all of us. We are not and cannot be isolated islands.

I remember having read that our nation is a potentiality, which is always in a state of becoming. The outcome of that process depends on the nature and commitment of our participation as citizens. As Andrew Carnegie pointed out, as citizens, we have an obligation "to do real and permanent good in this world," which is also what he hoped to do—and wanted the Corporation to do—in carrying out his philanthropy. Sometimes, for both people and institutions, such efforts require taking stock, aligning ours goals with our resources, and reinventing ourselves. Libraries and universities are in a continual state of refining and reimagining their work, which is part of what keeps them so vital. So are philanthropic organizations.

No institution can afford to simply bask in its past accomplishments. One must always be prepared for change and keep up with it—perhaps even get a few steps ahead. That is certainly the case with Carnegie Corporation of New York. We have a long tradition of meeting the challenges of the times. That is why, concurrent with writing this essay, over a year-long period, we embarked on a process of refocusing and reorganizing our programs and structure in order to reenergize our institution—a process that will be familiar to most evolving institutions. One of my favorite authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in his book Love in the Time of Cholera, speaks of the conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day that their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them, over and over again, to give birth to themselves. All during its history, the leaders, staff, and Trustees of Carnegie Corporation have understood the wisdom of that idea and embraced it.

While renewing our vision for the work of the Corporation and updating our plans, we remain mindful of the fact that as a foundation, while we are a source of support for those organizations whose mission advances the spirit of Andrew Carnegie's concern with advancing and diffusing knowledge and understanding, we are not the primary actors carrying out this work. We can provide assistance, even inspiration, in convening like-minded groups and organizations and in coalescing their efforts, but the successes they achieve are their own. We are in the business of helping to build leadership, but it is the leaders and institutions we support who are in the business of making change happen. In providing that support, the benefit to the Corporation is that it remains contemporary and relevant. As proud as we are of Carnegie Corporation's great heritage, our sights are set on the future. We understand how important it is to be forward looking and strategic, rather than paralyzed by the burden of the past.

The freedom and the ability to reconstitute our work and our goals is one of the great gifts provided by our founder, and we are grateful to him for his remarkable foresight. Andrew Carnegie's mandate is broad enough to be always timely. And the two major concerns that he devoted himself to—international peace and advancing education and knowledge—still remain great challenges to our nation and the world. International peace is tested day after day by competing national interests, globalization, nationalism, religious fundamentalism, competing ideologies, poverty, demography, migration, the rise of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, competition for water and for energy, challenges of health care, as well as the impact of environmental changes on the economies and well-being of literally every society. Education is still the crucial element in meeting all of the above challenges. It remains a liberating force and an unmatched instrument of economic and social progress as well as, one hopes, a bridge of understanding and peace that links all of us together.

The Corporation is not alone in emphasizing the need to see the world as it is today as clearly as possible, and to respond. Indeed, foundations as a social force and as engines of progress have an increasingly important role to play in maintaining the health and strength of our civil society, which in turn is an essential ingredient of our democracy—but also of our global society. In the United States, at least, the magnitude of the economic and social impact of foundations is enormous, as is their contribution to public life. In 2005 alone, U.S. foundations provided over $30 billion in grants, a figure that will only increase in the years to come.

I believe that foundations are here to stay. They are one of the great cornerstones of American philanthropy, which, as Susan Berresford, President of the Ford Foundation so aptly put it, "refers to altruistic concern for human beings and assistance to advance human welfare. It encompasses a spectrum from charity that addresses suffering, to the strategic use of resources for addressing root causes." [155] Let me add that increasingly, foundations also draw strength from their diversity and their ability to reconceive how they do their work and carry out their missions. That does not mean that they are in the "fashionable idea" business—not at all. Throughout changing times, what remains constant about foundations is that they are in the knowledge and service business—hence, in society's business. Indeed, all three cultures that have been highlighted in this essay—libraries, universities and philanthropy—are the gateways to knowledge, preserving, generating, modeling and disseminating what human beings need to know in order to renew themselves and their societies. They are the bridges that cross any and all distances to connect us to the rest of the world. And as such, these institutions are, and I believe will remain, the building blocks of the future. As Americans, and as citizens of the world, we are indebted to all of them and to the generous and creative spirit of those who have dedicated themselves to improving our society and the world we all share.